Robert Horton

• Wabash College

A comprehensive model of interpersonal attraction is presented in which attraction is an emotion expressed to regulate interpersonal relationships. The model proposes that cognitive appraisals, the subjective experience, and the expression of affiliative behavior are fundamental to understanding how attraction operates. Specifically, we discuss how...

To evaluate the veracity of models of the mere exposure effect and to understand the processes that moderate the effect, we conducted a meta-analysis of the influence of repeated exposure on liking, familiarity, recognition, among other evaluations. We estimated parameters from 268 curve estimates drawn from 81 articles and revealed that the mere e...

This study investigated the links between parenting and grandiose narcissism in hopes of clarifying recent empirical discrepancies. One-hundred forty-five participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and reported about their parents' support, coldness, monitoring, psychological control, and overvaluation. Psychological control was...

We describe a model for understanding interpersonal attraction in which attraction can be understood as a product of the initial evaluations we make about others. The model posits that targets are evaluated on two basic dimensions, capacity and willingness, such that affective and behavioral attraction result from evaluations of (a) a target's capa...

This research investigated two competing explanations of the similarity effect: Byrne’s (1971) reinforcement model and the information processing perspective. A meta-analysis of 240 laboratory-based similarity studies explored moderators important to the similarity effect, including set size, proportion of similarity, centrality of attitudes, and i...

An impressive empirical literature suggests that physical attractiveness is associated with interpersonal attraction and with specific personality traits, some of which are favorable and many of which are objectively unrelated to attractiveness. Interestingly, much of the research investigating the impact of attractiveness on liking and personality...

Narcissists and nonnarcissists were insulted by high-status and low-status evaluators and were given an opportunity to self-protect with a comparative (evaluator derogation; Experiment 1) and noncomparative (inflated state self-esteem; Experiments 1 and 2) strategy. Narcissists engaged in comparative self-protection indiscriminately (i.e., derogati...

To evaluate the impact of actual and perceived similarity on interpersonal attraction, we meta-analyzed 460 effect sizes from 313 laboratory and field investigations. Results indicated that the associations between interpersonal attraction and both actual similarity (r = .47) and perceived similarity (r = .39) were significant and large. The data a...

The current study examined the relationship of the Levenson self-report psychopathy (LSRP) scales to indices of personality disorder (PD) and trait and temperament (TNT) from the schedule of non-adaptive and adaptive personality (SNAP). In a sample of college students (N = 276), LSRP primary and secondary subscales were predictably related to SNAP...

Self-enhancement is linked to psychological gains (e.g., subjective well-being, persistence in adversity) but also to intrapersonal and interpersonal costs (e.g., excessive risk taking, antisocial behavior). Thus, constraints on self-enhancement may sometimes afford intrapersonal and interpersonal advantages. We tested whether explanatory introspec...

Previous theorizing by clinical psychologists suggests that adolescent narcissism may be related to parenting practices (Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1977). Two studies investigated the relations between parenting dimensions (i.e., warmth, monitoring, and psychological control) and narcissism both with and without removing from narcissism variance associ...

Three studies examined a model of attraction in which the cognitive evaluation of the target individual was the primary determinant of interpersonal attraction. In Study 1, the cognitive evaluation of the target individual mediated the influence of attitude similarity on interpersonal attraction. In Study 2, a path analysis revealed significant ind...

Previous research suggests that listening to Mozart's music enhances performance on subsequent tests of spatial ability. One explanation for this result is that Mozart's music produces a positive arousal state that increases alertness and thus, enhances spatial performance. In this study, we sampled elementary students in order to investigate (1) t...