Similarity refers to the psychological degree of identity of two mental representations. It is fundamental to human cognition since it provides the basis for categorization of entities into kinds and for various other cognitive processes.[1] It underpins our ability to interact with unknown entities by predicting how they will behave based on their similarity to entities we are familiar with.[2] Research in cognitive psychology has taken a number of approaches to the concept of similarity. Each of them is related to a particular set of assumptions about knowledge representation.
Mental distance approaches (Shepard 1962) assume that mental representations can be conceptualized as some kind of mental space. Concepts are represented as points within the space. Similarity between concepts is a function of the distance between the concepts in space. Concepts represented by points that are near to each other are more psychologically similar than are points that are conceptually distant. A strength of this approach is there are many mathematical techniques for deriving spaces from data such as multidimensional scaling (Shepard 1962) and latent semantic analysis (Landauer & Dumais 1997).
Featural approachesEdit
Featural approaches (Tversky 1977) were developed to address limitations of the mental distance approaches. For example, spaces are symmetric. The distance between two points is the same regardless of which point you start from. However, psychological similarity is not symmetric. For example, we often prefer to state similarity in one direction. For example, it feels more natural to say that 101 is like 100 than to say that 100 is like 101. Furthermore, many metaphors are also directional. Saying "That surgeon is a butcher" means something quite different from saying "That butcher is a surgeon."
Featural approaches assumed that people represent concepts by lists of features that describe properties of the items. A similarity comparison involves comparing the feature lists that represent the concepts. Features that are shared in the feature lists are commonalities of the pair and features that are contained in one feature set but not the other are differences of the pair. It is possible to account for people's intuitions or ratings of the similarities between concepts by assuming that judgments of similarity increase with the number of commonalities (weighted by the salience of those commonalities) and decreases with the number of differences (weighted by the salience of the differences).
Structural approachesEdit
Structural approaches to similarity (Gentner & Markman 1997) were developed to address limitations of the featural account. In particular, featural approaches assume that the commonalities and differences are independent of each other. However, commonalities and differences are not psychologically independent. In fact, determining the differences between a pair requires finding the commonalities. Consider the comparison between a car and a motorcycle. Both have wheels. That is a commonality. However, cars have four wheels, while motorcycles have two wheels. That is a difference. Because this difference required first finding a commonality between the pair, it is called an alignable difference. Alignable differences contrast with nonalignable differences which are aspects of one concept that have no correspondence in the other. For example, cars have seatbelts and motorcycles do not. Research suggests that alignable differences have a larger impact on people's judgments of similarity than do nonalignable differences. Thus, the relationship between the commonalities of a pair and the differences is important for understanding people's assessments of similarity. Structural approaches to similarity emerged from research on analogy.
Transformational approachesEdit
Transformational accounts of similarity (Hahn, Chater & Richardson 2003) were developed to evaluate similarity independently of the type of mental representation. On this view, any mental representation can be transformed into another mental representation through some series of steps. For any representation system and set of transformations, it is possible to define the shortest set of steps (i.e., the shortest program) that will transform one representation into another. The shorter this minimal program, the more similarity the pair of concepts. Larkey & Markman (2005) found some evidence against this view, showing that the number of steps to transform the colors and shapes of geometric objects does not predict people's similarity judgments for those objects.
