Lecture 9: The Social Psychology of Love and Attraction

What this lecture covers

Guest lecturer Dean Peter Salovey, delivered on Valentine's Day, surveys the psychology of romantic love and attraction. He first defines love using Robert Sternberg's triangular theory, then turns to the classic social-psychological findings on what predicts attraction between people, and finally covers research on how physiological arousal from unrelated sources, fear, exercise, even caffeine, can be misread as romantic feeling.

After watching, you should be able to name and apply Sternberg's three components of love, list the factors known to predict interpersonal attraction, and explain the misattribution-of-arousal effect with examples from the classic experiments discussed, including their known methodological weaknesses. The lecture sits within the course's broader unit on evolution, emotion and reason, following the discussion of memory and preceding lectures on evolutionary psychology.

Key ideas

• Sternberg's triangular theory of love: love is made up of intimacy (closeness and shared disclosure), passion (physical/sexual attraction), and commitment (the decision to maintain the relationship); different combinations of these three produce distinct relationship types (liking, infatuation, empty love, romantic love, companionate love, fatuous love, consummate love).
• The "big three" predictors of attraction: proximity (physical closeness, such as living nearby), similarity (shared attitudes and characteristics), and familiarity (repeated prior exposure) reliably predict who becomes attracted to whom, contradicting popular myths about opposites attracting or falling for a total stranger.
• The Pratfall Effect: a competent person becomes more likeable after making a minor blunder, but a mediocre person who blunders is liked even less; the effect only works if competence is established first.
• Physical attractiveness paradox: people consistently report that looks matter less than traits like warmth or humor, yet attractiveness is the strongest predictor of whether a blind date leads to a second date.
• Aronson's frizzy-wig experiment: feedback from an attractive person has more emotional impact, positive or negative, than the same feedback from someone seen as unattractive.
• The gain/loss effect: people are drawn to a partner whose regard for them is increasing over time more than to someone whose regard has stayed uniformly high, and are hurt more by declining regard from someone who loved them than by consistent negativity from someone who never did.
• Misattribution of arousal: when people feel physiologically aroused (racing heart, sweaty palms) without an obvious cause, they can mistakenly attribute that arousal to romantic attraction, as shown in the rickety-bridge study and lab experiments using shock threats, exercise, and a manipulated fake heartbeat.
• Real-world implication: misattributed arousal is proposed as one factor, beyond economic dependency, that can make people misread fear or agitation in an abusive relationship as evidence of love.

Walkthrough

Introduction and defining love (0:00)

Professor Bloom introduces Dean Peter Salovey, noting his research background in emotion and emotional intelligence. Salovey opens by flagging that many of the classic experiments he will describe would not be considered ethically acceptable today and that much of the research skews toward heterosexual, male-centered samples, inviting students to consider how well the findings generalize.

Sternberg's three components and the permutations of love (1:41)

Salovey presents Robert Sternberg's triangular theory: love requires intimacy, passion, and commitment together, and he works through each combination of the three elements, using labeled types such as non-love (none present), liking (intimacy only), infatuation (passion only), empty love (commitment only), romantic love (intimacy plus passion), companionate love (intimacy plus commitment), fatuous love (passion plus commitment), and consummate love (all three). He connects empty love to the beginning stage of some arranged marriages and notes the confound that societies discouraging divorce make such marriages appear more stable than the underlying relationship quality would suggest.

The social psychology of attraction: the big three and the pratfall effect (16:22)

Salovey shifts from defining love to explaining attraction, describing "the big three" factors, proximity, similarity, and familiarity, as strong, well-replicated predictors of who becomes attracted to whom, using examples like block-distance studies in Manhattan and dorm-room distance on campus. He then covers subtler factors, starting with the Pratfall Effect: people rate a highly competent person as more attractive after that person makes a minor, embarrassing mistake, while a mediocre person's blunder makes them seem even less appealing, illustrated with the classic "College Bowl" tape experiment and a personal anecdote from Salovey's own graduate school days.

Physical attractiveness and the frizzy-wig study (16:22)

Salovey addresses the gap between what people say matters in relationships (warmth, humor, intelligence) and what actually predicts whether a blind date leads to a second one (looks), citing a University of Minnesota computer-matching study. He describes Elliot Aronson's "frizzy wig" experiment, in which a confederate made to appear attractive or unattractive gave participants positive or negative personality feedback; feedback from the attractive confederate produced much stronger emotional reactions in either direction. He closes this section with the gain/loss effect, the finding that increasing regard over time is more compelling than steady positive regard, and that a decline in affection from someone who loved you hurts more than consistent coldness from a stranger.

Misattribution of arousal (43:53)

Salovey introduces the concept of misattributing physiological arousal to romantic attraction when its true source (caffeine, fear, exercise) is unclear. He illustrates this with a hypothetical coffee-shop scenario, then presents the well-known "rickety bridge" field study at the University of British Columbia, where men who crossed a frightening suspension bridge were more likely to find a female interviewer attractive and to later contact her than men who crossed a stable bridge, while noting the study's key flaw: lack of random assignment. He then describes controlled lab replications using a threatened painful shock, treadmill exercise, and a rigged fake-heartbeat playback experiment with Playboy centerfolds, all showing that people misattribute unrelated arousal to attraction even when the true cause is fairly obvious.

Real-world implications and audience questions (1:03:46)

Salovey connects misattribution research to domestic violence, suggesting that beyond economic entrapment, some people in abusive relationships may misread fear or anger-driven arousal as a sign that their partner loves them, illustrated with a colleague's account of mistaking a partner's violent outburst for proof of love. He closes by taking audience questions on whether making the source of arousal explicit reduces the misattribution effect, whether the big three factors also sustain long-term relationships, whether someone can feel consummate love for more than one person, and an evolutionary argument about the class material itself.

Before you watch

• No specific earlier lecture is required, since this is a self-contained guest lecture, though familiarity with basic experimental design (random assignment, confounds) helps you follow the critique of the rickety-bridge study.
• Consider in advance how you would define love and attraction, since Salovey opens by asking students to hold definitions loosely against the theory presented.

Check your understanding

1. What are the three components of Sternberg's triangular theory of love, and how does "empty love" differ from "companionate love"?
2. Why does the Pratfall Effect only increase liking for a competent person, and not for a mediocre one?
3. What does the frizzy-wig experiment suggest about how attractiveness changes the impact of feedback from another person?
4. Explain the misattribution-of-arousal effect using either the rickety-bridge study or one of the controlled lab replications.
5. What was the key methodological flaw in the rickety-bridge study, and how did the shock and treadmill experiments address it?