Valentine's Day is about self-love - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

CShine · 02-14-2005, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Even on days other than Valentine's Day, our culture is pretty preoccupied with "romance" - huge industries have grown up encouraging it, including cosmetics, fashion, literature, art, films, TV etc. At the heart of all this commercially encouraged amorous sentiment is the dreamy idea that romance is somehow mysterious - indeed the allure of love is enhanced by its inscrutability. Yet psychologists beg to differ.

The latest theory about love from psychological research is that basically the strongly positive associations people have about themselves "spill over" to enhance their attraction to nearly anything associated with the self. This new psychological theory is called "implicit egotism" and promises to revise radically the way we think about love. The new theory explains why, a few years ago, psychologists discovered that the faces to which we were most attracted were those that resembled our own. So passionate love for another is actually all about us - it's basically a narcissistic enterprise.

The romantics, of course, refuse to accept this cynical scientific view, but the key point about the research is that our preferences operate below conscious awareness and therefore appear mysterious at first glance, although their underlying "egotism" is revealed by experiments. For example, a new study finds, rather unromantically, that exactly the same process which leads to us being drawn to our lovers seems to explain how we choose our dogs.

Christina Payne and Klaus Jaffe of Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela separated photos of dogs and their owners and found that volunteers could match the pictures more often than chance, using similarity in appearance. We choose dogs that resemble us because we are driven by a basic desire to feel good about ourselves, and this means we evaluate similarity to the self as strongly positive.

Alarmingly in its power and irrationality, this occurs even when the similarity is obscure.

Psychologists have demonstrated that, although not consciously aware of it, we express strong preferences for numbers linked to our birth date, and words that have more letters from our own names in them. Maurice Carvallo and colleagues at the State University of New York in Buffalo even found that the likelihood people would marry someone with the same first letter in their surname was 15 per cent to 25 per cent greater than chance.

The theory of implicit egotism - that we are so obsessed with ourselves that it drives our choices at a level below conscious awareness - began with an ingenious experiment conducted back in 1989 by psychologists John Finch and Robert Cialdini of the Arizona State University, who had participants read a biographical sketch of Rasputin, the notorious "Mad Monk of Russia". In this sketch, Rasputin was described in decidedly negative terms. Half of the participants were led to believe that Rasputin shared their own birthday, whereas the other half was given no information about Rasputin's birth date. In the matching-birthday condition, participants made much more favourable judgments of Rasputin's character.

Then, in 2002, a team of psychologists lead by Brett Pelham of the State University of New York made a series of astonishing discoveries - they found, among other things, that people named Denise or Dennis are more likely than usual to make their living as dentists, and that people whose first or last name is Louis are disproportionately likely to move to live in Saint Louis, Missouri. The same applied to Jack and Jacksonville and George and Georgia. Similarly, they found that birthday number preferences also appear to influence residential choices. People born on 2 February (02/02) are over-represented among the inhabitants of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, whereas people born on 3 March (03/03) are over-represented among the inhabitants of Three Forks, Montana. These findings held for every possible day-month combination for which US cities existed as potential matches (eg, people born on 6 June were over-represented in Six Mile, North Carolina).

So major life decisions such as who we marry, what career we pick, and where we move to are influenced by a tendency to prefer ourselves, and therefore any similarity to ourselves that we find in the world around us.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?...ectID=10011003

lunchbox · 02-14-2005, 05:57 AM

interesting theory...not sure if I buy it or not it may be telling to some extent but I don't think this is the whole explanation to why we pick our partners...just my opinion.

Squishor · 02-14-2005, 06:51 AM

I have long recognized that I seek similarity in a mate. Guys who are too different from me don't even turn me on most of the time. Not so sure about the numbers thing though...

Suave · 02-14-2005, 09:34 AM

Haha I buy a lot of that. That's awesome. *goes to stare at himself in the mirror again* What's cookin', good lookin'?

Stiltzkin · 02-14-2005, 07:11 PM

Quote:

The new theory explains why, a few years ago, psychologists discovered that the faces to which we were most attracted were those that resembled our own.

So I'm not crazy after all! I once explained to one of my friends that I was crazy about a certain someone because she looks like me; my friend declined to comment.

