Addresses lack of attention in marriage therapy literature to romantic love and sexual attraction. Notes that few guidelines are available to therapists concerning how to deal with love as an issue in therapy. Presents model based on assumption that marriage problems are emotional in nature and that success of marital therapists depends upon skill…

Finds the conjunction between subjects' uncertainty and their use of question asking and disclosure strategies was limited to preliminary conversation and derived from global uncertainty. Finds that, although uncertainty and liking were related synchronously in ways consistent with uncertainty reduction theory, there was little evidence of…

A model of risk regulation is proposed to explain how people balance the goal of seeking closeness to a romantic partner against the opposing goal of minimizing the likelihood and pain of rejection. The central premise is that confidence in a partner's positive regard and caring allows people to risk seeking dependence and connectedness. The risk…

Misconstruing the meaning of Cronbach's alpha, experts on facial attractiveness have conveyed the impression that facial-attractiveness judgment standards are largely shared. This claim is unsubstantiated, because information necessary for deciding whether judgments of facial attractiveness are more influenced by commonly shared or by privately…

Research has demonstrated that attraction to a stranger is a function of the proportion of similar attitudes reported by that stranger. Traditional theories of attraction do not usually differentiate between respect or esteem for another and liking. This study used a 2 x 2 factorial experiment to test the hypothesis that the desire to work with…

Using data from a longitudinal study of adolescent boys, examines whether appearance (including dress and grooming) has an effect on school achievement, popularity with peers, self-concept, happiness, aspirations and expectations, honesty and kindness, and delinquent behavior. (GC)

Inexperienced men and both inexperienced and moderately experienced women rated highly experienced opposite-sex peers as less desirable dates and marriage partners. Moderately and highly experienced men and highly experienced women tended to rate all opposite-sex peers similarly along these same dimensions. (Author)

Reports on three studies which articulate and test multiple models for integrating the concept of motivation to reduce uncertainty into the axiomatic structure of uncertainty reduction theory. Finds that none of the models (tested in terms of their ability to predict information seeking and attraction) provides such an integration. Recommends…

Analyzes social introduction services, including singles ads, video dating, and matchmakers by their underlying functions in the marriage market (search for information about eligible others, matching interested singles together, and promoting successful interaction). Uses typology developed to structure review of empirical research on these…

This study explored college women's ideas regarding how their lives would change if their appearance were consistent with a media-supported female beauty ideal. Participants rated self-generated life changes they associated with looking like a media ideal in terms of likelihood and positivity. Women's tendency to link positive and likely life…

D. E. Super's (1957) theory of career development has long been of interest to careers researchers (M. Savickas, 1994; S. C. Whiston & B. K. Brecheisen, 2002). Its insightful illustration of career stages has made it widely applied by careers practitioners, Image norms may influence the career decisions and developmental tasks inherent in each…

Facial attractiveness has been the focus of considerable research in social psychology. Nonverbal behaviors emitted by the face may affect the perceived attractiveness of males and females differently. Visual behavior has particularly important functions in regulating social interaction and in establishing and conveying social power. Power and…

While the influence of competence on interpersonal attraction has been examined from several perspectives, the attraction literature is relatively silent with respect to competitive interactions between the sexes. A study was conducted to examine the roles of competence and physical appearance in liking responses. Male (N=43) and female (N=53)…

Two studies, one with two- to three-month-olds and one with six- to eight-month-olds, examined infant preferences for attractive faces. A visual preference technique was used. Infants were shown slides of faces of adult women previously rated for attractiveness. When shown pairs of attractive and unattractive faces, older and younger infants…

Examined competition and physical attractiveness among women. Results indicated that a large number of females are highly critical of other women, particularly attractive ones, and are highly concerned about their own appearance in relation to other women. (Author/BL)