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A Partner's Most Attractive Non-Physical Trait
Why we love the people we love to be around.
Posted Jul 06, 2019
Attraction—we know it when we feel it. And it's not all about looks. If you were to name the top five people you love to spend time with, it is highly unlikely your list would reflect merely the five most physically attractive people you know.
We all have people in our lives who make us feel happy, people we love to be around. On the flip side, there are people we try to avoid because they make us feel stressed and emotionally drained. What accounts for the difference? Perhaps, no surprise, it has nothing to do with the way they look.
Affection, Affiliation, and Affective Presence
A major factor in our attraction to others is the way they make us feel. We are drawn to people who make us feel happy, hopeful, and optimistic, and when they are gone, we want to see them again. Research reveals how this works.
Noah Eisenkraft and Hillary Anger Elfenbein, in a piece entitled "The Way You Make Me Feel” (2010), examined the manner in which people affect the way others feel.[i] Examining data from 48 groups, they found evidence to suggest that there are consistent, individual differences in the emotions people feel, known as trait affect, as well as in the emotions people elicit in others, known as trait affective presence.
After controlling for emotional contagion, they report that the different emotions people feel are due to trait affect and trait affective presence. They found positive affective presence to be linked with greater “network centrality”—reflected in the number of individuals who listed the participant as a close friend—and negative affective presence linked with greater extraversion, but lower agreeableness.
Eisenkraft and Elfenbein note that their results illustrate “partner effects” within social interaction, described as “the behavior and feelings that one elicits in others and, consequently, the footprint that one leaves behind.”
Finding that affective presence goes beyond emotional contagion, they recognize that the emotion elicited is not just about catching the emotions others are experiencing. They suggest that mechanisms of transmission may include differences in expressive style—non-verbal cues, for example—as well as patterns of interpersonal behavioral, such as acts of warmth or dominance.
Eisenkraft and Elfenbein opined that their evidence for trait affective presence was especially strong, because they examined how people felt when they were with close acquaintances in different settings, as opposed to how participants interacted with strangers. The impact of affective presence between strangers was tested by subsequent research.
Affective Presence Prompts Romantic Interest
Raul Berrios et al. in a study entitled “Why Do You Make Us Feel Good?” (2015) examined how affective presence affects romantic interest.[ii] They had 40 people participate in a speed-dating event where they “dated” six or seven partners of the opposite sex.
Using a social relations model analysis, they confirmed that participants were more likely to want to see dates again when the dates had a greater positive affective presence. Thus, creating positive emotions appears to promote romantic attraction.
Among other conclusions, Berrios et al. found that regarding emotional disposition and skills, people who work to improve their own emotions and are tuned in to the emotions of others are more likely to elicit positive emotions in other people. Interestingly, however, they found that people who create positive emotions in others do not necessarily experience positive emotions themselves.
Regarding personality traits, they found that agreeableness and extraversion were the two traits linked with positive affective presence. They note that agreeable people are engaging and considerate, and thus would be expected to elicit positive emotional responses in others.
The link between extraversion and positive affective presence, however, was unexpected, given that the study by Eisenkraft and Elfenbein (2010) found extraversion to be linked with negative affective presence. Berrios et al. suggest that perhaps the difference has to do with the different types of interpersonal interactions in the two studies. Their speed-dating event might have elicited positive emotion in the extraverts, which might have prompted reciprocal positive emotions from interaction partners.
The Way You Make Me Feel
Thankfully, attraction is apparently more than skin deep. It involves not only how we look, but also the way we make others feel. In attracting and bonding with others, agreeableness and emotional regulation prompt positive emotions and predict relational success.
Facebook image: Ivanko80/Shutterstock
References
[i]Eisenkraft, Noah, and Hillary Anger Elfenbein. "The Way You Make Me Feel: Evidence for Individual Differences in Affective Presence." Psychological Science 21, no. 4 (2010): 505-10.
[ii]Berrios, Raul, Peter Totterdell, and Karen Niven. “Why Do You Make Us Feel Good? Correlates and Interpersonal Consequences of Affective Presence in Speed‐dating.” European Journal of Personality 29, no. 1 (2015): 72–82.
Fraud at best. Abuse of mostly women and children.
