Previous studies have indicated that attraction for a high-status other is increased when the other exhibits a small blunder or weakness, thus making the other appear "more human." The present study sought to ascertain whether or not this relationship can be generalized to conditions in which the subject is dependent on the high-status other. Specifically, hospitalized psychiatric patients were...

Being able to comprehend another person's intentions and emotions is essential for successful social interaction. However, it is currently unknown whether the human brain possesses a neural mechanism that attracts people to others whose mental states they can easily understand. Here we show that the degree to which a person feels attracted to another person can change while they observe the oth...

We hypothesized that depressed individuals are generally viewed as dissimilar and that this perceived dissimilarity contributes to negative reactions to the depressed. In addition, we hypothesized that if perceived similarity affects liking of depressed individuals, then nondepressed subjects should prefer nondepressed targets, but depressed subjects should not share this preference. To test th...