Romantic attraction and generalized liking for others who are sources of conflict-based arousal.

A variety of studies have reported increased attraction to stimulus persons encountered in arousing circumstances. A variety of explanations have been put forward for this arousal-attraction effect including misattribution (Dutton & Aron, 1974) and negative reinforcement (Kenrick & Cialdini, 1977). The present study demonstrates the arousal-attraction effect in circumstances where negative reinforcement does not occur by making the stimulus persons the source of aversive arousal rather than a distraction lowering the arousal. It is concluded that, while both negative reinforcement and misattribution might occur when the stimulus person is a distractor, negative reinforcement does not explain the present data. Furthermore, the arousal-attraction effect occurs only for items measuring romantic attraction, not for items measuring generalized liking. Some implications of this finding for an earlier study by Riordan and Tedeschi (1983) are discussed. Finally, it appears that, for conflict-based arousal, males and females interpret their affective reactions differently, with males reporting more anger, females more anxiety. It is suggested that sex role socialization might influence the schemata that determine selfreports of affective states.