Physical attractiveness often has the major influence on initial attraction. Walster et al carried out a blind date involving more than 50 students and found that the more physically attractive a person is, the more liked he/she is. These people tend to have similar features that are often widely agreed to be attractive. Feingold concluded it is due to the halo effect that people attribute positive stereotypical characteristics to physically attractive people and so more attracted to them, thus more likely to start relationship.
He illustrated such claim by his research which found that over 70% of his participants agreed that physically attractive people are said to be sexually warmer, more sociable and skilled. Yet, people tend to agree each other about attractiveness. Cunningham reported women who have features such as big eyes and small chins have high rating for attractiveness when male participants are asked to rate women photos.
However, such “beauty” ratings may not apply to the whole world as people in different cultures have diff. values and may have diff. views towards “beauty”. Indeed research has shown this is not true. Roggmann replicated Cunningham’s study in other cultures (e.g. Korea & USA) and found similar traits are rated. Furthermore, even similar characters such as more sociable and friendly are attributed to these attractive people (Kim).
The claim that physical attraction is important in the initial attraction due to halo effect leads us to expect physically attractive people gain many advantages in situations where people meet the first time. Indeed, research has shown it’s true. For example, Hunsberger found that students rated attractive teachers as nicer and happier than unattractive ones at the start of school term. Yet even more research suggests that the advantages gained not only to positive personal characteristics being judged but wider into issues like ability to deal with a task.
For example, Landy found that the same essays that supposedly written by an attractive student are given a higher grade. These findings have shown the halo effect has led people to attribute positive characters and abilities to physically attractive people and thus support Feingold’s findings. Therefore, a reliable application can be drawn: putting effort in looking more attractive in situations such as job interview can help to succeed.
Nevertheless, physical attractiveness is not the only factor in interpersonal attraction. Numerous researches have shown similarity is one of them. For example Burgess found that personality between 1000 married couples have more similarities than those who are friends. Another example is Newcomb’s study who found that new undergraduates who share the same beliefs and attitudes are more likely to form friendships than those who do not. These had led them to conclude that the more similar one’s traits are with one another, the more likelihood to form relationships. This is because various things done by the person can be easily supported and understood by the partner.
The huge no. of supporting studies has ensured that similarity is a factor not to be ignored. As indicated by Rubin, similarity allows us to carry out activities more comfortably as it allows others to understand what/why you are doing more easily. However, most of these studies into interpersonal attraction generally lack ecological validity because they are often artificial. For example research into physical attractiveness often requires participants to judge others on pictures (e.g. Cunningham’s study). However in real life, we meet to see each other before we start relationships. Therefore these findings may not apply to real life.
Also, clearly it has an enormous influence in judging to start a relationship or not when little other information is known. Interpersonal relationships are formed over time as people know each other better. But such process is not recorded down in these studies. So their findings may be limited to only reporting the superficial side of interpersonal attraction. Perhaps there should be more qualitative findings to explain the underlying reasons between individual’s interpersonal attractions.