If you've ever been left blindsided by a date, you might only have yourself to blame. That's according to a new study, which has found that being sexually aroused can seriously cloud your judgment.
The Study's Findings
Experts discovered that intense attraction to a date can lead to 'tunnel vision', making it more difficult to recognise when they are just not that into you. This could help explain why someone you thought was a perfect match suddenly ended things.
'Sexual arousal made participants significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous interactions optimistically,' said lead author Gurit Birnbaum, a psychology professor from Reichman University. 'They saw interest where there was only uncertainty.'
Part of the reason seems to be that arousal increased the partner's desirability, further fuelling the tendency to see what people wanted to see.
Implications for Dating
Professor Birnbaum warned that this phenomenon could mean people are 'missing the signs' that someone is not romantically interested – because they become blind to rejection cues. The findings echo the predominant theme of the hit 2009 film 'He's Just Not That Into You', where the main character habitually misinterprets male behaviour.
For the study, researchers asked one group of participants to watch a sexual video before chatting online with someone instructed to convey mixed signals. Another group watched a non-sexual video, then engaged in the same kind of conversation. After the chat, participants rated their partner's desirability and how interested they thought the person was in them.
Analysis revealed that those who watched the sexual video were more likely to find their chat partner desirable and perceive them as romantically interested. The only exception was when the chat partner provided clear and unmistakable signs of rejection – in which case participants accurately recognised a lack of romantic interest.
'Sexual arousal distorts perception only when the situation leaves room for hope,' Professor Birnbaum said. 'It can help us push past the fear of rejection by tilting perception in a more hopeful direction.'
Purpose and Costs
Professor Birnbaum said this 'tilt' in perception can serve a purpose in the early stages of courtship, when some optimism is needed to take a risk on someone. But it can also come with costs.
'Desire can overshadow sensitivity to another person's actual wishes,' she explained. 'In those moments, we may not see the interaction as it is; we see it as we hope it to be – missing the signs that the door is not actually open.'
Writing in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the authors said future research should test these processes in more naturalistic settings such as online dating platforms, as well as across different stages of relationship development.
'More broadly, the findings add to a growing understanding of how our inner states, not just our circumstances, shape what we perceive in the people around us,' they added. 'Desire, it turns out, does more than motivate us to pursue connection; it may also help us achieve that goal by quietly adjusting the lens through which we read the signals we receive along the way.'
