Attraction toward Another as a Function of Similarity and Commonality of Attitudes

Abstract

One approach in accounting for the direct relationship between attitude similarity and attraction is to treat agreement as a reinforcer, providing reward through consensual validation. It was hypothesized that agreement should therefore lead to greater attraction in minority opinion Ss than in majority Ss. Minority or majority Ss compared attitudinal responses on an important or unimportant topic with a confederate who agreed with either 25% or 75% of responses. Further, regardless of initial position, half the Ss were told they were in a minority, half, a majority. Confirming the hypothesis, increased agreement led to greater attraction for actual minority Ss on both topics, and for actual majority Ss only when given minority feedback on an important topic.