Interpersonal Relationships – Concept of Familiarity, Similarity and Reciprocity in Relation to Attraction

         Interpersonal relationships determine the kind of relationship people have and success of such relations. People are attracted to certain people because of social reasons, this enables us establish rapport with our colleagues. Positive social attitude towards certain people coupled with regular interaction develops a sense of familiarity which in due course develops into an attraction.

        Despite this, it is worthy noting that even though familiarity leads to attraction, sometimes strangers get attracted to each other because of the urge of knowing someone. Therefore as far as dimensions of social attraction is concerned, there are two completely different reasons that makes one get attracted to another individual.

          A sense of being comfortable in a company of a person you know due to familiarity and having the urge of being drawn to a stranger that you hardly know. Similarity encourages attraction. When people interact, they find out their similarities. People have assumptions that similar people are like them because they validate their beliefs and attitudes. Attraction also takes place across personal and physical divide.

      In personal dimensions, attraction happens when you share the same kind of similarity such as tastes and preferences, similar social background and religion. Sometimes people get attracted to people who are not similar to them and are completely different. It is therefore right to conclude that a number of people are attracted to similar and dissimilar individuals equally while others are only attracted to those they share similarity with. For example, homosexuals look for similarity in the other person largely because homosexuality is founded on narcissism. A bisexual on the other hand gets attracted to similar and dissimilar people.

     In physical dimensions of similarity, we find out those women who have strong feminine attributes and features tend to be attracted to men who have softer features. Reflection of our own attributes and similar traits in another person leads to attraction. We find that we are unconsciously attracted to people who similar to us but not that similar. Who are opposite but not that opposite to us. There is no lasting relationship when people who are too different or too similar to each other attract each other.

        Reciprocity strongly relates to attraction, this is because it is self-affirming to relate to a person who is agreeable. It boosts an individual’s self-esteem and one tends to reciprocate by liking the other person in return. Liking the other person in most cases leads to attraction. Reciprocity between people gives rise to attraction because people tend to interact fully with people who are ready to return their feelings.