Summary: New research sheds light on the similarity-attraction effect, a psychological principle that governs how we form relationships based on shared interests.
The study highlight the critical role of self-essentialist reasoning, a belief system where individuals perceive an inherent essence as the driver of their preferences and dislikes.
Findings suggest individuals who subscribe to this reasoning are inclined to extrapolate shared worldviews from singular common interests. However, this approach may lead to unfounded assumptions, limiting the breadth of potential relationships due to minor disagreements or differences.
Key Facts:
Source: Boston University
Sometimes lifes most meaningful relationships grow from the briefest of connections. Like when you go to a party and meet someone wearing your favorite bands T-shirt, or who laughs at the same jokes as you, or who grabs that unpopular snack you alone (or so you thought) love. One small, shared interest sparks a conversationthats my favorite, too!and blossoms into lasting affection.
This is called the similarity-attraction effect: we generally like people who are like us. Now, new findings from a Boston University researcher have uncovered one reason why.
In a series of studies, Charles Chu,a BU Questrom School of Business assistant professor of management and organizations, tested the conditions that shape whether we feel attracted toor turned off byeach other. He found one crucial factor was what psychologists call self-essentialist reasoning, where people imagine they have some deep inner core or essence that shapes who they are.
Chu discovered that when someone believes an essence drives their interests, likes, and dislikes, they assume its the same for others, too; if they find someone with one matching interest, they reason that person will share their broader worldview.
The findingswere published in the American Psychological AssociationsJournal of Personality and Social Psychology.
If we had to come up with an image of our sense of self, it would be this nugget, an almost magical core inside that emanates out and causes what we can see and observe about people and ourselves, says Chu, who published the paper withBrian S. Lowery of Stanford Graduate School of Business.
We argue that believing people have an underlying essence allows us to assume or infer that when we see someone who shares a single characteristic, they must share my entire deeply rooted essence, as well.
But Chus research suggests this rush to embrace an indefinable, fundamental similarity with someone because of one or two shared interests may be based on flawed thinkingand that it could restrict who we find a connection with.
Working alongside the pull of the similarity-attraction effect is a countering push: we dislike those who we dont think are like us, often because of one small thingthey likethatpolitician, or band, or book, or TV show we loathe.
We are all so complex, says Chu. But we only have full insight into ourownthoughts and feelings, and the minds of others are often a mystery to us. What this work suggests is that we often fill in the blanks of others minds with our own sense of self and that can sometimes lead us into some unwarranted assumptions.
To examine why were attracted to some people and not to others, Chu set up four studies, each designed to tease out different aspects of how we make friendsor foes.
In the first study, participants were told about a fictional person, Jamie, who held either complementary or contradictory attitudes to them.
After asking participants their views on one of five topicsabortion, capital punishment, gun ownership, animal testing, and physician-assisted suicideChu asked how they felt about Jamie, who either agreed or disagreed with them on the target issue.
They were also quizzed about the roots of their identity to measure their affinity with self-essentialist reasoning.
Chu found the more a participant believed their view of the world was shaped by an essential core, the more they felt connected to Jamie who shared their views on one issue.
In a second study, he looked at whether that effect persisted when the target topics were less substantive. Rather than digging into whether people agreed with Jamie on something as divisive as abortion, Chu asked participants to estimate the number of blue dots on a page, then categorized themand the fictional Jamieas over- or under-estimators.
Even with this slim connection, the findings held: the more someone believed in an essential core, the closer they felt to Jamie as a fellow over- or under-estimator.
I found that both with pretty meaningful dimensions of similarity as well as with arbitrary, minimal similarities, people who are higher in their belief that they have an essence are more likely to be attracted to these similar others as opposed to dissimilar others, says Chu.
In two companion studies, Chu began disrupting this process of attraction, stripping out the influence of self-essentialist reasoning. In one experiment, he labeled attributes (such as liking a certain painting) as either essential or nonessential; in another, he told participants that using their essence to judge someone else could lead to an inaccurate assessment of others.
It breaks this essentialist reasoning process, it cuts off peoples ability to assume that what theyre seeing is reflective of a deeper similarity, says Chu.
One way I did that was to remind people that this dimension of similarity is actually not connected or related to your essence at all; the other way was by telling people that using their essence as a way to understand other people is not very effective.
Chu says theres a key tension in his findings that shape their application in the real world. On the one hand, were all searching for our communityits fun to hang out with people who share our hobbies and interests, love the same music and books as us, dont disagree with us on politics.
This type of thinking is a really useful, heuristic psychological strategy, says Chu. It allows people to see more of themselves in new people and strangers.
But it also excludes people, sets up divisions and boundariessometimes on the flimsiest of grounds.
When you hear a single fact or opinion being expressed that you either agree or disagree with, it really warrants taking an additional breath and just slowing down, he says.
Not necessarily taking that single piece of information and extrapolating on it, using this type of thinking to go to the very end, that this person is fundamentally good and like me or fundamentally bad and not like me.
Chu, whose background mixes the study of organizational behavior and psychology, teaches classes on negotiation at Questrom and says his research has plenty of implications in the business world, particularly when it comes to making deals.
I define negotiations as conversations, and agreements and disagreements, about how power and resources should be distributed between people, he says.
What inferences do we make about the other people were having these conversations with? How do we experience and think about agreement versus disagreement? How do we interpret when someone gets more and someone else gets less? These are all really central questions to the process of negotiation.
But in a time when political division has invaded just about every sphere of our lives,including workplaces, the applications of Chus findings go way beyond corporate horse trading.
Managing staff, collaborating on projects, team bondingall are shaped by the judgments we make about each other. Self-essentialist reasoning may even influence societys distribution of resources, says Chu: who we consider worthy of support, who gets funds and who doesnt, could be driven by this belief that peoples outcomes are caused by something deep inside of them.
Thats why he advocates pushing pause before judging someone who, at first blush, doesnt seem like you.
There are ways for us to go through life and meet other people, and form impressions of other people, without constantly referencing ourselves, he says.
If were constantly going around trying to figure out,whos like me, whos not like me?,thats not always the most productive way of trying to form impressions of other people. People are a lot more complex than we give them credit for.
Author: Katherine GianniSource: Boston UniversityContact: Katherine Gianni Boston UniversityImage: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.Self-Essentialist Reasoning Underlies the Similarity-Attraction Effect by Charles Chu et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Abstract
Self-Essentialist Reasoning Underlies the Similarity-Attraction Effect
We propose that self-essentialist reasoning is a foundational mechanism of the similarity-attraction effect.
Our argument is that similarity breeds attraction in two steps: (a) people categorize someone with a shared attribute as a person like me based on the self-essentialist belief that ones attributes are caused by an underlying essence and (b) then apply their essence (and the other attributes it causes) to the similar individual to infer agreement about the world in general (i.e., a generalized shared reality).
We tested this model in four experimental studies (N = 2,290) using both individual difference and moderation-of-process approaches.
We found that individual differences in self-essentialist beliefs amplified the effect of similarity on perceived generalized shared reality and attraction across both meaningful (Study 1) and minimal (Study 2) dimensions of similarity.
We next found that manipulating (i.e., interrupting) the two crucial steps of the self-essentialist reasoning processthat is, by severing the connection between a similar attribute and ones essence (Study 3) and deterring people from applying their essence to form an impression of a similar other (Study 4)attenuated the effect of similarity on attraction.
We discuss the implications for research on the self, similarity-attraction, and intergroup phenomena.
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Shared Interests, Shared Essence: Unraveling the Psychology of Instant Connections - Neuroscience News