2011: year of the HUSTLE YOUR WAY TO THE TOP Tweaking Love: How External Factors Influence Attraction BY RAMIT SETHI hustle
CUPID S ARROW Many of us believe we know what sexually arouses us. Maybe it s a petite little Asian girl, or a sweet brunette with long hair, or a tall man who makes you laugh. Yet an obscure 1974 study (follow this link to download it) by researchers Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron challenges all of our pre-conceived notions about attraction. They showed that attraction is far more malleable than we think. We believe we know what we like...but our senses are subject to systematic distortions and vulnerabilities. And given a skilled persuader and a psychologically powerful situation, our beliefs about attraction may be shattered. Here s how they did it. In their experiment, Dutton and Aron hypothesized that sexual attraction occurs not only when encountering an attractive person, but also during periods of strong emotion. So to start, they identified men in a National Park who were about to cross one of two bridges a fear-arousing bridge (a rickety bridge 230 feet over rushing water) and a non-fear-arousing bridge, which was sturdy and only 10 feet above the water. As they were about to cross the bridge, they were approached by an attractive woman, who asked for their help with her psychology study on an unrelated topic. After they filled out a simple questionnaire, they wrote a story based upon the image of a young woman in a dramatic pose.
Once the subjects had finished the questionnaire, the interviewer thanked the subject and offered to explain the experiment in more detail when she had more time. At this point, the interviewer tore the corner off a sheet of paper, wrote down her name and phone number, and invited each subject to call, if he wanted to talk further. The results were astonishing. THE NEW DATE HOT-SPOT A BRIDGE Men in the experimental condition -- the fear-arousing bridge condition -- were dramatically more likely to call the woman after the experiment. Their stories were also dramatically more likely to contain sexual imagery.
Yet since the attractive woman was the same in both conditions, what could account for the difference? There was only one thing: The height and perceived danger of the fear-arousing bridge. In other words, the men on the scary bridge mis-interpreted their arousal for sexual attraction...and were dramatically more likely to write sexual stories and call the attractive woman. SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME, RAMIT? What can you take away from this experiment, combined with other experiments on attraction? People RARELY know why they make decisions yet they believe they do. In this case, people s beliefs of why they find someone attractive are HIGHLY suspect. For example, if you asked the men who contacted the woman afterwards why they found her attractive, they likely would have created some seemingly rational-sounding explanation: Oh, I liked her style or I like smart girls. Yet since the only difference in experimental condi-
tions was the arousal levels evoked by the fear-arousing bridge, they should actually answer that way. But they never would, of course. This finding has been validated in social psychology time and time again. Your notion of what you find attractive is highly malleable and dependent on context For example, the fact that you love Asian girls is highly dependent on context and a skilled persuader could systematically alter it. They do have nice hair, though. THE ULTIMATE LESSON You are far less in control of your behavior than you think. It s a cornerstone of I Will Teach You To Be Rich automation and default scripting.