How does your problem statement, purpose statement, and research question align?
What did you do to make sure that transpired or what do you need to do?
What does alignment mean to a qualitative study?
PSYCHOLOGY 2
Social attraction between people is very important. Aspects of social attraction such as
love, understanding and care are difficult to explicate because they often go against many norms
in life. It is crucial to ensure that these aspects are maintained along a certain line and many
people keep it that way. For instance, love is governed by respect, trust and mutual
understanding. Care is a precept of responsibility and authority while understanding stems from
knowledge and wisdom (Anders, et.al, 2016). Attraction between people has one key aspect to it;
beauty. What anyone would find attractive is often the aspect of life that they feel is appealing to
them. Beauty and attraction may have a lot in common but they are not common to all (Anders,
de Jong, Beck, Haynes& Ethofer, 2016). This is why it is important to analyze social factors that
generate stereotypes about beauty and attraction.
Beauty is defined as the experience of pleasure or satisfaction based on perception. That
is why beauty can only be seen and not felt (Anders, et.al, 2016). What people see as beautiful is
often a creation of their social setting. For instance, people who hardly encounter persons of a
different race may deem them to be more beautiful or less beautiful depending on their
socialization (Weidenfeld& Leask, 2013). In many social setups, beauty is displayed by models
on newspapers, article magazines and websites. It is a form of influence that ends up making the
person to feel that what they see as beautiful is not as beautiful or appealing as they suppose.
Beauty is thus a form of influence that is borne out of what the society considers to be appealing
or not. Beauty is however the greatest contributor to perceptions about attraction (Launay&
Dunbar, 2015). Where there is attraction, beauty is often a factor that is critical and central to the
theme.
Beauty is a concept that makes up most of the arguments and concepts about attraction.
Attraction is vital to any relationship between people because it obscures the feeling of human
PSYCHOLOGY 3
weakness and inequity. Man is known to be imperfect and very unsymmetrical in many ways.
Beauty however is the concept of perfection without prejudice and need to approve other
concepts within the person observed. Beauty makes it possible for people to overlook human
inequities that are ever existent and often profoundly the cause for the use of derogative words
on people (Sprecher, Treger, Fisher, Hilaire & Grzybowski, 2015). What is not attractive is often
despised and chastised. It is vital to remember that perception is simply an illusion that may not
be similarly felt by another person (Anders, et.al, 2016). More often than not, the feeling that one
is able to achieve a particular attraction or not is all about what they perceive to appeal to them.
This is what beauty is all about.
The concept of beauty or appeal in attraction is very complicated because attraction
between people can be out of many reasons as well. However, the urge to go beyond the
necessary to please the other person is borne out of a need for appreciation or the desire to do
right. This can be considered as beauty of purpose or the innocence of decision and motivation.
Beauty is about purity and sanctity. There is often a significant appeal from society to get things
done but hardly a similar motivation in attraction. As explained by Talamas, Mavor& Perrett
(2016) Attraction is about the traits that make one seem to have a beautiful character and to some
extent, beautiful build and look. It applies to both persons of the male and those of the female
gender (Talamas, Mavor& Perrett, 2016). Other traits that accompany beauty include; hard work,
diligence and determination. They often seem to be of an enlightenment that sparks influence
among people. Although affluence is more influential than these traits, it follows that one would
find another person with such traits likely to be attractive.
However much there may be aspects that one looks for in an attractive partner beside
their physical appeal, the appeal of the self is the most important (McGinley, et.al, 2015).
PSYCHOLOGY 4
Attraction is about having a similar feeling towards a person at all times without altering the feel
of the person based on the circumstance. Beauty is thus best explained by the features one
possesses. These features make it possible for the person to ultimately influence a feeling of
desire in another person. It is about the makeup women put on or the expensive suits men wear.
It is about making the other person like what one already likes (Ioerger, Henry, Chen,
Cigularov& Tomazic, 2015). Attraction can thus be predetermined and premeditated. It is a
factor that can easily be manipulated in people’s minds and an issue that is hardly the cause for
divisive argument.
According to Englis, Solomon, & Ashmore, (2014), various cultures perceive beauty
differently. This is because beauty often defines how attractive one is and since there is a
difference between values from one culture to another, there is also a difference in factors
making up beauty. However, as per Vacker & Key (2013), despite the variations in perception
across various cultures, beauty remains to be one of the most influential factors in establishing
attraction between people. The current generation of the 21 st century regards beauty as an
outward appearance of an individual that is desired. Therefore, they support the definition that
beauty refers to what can be seen by the eye to be appealing. However, before the current
perception and definition of beauty, various cultures had unique features which if present in an
individual, he or she is regarded as being attractive (Englis, Solomon & Ashmore, 2014. The
character of a person was a big determinant in whether the person is seen as beautiful or not.
This is because there were people who could be attractive, win other people’s hearts, and
influence others by just interacting with them. In such a case, beauty becomes defined by the
intrinsic features that a person possess and not their outward appearances. Societies which belief
PSYCHOLOGY 5
in both intrinsic and extrinsic beauty believe that the existing inequality in appearance between
people should not be a major cause for regarding someone as not being beautiful.
