What do people want to be liked for? You are advised to tell a pretty woman she is smart and a smart woman she is pretty. But people don’t seem that happy with being liked for features like wealth, fame, beauty, strength, talent, smarts, or charisma. People do seem to prefer being liked for more stable features that they are less likely lose with time. But they still often aren’t that happy with being liked for easily visible and hence “shallow” features, relative to “deep” features that take time and attention to discover. And they sometimes say “I want to be liked just for me, not for my features.”
"given how little we can usually do to make ourselves look better" Well, that's actually pretty subjective. What might be a little difference to one person could be a major improvement in another's eyes. For instance, if I shave my legs, I open up my dating opporuntities by probably something like 95% where I live. But I don't really like shaving my legs. It's partly the actual shaving and itchiness of stuble and all that fun stuff, but more the rule that I have to.
To me at least, I've always thought that the "like me for me" thing is more about "warts and all". Not so much about the "deeper", slower to reveal (positive) features, but about the negative features (which are inevitably more evident the more one gets to know a person and their other "deeper" positive features).
I could quite easily change quite a few things about my appearance and presentation which would increase the number of people who would consider me attractive... but do I want to? How much of a pay off is it? I certainly wouldn't say being hairy is an integral part of what makes me "me", but -even discounting the beliefs &/or personality aspects it represents to most people - it still seems like false advertising.
How much can one change about themselves without changing "who they are"? Is conceding to change something one doesn't want to change, in order to increase their dating prospects, just showing maturity and understanding of society works and that relationships are about give-and-take? Or is it insecurity, surrendering values (whether firm or loose), signalling acceptance of inevitable conformity and willingness to further change oneself in exchange for greater acceptance &/or affection? And is it "who one truly is" (ie. "the real me") receiving the affection and acceptance, or is it now a character one is playing?
And then there's the subjectivity of which features are negative or positive or neutral...
"Willpower" is fairy dust. Or perhaps, being unattractive makes it more difficult to gather the willpower. But I can't imagine anything people would want more than being attractive in our extremely judgmental culture, and still the weight loss odds are 20%.
sharing rules of preference derivation does not mean you share the unique preferences those rules generate
True, it's logically possible that we become attached to unique individuals based on a unique weighting of nomothetic traits, but it strikes me as quite farfetched. Why should we so decisively value a particular bundle of more or less equally admirable traits? I think people bond mainly on surface traits; looking for deeper affinities is largely rationalization.
[Added.] Robin says we want to be liked for ourselves reflects our desire that people attach to us. It isn't clear to me why he thinks attachment drives are gratified by being liked for oneself; it isn't even clear to me what Robin thinks it means to be liked for yourself.
Straightforwardly, being like for oneself means being liked for one's (presumed) irreducible uniqueness. But our irreducible uniqueness doesn't lie in our traits as perceived by an observer in far-mode, since abstraction is inherently a reductive process.
As only they are (or can pass for) unique, we long to be liked for our configuration of near-mode traits.
I don't know the data, but my impression is that people do control their weight ... by cycling over half-decade-long periods. (They would end up weighing more if they refrained from dieting.)
The more you want to be attractive, the easier it is to gather the willpower. It also helps to just not get fat in the first place, a feat that the majority of the world population manages to do. In any case you can do something about it if you really want to and without advanced technology or a lot of money.
Weight is very, very hard to control. Most people who lose weight regain it within five years. The only technique that is known to be effective in achieving long-term weight loss is bariatric surgery.
Humans are singular creatures afeared of being alone. We worry of not finding someone able to see beneath our plain-to-see features. Fear and worry lead to desperation, upsetting our ability to think rationally in an un-affectional relationship/bond.
#patienceispower :: I have been struggling with relationships lately (and dwelling on the lack of). Thank you for helping me find perspective.