Social psychological approachesEdit
In social psychology large amounts of empirical evidence indicate that similarity breeds liking; this is known as the similarity effect.[3] Similarity refers to personality, attitudes, values, interests,[4] and attraction shared between to individuals.[3] Similarity is closely related to Bryne's social psychology model of interpersonal attraction (1961) which is determined by four variables: propinquity (how our environment and situation play a role in determining how often and to what degree we come in contact), need for affiliation, overt stimulus characteristics (refers to the observable attributes of an individual that serve to elicit positive or negative responses from others), and similarity.[3][5][6] In short we determine our attraction or liking of another by positive and negative reinforcements and our emotions concerning the matter.[7] When Individual A receives positive reinforcement from individual B, A's attraction toward B, increases the reverse is also true.[7] Attitude similarity has also been found to serve as a strong foundation for long lasting friendship.[8] Friends who share a similar interest in activities where more likely to perceive similarity and liking then those who shared similar attitudes.[8] An individual's perceived similarity with another has been proven to show potential for romantic relationships even though actual similarity was reported to be low.[3] These findings explain that individuals are more likely to be attracted to those who they perceive to share similar activities with such as occupation and hobbies.[8] Propinquity also explains the relationship between liking and activities, those with similar interests tend to put themselves into similar types of settings increasing their chances of interaction.[3][5][8] As frequency of interaction between 2 or more people increases, the degree of perceived similarity and liking for one another increases eventually leading to long lasting relationships.[6]
Several explanations have been offered to explain in what way similarity increases interpersonal attraction (like-prefers-like).[9] First, people with similar interests tend to put themselves into similar types of settings. For example, two people interested in literature are likely to run into each other in the library and form a relationship (involving the propinquity effect).[10] Another explanation is that we notice similar people, and expect a relationship to be interpersonally validating and beneficial because of similar attitudes, behaviours and values.[9][11] People are susceptible to making negative judgements about those who are 'out of group' than 'in group' from them socially, behaviorally or of different morals and values.[12] Specifically, the 'Big Five' personality trait dimensions (extroversion and introversion, agreeableness and disagreeableness, openness and closeness, conscientiousness and apathetic, as well as mental stability and neuroticism) are behavioural traits often used to assess similarity or dissimilarity in relationships.[13]
^Cowling, Sam (2017). "Resemblance". Philosophy Compass. 12 (4): e12401. doi:10.1111/phc3.12401.
^Holyoak, K.; Morrison, B. (2005). "2. Similarity". The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. Cambridge University Press.
^ abcdeMontoya, R. Matthew; Horton, Robert S.; Kirchner, Jeffrey (December 2008). "Is actual similarity necessary for attraction? A meta-analysis of actual and perceived similarity". Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 25 (6): 889–922. doi:10.1177/0265407508096700. ISSN 0265-4075. S2CID 145590102.
^Byrne, Donn; Nelson, Don (January 1964). "Attraction as a function of attitude similarity-dissimilarity: the effect of topic importance". Psychonomic Science. 1 (1–12): 93–94. doi:10.3758/bf03342806. ISSN 0033-3131.
^ abRand, Thomas M.; Wexley, Kenneth N. (April 1975). "Demonstration of the Effect, "Similar to Me," in Simulated Employment Interviews". Psychological Reports. 36 (2): 535–544. doi:10.2466/pr0.1975.36.2.535. ISSN 0033-2941. S2CID 145715659.
^ abNewcomb, Theodore M. (1956). "The prediction of interpersonal attraction". American Psychologist. 11 (11): 575–586. doi:10.1037/h0046141. ISSN 0003-066X.
^ abByrne, Donn; Clore, Gerald L., Jr.; Worchel, Philip (1966). "Effect of economic similarity-dissimilarity on interpersonal attraction". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 4 (2): 220–224. doi:10.1037/h0023559. ISSN 0022-3514.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ abcdWerner, Carol; Parmelee, Pat (March 1979). "Similarity of Activity Preferences Among Friends: Those Who Play Together Stay Together". Social Psychology Quarterly. 42 (1): 62. doi:10.2307/3033874. ISSN 0190-2725. JSTOR 3033874.
^ abLydon, John E.; Jamieson, David W.; Zanna, Mark P. (1988-12-01). "Interpersonal Similarity and the Social and Intellectual Dimensions of First Impressions". Social Cognition. 6 (4): 269–286. doi:10.1521/soco.1988.6.4.269. ISSN 0278-016X.
^Liberman, Zoe; Shaw, Alex (2019-08-01). "Children use similarity, propinquity, and loyalty to predict which people are friends". Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 184: 1–17. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.002. ISSN 1096-0457. PMID 30974289. S2CID 109941102.
^Montoya, R. Matthew; Kershaw, Christine; Prosser, Julie L. (July 2018). "A meta-analytic investigation of the relation between interpersonal attraction and enacted behavior". Psychological Bulletin. 144 (7): 673–709. doi:10.1037/bul0000148. ISSN 1939-1455. PMID 29733622. S2CID 13685509.
