59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot (19 page)

THE IMPORTANCE OF BONDING

In the late 1980s, researcher James Laird at Clark University in Massachusetts and his colleagues advertised for people to take part in an experiment into the possible existence of extrasensory perception.
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Male and female participants who didn’t know each other were scheduled to arrive at the laboratory at the same time, and when they arrived they were taken through a rather unusual procedure. A researcher explained that it was important that the pair do a rapport-building exercise before taking the telepathy test, and they were asked to spend a few moments looking into each other’s eyes. They were then taken to separate rooms, and one of them was presented with a series of simple pictures while the other tried “psychically” to guess the nature of the images.

At the end of the study, Laird looked at his data and discovered no evidence for psychic powers. Was he disappointed? Not at all. In reality, the study had nothing to do with extrasensory perception. The alleged telepathy test was just an elaborate cover story that allowed the team to conduct a groundbreaking study of the psychology of love.

Many people believe that falling in love is a highly complex affair that depends on a complicated mixture of looks, personality, chemistry, and chance. However, Laird had other ideas. He wondered whether this unique and mysterious sensation might be much more straightforward than it first appeared, and whether it was possible to manufacture the feeling in just a few carefully engineered moments.

His hypothesis was simple. It was obvious from everyday life that couples in love spent a significant amount of time looking into each other’s eyes. However, Laird wanted to know whether the reverse was also true. Would it be possible
to create a feeling of love by having people spend a few moments gazing at each other?

Normally, gazing at strangers is, at best, perceived as peculiar, and at worst, aggressive. Because of this, Laird had to create an artificial but believable reason for prolonged eye contact, and so he eventually designed the telepathy-test cover story. Without realizing it, the participants in his fake ESP experiment were made to look into each other’s eyes and were therefore behaving as if they found each other attractive. Laird thought that this would be enough to kick-start feelings of love and affection.

After the fake telepathy study had ended, all of the participants were asked to rate their amorous feelings toward their experimental partner. The data proved Laird right, with participants reporting genuine feelings of affection and attraction for their newfound soul mate.

The study represents an approach to human behavior first advanced by one of the founding fathers of modern-day psychology, William James. According to James, not only do our thoughts and feelings affect the way we act, but the way we act influences our thoughts and feelings.

Laird is not alone in exploring ways in which this approach can help researchers better understand matters of the heart. Another study, carried out by Arthur Aron from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and his colleagues from various other universities, suggests that the same type of approach can also help bring couples closer together.
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The start of any romantic relationship is usually a time of great excitement, with people enjoying the novelty of experiencing life with a new partner. Fast-forward twenty years and often a very different picture emerges. Now the couple know each other very well, and life has become far more routine—the same restaurants, the same vacation destinations, and the
same conversations. Although familiarity can be comforting, it can also induce a sense of boredom and is unlikely to make hearts race the way they once did.

Aron wondered whether, in the same way that gazing into another person’s eyes induces attraction, getting couples to experience the thrill of courtship could help them rekindle the romance in their relationship. Specifically, would getting them to break the monotony of married life by doing something new and fun result in their finding each other more attractive? In an initial study, Aron placed newspaper advertisements asking for couples who were willing to participate in an experiment exploring the “factors that affect relationships.”

When volunteers arrived at the lab, each couple completed a questionnaire about their relationship and was randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimenters then cleared away the tables and chairs, rolled out some gym mats, and started the next part of the study.

For half of the couples, the researchers produced a roll of Velcro tape and explained that they were about to take part in a game. If the couples’ eyes lit up and they exchanged knowing glances, the researchers quickly put the Velcro away and asked them to leave. For everyone else, the team used the Velcro to secure one person’s right wrist to the left wrist of their partner, and also to strap their right and left ankles together.

After resisting the temptation to hum Lionel Richie’s “Stuck on You,” the researchers placed a 3.3-foot-high foam obstacle in the middle of the room and handed each couple a large pillow. Each couple had to get on hands and knees, crawl up to the obstacle, climb over it, crawl to the other side of the room, turn around, scamper back to the obstacle, climb over it again, and return to their starting position. To make things a little more interesting, they were asked to support the pillow between their bodies at all times (no hands, arms, or teeth
allowed), and had only sixty seconds to complete the course. So that no one finished disappointed, the research team removed participants’ watches (“We don’t want them getting scratched during the frivolity”) and pretended that everyone completed the task in the allotted time.

The couples in the other group were asked to do something far more mundane. One member of the couple was asked to get on hands and knees and told to roll a ball to a designated spot in the center of the room. Their partner was asked to watch from the side of the room and, when the ball made it to the spot, change places with their partner and roll the ball back to the starting position.

