INTERPERSONAL ATTRACTION AS A FUNCTION OF ATTITUDE SIMILARITY AND AGGRESSION by Matthew Pacailler, B.A. A thesis submitted to the Graduate Council of Texas State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with a Major in Psychological Research May 2017 Committee Members: John M. Davis, Chair Jean Hu Randall E. Osborn COPYRIGHT by Matthew Pacailler 2017 FAIR USE AND AUTHOR’S PERMISSION STATEMENT Fair Use This work is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, section 107). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgment. Use of this material for financial gain without the author’s express written permission is not allowed. Duplication Permission As the copyright holder of this work I, Matthew Pacailler, authorize duplication of this work, in whole or in part, for educational or scholarly purposes only. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful of the support I have received from the MAPR department. I would like to thank the department chair, Dr. Kelemen and the graduate advisors, Dr. Graham and Dr. Schepis for their guidance. I would like to offer my thanks to Dr. Tooley for her assistance fine tuning my thesis idea during the brainstorming process. I am grateful for my supervisor Dr. Howard for her advice with future careers, her internship opportunity, and guiding me to become the best GTA I can be. I am thankful for the support of my thesis committee, Dr. Hu and Dr. Osborne for their encouragement, guidance and their time spent looking over my thesis. Finally, I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr Davis. Thank you for being a wonderful teacher and supporting mentor. Outside of the department I would like to thank my previous mentor Michael Gordon of William Paterson University. I would not be in graduate school if not for the knowledge and encouragement you have provided for me. I would like to thank Dr. Susan Olson for being a fantastic mentor and introducing me to the passion of human factors I never knew I had. Lastly and most important, I would like to thank my supportive family. Thank you Mom, for always believing in me and providing me the courage to expand my horizon. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. vi LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................... viii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 II. METHOD ..........................................................................................................13 III. RESULTS ........................................................................................................18 IV. DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................28 APPENDIX SECTION ......................................................................................................36 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................44 v LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Correlations between IJS items .....................................................................................19 2. Descriptive Statistics .....................................................................................................20 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Main effects of aggression and attitude similarity on attraction scores .............................21 Main effects of aggression and attitude similarity on intelligence ratings .......................23 Main effects of aggression and attitude similarity on knowledge of current event ratings ...............................................................................................24 Main effects of aggression and attitude similarity on morality ratings ............................25 Main effects of aggression and attitude similarity on adjustment ratings ........................26 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation Description BPAQ Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire IJS Interpersonal Judgement Scale IPV Intimate Partner Violence viii ABSTRACT The attitude similarity effect is one of the most replicated paradigms of interpersonal attraction. Strangers with similar attitudes are found to be attractive compared to those with dissimilar attitudes. Previous research has found that this phenomenon does not occur with personality traits. Aggression may influence interpersonal attraction in a negative manner. The current study aims to understand if we find similar strangers attractive if they also have aggressive tendencies. 258 undergraduate students took a 14 item attitude survey and Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire. Attitude similarity was manipulated as similar or dissimilar and aggression was manipulated to be aggressive or non-aggressive. Results suggest that participants prefer a similar and aggressive stranger over a dissimilar and non-aggressive stranger. Future studies may look into mediators of similarity to understand potential reasoning for this occurrence. ix I. INTRODUCTION Interpersonal attraction can be influenced by many factors. One of the most established influential factors is attitude similarity. When people have similar attitudes, it is possible to believe that disputes never occur; however, the reality is friends fight. Friends can openly disagree with each other, argue and even resort to hitting another over a dispute. When friends act aggressively, there is a possibility of continuing the friendship. It is under this notion that aggression is likely to be another factor that influences interpersonal attraction. Why is it that we choose friends with aggressive tendencies or in other words do we sometimes find them to be attractive despite being aggressive? Attitude Similarity and Interpersonal Attraction Byrne's interpersonal attraction research and theory has a potential explanation for this dilemma (Byrne, 1961). Byrne suggests that the relationship between two individuals can be predicted in basis of attitude similarity. The more similar we are to a person, the more we will find them attractive. Byrne's first experiment sought to understand the strength of the similarity effect as well as differences based on the importance of the items on the attitude survey. In Byrne's research, attitude surveys were administered to participants to fill out. Participants were told to come back two weeks later to evaluate another survey completed by a student in another class. In fact, these surveys were not completed by students, but by Byrne and his assistants. Participant surveys were used to manipulate a fake stranger's survey that portrayed one of four conditions; similar attitudes, dissimilar attitudes, similar on important attitudes and similar on unimportant attitudes. Important 1 and unimportant items were determined by a pilot study run prior to the experiment. Items deemed important consisted of religion and premarital sex. Unimportant items consisted of attitudes towards music and television programs. Participants were handed back their manipulated survey and instructed to report their evaluations of the stranger in 6 categories using a 7-point scale. When participants were presented strangers with similar attitudes, participants would report higher attraction. Participants that received dissimilar surveys reported to be less attracted to the stranger. This demonstrated that we prefer people that share similar attitudes to our own (Byrne, 1961). The similarity effect is a simple phenomenon at first glance, however, there is some controversy over why we become more attracted to individuals that share similar attitudes. Byrne’s explanation suggests a mediating effect of positive affect. That is, we associate the stranger with positive feelings or emotions (Bryne & Clore, 1970). Aronson and Worchel (1966) explained that the similarity effect was mediated by inferred attraction. When we are rating attraction for similar strangers, we assume that they will like us back. The opposite can be true; we dislike dissimilar people because we believe they would not like us as well. More recently, Montoya and Horton (2004) have proposed that we cognitively evaluate the stranger. When the stranger's survey was manipulated to be similar, participants believe them to be better leaders and more successful overall. This cognitive evaluation has been referred to as feelings of respect towards the stranger in some research (Singh, Chen & Wegener, 2014). Previous work has sought to understand which mediating variables are associated with the similarity effect. The answer might not be as simple as there being only one 2 variable. Research by Singh, Yeo, Lin, & Tan (2007) measured all three of these mediating variables at the same time. Attitude similarity had a positive effect on positive affect, inferred similarity, and respect. Each of these mediating variables also had a positive effect on attraction. The strength of the mediating