Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study examines whether too high a level of physical attractiveness may inhibit effective physician-patient communication, and whether such attractiveness interacts with physician-patient sex combination in affecting patients’ perceived communication satisfaction, trust, and disclosure. With a sample of 125 college-aged respondents, the results indicated that overly high physical attractiveness led to reduced satisfaction, trust, and disclosure. Such a negative effect was the most manifest in the opposite-sex physician-patient combination. Further, the same-sex combination produced more satisfaction than the opposite-sex combination, and male physicians were more positively rated than female physicians regarding trust and disclosure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the absence of visual and aural cues, what causes a person to be socially attracted to another when engaged in computer-mediated communication? Interpersonal attraction between strangers has been attributed to attitudinal similarity. Many Internet applications available today tacitly employ the attitudes similarity mechanism, allowing one to actively search for people on the basis of shared interests and opinions. Recreating an environment where subjects are made to think they are signing up for an instant messenger service, this experimental study examined the effects of attitude similarity, gender similarity and trust on the level interpersonal attraction between participants and virtual persons whom they expected to meet online. Among female respondents there was a main effect for gender similarity, and a fully crossed interaction between trust and attitude similarity, after controlling for the participants’ own online deceptiveness. Females who trusted the veracity of personal information revealed online were more attracted to persons with dissimilar attitudes than similar ones. Females with a low degree of trust for personal revelations online were more attracted to those with similar attitudes. There were no significant effects among male participants.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The purpose of this research was to examine how contextual differences in personal attraction and social attraction affect communication accommodation behavior. Hypotheses were derived from theories of social identity, self-categorization, similarity-attraction, and communication accommodation. To test models of personal attraction and social attraction, a convenient sample (N = 185) of undergraduate students from a large mid-western university reported on a recent, initial interaction with a same-sex, different ethnic partner. Overall, the findings indicate that the processes of personal and social attraction are, for the most part, different. Specifically, different generative processes were found to exist for personal attraction (i.e., personal identity salience → perceived similarity in attitudes and communication styles → personal attraction) and social attraction (i.e., social identity salience → ingroup identification → social attraction). However, personal attraction and social attraction both predicted engagement in the communication accommodation strategy of discourse management. Given these findings, recommendations for future research are offered.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: Two lines of new evidence indicate that scent plays a role in human attraction through its links with reproduction. First, body odors can be used to assess genetic compatibility. The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is a set of genes controlling immunity that produces downstream products detectable on the skin through scent. Offspring have broader immunity if they inherit different MHC alleles from each of their parents. Humans prefer the body odors of MHC-dissimilar others, and the relationships of couples who differ in their MHC are characterized by greater sexual attraction than those who share MHC genes. Second, women’s body odors covary with fertility across the cycle, and men prefer the body odors of women sampled at high fertility points of the cycle. We will discuss evidence from our lab pertaining to these relationships, and we will discuss the previously underappreciated role of scent in attraction and mate choice.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The objective of this project was to identify themes, patterns and predictors related to attractiveness ideals and appearance norms in other women among a sample of men and women in the U.S. and Korea. The sociocultural theoretical model has the strongest empirical support for understanding body image disturbance and appearance anxiety (Fallon, 1990; Heinberg, Wood & Thompson, 1995; Heinberg, 1996; Thompson, Heinberg, Altabe, Tantleff-Dunn, 1999), by presenting to women through media representations the current societal standard for image and appearance. What isn’t known is how these cultural norms present in the U.S. are also present in countries like Korea. This study’s objective was a comparative analysis of Korean and U.S. perceptions of attractiveness and beauty. Several independent variables—media exposure, sociocultural pressures to be thin, sociocultural pressures to be attractive, the perceived influence of outside sources in the development of ideal beauty, and gender—were measured to determine which variables might be more significantly linked to attractiveness anxiety and appearance norms. Findings suggest significant differences between U.S. and Korean participants’ evaluations of attractiveness in others, and several predictor variables including BMI, self-discrepancy, age, and sociocultural attitudes were found to be related to higher or lower attractiveness evaluation scores. These and other findings are discussed.