Draft 1: A Contemporary Study on Heterosexual Attraction

This topic submitted by Denise Kwan and Megan Ansley ( ansleymh@muohio.edu ) on 2/16/06. [ Human Nature Team: Denise Kwan and Megan Ansley-Section: Blaisdell/Feister]

Denise Kwan
Megan Ansley
WCP 262
16 February 2006
Project Proposal

Introduction

The ladder theory shows men rate all women on one scale of dating, while females rate males on two different scales, friendship and dating. The study that will be conducted will be show whether or not the genders of Miami University agree with the theory. The ladder theory shows what factors are considered in human attraction and mate selection in a more humorous manner. It is important to consider how relationships can evolve from friendships. This is an interdisciplinary studies research project because this project will be looking at human attraction and mate selection using different aspects of different fields of studies. Human attraction and mate selection will be observed using anthropological technique, scientific analyzes, psychology, and sociology.

This ethnographic field research project concentrates on the human behavior of attraction and mating rituals. It will show the human behavior importance of mating selections. The project emphasizes on human mate selection, which give the insights into human attraction. This field research correlates with the human nature course by discussing and going in depth into human mate selection.

References

Bull, Ray, and Nichola Rumsey. The Social Psychology of Facial Appearance. New
York: Springer- Verlag New York Inc., 1988.
This book also focuses mainly on facial appearances. They write the effects of facial features on liking someone, meeting someone, and dating. It talks about the importance of facial appearance in a marriage.
We will be using the section of this book to emphasize the other books views of appearance. This book not only talks about importance in appearance between mates, but also the importance of appearance in society. The section we will be using only focuses on appearance in mating rituals.

Byrne, Donn. The Attraction Paradigm. New York: Academic Press, 1971.
This book gives a historical perspective of attraction, and it gives the similarity of the past with present (meaning up to 1971). It also provides an analytic research of attraction in relationships. It also goes into the sex and physical attractiveness, and individual's attraction factors. This book provides many scientific testing to reinforce their hypothesis on attraction.
We will use this books many theories and tests to show that the ladder theory is not completely absurd. This book gives a lot of backing that there are test that show our theory, it's not just an expert talking about it but actually having data to use to compare.

Cook, Mark. The Bases of Human Sexual Attraction. London: Academic Press,
1981.
Physical attractiveness, sex roles, and heterosexual attraction are discussed in this book. They also talk about the importance of social background in mate selection. It states in the book about social skills and human attractions and the process of mating in stages. In a wider perspective he talks about animal sexual attractions.
We will be using this book to discuss heterosexual attractions. The social background of mate selection will be used to show that love isn't always blind, class does matter and that it is a factor in sexual selection. We could also use the animal sexual attractions to compare the differences between animals in the wild to our own choices

Cook, Mark, and Robert McHenry. Sexual Attraction. Oxford, England: Pergamon
Press, 1978.
Love at first sight is one of the topics covered in this book, does it exist? This book also discusses the facial features like majority of the others book we looked at. They also speak of sexual attraction as kind of being a thrill chase, and that might be a reason that humans lust after whom they can't have.
We will use this book to show a part of the ladder theory to be true, the lust factor of the ladder theory. This will also go along with the other books about the importance of facial features in finding a mate.

Derlega, Valerian J., and Barbara A. Winstead. Friendship and Social Interaction.
New York: Springer- Verlag, 1986.
In this book it talks about friendship between individuals. This book shows what people find in other for friendship. They answer the question what cause some individuals to be closer to one another. It also talks about social aspects of selecting friends.
We will be using this book to explain the friendship aspect of the ladder theory. This book only talks about friendship, so we will use it to explain the attraction factors of friendships. The information in this book will help explain why some men will always only remain friends and never become a mate.

Hamon, Raeann R., and Bron B. Ingoldsby. Mate Selection Across Cultures.
Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2003.
In this book the authors compare mating selections in North America, Caribbean, South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. In some of the places speak of religion as a reason of attraction. They also talk about arrange marriages and other practices that other countries have for marriage.
We will be using this book to state the differences in culture for mate selection. Using this book we can compare our cultures mating rituals to other cultures mating rituals. We will also touch base with the meaning of marriage using this book.

Hendrick, Clyde, and Susan Hendrick. Liking, Loving, & Relating. Monterey,
California: Brooks/ Cole Publishing Company, 1983.
This book talks about the nature of attraction. It breaks down attraction into different dimensions such as attitude and physical attraction. They also separated the difference of love and sexual love. The book goes into relationships, developing them, marriage relationships, and relationship issues.
We will be using this book to show attraction factors between people. We will also use the section stating the difference of loving someone and sexual loving someone. We will state the difference between the two different types of love. We will relate this to the ladder theory, showing the love for a friend and love for a mate.

Jackson, Linda A. Physical Appearance And Gender. Albany, New York: State
University of New York Press, 1992.

This book goes in depth about physical attraction that the different sexes find attractive. It looks into facial features and body features. It shows the differences that males and females find attractive in each other. It also goes into the sociobiological and sociocultural perspectives of gender appearance relationships.
We will be using the data on the physical attraction to compare against the other books attraction factors and the ladder theory. We will also consider the factors of the effects of the sociobiological and sociocultural perspective of gender appearance.

