Happy Couples Automatically Use Mental Trick To Stay Faithful

Posted on June 8, 2016

The more satisfied people are with their relationship, the more they downgrade attractive others.

The unconscious process may help couples stay faithful to each other.

Dr Shana Cole, the study’s first author, said:
“Misperceiving attractive people who represent threats to the relationship as less attractive may help people resist the inclination to pursue them. This is especially important since finding someone physically attractive is a primary reason why people choose to date or romantically pursue someone.”

The research on 131 heterosexual couples showed them various pictures of the opposite sex manipulated to be more or less attractive.
Sometimes study participants were told they were single, other times that they were in a relationship. When told the person in the profile was single, people in relationships downgraded their attractiveness. They did this automatically as a defensive mechanism to protect their own relationship.

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Category(s):Relationships & Marriage

Source material from PsyBlog