A built-in aversion to attractive members of the opposite sex may help cement monogamous relationships

    If your loved one claims to “only have eyes for you” this Valentine’s Day, it might be truer than you think. Research shows that people in a committed relationship who have been thinking about their partner actually avert their eyes from attractive members of the opposite sex without even being aware they are doing it.

    Psychologist Jon Maner of Florida State University and his colleagues flashed pictures of faces on a computer screen for half a second, following it immediately with a square or circle, which participants had to identify by pushing the correct button. Earlier research using this method has found that it takes longer for viewers to shift their attention away from attrac­tive faces of the opposite sex.

    Maner, however, took subjects who were married or living together monoga­mously and asked half of them to write about feelings of love for their partner and the other half to write about a happy experience. Those who wrote about love actually turned their attention away from attractive members of the opposite sex even more quickly than they looked away from average-looking people. Subjects who wrote about being happy, however, remained as distracted by a pretty face as ever.

    This unconscious attentional bias probably evolved to help men and women stay in monogamous relation­ships, which in humans tend to have a reproductive advantage, Maner explains: “This whole research area is guided largely by an evolutionary perspective. These biases have been built into our psychology to enhance people’s reproductive success.”

    一種戀愛后對漂亮異性的天生厭惡可能幫助人們鞏固互相之間的獨有關系。

    如果你的情人在這個情人節對你說“他的眼里只有你”，可別以為他是在哄你。研究發現，那些忠于自己感情，時刻想著自己愛人的人，會下意識的不去看那些吸引人眼球的異性。

    佛羅里達州立大學的心理學家喬恩 梅爾和他的同事在電腦顯示器上閃現人的臉部照片，每張只有半秒，緊接著把這些照片排成方形或這環形，參與實驗者必須按鈕識別正確的那個。早期研究發現，人們總是更關注那些漂亮異性的臉蛋。

    然而，梅爾選擇那些已婚的或者同居的人，然后讓其中的一半寫他們對愛人的愛，而另一半則寫自己一次快樂的經歷。那些表達愛意的人在后來的實驗中確實是更快的轉移了對那些漂亮異性的注意力，甚至比對普通容貌的人注意力轉移的還要快。而那些書寫自己快樂經歷的人，還是會被美色分散注意力。

    這種下意識的注意力偏移可能是進化來幫助人們保持一夫一妻的關系，這樣人類就有了繁衍優勢。梅爾解釋說：“整個研究是建立在一個進化觀點上的觀點。這種觀點認為這種潛意識的注意力偏移在我們的心理中，就是為了促使人們繁衍成功。”