A film about love usually begins like this: they meet by chance, look at each other, exchange a few sentences at most, romantic music appears in the background and it is already known that they are destined for each other. And what in real life do you need to fall in love? What features make a partner attractive?

And how does this really happen? In normal lifefalling in lovecan also be violent and unexpected and create a subjective feeling of bewilderment. However, this phenomenon is much more complicated than it appears in the movies and is accompanied by many circumstances that we usually ignore.

Falling in love - transferred emotions

We made a mini-poll among friends' couples. We asked them how they met and loved each other. Most often, it turned out that they first attracted attention in quite unusual circumstances, e.g. during a student strike or during a canoeing trip. Each of these situations evoked strong emotions - willingness to act, anxiety, the need to test themselves. Such unusual conditions make the body aroused: the heart beats faster, blood pressure rises, the face turns red, the head buzzes, etc. The same symptoms accompany sudden infatuation. friends and we will read it as falling in love. Psychologists call this phenomenon the interpretation of emotional arousal. Here's an example: Anna had a really difficult day. First, she lost an important flash drive, then argued with the boss. When she went out for a walk in the afternoon to calm down a little, she saw a man in the park with whom she fell in love at first sight. The state of tension she was in made her react much more strongly than if she had been relaxed. Interestingly, you don't need a strong mental experience to induce a state of arousal - fatigue caused by prolonged exertion such as running, exercising in the gym or dancing is enough. Maybe that's why so many friends start at discos?

Falling in love - we like the songs we know well

But not all love stories start this way. How, for example, to explain a situation when she and he had known each other for years, met at parties with mutual friends, to finally find out that they are in love? Another principle worked here. It has been proved that the objecthe is often seen as being well-known and close. He seems to be more sympathetic and more attractive at the same time. And this increases the chances that we will locate our feelings in such a person. Kasia caught the eye of Tomek. He decided to get the girl's attention. He tried to appear in places where she was also. He bought rolls in the same shop, started going to the same gym. Once he "by accident" met Kasia on a walk with her dog. She smiled at him as if she were a good acquaintance - after all, she had seen him in different places so many times. They started talking, and after a week he invited her for coffee. Today they set the date of the wedding … From a psychological point of view, the chances of falling in love increase even if we fail to exchange a word with the object of our sighs. All we have to do is flash in front of his eyes from time to time, but is this the secret of love? If this were true, it would be enough to either run after the object of desire and frighten him to arouse him, or to come across at different times of the day or night for him to become consolidated. Meanwhile, something else is needed to fall in love. The selected person must have features that make him attractive in our eyes.

Falling in love - the role of biology

We prefer different characteristics in our partners depending on gender. Gentlemen most often mention the beauty and youth of a woman. Ladies focus more on the social position of a man, his intelligence, diligence, maturity, caring and … the we alth of the wallet. Scientists say that these preferences are a legacy of our ancestors. At a time when mammoths were roaming the Earth and humans lived in caves, social roles were clearly defined. The woman gave birth to children and looked after them, and the man, as inherently stronger, hunted the aforementioned mammoths to get food and ensure the family's survival. Feminine beauty is treated as a symptom of he alth necessary for the birth and upbringing of children. For example, in most cultures, a woman is considered shapely with a slim waist and full hips, and this figure is indicative of a good fit for childbirth. The same is true of young age. The features that a woman values ​​in a partner are related to the ability to provide her children with the best possible living conditions. The money earned by a man makes it possible to obtain food and other material goods. And his maturity and caring nature give him hope that he will share his prey with his family.