Everyone's got dozens of attributes that affect their attractiveness: affect, intellect, wit, status, physical appearance, humility, disagreeableness, etc. Many trade-off with each other (eg, politeness and honesty). Any handful of attributes is woefully incomplete, and so merely being high on a couple is simply not enough to be unique (eg, there are millions of men over 6 feet tall with IQs above 140).
Many times there really isn't a choice--my dog really likes me now, but I presume he would have really liked anyone who raised him. That's not the point, rather, we need to matter to some. Life is finite and people aren't that different from each other, so we find someone compatible enough with our preferences and develop a bond (if reciprocated), because friends and lovers are useful and enjoyable. The key is, the bond isn't with my characteristics, but me, because pair bonds form on people (and pets), not abstract characteristics (eg, there's a dopamine-mediated reward pathway for such connections)
sharing rules of preference derivation does not mean you share the unique preferences those rules generate, and it is the unique preferences that facilitate the process of attachment formation. as a superficial and silly example, a pretty girl and i might both like Breaking Bad and Girls conditional on having watched them, but conversation will be a lot easier if we've both actually, you know, watched them.
i think we use surface features to "decide" whether we'll become attached to a person's unique set of deep features and/or attach significance to a shared history. if a person is in our ''attraction range" based on their surface feature score, getting to know them will lead to attachment with a fairly high probability, with the probability increasing as their score relative to ours increases. if they're outside of that range, it won't.
there are all sorts of qualifiers, like unique events destroying or amplifying the process of attachment formation, but in general i think we precommit to the attachment process, or at least steps within it, based on surface feature assessments.
One would reasonably worry about small effects if--as is the case--being liked for one's looks is intensely rewarding (so that small gains involve substantial utilities).
[Folks like RH are misled on this point because of the phenomenon of beautiful women resenting being liked for their looks. But this merely expresses their expectation for a countersignal rather than mere signal: their looks should be so obvious a factor that they need not be mentioned.]
At least for women, a large percentage of your attractiveness level boils down to how much time, money, and effort you put into your presentation. For men, I would guess clothing and hair make a very big (and very easy) difference.
Re your post, given how little we can usually do to make ourselves look better, I don't see why one should worry about making ourselves look so good that we attract people who only like our looks.
"given how little we can usually do to make ourselves look better" Well, that's actually pretty subjective. What might be a little difference to one person could be a major improvement in another's eyes. For instance, if I shave my legs, I open up my dating opporuntities by probably something like 95% where I live. But I don't really like shaving my legs. It's partly the actual shaving and itchiness of stuble and all that fun stuff, but more the rule that I have to.
To me at least, I've always thought that the "like me for me" thing is more about "warts and all". Not so much about the "deeper", slower to reveal (positive) features, but about the negative features (which are inevitably more evident the more one gets to know a person and their other "deeper" positive features).
I could quite easily change quite a few things about my appearance and presentation which would increase the number of people who would consider me attractive... but do I want to? How much of a pay off is it? I certainly wouldn't say being hairy is an integral part of what makes me "me", but -even discounting the beliefs &/or personality aspects it represents to most people - it still seems like false advertising.
How much can one change about themselves without changing "who they are"? Is conceding to change something one doesn't want to change, in order to increase their dating prospects, just showing maturity and understanding of society works and that relationships are about give-and-take? Or is it insecurity, surrendering values (whether firm or loose), signalling acceptance of inevitable conformity and willingness to further change oneself in exchange for greater acceptance &/or affection? And is it "who one truly is" (ie. "the real me") receiving the affection and acceptance, or is it now a character one is playing?
And then there's the subjectivity of which features are negative or positive or neutral...
"Willpower" is fairy dust. Or perhaps, being unattractive makes it more difficult to gather the willpower. But I can't imagine anything people would want more than being attractive in our extremely judgmental culture, and still the weight loss odds are 20%.
sharing rules of preference derivation does not mean you share the unique preferences those rules generate
True, it's logically possible that we become attached to unique individuals based on a unique weighting of nomothetic traits, but it strikes me as quite farfetched. Why should we so decisively value a particular bundle of more or less equally admirable traits? I think people bond mainly on surface traits; looking for deeper affinities is largely rationalization.