I have to post this issue here as I cannot garner media and am using the same request to save time. I am sorry if it is against any protocol, but I do not care. I care about addressing this in one way or another. Hello. I am writing to appeal to you. I am a retired trauma nurse of many years. I come from a small town in Vermont. I am also an activist around the issue of ECT or electroshock that has greatly increased in use in many hospitals you may not even be aware of. There is no FDA testing of the device, nor of the procedure that involves up to 450 volts and greater through the brain. There are blog articles and videos on ectjustice that talk about the damages from this procedure and the lawsuits taking place around this.
There are billions involved annually in the US alone. The monies involved are as noteworthy as the cover ups surrounding this. Major medical institutions at risk as are many reputations of providers. Doctors are fully culpable of inflicting NFL type head injuries in patients for decades, and passing it off as beneficial. It is also being used on our veterans, children, and women during pregnancy. Touted as “a life saver” and only used as a last resort are falsehoods. Patients are killing themselves because damages are being denied to protect doctors and hospitals.
The California courts have proved traumatic brain injuries with every procedure and has now become a national product liability suit. We have six firms interviewing patients for potential medical malpractice around this. There are two suits pending against the FDA. The devices that brought suit are still being used and patients are still not being warned.
I have tried for the past three years to bring attention to this through the national and larger media organizations, but for the most part no one will do a story on this, so I thought to try and “come through the back door”, and trust the smaller community media may be more caring and responsible to provide the public with the needed information to warn them. Doctors are failing criminally in their duty to warn, protect, and not cause harm. We cannot afford to brush this under the carpet as more are harmed daily.
Myself and my 700 peers on survey would appreciate any media attention you can bring to our suffering and prevent harm to many others. Below is a letter a peer wrote to another journalist and a link to an article discussing the suit. I have many willing to share their experience. Thank you for your time. Below is a note to another journalist and it is similar to hundreds of thousands of others. We need help please?
“Dear Ms.Frampton,
I survived 189 ECT’s. I used to have a very vibrant life as a Stockbroker/Branch Manager/Oil and Gas Analyst..with an IQ of 132. My memory was quite perfect and I had friends and family abound. During ECT treatments I began complaining of memory loss. I have forgotten most of my life, something the Doctors said would not happen, just losing the memories surrounding the treatments is all they said would occur. I can not remember giving birth to my two boys. I have no memory of pain or delivery. This is just one example. I have what’s called a “trailing memory” by the Doctors..I can remember things for a few weeks, then it is forgotten. My life is just the pictures I take. It is like having Alzheimers but knowing full well that you are disabled so you do things like always having GPS with you to compensate. Fear and Anxiety are rampant in the post ECT world as we could not trust our Doctors so why trust anyone? There are many of us out there with no voice and no compensation as our cases are too old (Mine was 2002-2003) I have not had any Doctor be able to claim that the ECT’s I had damaged my brain (zero tests have been done) and I’m sure my IQ is no longer 132 or my memory. They are all protecting the Manufacturers of the ECT machines. I used to be fierce, yet now I am quiet.
Maybe it’s time to shake things up. ECT is barbaric and useless.
Lesley “
See blog articles on Mad in America.
Warm regards,
Deborah Schwartzkopff
Former owner of ectjustice
Alternative to ECT
Maybe a mental health professional can suggest an alternative solution, since you've had such a negative experience with them. I've never heard of ECT's till now but it sounds like it didn't work out well for you
cheating
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Deborah Schwartzkopff ECT justice
So sorry to hear of the issues with ECT. My mother suffered from depression, and received ECT when I was about 10 back in the 1960’s. She did not really benefit from it so I appreciate your bringing this out. Mental illness is such a burden to all involved. I hope our medical community finds a better solution.
Deborah Schwartzkopff ECT justice
Imagine you buy ECT machine, imagine you set up a business that say ECT helps people, imagine that some of your ECT patients gather the courage to claim that ECT does not help them...
THAT IS WHAT MENTAL
HEALTH CRISIS is about.
It is a conflict of business opportunity and
the health of an individial.
Who do you think has a better advertising possition?
An ECT-ed individual or a renowned medical-care facility?
I also hope that the medical community will try to find better solution to the problem.
What is the reason for not taking the patients' experiences and opinions seriously?
That exactly is the core problem of the mental health "industry".
"The dust you are and the dust you will become."-industry
So - take care - and choose carefully - if you decide to consult any mental-health professional.
Because in any interaction with other people - what you need most is - as this article puts it - a trait that attracts others.
So - this is my way to express my thanks to the author of this article -
to Wendy L. Patrick, PhD.
for not only writing a good article but also for allowing comments - since in my opinion every comment is valuable.
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