^Marques, José M.; Robalo, Elisabete M.; Rocha, Susana A. (July 1992). "Ingroup bias and the 'black sheep' effect: Assessing the impact of social identification and perceived variability on group judgements". European Journal of Social Psychology. 22 (4): 331–352. doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420220403.
^Buecker, Susanne; Maes, Marlies; Denissen, Jaap J. A.; Luhmann, Maike (January 2020). "Loneliness and the Big Five Personality Traits: A Meta–Analysis". European Journal of Personality. 34 (1): 8–28. doi:10.1002/per.2229. ISSN 0890-2070. S2CID 214301960.
Gentner, Dedre; Markman, Arthur B. (1997). (PDF). American Psychologist. 52 (1): 45–56. CiteSeerX10.1.1.87.5696. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.52.1.45. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Hahn, Ulrike; Chater, Nick; Richardson, Lucy B (2003). (PDF). Cognition. 87 (1): 1–32. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00184-1. PMID 12499105. S2CID 5743682. Archived from the original on 2015-09-04.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Landauer, Thomas K.; Dumais, Susan T. (1997). (PDF). Psychological Review. 104 (2): 211–240. CiteSeerX10.1.1.184.4759. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.104.2.211. Archived from the original on 2016-04-06.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
Larkey, Levi B.; Markman, Arthur B. (2005). "Processes of Similarity Judgment". Cognitive Science. 29 (6): 1061–1076. CiteSeerX10.1.1.666.1693. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0000_30. PMID 21702803.
Shepard, Roger N. (1962). "The analysis of proximities: Multidimensional scaling with an unknown distance function. I.". Psychometrika. 27 (2): 125–140. doi:10.1007/BF02289630. S2CID 186222646.
Tversky, Amos (1977). (PDF). Psychological Review. 84 (4): 327–352. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.4.327. Archived from the original on 2016-05-06.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
October 17, 2023
similarity, psychology, similarity, refers, psychological, degree, identity, mental, representations, fundamental, human, cognition, since, provides, basis, categorization, entities, into, kinds, various, other, cognitive, processes, underpins, ability, intera. Similarity refers to the psychological degree of identity of two mental representations It is fundamental to human cognition since it provides the basis for categorization of entities into kinds and for various other cognitive processes 1 It underpins our ability to interact with unknown entities by predicting how they will behave based on their similarity to entities we are familiar with 2 Research in cognitive psychology has taken a number of approaches to the concept of similarity Each of them is related to a particular set of assumptions about knowledge representation Contents 1 Cognitive psychological approaches 1 1 Mental distance approaches 1 2 Featural approaches 1 3 Structural approaches 1 4 Transformational approaches 2 Social psychological approaches 3 See also 4 ReferencesCognitive psychological approaches EditMental distance approaches Edit Mental distance approaches Shepard 1962 assume that mental representations can be conceptualized as some kind of mental space Concepts are represented as points within the space Similarity between concepts is a function of the distance between the concepts in space Concepts represented by points that are near to each other are more psychologically similar than are points that are conceptually distant A strength of this approach is there are many mathematical techniques for deriving spaces from data such as multidimensional scaling Shepard 1962 and latent semantic analysis Landauer amp Dumais 1997 Featural approaches Edit Featural approaches Tversky 1977 were developed to address limitations of the mental distance approaches For example spaces are symmetric The distance between two points is the same regardless of which point you start from However psychological similarity is not symmetric For example we often prefer to state similarity in one direction For example it feels more natural to say that 101 is like 100 than to say that 100 is like 101 Furthermore many metaphors are also directional Saying That surgeon is a butcher means something quite different from saying That butcher is a surgeon Featural approaches assumed that people represent concepts by lists of features that describe properties of the items A similarity comparison involves comparing the feature lists that represent the concepts Features that are shared in the feature lists are commonalities of the pair and features that are contained in one feature set but not the other are differences of the pair It is possible to account for people s intuitions or ratings of the similarities between concepts by assuming that judgments of similarity increase with the number of