Learn about why opposites don’t really attract; the “propinquity effect” and how physical distance affects the way we feel about other people; and the history of when and why we started using last names.
Learn about why opposites don’t really attract; the “propinquity effect” and how physical distance affects the way we feel about other people; and the history of when and why we started using last names.
Opposites Don’t Attract by Kelsey Donk
We Like What’s Physically Close to Us by Mae Rice
The History of Last Names by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Gregory)
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/opposites-dont-attract-we-like-whats-physically-close-to-us-and-the-history-of-last-names
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why opposites don’t really attract; and how physical distance affects the way we feel about other people. We’ll wrap up with a listener question about when and why we started using last names.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
We’re releasing this episode on Valentine’s Day, so we just had to get into some relationship research — starting with that old saying that “opposites attract.” You know: the idea that maybe creative types fall for analytical types, or messy people end up with tidy people? Well I’ve got some news for you: science says that idea is a big old myth. According to research, we’re most attracted to people who have similar attitudes, personalities, interests, and values to our own.
That’s right. We love to tell ourselves that opposites attract, but since the 1950s, social scientists have conducted more than 240 studies to determine whether similarity or difference is what most leads to attraction. In 2013, two psychologists looked at all the results of these studies put together, in a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
What they found was pretty conclusive. There’s a strong, undeniable association between being similar to another person and being attracted to that person. In other words, there is essentially no research evidence that differences in personality, interests, education, politics, upbringing, religion or other traits lead to greater attraction. Opposites do not attract.
In one study, researchers found that when given a choice of potential partner, college students chose descriptions that matched their ideal selves over their opposites. Another study found that introverts aren’t more attracted to extroverts. We might think we’re looking for someone to complement our strengths and support our weaknesses, but we’re actually most attracted to people who share our traits.
But if these rules of attraction are so true, why do we still seem to think opposites attract? Well, for one thing, differences stand out more than similarities do. A couple might have a hundred similar traits and two contrasting ones, and they’ll still end up arguing about how different they are.
Also, some research has shown that over time, people change to complement their partners. People might start out as quite alike, but over time, the partner who makes slightly more jokes will become “the funny one” and the other will become “the serious one.”
In the end, it’s what we share with our partners that’s important. So lean in to this law of attraction! You’re probably looking for someone who’s pretty similar to yourself — and that’s just fine.
According to psychology research, Mr. or Mrs. Right might as well be Mr. or Mrs. Right Here. New research is strengthening the old idea that desirable people appear more attractive when they're nearby than when they're further away. Like, two feet further away.
The idea that we like desirable objects more when they're closer is what scientists call “the propinquity effect,” and it's a mainstay in introductory psychology classes. Despite that, there really hasn't been much evidence for it. Studies do suggest that thirsty people percieve bottles of water to be nearer and lonely people percieve other people to be closer by, but studies haven't really shown this in the other direction. It makes intuitive sense, especially for something simple like a hamburger — the closer it is to your mouth, the more you want to eat it. But for people? Interpersonal attraction is a little more complex than your lunch is.
So this new study tackled exactly that. It focused on men, and how their perceptions of women shifted with proximity. The researchers found that men responded more positively to women who were closer to them, whether they were having in-person interactions or looking at digital representations of them.
For one part of the study, for instance, the men ran lines from a musical version of Romeo & Juliet with an unknown woman. (She was actually a performer hired by the researchers.) The woman sat either three or five feet away, and the men found her more appealing when she sat closer. The same thing happened when men watched a video of a woman looking straight into the camera — they found her more likable when she was positioned closer to the lens.
Researchers think this all boils down to something pretty simple: proximity is a signal of openness to and interest in connecting. That could be either platonically or sexually; though the researchers didn’t ask the study participants about their sexual orientations, the preference for proximity was especially strong for men who were single or felt dissatisfied with their social lives.
So in the end, people might not be so different from hamburgers: the closer they are, the more attractive they look. For your next dating profile pic, you might want to zoom in.
ASHLEY: We got a listener question from Gregory, who asks: “When and why did we start using last names. I believe it was due to crafts or skills such as being a blacksmith and people having the name then Smith or blacksmith and Cooper and similar. But at the time of Jesus if you look at the Bible we don’t really use last names. For the most part, we use people associated with place names." Great question, Gregory!
You’re absolutely right that back before we had official surnames, people were named for their occupation or the place they came from. It was basically like if you were to tell a friend about your day and you said “I had lunch with Sarah,” and your friend goes “Sarah from college?!” and you go, “No, Sarah from yoga class.” If you only knew one Sarah, just saying “Sarah” would suffice. In the same way, these extra descriptors, or “bynames,” became more necessary as the population increased. At first, those bynames just stayed with the one person — they weren’t passed down to his children. But as societies became more complex, those bynames stuck around and turned into surnames, so all the kids of “John the Weaver” got the last name of Weaver.
Exactly when this happened differs widely depending where you’re talking about. In England, it started between the 11th and 13th centuries after the Norman conquest. William the First gave pieces of his newly conquered land to his buddies, and they named themselves after their land. Eventually, that surname trend trickled down to the peasant classes. China, on the other hand, has been passing down family names for thousands of years. The first Chinese surnames may have been passed down by mothers, not fathers, though by about 1,000 B.C. that trend had reversed. One of the most recent cultures to adopt family names, though, is very relevant to your question: Jewish families didn’t take on surnames until a few hundred years ago — and not for happy reasons. Sephardic Jews did it in 1492 as a way to retain their community identity once they were kicked out of Spain. Ashkenazi Jews, meanwhile, were required to take on surnames in the late 1700s when the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and later Czarist Russia, started registering their Jewish citizens. But these days, surnames are in pretty wide use all over the world — even if they might come in a different form or hail from different origins. Thanks for your question, Gregory! If you have a question, send it into podcast at curiosity dot com or leave a voice mail at 312-596-5208. Don’t forget to leave your name!
Sources:
https://forebears.io/surnames
https://www.heritagefamilyhistory.co.uk/blog/2016/09/surnames-the-norman-conquest/
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2046955/complex-origins-chinese-names-demystified
https://www.bh.org.il/databases/family-names/jewish-family-names-introduction/
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/ashkenazi-names-the-etymology-of-the-most-common-jewish-surnames.html
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about why “beauty sleep” actually is a real thing;
How plants talk to worms to use them for self-defense;
Why bosses should let employees surf the web at work;
And more!
CODY: Plus, you’ll hear the final part of our interview with engineer Hugo Fruehauf. And you’ll also hear from neuroscientist and best-selling author Daniel Levitin, who’ll give you practical, evidence-based guidance for living longer and better. As for right now? Let’s recap what we learned today.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Ashley Hamer, Mae Rice, and Kelsey Donk, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was scripted and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Have a great weekend, and join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!