There are various stereotypes that are related to attraction. As explained by Vacker &
Key (2013), most people tend to think that people naturally get attracted to those individuals
whom they have certain common features with. This stereotyping concept involves both men and
female, and in this example, the proponents of this belief argue that the existing high number of
integration, interaction, marriage, and business establishments between people of the same
ethnicity proves that people get attracted to others whom they share certain common features.
Perceptions that people with same characteristics or origin easily see each other as beautiful is
also based on culture. In this regard, it is easier for a person to recognize\e another person as
being beautiful if both of them share a common culture or origin. Another stereotyping about
beauty is that it is more pronounced in women as compared to men (Englis, Solomon &
Ashmore, 2014). Therefore, it is easier for men to regard women as being beautiful as compared
to seeing other men as a beautiful. As a result, it is expected that attraction will flourish easily
between men and women as compared to between men and men. (Vacker and Key, 2013).
There has been a misconception about love and beauty especially when it comes to how
these two feelings ate expressed by people. As explained by Diessner, et.al (2012), most people
find it difficult to distinguish love from beauty. This is because both of the two feelings give one
the desire to be or like another person so much. However, it should be noted that love and
beauty are different in the sense that love develops between individuals irrespective of whether
they are beautiful or not. In other words, one does not need to be beautiful or to possess certain
features for them to be loved by another individual. Moreover, love takes a long time to appear,
and in most cases, it comes involuntarily and gives little consideration to both outward and
PSYCHOLOGY 6
inward appearance of a person. On the other hand, attraction is mostly felt as a result of existing
beauty between the attracting individuals. Moreover, it considers features that are present in an
individual and may end if a person changes in certain ways. Also, attraction can be felt only after
a short time whereas love mostly lasts forever (Vacker & Key, 2013).
There are various theories of beauty. However, Denis Dutton’s and Andrew Park
provocative theory offers the best insight into the current beauty trends surrounding attraction
(Diessner, et.al, 2012). They do believe that beauty is specific to an individual. However, it is
also a part of human nature that has very deep evolutionary origins. Other existing theories such
as the typical beauty theory of Ruskin and the vital beauty theory try to explain the essential
characteristics of an individual that constitute their beauty status. Therefore, they help propagate
the notion that a person can improve his or her beauty through effort
There are two major forms of beauty that are inexistent at the moment. These are;
augmented beauty and natural beauty. Whereas naturally beauty is acquired naturally and one
may possess it from the time they are born, augmented beauty is acquired artificially (Diessner,
et.al, 2012). To acquire augmented beauty, a person uses various artificial beauty products and
solutions to enhance their appearance by becoming more beautiful than they were previously.
Even though both these two types of beauty makes one attractive, there are various concerns
about the longevity of augmented beauty. It is argued that it may cause attraction just for a short
period and in the long term, the attraction may cease to exist as some of the beauty features will
fail to reciprocate themselves positively. On the other hand, natural beauty is always desired as it
creates the true picture of an individual on others thereby aiding in establishing trust.
The importance of being beautiful has caused some individuals to become beautiful. This
is because, without beauty, a person may not be attractive to others. As a result, they may end up
PSYCHOLOGY 7
feeling dejected and living a lonely life. Since human beings are social species, it is wise to put
in effort to enhance beauty so as to live a comfortable and soothing life with many admirers as
compared to living unfulfilling life as a result of low beauty levels. Therefore, as Englis,
Solomon and Ashmore (2014) argues, it is more sensible to put in effort so as to improve a
person’s beauty as compared to leaving it the way it is and undergoing a tough social life (as
Englis, Solomon and Ashmore, 2014).
Many people consider the feeling of attraction to be related to the symmetrical shape of
the person, shape or thing. Many people are attracted to beauty and not value. There is thus the
general feeling that most human beings will often proverbially ‘read a book by its cover.’ This is
a concern among persons who mask their attractive qualities by not being very outgoing and
expressive about their characters. It is thus important to ensure that one is always able to express
their ‘inner beauty’ where the outer beauty does not appeal to many people in order for the rest
of society to find them attractive (McGinley, Zhang,Mattila& O’Neill, 2015). This is critical in
the world where perception is often the main reason for attention on certain details. This means
that beauty is a form of influence that is borne out of what the society considers to be appealing
or no. Even though this is contextual, it has led to development of various techniques of
acquiring beauty through artificial techniques. These means have often been sought by
individuals who feel that they are not appealing in terms of beauty.
PSYCHOLOGY 8
References
Anders, S., de Jong, R., Beck, C., Haynes, J., & Ethofer, T. (2016). A neural link between
affective understanding and interpersonal attraction. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(16), E2248-E2257.
Diessner, R., Solom, R. C., Frost, N. K., Parsons, L., & Davidson, J. (2012). Engagement with
beauty: Appreciating natural, artistic, and moral beauty. The Journal of Psychology,
142(3), 303-29.
