Attraction and Intimacy in Social Psychology

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action. To overly simplify it, social psychology is a profession that acknowledges human interaction and that people affect their counterparts' lives either directly or indirectly. When it comes to attraction and intimacy, there is usually much more at play than what one sees on the surface. Before you are attracted to someone, you first have to form an impression about them. According to Ambady & Skowronski (2008), impressions are vague ideas about an individual and human beings form them via a process known as person perception. According to these authors, impressions, and specifically first impressions, are essential for social cognition.
Naturally, the process of person perception begins with judging a person's physical appearance. All the same, social psychologists state that only two physical attributes are important in perception - attractiveness and baby-faced features. Citing previous research, Crisp & Turner (2010) say that people perceive the physically attractive ...

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as being helpless, naïve, and passive. Again, there exists no correlation between these attributes and one's physical features, but the bias persists. According to evolutionary theorists, there is a distinct relationship between qualities we attribute to such individuals and the theory of evolution. As they say, human beings have evolved to view babies as helpless creatures in dire need of help and nurturing, hence the negative bias.
When your mind is busy forming impressions about someone you have just met, social psychologists will say that your cognitive and social schemas are at play. The former refers to how you organize the information you receive from whoever you are ...

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