ATTITUDINAL SIMILARITY AND ATTRACTION

Abstract

One hundred and sixty-nine children and one hundred and twenty-five adolescents were classified as high or low empaths. The high and low empaths within each population were randomly assigned to either a control condition of no-attitude information, or to one of the experimental conditions of dissi1nilar or similar attitudes. Subjects indicated their attraction towards as well as their assumed or perceived similarities of the stranger. The repulsion hypothesis was supported with both age groups. Moreover, attraction was found to have no relationship with empathy and age of the partcipants or the assumed/perceived similarities of attitudes. Thus the view that empathy, as a personality variable, moderates responses to attitudinal information was not supported. The two-stage theory of relationship formation was not applicable at all. The question of the suitability of personality in the attraction paradigm is raised.