Over the next couple of days I intend to post a three-piece series on romantic desire (and the science of speed-dating). The first piece in this series, a study by MIT Professor and PT.com blogger Dan Ariely, is actually from an article I posted on my "ingenious monkey" blog some weeks back:
Psychologists are pretty convinced that there is a great deal of reciprocity involved when people begin liking each other in nonromantic contexts. That is, we like people who like us back, and even in the first few minutes of initial meetings, researchers have found that a great deal of liking and liking-back dynamics take place. However, most of the scientific studies to this effect were lab experiments that do not necessarily translate to romantic contexts, which is why Dan Ariely and a number of fellow researchers from MIT and Northwestern University set up a study that involved America's new culture-gap bridging activity: speed dating.
Participants were invited to 7 especially organized speed dating events. In each event participants had 4 minutes to be on a "date" with 9 -13 other participants of the other sex. They then completed a 2-minute interaction record of each date, immediately after the event, and an online survey after arriving back home. The important aspects of these records and questionnaires regarded which ones of their dates each participant would like to meet again, as well as an item measure of perceived "chemistry" between participants.
As a main result from this study, we find that people perceive reciprocity in two different flavors, when it comes to romance. While in non-romantic contexts, we are quick to like those who like us back, in romantic contexts we like only those who like us back exclusively. That is, the authors find that the effect of reciprocity differs "depending on whether it is exhibited uniquely toward a particular individual (with positive reciprocal effects) or toward individuals in general (with negative reciprocal effects)."
So if we took any one of our Speed Daters and found that he or she only liked one other person enough to be interested in meeting again, we would usually find that this liking was a match. I.e. the liked person would also want to meet our Speed Dater again. In contrast, if we took a Speed Dater who felt like a number of participants were worthwhile meeting again, we would generally have a difficult time finding anybody who actually liked them back. The authors do not really delve into the sadness of this finding, but conclude that
"the emergence of these effects in a 4-min interaction governed by strong social-desirability concerns and conversational norms suggests that humans possess an impressive, highly attuned ability to assess such subtleties of romantic attraction. In fact, the need to feel special or unique could be a broad motivation that stretches across people's social lives. The importance of this need is certainly pronounced in established intimate relationships and friendships; the present study permits the additional conjecture that the need to feel special plays a central role even within the first few moments of a romantic encounter."
I guess one positive thing to learn here is that it doesn't pay off to lower one's expectations when it comes to romance. Another exciting fact, and actually a number of great things about this study could be mentioned here of course, but I am afraid our 4 minutes are up. Just like that.
References:
Selective versus unselective romantic desire: not all reciprocity is created equal; Eastwick P, Finkel EJ, Mochon D, Ariely D. ; Psychol Sci. 2007 Apr;18(4):317-9.