commonalities weighted by the salience of those commonalities and decreases with the number of differences weighted by the salience of the differences Structural approaches Edit Structural approaches to similarity Gentner amp Markman 1997 were developed to address limitations of the featural account In particular featural approaches assume that the commonalities and differences are independent of each other However commonalities and differences are not psychologically independent In fact determining the differences between a pair requires finding the commonalities Consider the comparison between a car and a motorcycle Both have wheels That is a commonality However cars have four wheels while motorcycles have two wheels That is a difference Because this difference required first finding a commonality between the pair it is called an alignable difference Alignable differences contrast with nonalignable differences which are aspects of one concept that have no correspondence in the other For example cars have seatbelts and motorcycles do not Research suggests that alignable differences have a larger impact on people s judgments of similarity than do nonalignable differences Thus the relationship between the commonalities of a pair and the differences is important for understanding people s assessments of similarity Structural approaches to similarity emerged from research on analogy Transformational approaches Edit Transformational accounts of similarity Hahn Chater amp Richardson 2003 were developed to evaluate similarity independently of the type of mental representation On this view any mental representation can be transformed into another mental representation through some series of steps For any representation system and set of transformations it is possible to define the shortest set of steps i e the shortest program that will transform one representation into another The shorter this minimal program the more similarity the pair of concepts Larkey amp Markman 2005 found some evidence against this view showing that the number of steps to transform the colors and shapes of geometric objects does not predict people s similarity judgments for those objects Social psychological approaches EditIn social psychology large amounts of empirical evidence indicate that similarity breeds liking this is known as the similarity effect 3 Similarity refers to personality attitudes values interests 4 and attraction shared between to individuals 3 Similarity is closely related to Bryne s social psychology model of interpersonal attraction 1961 which is determined by four variables propinquity how our environment and situation play a role in determining how often and to what degree we come in contact need for affiliation overt stimulus characteristics refers to the observable attributes of an individual that serve to elicit positive or negative responses from others and similarity 3 5 6 In short we determine our attraction or liking of another by positive and negative reinforcements and our emotions concerning the matter 7 When Individual A receives positive reinforcement from individual B A s attraction toward B increases the reverse is also true 7 Attitude similarity has also been found to serve as a strong foundation for long lasting friendship 8 Friends who share a similar interest in activities where more likely to perceive similarity and liking then those who shared similar attitudes 8 An individual s perceived similarity with another has been proven to show potential for romantic relationships even though actual similarity was reported to be low 3 These findings explain that individuals are more likely to be attracted to those who they perceive to share similar activities with such as occupation and hobbies 8 Propinquity also explains the relationship between liking and activities those with similar interests tend to put themselves into similar types of settings increasing their chances of interaction 3 5 8 As frequency of interaction between 2 or more people increases the degree of perceived similarity and liking for one another increases eventually leading to long lasting relationships 6 Several explanations have been offered to explain in what way similarity increases interpersonal attraction like prefers like 9 First people with similar interests tend to put themselves into similar types of settings For example two people interested in literature are likely to run into each other in the library and form a relationship involving the propinquity effect 10 Another explanation is that we notice similar people and expect a relationship to be interpersonally validating and beneficial because of similar attitudes behaviours and values 9 11 People are susceptible to making negative judgements about those who are out of group than in group from them socially behaviorally or of different morals and values 12 Specifically the Big Five