The psychology of attractiveness — the reasons that make something (or someone) more attractive.
It is clear that what is more attractive in the first place is that which protects us from the dangerous and unpleasant.
Any room closed from wind and cold is more attractive than what is outside: freezing frost and piercing wind.
Everything that meets the needs of the body is attractive.
When the body is thirsty, water is attractive. When you want the opposite, the toilet is attractive. At a young age, sports are attractive and you want to run around, even when you need to study for exams. At an older age, a sofa is already attractive.
Like known, understandable, familiar.
In the choice between the known and the unknown, the understandable and the incomprehensible, the familiar and the unfamiliar, the majority of people often, in an imperceptible way, choose what is closer, more understandable and more familiar to them. In social psychology, this is sometimes referred to as the «just falling into view» effect: what comes into our field of vision more often becomes internally closer and more attractive to us. We like people we already know more than people we don’t know. We even love ourselves more when we are the way we are used to seeing ourselves.
People tend to be closer and more like what is similar to themselves.
Mutual sympathy is favored by the similarity of attitudes, beliefs, moral values, and even the similarity of voice intonations. People choose friends with voices similar to their own, American scientists found out, whose article was published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE. They came to this conclusion during a study in which several dozen women and men, as well as their friends, became participants.
Scientists were able to establish that certain acoustic signals, characteristic of the voice of the person himself, are a kind of “signal” for finding friends.
So, a person is more likely to make friends with such people who have the same at least some of the «signals». The kinship of souls leads to mutual sympathy; opposites rarely meet.
Of those tested for safety, I like it rather bright, eye-catching, attracting attention.
The red color is visible from afar and attracts attention, so red ribbons are holiday ribbons, and a red maiden means a beautiful, attractive girl. On the other hand, against the backdrop of flashy colors and shades, well-mannered people are attracted by something more calm and restrained.
Factors of Interpersonal Attractiveness
Interpersonal attractiveness doesn’t negate the general psychology of attractiveness in any way, but adds many new interesting points to it. This is territorial proximity, and similarities, the fact «we are equal» and much more. See →