Attractiveness on your own

Research confirms that people are most likely to arrange a date with someone pretty. Moreover, attractivenessPhysical is one of the most important conditions for continuing a relationship, and it could be concluded that we love beautiful people the most. In practice, things get a little more complicated. It is important how we judge our own physical attractiveness. Dorota always thought she was pretty. She was the beloved daughter of her daddy, who spared her compliments since childhood. All her friends were delighted with her first boyfriend. And that's how it became commonplace: Dorota never dated someone who was not beautiful. She believed herself to be outstanding and no mediocre was an option. Ewa, on the other hand, was a bag of complexes. As pretty as Dorothy, she was constantly worried about her appearance. She did not give herself any chances with better - as she thought - men. It is not difficult to guess who she has fallen in love with: the man who is unsure of his strengths - nice, but always stooped, shy, because people try to fit in because of their beauty, but how are they supposed to know how beautiful they are? It depends only on their self-esteem, which is formed from an early age. Parents play their part in building it. When they consider a child to be the seventh wonder of the world, they will go into life with such a belief in their own attractiveness. And it will choose similar people as partners for itself, so it can be concluded that people adjust because of their image of their own beauty. So let's think about yourself …

Mutual interest

Magda is cheerful, sociable, but not pretty. She met Adam at her friend's birthday party. Handsome, elegant, attracted the eyes of all women. It turned out that they had been in a movie recently, so she started chatting with him. She did not try to make a good impression, she was spontaneous and witty as usual. She listened carefully as he spoke. They talked about most of the party, but didn't even dance with each other. She had very fond memories of that evening, but never expected it to continue. Adam called her after a week and they started seeing each other. When asked about what he liked about Magda, he replies: “The fact that it was so nice to talk to her that she listened to me with real interest. I felt her warmth, sympathy for me. ”This story illustrates another psychological truth: the more someone likes us, the more we like him. Elliot Aronson in his book "Social Psychology" describes this phenomenon as self-reinforcing feedback. Probably Magda, thinking "how handsome he is" looked at Adam with appreciation. The man noticed this and thought: "But she is nice, she looks so nice. And she's intelligent because she knows me. ”Ifso we want to attract someone's attention, you should show your interest gently at the beginning.

Important

Physical beauty, although important, is not the only condition for our success with the opposite sex. It happens that a not very pretty woman has qualities which she compensates for the shortcomings in her beauty. Bogdan Wojciszke in his book "The Psychology of Love" describes research that showed that women who have a partner more attractive than themselves are usually happier, more brilliant and witty than their friends. Yes … a man can also be charmed by internal virtues. And if a woman is the prettier one, you can guess that a man has other, more pragmatic qualities, e.g. a thick wallet or outstanding intelligence giving a chance to have that wallet in the future.

Change attitude

But not everyone who falls in love liked each other from the beginning. Sometimes the relationship starts badly: her behavior irritates her, he thinks she is out of date. They argue about just a little thing, only to convince themselves of each other after a while and finally love. There is another mechanism at work here, which Aronson calls the theory of profit and loss, and when someone who initially disliked us finds out to us and starts showing it to us, we feel like we have gained something and in return we start to like them ourselves. This feeling is even stronger than in the case of people who liked us "at first sight". The masters of seduction know this truth. They know that it is good to initially create an appearance of indifference to courtship and only show interest over time, but remember that we live in a fast time: if we reject someone's date invitation twice, the chance that he will propose it to us for a third time is rather small.

Similarity Attraction

Finally, the age-old question remains: what has the stronger power to arouse feelings - similarities or differences? Psychologists have no doubts: we like people similar to us the most (how would we react if the object of our sighs began to talk about their political sympathies - completely different than ours?) We value similar beliefs, views and system of values ​​- thanks to them we can find a common language. We also like when someone agrees with us, because it reassures us that we are right. It even happens that someone's defect becomes an advantage in our eyes if we have a similar trait ourselves, although it may seem that the differences are more intriguing and therefore more attractive, their role in mating people has not been confirmed. Therefore, let us trust the intuition that tells us that a messenger will get a better understanding with the messenger than with the messenger.However, to reassure incurable romantics, love often escapes psychological scrutiny. It happens that all these scientifically studied regularities have to capitulate to the unpredictability of human nature. And very well …

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Category:

Psychology