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If your loved one claims to “only have eyes for you” this Valentine’s Day, it might be truer than you think. Research shows that people in a committed relationship who have been thinking about their partner actually avert their eyes from attractive members of the opposite sex without even being aware they are doing it.
Psychologist Jon Maner of Florida State University and his colleagues flashed pictures of faces on a computer screen for half a second, following it immediately with a square or circle, which participants had to identify by pushing the correct button. Earlier research using this method has found that it takes longer for viewers to shift their attention away from attractive faces of the opposite sex.
Maner, however, took subjects who were married or living together monogamously and asked half of them to write about feelings of love for their partner and the other half to write about a happy experience. Those who wrote about love actually turned their attention away from attractive members of the opposite sex even more quickly than they looked away from average-looking people. Subjects who wrote about being happy, however, remained as distracted by a pretty face as ever.
This unconscious attentional bias probably evolved to help men and women stay in monogamous relationships, which in humans tend to have a reproductive advantage, Maner explains: “This whole research area is guided largely by an evolutionary perspective. These biases have been built into our psychology to enhance people’s reproductive success.”
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "See No Beauty".
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18 Comments
Add CommentInteresting results. The conclusions are always pure fantasy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeen there done that
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisinteresting finding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow can scientists be so romantic?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy the short comments
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it possible that they looked away from the attractive faces out of guilt, instead of some naturally ingrained behavior? If your wife catches you looking at an attractive woman, you might get knocked upside the head with a sturdy purse. Perhaps it's just conditioning. You learn to associate attractive people with a negative response from your spouse and because of that, you seek to avoid such attractive people. Seems a lot simpler than some hard-wired biological function that we're not really aware of. Conditioning just makes more sense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisok? wow! idk about that...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always have to wonder if there is somewhat of a bias that the researchers have when I see this kind of study. I have read time and time again that humans, and most other mammals, are not all that monogamous. Our tendancy towards monogamy, as we practice it today, would appear to have more to do with social mores than biology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is quite amusing. I remember that some genetics research had to be called off in G.B. as when they tried to follow genetic links back in time through generations they kept finding that so called monogamy seemed to be a bit of a pretense as oftentimes there seemed to be gene disruptions that could have only been..."the mail man" but certainly not the husband. It was the woman who strayed more than the husband it seemed...Our species might act out monogamy but really what is wanted is the caretaker male at home but the gene pool of some macho guy for the stud. Hey, we are after all, just primates and we ought to just go with the flow on this. What this study regarding people in love is a particular and I would say temporary glitch in what is oftentimes a secretive gene mixing that takes place sub rosa. Maybe the guy is looking away from the nice looking female but I suggest, perhaps his spouse is still looking at the males. The assumption so often is that it is the male who has the roving eye. Women, I suggest, are just more subtle about their infidelities and thus, are less public about them. Someone is getting lucky but likely not a married bloke.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit's true people, how do I know ? Because I've been there once.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that I must agree with those of you that say that it is most likely the woman that isn't pure to her man. If you look back to the roman and greek times, when the man went off to battle, it was the man that went and raped other women, yes, but you think about what the women did. They were supposed to have tried to stay true to her husband. But, if you look at relationships nowadays, and my boyfriend lives on another continent. He swears he is loyal to me and only me, but since I got my new job, I've not been online with him like I used to and so now I'm not so sure that I truly love him as much as I did before. Even after 4 years, there is some questioning. Always harder to stay true to the one you love when you don't see them as often as you would like to see them. Or, so I say. It may be different for other people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, and people who look away are probably smarter, richer, sexier and just plain replicas of god- except for the raging internal jealousy they, perhaps, are owned by.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNah, people who look away are conditioned to self-loathe upon recognizance of sexual weakness or they have the sex-drive of an old panda.
Interesting
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"This unconscious attentional bias probably evolved to help men and women stay in monogamous relationships, which in humans tend to have a reproductive advantage, Maner explains: "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've heard many scientists "explain" this, but I have never seen any convincing evidence or reasoning based on evolutionary principles to support this theory that monogamous relationships gave early humans a reproductive advantage. The more monogamous a species is, the smaller their population, and thus, genetic variety, is. "Probably evolved" is an unconvincing ad hoc way to explain empirical findings.
The research used men and WOMEN- hello. Women do not get hit with purses when looking at the opposite sex, or even beautiful, eye catching women, so this would be a flaw in the study.. to say it is conditioning. I am not saying you do not bring up a relative issue; you may have a point.. but what about the females in the study? Are women automatically more faithful and monogamous than men when in love? Maybe, maybe not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue love?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't it more contemporary to call it 'quantum mechanics'. For falling in love see 'Many worlds interpretation'. For witchcraft see 'transactional interpretation' for 'buzz off' see 'Copenhagen interpretation'.
I have noticed that this is true. They say it is intentional. I do not know if it is or not, but I do think it is something that can continue to be built upon in research. If this is true, perhaps they can figure out why things go wrong more in depth as to why people cheat after having such monogamous relations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about people in long-term "open" relationships?
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