Attachment is an emotional relationship that involves an exchange of comfort, care, and pleasure, as well as it is an important part of romantic love, as attachment styles influence relationships. The main focus of this essay is to compare and contrast the following romantic attachments, which includes the Attachment Theory and Interpersonal Theories of attraction. Firstly, this essay will provide a brief description of both theories and apply the theories to interpersonal attraction and romantic attraction. Lastly, this essay will discuss the critique’s of both theories, as well as it will focus on the strong and weak points within the theories.
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary, and ethological theory concerning the relationships …show more content…
This refers to the intensity and direction of an individual’s emotion. The external determinants of attraction occur outside of an individual and can encourage or discourage the liking between people. There are numerous environmental and other influences that can impact interpersonal attraction and intimacy. These influences include: proximity, similarity and physical attractiveness. Proximity is the most important factor in determining attraction, as according to research, attraction is more likely to develop between individuals who share or occupy the same physical space or context. The closer two people stay to each other, the more likely they are to interact and the more frequent their interaction, the more inclined they are to like each other (Kiguwa, Pillay, 2011). For example, when an individual sees a very attractive person once, and then they never see him again, majority of the time most people forget about that very attractive person a few days later. This occurs because they never see that person again. If the stimuli aren’t reinforced they tend to forget about it even if they liked it. Therefore this suggests that physical proximity ensures that …show more content…
The social exchange theory, refers to how people feel about relationships, depends on their perception of the rewards and cost of their relationship and the type of relationship they believe they deserve or expect to have, which refers to their own comparison level. This suggests that people are more likely to be involved in relationships that produce much higher rewards than costs in order to want to continue in a relationship and not to pursue an alternative relationship. The equity theory refers to a state of justice or fairness, suggesting that people are happiest in relationships where the rewards, costs, and contributions are equal to those of the other person. The evolutionary theory of human interpersonal attraction declares that opposite-sex attraction often occurs when someone has physical features signifying that he or she is very fertile. Considering that the primary purpose of romantic relationships is reproduction, people invest in partners who appear very fertile, increasing the chance of their genes being passed down to the next generation. Therefore it is evident from this perspective that attraction is strongly determined by the physical attractiveness or social status, which individuals possess. Lastly, the socio- cultural theory argues that sexual attraction and
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary, and ethological theory concerning the relationships …show more content…
This refers to the intensity and direction of an individual’s emotion. The external determinants of attraction occur outside of an individual and can encourage or discourage the liking between people. There are numerous environmental and other influences that can impact interpersonal attraction and intimacy. These influences include: proximity, similarity and physical attractiveness. Proximity is the most important factor in determining attraction, as according to research, attraction is more likely to develop between individuals who share or occupy the same physical space or context. The closer two people stay to each other, the more likely they are to interact and the more frequent their interaction, the more inclined they are to like each other (Kiguwa, Pillay, 2011). For example, when an individual sees a very attractive person once, and then they never see him again, majority of the time most people forget about that very attractive person a few days later. This occurs because they never see that person again. If the stimuli aren’t reinforced they tend to forget about it even if they liked it. Therefore this suggests that physical proximity ensures that …show more content…
The social exchange theory, refers to how people feel about relationships, depends on their perception of the rewards and cost of their relationship and the type of relationship they believe they deserve or expect to have, which refers to their own comparison level. This suggests that people are more likely to be involved in relationships that produce much higher rewards than costs in order to want to continue in a relationship and not to pursue an alternative relationship. The equity theory refers to a state of justice or fairness, suggesting that people are happiest in relationships where the rewards, costs, and contributions are equal to those of the other person. The evolutionary theory of human interpersonal attraction declares that opposite-sex attraction often occurs when someone has physical features signifying that he or she is very fertile. Considering that the primary purpose of romantic relationships is reproduction, people invest in partners who appear very fertile, increasing the chance of their genes being passed down to the next generation. Therefore it is evident from this perspective that attraction is strongly determined by the physical attractiveness or social status, which individuals possess. Lastly, the socio- cultural theory argues that sexual attraction and