Falling for familiarity...

One of the most fascinating concepts in social psychology is that of attraction and close relationships. While nearly all social psychology concepts are extremely applicable to everyday life, attraction and close relationships takes the cake for being most relatable in my book. In fact, the story of how my boyfriend and I met and started dating illustrates the proximity effect exactly (Latané, Liu, Nowak, Bonevento, & Zheng, 1995). In essence, the proximity effect states that the single best predictor of whether two people will become friends or a couple is how close in proximity they are to one another. For example, you are more likely to form a relationship with someone who lives in the same area or works in the same building, etc. In my case, the proximity factor was attending the same high school (and both being involved in band). My boyfriend and I met at a band lock-in my sophomore year of high school. The ironic part was that we were both in band the previous year, but it wasn’t until we were in a confined setting for nearly ten hours with only band members that we finally had an interaction. Had I not been in band, or attended that high school I would have likely never met him, let alone dated him. The beginning of our relationship also kind of highlights the mere exposure effect which basically says that the more that one is exposed to a certain stimulus (person, object, etc), the more they gradually start to like that particular stimulus (Zajonc, 1968). After our initial meeting at the lock-in, he continued to try to talk to me by meeting me at my locker and essentially making himself more noticeable. As a result, the more I saw him and had chances to talk to him, the more I started to like him. (Mind you this is all still before we actually started dating since I was, ironically, trying to pursue someone else at the time). I can definitely say that my attraction to him stemmed from the combination of our close interactions in band as well as the increased frequency in which I saw him after that night. After about two weeks, we were officially dating and have been happily together ever since.

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Latané, B., Liu, J. H., Nowak, A., Bonevento, M., & Zheng, L. (1995). Distance matters: Physical space and social impact. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 795-805.

Zajonc, R. B. (1968). Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Monograph Supplement, 9(2), 1-27.