personality trait dimensions extroversion and introversion agreeableness and disagreeableness openness and closeness conscientiousness and apathetic as well as mental stability and neuroticism are behavioural traits often used to assess similarity or dissimilarity in relationships 13 See also EditRapport Similarity philosophy References Edit Cowling Sam 2017 Resemblance Philosophy Compass 12 4 e12401 doi 10 1111 phc3 12401 Holyoak K Morrison B 2005 2 Similarity The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning Cambridge University Press a b c d e Montoya R Matthew Horton Robert S Kirchner Jeffrey December 2008 Is actual similarity necessary for attraction A meta analysis of actual and perceived similarity Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 25 6 889 922 doi 10 1177 0265407508096700 ISSN 0265 4075 S2CID 145590102 Byrne Donn Nelson Don January 1964 Attraction as a function of attitude similarity dissimilarity the effect of topic importance Psychonomic Science 1 1 12 93 94 doi 10 3758 bf03342806 ISSN 0033 3131 a b Rand Thomas M Wexley Kenneth N April 1975 Demonstration of the Effect Similar to Me in Simulated Employment Interviews Psychological Reports 36 2 535 544 doi 10 2466 pr0 1975 36 2 535 ISSN 0033 2941 S2CID 145715659 a b Newcomb Theodore M 1956 The prediction of interpersonal attraction American Psychologist 11 11 575 586 doi 10 1037 h0046141 ISSN 0003 066X a b Byrne Donn Clore Gerald L Jr Worchel Philip 1966 Effect of economic similarity dissimilarity on interpersonal attraction Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 4 2 220 224 doi 10 1037 h0023559 ISSN 0022 3514 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link a b c d Werner Carol Parmelee Pat March 1979 Similarity of Activity Preferences Among Friends Those Who Play Together Stay Together Social Psychology Quarterly 42 1 62 doi 10 2307 3033874 ISSN 0190 2725 JSTOR 3033874 a b Lydon John E Jamieson David W Zanna Mark P 1988 12 01 Interpersonal Similarity and the Social and Intellectual Dimensions of First Impressions Social Cognition 6 4 269 286 doi 10 1521 soco 1988 6 4 269 ISSN 0278 016X Liberman Zoe Shaw Alex 2019 08 01 Children use similarity propinquity and loyalty to predict which people are friends Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 184 1 17 doi 10 1016 j jecp 2019 03 002 ISSN 1096 0457 PMID 30974289 S2CID 109941102 Montoya R Matthew Kershaw Christine Prosser Julie L July 2018 A meta analytic investigation of the relation between interpersonal attraction and enacted behavior Psychological Bulletin 144 7 673 709 doi 10 1037 bul0000148 ISSN 1939 1455 PMID 29733622 S2CID 13685509 Marques Jose M Robalo Elisabete M Rocha Susana A July 1992 Ingroup bias and the black sheep effect Assessing the impact of social identification and perceived variability on group judgements European Journal of Social Psychology 22 4 331 352 doi 10 1002 ejsp 2420220403 Buecker Susanne Maes Marlies Denissen Jaap J A Luhmann Maike January 2020 Loneliness and the Big Five Personality Traits A Meta Analysis European Journal of Personality 34 1 8 28 doi 10 1002 per 2229 ISSN 0890 2070 S2CID 214301960 Gentner Dedre Markman Arthur B 1997 Structure mapping in analogy and similarity PDF American Psychologist 52 1 45 56 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 87 5696 doi 10 1037 0003 066X 52 1 45 Archived from the original on 2016 03 24 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Hahn Ulrike Chater Nick Richardson Lucy B 2003 Similarity as transformation PDF Cognition 87 1 1 32 doi 10 1016 S0010 0277 02 00184 1 PMID 12499105 S2CID 5743682 Archived from the original on 2015 09 04 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Landauer Thomas K Dumais Susan T 1997 A solution to Plato s problem The latent semantic analysis theory of acquisition induction and representation of knowledge PDF Psychological Review 104 2 211 240 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 184 4759 doi 10 1037 0033 295X 104 2 211 Archived from the original on 2016 04 06 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Larkey Levi B Markman Arthur B 2005 Processes of Similarity Judgment Cognitive Science 29 6 1061 1076 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 666 1693 doi 10 1207 s15516709cog0000 30 PMID 21702803 Shepard Roger N 1962 The analysis of proximities Multidimensional scaling with an unknown distance function I Psychometrika 27 2 125 140 doi 10 1007 BF02289630 S2CID 186222646 Tversky Amos 1977 Features of similarity PDF Psychological Review 84 4 327 352 doi 10 1037 0033 295X 84 4 327 Archived from the original on 2016 05 06 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint bot original URL status unknown link Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Similarity psychology amp oldid 1159727300 Mental distance approaches, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
