As mentioned in the previous post “what game are you playing “I somehow developed an avid interest into psychology and one of the topic I am reading at the moment is about sexual attraction. I bet the topic could attract a lot of controversies, both from women and men perspective as sexual attraction could be perceived differently by each of us. It has been widely known that men get sexually attracted by women and vice versa. According to Wikipedia “Sexual attraction is attraction on the basis of sexual desire or the quality of arousing such interest. Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal is an individual’s ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice.”
And the definition gives us an open door to a journey to sexual attraction as such but it doesn’t really contradict or even debate there could be some external and internal factors which could influence whether we like or love someone. According to psychology there are research which already established that sexual attraction has an intrinsic motivators which could influence sexual attraction.
- Compatibility
People tend to pair off with those who are generally similar or matching. This applies to physical attractiveness (Murstein,1972) and other factors such as education eg IQ(Hatfield et all,1978.Culture,especially religion, can also be important(Newcomb,1961).Although the research also juxtapose sometimes the opposite attracts(Winch,1955).
- Rewards and costs
Attention,affection,trust ,security,sharing,skills,information,status,money,energy,reproduction,sex and so forth herein some psychologists (Blau,1964;Homans,1974;Berscheid and Walster,1978)see relationships as being like an account’s balance sheet.
They look at the woman as low/high ROI and such formula often applies:
Profit=Reward-Cost
There may also be a sense of investment in a relationship, and compromises based on expectation.
- Specific factors
Physical attraction is innate important, especially for men (Walster at all,1966).Also familiarity and exposure seems to increase liking(Festinger at all,1950;Zajonc et all,1971;)
Reciprocal liking –we tend to like people who we think like us(Aronson,1976).
So peeps,do you think that women are worth investing? Although we have some factors in here I don’t think that the list is endless. There are short term and long term sexual attraction but I don’t plan to go too much into details as there are for sure wider interest in sexual attraction.I don’t believe for a second that our peer men are just going to a bar/pub or even social gathering and after doing some type of visual scanning, they will decide to approach the subject with :”Hi,there ,I am MR.X ,I am a Harvard,Yale or Standford graduate ,have so much investments and savings into my bank account and hey ,I think you’re hot and I am sexually attracted to you. I am planning to invest in you (emotional and financial)“And this is the dumbest approach ever which could be used by someone.
Most men are marriage-minded underneath but they seem much less interested in getting into a stable, committed relationship than women do, and seem to drag their heels.So do you have to prepare for a relationship or take things as they are?Should you acquire a broad education, exposing yourself to several areas of study, or should you hone in on one area and train in it extensively? Should you try to tick all men boxes before even become a dateable target?Oh my..I just think that I reach a point where I become a damsel in distress. If we have to tick so many boxes we will end up having no personality left ,just become a copycat of some selfish stereotype people.
As a result of all of these psychological and societal observations about women, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we can separate sex and love, we define ourselves by our work, we don’t lack dating options, and hey we should talk about these discrepancies. Sexual attraction is often a taboo subjects and men don’t hone often with ideas. I don’t know about others but I do invest in my relationship at a very deep level.
As we talk a lot about networking, mentoring and any other management topics I think is time that we should touch base about the human need which is called sexual attraction.
Guys ,please chime in here.Feel free to make comments as I really want to know your opinion.
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Written by
Mimi Popa
mimipopa 