I've long suspected all the things described in this article and I agree 100% with all of it. I agree with lunchbox that this may not be the whole explanation, but it certainly does have something to do with it.

ironmaiden7o7 · 02-14-2005, 09:35 PM

This is a very interesting piece but I have different opinions, but I can see a few of those points. Especially :

"The new theory explains why, a few years ago, psychologists discovered that the faces to which we were most attracted were those that resembled our own. "

I've always felt this way, and it's something to know that it's an actual fact!

paulskinback · 02-15-2005, 04:54 AM

Going by the theory here, why shouldn't we like or love things similar to ourselves, we obviously love ourselves and feel comfortable with who we are, so would naturally go for someone who shares the same characteristics.... why do a team of scientists have to work that out, its obvious.

Xenomorph · 02-15-2005, 09:55 AM

My girlfriend and I have the exact same number of letters in our first and last names. They both start with the same two letters, and our first names are the male and female forms of the same word.

I guess this is why we get along so well, heh.

Zeraph · 02-17-2005, 11:44 AM

Yep, totally makes sense to me both consciencely and biologically. As far as evolution goes the only rule is to divide and multiply YOURSELF.
Consciencely we can only think in terms of ourself, (ie no such thing as altruism as there can be no selflessness, but lets not get into that debate in this thread). And then there's the barnum effect of which is peoples tendency to accept general and vague terms about themselves which also supports this.

The author uses"Obsessed" but it is a word for the conscience, and this stuff happens in the unconscience. I think it is important that this isn't looked upon in a negative light, it is the only way to be and is part of being human that we place importance in ourselves to some degree.

Hope that wasn't too jumbled.

02-14-2005, 05:57 AM	#2 (permalink)
lunchbox Thank God hockey is back Location: Deeeeeetroit	interesting theory...not sure if I buy it or not it may be telling to some extent but I don't think this is the whole explanation to why we pick our partners...just my opinion. __________________ A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams

02-14-2005, 09:34 AM	#4 (permalink)
Suave Twitterpated Location: My own little world (also Canada)	Haha I buy a lot of that. That's awesome. goes to stare at himself in the mirror again What's cookin', good lookin'? __________________ "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

02-15-2005, 04:54 AM	#7 (permalink)
paulskinback Insane	Going by the theory here, why shouldn't we like or love things similar to ourselves, we obviously love ourselves and feel comfortable with who we are, so would naturally go for someone who shares the same characteristics.... why do a team of scientists have to work that out, its obvious. __________________ 'Everything that can be invented has been invented.- - 1899, Charles Duell, U.S. Office of Patents. 'There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.' - Ken Olson, 1977, Digital Equipment Corporation

02-15-2005, 09:55 AM	#8 (permalink)
Xenomorph Crazy Location: St. Louis, MO	My girlfriend and I have the exact same number of letters in our first and last names. They both start with the same two letters, and our first names are the male and female forms of the same word. I guess this is why we get along so well, heh. __________________ The facehugger is short-lived outside the egg which normally protects it. Armed with a long grasping tail, a spray of highly-concentrated acid and the single-minded desire to impregnate a single selected prey using its extending probe, it will fearlessly pursue and attack a single selected target until it has succeeded in attachment or it or its target is dead

02-14-2005, 06:51 AM	#3 (permalink)
Squishor Frontal Lobe Location: California	I have long recognized that I seek similarity in a mate. Guys who are too different from me don't even turn me on most of the time. Not so sure about the numbers thing though...

02-14-2005, 09:35 PM	#6 (permalink)
ironmaiden7o7 Insane Location: NYC	This is a very interesting piece but I have different opinions, but I can see a few of those points. Especially : "The new theory explains why, a few years ago, psychologists discovered that the faces to which we were most attracted were those that resembled our own. " I've always felt this way, and it's something to know that it's an actual fact!

02-17-2005, 11:44 AM	#9 (permalink)
Zeraph Banned Location: The Cosmos	Yep, totally makes sense to me both consciencely and biologically. As far as evolution goes the only rule is to divide and multiply YOURSELF. Consciencely we can only think in terms of ourself, (ie no such thing as altruism as there can be no selflessness, but lets not get into that debate in this thread). And then there's the barnum effect of which is peoples tendency to accept general and vague terms about themselves which also supports this. The author uses"Obsessed" but it is a word for the conscience, and this stuff happens in the unconscience. I think it is important that this isn't looked upon in a negative light, it is the only way to be and is part of being human that we place importance in ourselves to some degree. Hope that wasn't too jumbled.