Page 375 - The Social Animal

8

Liking, Loving, and

Interpersonal

Sensitivity

As social animals, we are capable of treating one another in all sorts
of ways—we can be kind, cruel, helpful, selfish, thoughtful, affec-
tionate, surly, you name it. In previous chapters, I wrote mostly about
some of the bleaker aspects of our behavior like obedience, aggres-
sion and prejudice. In this chapter, I will discuss the softer, more ex-
citing, happier side of our social behavior: interpersonal attraction.
What makes people like one another? More mysteriously, what
makes people fall in love with each other?
The word “attraction” covers a lot of ground: from people we find
appealing to work with, to those we simply enjoy hanging out with,
to those who become our friends and confidants, to the deep, serious
attachments of love. Why do we like some people and not others?
Why, of all the people we like, do we fall in love with someone “spe-
cial”? How does love change over the years? And, finally, what makes
our love for another person increase or fade?
The question of attraction is almost certainly an ancient one.
The first amateur social psychologist, who lived in a cave, undoubt-
edly wondered what he could do to make the fellow in a neighbor-
ing cave like him more or dislike him less—or, at least, to make him
refrain from clubbing him on the head. Perhaps he brought him