Reward theory of attraction

The reward theory of attraction states that people are attracted to individuals exhibiting behaviors that are rewarding to them, whom they associate with rewarding events, or have positive, fulfilling interactions with.

Reward theory was originally developed in the research on interpersonal attraction of the 1960s, a precursor to modern romantic love research. In this early context, "attraction" was often defined as "a positive attitude towards a particular person". Romantic love science was not explicitly studied yet in this period of history; the subject was even considered "taboo" for research.

Attraction was initially conceived of as a continuum, with liking being a "mild" form of attraction at one end, and romantic love being a "strong" attraction at the other end. This idea of a continuum started to change in 1970, when Zick Rubin published his distinction between "liking" and "loving". A later distinction was made by Elaine Hatfield between "passionate" and "companionate" love. Passionate love is "a state of intense longing for another" which involves incentive salience ("wanting", or what is attention-grabbing). Companionate love is "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined" (or "strong liking").

A successor to reward theory is the self-expansion model by Arthur & Elaine Aron in 1986, which conceptualizes reward as "whatever creates expansion of the self". Like reward theory, self-expansion encompasses "mini-theories" of falling in love and long-term relationships, and has been used to explain the process behind "strong attractions" like passionate love, and Dorothy Tennov's concept of limerence.

Another variant on reward theory, and early prevailing approach to attraction was social exchange theory.

A separate area of research was impression formation, which studied those impressions based on knowledge (i.e. information), rather than the emotional reactions (i.e. affect) studied by interpersonal attraction.