Page 377 - The Social Animal

Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity 359

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characteristics; we like people who agree with us more than people
who disagree with us; we like people who like us more than people
who dislike us; we like people who cooperate with us more than peo-
ple who compete with us; we like people who praise us more than
people who criticize us; and so on. These aspects of interpersonal at-
traction can be gathered under one sweeping generalization: We like
people whose behavior provides us with maximum reward at mini-
mum cost. 5
A general reward theory of attraction covers a great deal of
ground. It allows us to explain why we like people who are physically
appealing more than people who are homely—because good-looking
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people bring us “aesthetic” rewards. At the same time, it allows us to
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predict that we will like people with opinions similar to ours be-
cause, when we run into such people, they reward us by providing us
with consensual validation for our beliefs—that is, by helping us to
believe our opinions are correct. Moreover, as we learned in the pre-
ceding chapter, one way prejudice and hostility can be reduced is by
changing the environment in such a way that individuals cooperate
with each other rather than compete. Another way of stating this re-
lation is that cooperation leads to attraction. Thus, whether the en-
vironment is a summer camp, as in Muzafer Sherif’s experiments, 8
or a classroom situation, as in the experiments I performed with my
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colleagues, there is an increase in mutual attraction if people spend
some time cooperating with each other. Cooperative behavior is
clearly rewarding by definition. A person who cooperates with us is
giving us aid, listening to our ideas, making suggestions, and sharing
our load.
A general reward-cost theory can explain a great deal of human
attraction but not all of it; the world is not that simple. For example,
a reward-cost theory would lead us to suspect that, all other things
being equal, we will like people who live in close proximity to us be-
cause we can get the same reward at less cost by traveling a short dis-
tance than we can by traveling a great distance. Indeed, it is true that
people have more friends who live close by than friends who live far
away; but this does not necessarily mean it is their physical proxim-
ity that makes them attractive. Their physical proximity may simply
make it easier to get to know them, and once we get to know them,
we tend to like them. Moreover, as I pointed out earlier in this book,
individuals also like things or people for which or for whom they