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In the movie Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a former teacher trying to get his life back on track after being institutionalized for bipolar disorder. At dinner with his friend Ronnie, he meets Ronnie’s sister-in-law, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), and a spark of attraction immediately kindles. Much to Ronnie and his wife’s chagrin, Pat and Tiffany shift the dinner discussion to the psychotropic effects of various medications and end up leaving together. Although Pat had intended reconciliation with his ex-wife, he finds himself inexorably drawn to Tiffany. As the two spend more time together, collaborating on a dance routine for an upcoming competition, they realize they are intensely physically attracted to each other, and have much more in common than their shared mental health challenges.

Every day you meet and interact with new people in class, while standing in line at the local coffee shop, or at gatherings with friends. Yet few of these individuals make a lasting impression on you, and even fewer strike a chord of romantic attraction. What draws you to those special few? Many of the same factors that drew Pat and Tiffany together in Silver Linings Playbook: proximity, physical attractiveness, similarity, reciprocal liking, and resources (Aron et al., 2008). These factors influence attraction for both men and women, in both same- and opposite-sex romances (Felmlee, Orzechowicz, & Fortes, 2010; Hyde, 2005).

PROXIMITY

The simple fact of physical proximity—being in each other’s presence frequently—exerts far more impact on romantic attraction than many people think. Like Pat and Tiffany, you’re likely to feel more attracted to those with whom you have frequent contact and less attracted to those with whom you interact rarely, a phenomenon known as the mere exposure effect (Bornstein, 1989).

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Proximity’s pronounced effect on attraction is one reason that mixed-race romantic relationships are much rarer than same-race pairings in the United States. Despite this nation’s enormous ethnic diversity, most Americans cluster into ethnically homogeneous groups, communities, and neighborhoods. This clustering reduces the likelihood that they will meet, regularly interact with, and eventually become attracted to individuals outside their own cultural group (Gaines, Chalfin, Kim, & Taing, 1998). Those who do form interethnic romances typically have living arrangements, work situations, or educational interests that place them in close proximity with diverse others, fostering attraction (Gaines et al., 1998).

PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS

It’s no secret that many people feel drawn to those they perceive as physically attractive. In part this is because we view beautiful people as competent communicators, intelligent, and well adjusted, a phenomenon known as the beautiful-is-good effect (Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991). But although most of us find physical beauty attractive, we tend to form long-term romantic relationships with people we judge as similar to ourselves in physical attractiveness. This is known as matching (Feingold, 1988). Research documents that people don’t want to be paired with those they think are substantially “below” or “above” themselves in looks (White, 1980).

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SIMILARITY

No doubt you’ve heard the contradictory clichés regarding similarity and attraction: “Opposites attract” versus “Birds of a feather flock together.” Which is correct? Scientific evidence suggests that we are attracted to those we perceive as similar to ourselves (Miller, 2014). This is known as the birds-of-a-feather effect. One explanation for this phenomenon is that people we view as similar to ourselves are less likely to provoke uncertainty. In first encounters, they seem easier to predict and explain than do people we perceive as dissimilar (Berger & Calabrese, 1975). Thus, we feel more comfortable with them.

Similarity means more than physical attractiveness; it means sharing parallel personalities, values, and likes and dislikes (Markey & Markey, 2007). Having fundamentally different personalities or widely disparate values erodes attraction between partners in the long run. At the same time, differences in mere tastes and preferences have no long-term negative impact on relationship health, as long as you and your partner are similar in other, more important ways. For example, I love heavier music, such as Pantera, Mastodon, and Tool; my favorite recent album is Black Crown Initiate’s The Wreckage of Stars. My wife hates this stuff! But we’ve been happily married for more than 25 years because we have very similar personalities and values. Differences in tastes don’t predict relationship success, so you shouldn’t dismiss potential romantic partners because of their minor likes and dislikes.

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RECIPROCAL LIKING

A fourth determinant of romantic attraction is one of the most obvious and often overlooked: whether the person we’re attracted to makes it clear, through communication and other actions, that the attraction is mutual, known as reciprocal liking (Aron et al., 2008). Reciprocal liking is a potent predictor of attraction; we tend to be attracted to people who are attracted to us. Studies examining people’s narrative descriptions of “falling in love” have found that reciprocal liking is the most commonly mentioned factor leading to love (Riela, Rodriguez, Aron, Xu, & Acevedo, 2010).