Kenrick, Douglas T., and Jeffry A. Simpson. Evolutionary Social Psychology.
Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1997.
This book talks about the evolutionary of human sexual selection, the importance of physical appearance, and relationships. One section talks about the evolutionary perspective of woman's reactions to dominant and prosocial men. It also talks about the bonding process of human mating rituals, and reproductive success.
We will be using this book to define the history of human sexuality and comparing history with the present state of human sexual selection.

Patzer, Gordon L. The Physical Attractiveness Penomena. New York: Plenum Press,
1985.
This book is about people's perception of attractiveness and how people communicate. It also gives a measurement of physical attractiveness, using a process, qualifications, and measurements. This book shows the difference of romantic attractiveness and physically attractions.
We are using this book to compare what the ladder theory says about human attraction to this book's reference to human attraction. We will use the similarities to back up our research from the ladder theory.

Remoff, Heather Trexler. Sexual Choice. New York: Dutton/ Lewis Publishing, 1984. This book solely concentrates on woman's perspective finding their mate. It talks about the evolutionary logic of female choice. She also talks about the chemistry woman have for some men and what will charm them into bed or having babies.
We will use this book to reinforce the other books about women's point of view. This book has a little more insight of what woman want because it solely concentrates on women's attraction needs. It also will help because unlike the other books that we are using, this book puts a slightly more humorous view on things like the ladder theory.

PBS (2006). Retrieved 15 February 2006 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/sex/index.html
This website will be very useful in our research of human attraction. There is over-all information about human nature as well as specifics in our area of interest. The tab "sex and the human animal" will provide insight on human attraction. This site is credible because it is from the Nature program that is played on PBS.

BBC. (2006). Retrieved 15 February 2006 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/love/attraction.shtml
This website also provided information on human attraction. This site believes that there are things that attract people even if they are not aware of these attractions. A few of the things that they claim people find attractive are hour-glass figures and appropriate hip to waist ratio, facial symmetry, and self confidence. The web site is contemporary and update but still from a reliable source.

Center for Human Evolution (2006). Retrieved 15 February 2006 from the World
Wide Web: http://www.human-evolution.org/genetic_physical_attraction.php.
This website is different that the other sources that we have because it is from an evolutionary perspective. The topic of the site is physical attractiveness and focuses solely on personal appearance. Relationships and chemistry are not discussed unlike many of the other articles. This is good to have an article that focuses on only one of our research aspects instead of multiple topics. It allows only one side of the topic to show through which allows focus.

Rath, Jaclyn (2006). "The Effect of Similar Physical Features on Perceived Levels of
Attraction." Retrieved 15 Jasnuary 2006 from the World Wide Web:
http://cujo.clemson.edu/manuscript.php?manuscript_ID=128.
This study that was performed at Clemson University is in the psychology field. This will be good to add to the research because it will provide another aspect to our study apart from the simply scientific and social research that has been done. This study focuses on the observation that similar features of people often attract them and make them attractive to each other. This is another interesting aspect to human attractions.

Mulford, Matthew, Orbell, John, Shatto, Catherine, and Stockard, Jean (1998).
"Physical Attractiveness, Opportunity, and Success in Everyday Exchange." Retrieved 15 February 2006 from the World Wide Web: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/journal/issues/v103n6/AJSv103p1565/AJSv103p1565.web.pdf.
The information found here came from the University of Chicago and is important
to our research. It takes the topic of attractiveness and puts in into a social context. This gives an important view of attractiveness that is not often included when discussing evolution and psychology.

Research Design
This research project will also be an ethnographic field research. The data we will be collecting are from Miami Students of both genders. A study of fifty surveys will be taken consisting five questions each. Twenty video interviews will also be taken from ten Miami girls and ten Miami guys. The surveys will provide information and give insight of human attractions. It will show what the Miami students find attractive in the opposite sex. The surveys will also show the importance of different topics for mate selection. The field research's data of this project will be compared and contrasted to the book resources that are collected.

Materials and Methods
For this project, the major component is developing and distributing a survey. The survey will be issued to a sample of fifty Miami University students. In the sample there will be twenty-five males and twenty-five females. The subjects will be randomly selected and unfamiliar to the researchers. The survey will consist of five questions that will question what individuals find attractive and important in someone of the opposite sex. The survey also collects information on relationships and how they evolve.

Figure 1: Survey to be used in collecting data
"A Contemporary Study of Heterosexual Attraction" Survey

1. What is most important when considering a person of the opposite sex?
a) money/power
b) intelligence
c) personality
d) physical attractiveness
2. Do you rate your friends of the opposite sex and potential boyfriend/girlfriend on the same scale or on two different scales?
a) same scale
b) different scales
3. Have you even had a relationship where a friend became your girlfriend/boyfriend?
a) no
b) yes If yes, how long was your friendship before it became a relationship?
4. In regards to a person of the opposite sex, what is their most attractive facial feature to you?
a) eyes
b) lips
c) bone structure
e) hair
d) overall face
e) other: ____________
5. Have you ever stayed friends with an ex boyfriend/girlfriend?
a) yes
b) no

The specific statistical analysis that will be used to analyze our data is not yet known. Some of the information will be considered binomial and conclusions will be drawn from this and the population of students as a whole. The data that the survey collects will also be considered in a qualitative manner to draw conclusions that will be analyzed from the information collected in our literature review.

Project Time Line

Task Date
Proposal due February 17, 2006
Literature review completed March 7, 2006
Complete surveys (paper) March 10, 2006
Compile surveys March 19, 2006
Project draft due March 31, 2006
Video surveys completed April 7, 2006
Video completed April 16, 2006
Project report due April 21, 2006

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