One of the interesting Psychology myth.
You believe you’re in control of your own behavior. Yet a
skilled persuader could persuade you to not only positive goals — like donating
to charity — but also unthinkably negative acts, including stealing, lying, and
even killing.
You believe you know what you’re attracted to. For most
women, it’s the classic “I want a man who makes me laugh” (and a laundry list
of other generic characteristics). These “wishlist criteria” have little to do
with the people we ACTUALLY end up with — yet we continue telling our friends
the kind of guy (or girl) we want. Put simply, it’s unlikely that you can
articulate what you actually like.
You believe that if “they” — crackpot Tea Partiers, or
bleeding-heart liberals — just had the information you had, they’d realize you
were right and come over to your side. You couldn’t be more wrong.
Myth:
“I know who I’m attracted to”
Reality: You often cannot
articulate who you are attracted to, and your attraction is subject to many
variables — including proximity and context — and subject to manipulation
Ask anyone what they’re attracted to — what their “type”
is — and you’ll often get a laundry list of characteristics like “tall”
“interested in the environment” and “he makes me laugh” (my favorite catch-all,
since most guys are not funny).
Yet how many people do you know with a strict list of
characteristics who throw them out as soon as they meet someone they’re
attracted to?
It turns out that the characteristics we SAY we’re
attracted to are quite different than what our behavior reveals. For example,
in speed-dating trials by Simonson, Fisman, Iyengar, and Kamenica, there were
substantial differences between what we “said” we wanted vs. what we actually
found attractive.
From a report of the experiment:
“Men—rather predictably—said attractiveness, while women
listed intelligence and sincerity.”
…However, when they moved through the speed dating
process there was no appreciable difference between men and women. Both used
attractiveness to make their decisions.
Another interesting finding was that women tended to be
choosier the more options they had. In the smaller group (10 men and 10 women)
both men and women said they would like to see any given person again
approximately half the time. In the large dating group, men kept to the same
proportion of yeses (10 out of 20 times). However, women only said yes 6.5 out
of 20 times.”
Instead, here’s how attraction often works:
- We say we’re attracted to XYZ characteristics
- We meet someone and are attracted to them for whatever
reason
- We cannot articulate precisely why, yet we believe we
can, so we’ll create a list of reasons
- We systematically ignore or actively resist the
suggestion that any external factors have anything to do with our attraction
- Later, we may return to our baseline claims of what we
find attractive
The main point: Who you find is attractive is a
mysterious force and is subject to many external forces. If you’re in a foreign
country, or surrounded by many people, or online vs. offline attraction varies.
Keep this in mind when you say the kind of person you’re attracted to. The next
time someone asks you who you’re attracted to, a better response might be a
shrug and, “I guess we’ll see.”
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