The experimenters assumed that the vast majority of couples did not usually spend very much time crawling over a large foam obstacle, and so the experience of the couples in the first group would be novel, fun, and relatively exciting. It was a chance for them to work together to achieve a goal and an opportunity to see each other from a new and unusual perspective. Conceptually speaking, it was like the type of experience that they used to have when they first met and life was much more exciting. In contrast, those in the second group were acting as a control, performing a task that was far more mundane and didn’t involve any joint effort.

At the end of the experiment, all of the couples completed several questionnaires (including the rather unromantically named “Romantic Love Symptom Check List”), rating, for example, the degree to which their partner made them “tingle” and “burst with happiness.” As predicted, the couples who had conquered the giant foam obstacle were far more loving toward one another than those who had completed the ball-rolling task. Just a few minutes of a new and fun joint activity appeared to have worked wonders.

Encouraged by these initial results, Aron and his team
repeated the study, this time using another measure of marital satisfaction instead of the post-experiment questionnaire. At the end of the second study, the experimenters filmed each couple chatting about planning their next vacation or how they might make significant home improvements. Another set of researchers then watched the films and carefully counted every instance when one member of the couple demonstrated some form of hostility. The Velcro couples made significantly more positive comments than the ball rollers.

Aron’s findings demonstrate yet another way in which our behavior exerts a powerful influence over how we think and feel. In the same way that gazing into the eyes of a complete stranger can induce feelings of mutual attraction, participating in activities associated with early courtship can help rekindle past passions.

According to this work, any relationship can be helped along by a roll of Velcro tape, a large foam obstacle, and an open mind.

IN 59 SECONDS

Aron’s work suggests that long-term couples will feel more attracted to each other when they regularly engage in novel and exciting joint activities that involve working together to achieve a goal. This finding is supported by the results of several surveys showing that long-term couples who are happy in their relationships are more likely to take part in leisure activities that involve both partners and are relatively unpredictable, exciting, and active rather than passive.

So regardless of whether it is playing a sport, amateur dramatics, rock climbing, visiting new places, learning a new dance, or traveling
to novel vacation destinations, couples who face life’s foam obstacles together stick together.

   
ROMANCE MADE SIMPLE

I recently conducted a large-scale online survey examining the psychology of romantic gestures. Working with writer Rachel Armstrong, I produced a questionnaire containing descriptions of a wide variety of romantic gestures, including, for example, running your partner a relaxing bath after they have had a bad day at work, offering them your coat when they are cold, and whisking your partner away somewhere exciting for the weekend. More than 1,500 people from the United Kingdom and the United States completed the survey, and the results help reveal the secret psychology underlying romance. Women frequently complain that men are not the most romantic of creatures. But did the survey confirm their suspicions?

Women were asked to look at the list and indicate how frequently their own partner had made each of the romantic gestures. The findings amounted to depressing reading. For example, 55 percent of women said that their partners had never run them a bath after a hard day at work, 45 percent had not been offered a coat when cold, and 53 percent had never been whisked away for an exciting weekend—objective evidence to support long-standing female complaints about unromantic men. But what might the underlying reason be for this poor showing?

In another part of the survey, male respondents were asked to look at the list of romantic gestures and, using a 10-point scale, rate how romantic they thought a woman would find it if her partner carried out each of the gestures. In contrast, female respondents were asked to use the same scale to indicate how romantic they thought it would be if their partner carried out each of the romantic acts. The results revealed that men severely underestimate the romantic value of even the simplest act.

For example, only 11 percent of men, compared with 25 percent of women, awarded the maximum score to the item “Tell her that she is the most wonderful woman that you have ever met.” Likewise, 8 percent of men, but 22 percent of women, assigned 10 out of 10 points to “run her a relaxing bath after she has had a bad day at work.” The same pattern emerged with almost the entire list, suggesting that men’s reluctance to carry out a romantic gesture or two may not stem from laziness or a lack of caring but from underestimating how romantic behavior is perceived by women.

Finally, the survey findings also lent a helping hand to those men who wanted to engage in some heartfelt wooing, by identifying the gestures that women view as most, and least, romantic. The top-ten list of gestures is shown below, along with the percentage of women who assigned each gesture maximum marks on the “how romantic is this” scale.

1. Cover her eyes and lead her to a lovely surprise—
   40 percent
   

2. Whisk her away somewhere exciting for the weekend—
   40 percent
   

3. Write a song or poem about her—
   28 percent
   

4. Tell her that she is the most wonderful woman that you have ever met—
   25 percent
   

5. Run her a relaxing bath after she has had a bad day at work—
   22 percent
   

6. Send her a romantic text or e-mail, or leave a note around the house—
   22 percent
   

7. Wake her up with breakfast in bed—
   22 percent
   

8. Offer her a coat when she is cold—
   18 percent
   

9. Send her a large bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates at her workplace—
   16 percent
   

10. Make her a mix CD of her favorite music—
    12 percent