RESOURCES

A final spark that kindles romantic attraction is the unique resources that another person offers. Resources include such qualities as sense of humor, intelligence, kindness, supportiveness, and whether the person seems fun to be with. These attributes are viewed as valuable by both straight persons and gay men and lesbians (Felmlee et al., 2010). But what leads you to view a person’s resources as desirable?

Social exchange theory proposes that you’ll feel drawn to those you see as offering substantial benefits (things you like and want) with few associated costs (things demanded of you in return). Two factors drive whether you find someone initially attractive: whether you perceive the person as offering the kinds of rewards you think you deserve in a romantic relationship (affection, emotional support, money, sex), and whether you think that the rewards the person can offer you are superior to those you can get elsewhere (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978). In simple terms, you’re attracted to people who can give you what you want and who offer better rewards than others.

Once you’ve experienced attraction because of perceived rewards, equity—the balance of benefits and costs exchanged by you and the other person—determines whether a relationship will take root (Stafford, 2003). Romantic partners are happiest when the balance of giving and getting in their relationship is equal for both, and they’re least happy when inequity exists (Hatfield, Traupmann, Sprecher, Utne, & Hay, 1985).

What is inequity? People in relationships have a strong sense of proportional justice: the balance between benefits gained from the relationship versus contributions made to the relationship (Hatfield, 1983). Inequity occurs when the benefits or contributions provided by one person are greater than those provided by the other. People who get more rewards from their relationships for fewer costs than their partners are overbenefited; those who get fewer rewards from their relationships for more costs than their partners are underbenefited. Overbenefited individuals experience negative emotions such as guilt, while underbenefited partners experience emotions such as sadness and anger (Sprecher, 2001).

Equity strongly determines the short- and long-term success of romantic relationships. One study found that during a several-month period, only 23 percent of equitable romances broke up, whereas 54 percent of inequitable romantic relationships broke up (Sprecher, 2001).

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TECHNOLOGY AND ROMANTIC ATTRACTION

The enormous range of communication technologies available to us these days has refined and enhanced the attraction process. You can establish virtual proximity to attractive others by befriending them on social networking sites (Facebook, Tumblr) and then exchanging daily (or even hourly) updates and posts. You can assess a prospective partner’s similarity to you and the rewards he or she could offer you by interacting with the person through text-messaging or simply by checking his or her personal Web pages and online profiles. You can assess physical attractiveness by viewing online photo albums and video clips. On dating sites such as Match.com, OkCupid, and eHarmony, or even on free sites such as Craigslist, you can enter a set of search parameters—desired age, profession, appearance, interests, gender identity, sexual orientation—and immediately see a broad range of potential partners.

But despite the conveniences they offer, these technologies also evoke tensions. For one thing, you have to decide how honest to be in your online self-presentations (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006). Because so many people now use online communication to gauge one another, you may feel great pressure to present yourself as highly attractive, even if that means providing a distorted self-description. In a survey of more than 5,000 online dating service users, misrepresentation of self was commonplace (Hall, Park, Song, & Cody, 2010). Men were more likely than women to exaggerate their education level and income, and women were more likely to lie about their weight. And both men and women over 50 routinely distorted their ages to appear younger. Correspondingly, people view others’ online dating profiles skeptically. Users liken profiles to résumés; that is, they are vehicles for marketing one’s “best self,” rather than accurate glimpses into one’s authentic identity (Ellison, Heino, & Gibbs, 2006). Just as people lie on their résumés, so, too, do online daters presume that others will lie in their profiles. As one online dating service user describes, “Everyone is so wonderful over the Internet. What the Internet doesn’t tell you is that, ‘I’m defensive, I talk about my problems all the time, I can’t manage my money’” (Ellison et al., 2006, p. 435).

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If your goal is to forge an offline romantic relationship, distorting your online self-description is ultimately self-defeating (Ellison et al., 2006). When you mislead someone online about your appearance or other personal attributes and then take your romance offline, your partner will discover the truth. Such unpleasant revelations are commonplace: one study found that 86 percent of people using online dating sites report having met others who they felt had misrepresented their physical attractiveness (Gibbs, Ellison, & Heino, 2006). When people feel misled, the outcome is often a damaged impression, negative emotion (such as resentment or anger), and an injured or even ruined relationship (McCornack & Levine, 1990). Clearly, the most ethical and practical thing you can do in your online self-descriptions is to accentuate your attractive attributes without resorting to distortion or dishonesty. If you feel you may be crossing the line into deception, have a trustworthy friend check your online description and assess its authenticity.