[Added.] Robin says we want to be liked for ourselves reflects our desire that people attach to us. It isn't clear to me why he thinks attachment drives are gratified by being liked for oneself; it isn't even clear to me what Robin thinks it means to be liked for yourself.
Straightforwardly, being like for oneself means being liked for one's (presumed) irreducible uniqueness. But our irreducible uniqueness doesn't lie in our traits as perceived by an observer in far-mode, since abstraction is inherently a reductive process.
As only they are (or can pass for) unique, we long to be liked for our configuration of near-mode traits.
I don't know the data, but my impression is that people do control their weight ... by cycling over half-decade-long periods. (They would end up weighing more if they refrained from dieting.)
The more you want to be attractive, the easier it is to gather the willpower. It also helps to just not get fat in the first place, a feat that the majority of the world population manages to do. In any case you can do something about it if you really want to and without advanced technology or a lot of money.
Weight is very, very hard to control. Most people who lose weight regain it within five years. The only technique that is known to be effective in achieving long-term weight loss is bariatric surgery.
Humans are singular creatures afeared of being alone. We worry of not finding someone able to see beneath our plain-to-see features. Fear and worry lead to desperation, upsetting our ability to think rationally in an un-affectional relationship/bond.
#patienceispower :: I have been struggling with relationships lately (and dwelling on the lack of). Thank you for helping me find perspective.
Everyone's got dozens of attributes that affect their attractiveness: affect, intellect, wit, status, physical appearance, humility, disagreeableness, etc. Many trade-off with each other (eg, politeness and honesty). Any handful of attributes is woefully incomplete, and so merely being high on a couple is simply not enough to be unique (eg, there are millions of men over 6 feet tall with IQs above 140).
Many times there really isn't a choice--my dog really likes me now, but I presume he would have really liked anyone who raised him. That's not the point, rather, we need to matter to some. Life is finite and people aren't that different from each other, so we find someone compatible enough with our preferences and develop a bond (if reciprocated), because friends and lovers are useful and enjoyable. The key is, the bond isn't with my characteristics, but me, because pair bonds form on people (and pets), not abstract characteristics (eg, there's a dopamine-mediated reward pathway for such connections)
sharing rules of preference derivation does not mean you share the unique preferences those rules generate, and it is the unique preferences that facilitate the process of attachment formation. as a superficial and silly example, a pretty girl and i might both like Breaking Bad and Girls conditional on having watched them, but conversation will be a lot easier if we've both actually, you know, watched them.
i think we use surface features to "decide" whether we'll become attached to a person's unique set of deep features and/or attach significance to a shared history. if a person is in our ''attraction range" based on their surface feature score, getting to know them will lead to attachment with a fairly high probability, with the probability increasing as their score relative to ours increases. if they're outside of that range, it won't.
there are all sorts of qualifiers, like unique events destroying or amplifying the process of attachment formation, but in general i think we precommit to the attachment process, or at least steps within it, based on surface feature assessments.
Weight is also something both men and women can control about their own bodies and which does make a difference in attractiveness.
But it's our shallow features, not our deep ones, that are unique--which would seem to refute your analysis. [Think fingerprints.]
One would reasonably worry about small effects if--as is the case--being liked for one's looks is intensely rewarding (so that small gains involve substantial utilities).
[Folks like RH are misled on this point because of the phenomenon of beautiful women resenting being liked for their looks. But this merely expresses their expectation for a countersignal rather than mere signal: their looks should be so obvious a factor that they need not be mentioned.]
At least for women, a large percentage of your attractiveness level boils down to how much time, money, and effort you put into your presentation. For men, I would guess clothing and hair make a very big (and very easy) difference.
I believe Cheap Trick did some groundbreaking research in this area...
Re your post, given how little we can usually do to make ourselves look better, I don't see why one should worry about making ourselves look so good that we attract people who only like our looks.