Social psychologists argue that our environment and culture play a key role in how we form relationships. This may explain why what is considered attractive is different around the world.  In addition, our environment may act as a “filter bubble” for choosing a mate. Social class, the university you attend, the place you work – all of these factors may play a role in whom you meet and what you find attractive.  Zajonc argues that it is “mere exposure” that leads us to relationships.  Several researchers have found cultural differences in what people are looking for in a partner.  One of the difficulties of the cultural arguments is that it is difficult to separate them from the other approaches.

Zajonc argued that we find people who are familiar more attractive. His “mere exposure effect” argues that when we see someone more frequently, we are more likely to find him or her attractive.  He carried out an experiment where a group of female students looked at a series of photos of men’s faces.  Some of the faces they saw only once.  Some they saw several times.  He asked the participants to rank the attractiveness of the males in the photos.  He found that as the frequency of seeing a male’s face increased, so did the women’s scores for attraction. The more they saw the face, the more attractive they found it to be.

This study appears to support the theory and has high internal validity.  It is highly controlled and could be easily replicated.  However, high internal validity also leads to low ecological validity. This is not how we usually meet someone. Seeing a photo limits the attraction only to physical attraction. A relationship also would be based on shared values, personality and other traits.  This approach to understanding relationships could be seen as rather reductionist.

Buss wanted to see the role that culture plays in what people find important in a partner. He did this by giving over 10.000 people from over 30 cultures a questionnaire. Although there were some cultural differences, he found that the results were more similar than different.  He did, however, find a gender difference in the results where women were more likely to indicate financial status as important and men were more focused on physical characteristics.  Buss argues that mate selection may not be as influenced by culture as we would think – and that differences may be due to biological factors linked to the environment. For example, Lowe found that in cultures that have high levels of pathogen stress (parasites, poor hygiene) rated the importance of physical attractiveness of a partner higher. This shows that although environmental factors may determine what we are looking for in a partner, it is not possible to completely isolate the influence of biological factors.

In a more modern study, Ye did a content analysis of online dating profiles for Chinese and American men. Ye found that Chinese profiles focused on physical appearance, financial status and education.  The American profiles focused more on personality and hobbies. This study shows that culture may play a key role in forming relationships.  As Chinese culture is collectivistic, what you can offer a future partner’s family is important – in this case, financial status and education.  It is also important that men meet the societal norms of what is considered a ‘good partner.” In American culture, which is highly individualistic, the culture focuses on uniqueness and the open expression of opinions.  In this sense, discussing personality and hobbies shows what makes this man different from other men.  In spite of the effects of globalization, it appears that cultural differences may still play a role.

As with Buss’s study, Ye had a large sample size.  Unlike Buss, who asked people to fill in a questionnaire, the content analysis of existing profiles means that the Ye study is less open to demand characteristics, such as social desirability effect. Ye also used researcher triangulation with the goal of limiting bias in the interpretation of the profiles.  That being said, it could be a concern as to how these particular profiles were chosen.  There could be a sampling bias in the sample as it may be only younger people of a certain class or education that would use online dating sites. In addition, Ye’s study is limited to Chinese and American participants.  It is not really possible to make a generalization to all individualistic or collectivistic cultures based on this study.

The sociocultural approach argues that environmental and cultural factors play a key role in our relationships.  However, this argument is difficult to separate from the biological and cognitive approaches. As Buss argues, one’s environment may also have an influence on the potential health of offspring.  In this sense, cultural trends may be a response to biological realities in a community.  As a society becomes “healthier”, it may then become less focused on physical strength.  This may be seen as the globalization of ideas, but it could actually be more about lower pathogen stress which is more in line with developed countries.  It is also difficult to separate culture from the cognitive approach which argues that we are looking for people like us to validate our sense of self.  It would, therefore, make sense that most people would find people that share cultural values more attractive than those that don’t.  This is a good example of how the three approaches work together in explaining human relationships.