Archive for October, 2015

Like Attracting Like

Sunday, October 4th, 2015

Being drawn to people who look like ourselves is a common phenomenon firmly based in science. A number of recent articles provide an explanation, here, here, and here. When finding another person attractive, your standards will relate to aspects of your own appearance that you know best — your face, the shape of your head and body, your coloring, etc.

Does this “like attracted to like” phenomenon apply beyond our evaluation of other people?

I think so.

It’s often remarked how the pets people choose, especially dogs, look like their owners. From anecdotal evidence, and my practice as an armchair psychologist, I believe a strong case can be made that this gravitational pull extends even further — to inanimate things that catch our eye in the material world. I’ve posted about this subject once before, here. Yesterday brought to my sight another example.

At Costco there was an indoor display of pumpkins. It was huge, while maybe not yoogeWhen autumn arrives, who among us — whether a person or a cartoon character — can resist the spell of ripe pumpkins? The scene was worthy of being photographed and so I snapped several pictures of it.

Here’s one:

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Pumpkins at Costo

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Later at home, while looking through the full set of photos, one picture jumped out. It includes a woman who, amid the crowd attracted to this harvest of pumpkins, I remember reacted to the display with special delight:

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I rest my case.

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