The Relationship Between Musical Preferences Similarity And Interpersonal Attraction

The similarity effect refers to the phenomenon that attractiveness increases with the increase of similarity in attitudes,personal traits and other characteristics.Based on similarity-attraction paradigm and information integration model,the present study explored the influence of musical preferences similarity on interpersonal attraction.Three experiments were conducted to explore the mediating and moderating effects of information integration model on the relationship between similarity and interpersonal attraction,including cognitive evaluation,information salience,valence and weight to clarify the mechanism of the influence of musical preferences similarity on interpersonal attraction are discussed in order to clarify the mechanism of the influence of musical preferences similarity on interpersonal attraction.It is also the first time to verify the integrity of the information integration model.Experiment 1 was a 3(musical preferences similarity)× 2(information salience)between-subjects design.By measuring the participants’ cognitive evaluation and interpersonal attraction under different similarity and salience conditions,the similarity effect and the role of cognitive evaluation and information salience were tested.The results showed that:(1)the main effect of similarity and salience was significant;(2)the interaction between musical preferences similarity and information salience was significant;(3)cognitive evaluation mediated the relationship between musical preferences similarity and interpersonal attraction;(4)the mediating effect of cognitive evaluation was only significant under high salience,but not significant under low salience.In Experiment 2,information valence was added to explore the mediating role between musical preferences similarity and interpersonal attraction in the condition of high salience.The experiment was designed for single factor 3(musical preferences similarity).The results showed that:(1)the main effect of musical preferences similarity on information valence was significant,similar musical preference information was endowed with more positive valence than dissimilar musical preference information;(2)information valence and cognitive evaluation played a serial mediating effect between musical preferences similarity and interpersonal attraction.In Experiment 3,based on experiment 2,the possible moderating effect of information weight on the serial mediating effect of information valence and cognitive evaluation was discussed.The experiment was a2(music preference similarity)x 2(information weight)between-subjects design.The results showed that:(1)the interaction between musical preferences similarity and information weight was not significant;(2)the serial mediating effect of information valence and cognitive evaluation was significant only under high weight condition,but not significant under low weight condition.In conclusion,the present study found out the mechanism of musical preferences similarity on interpersonal attraction and its boundary conditions:(a)through the mediation of cognitive evaluation,the effect is stronger under the condition of high information salience and weaker under the condition of low salience;(b)through the serial mediation of information valence and cognitive evaluation,if and only if high information weight was effective.To sum up,this study not only expanded the research field of similarity effect,but also validated the explanatory paths of information integration model to similarity effect,which provided empirical support for this model.