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emotion
You often misinterpret your own physical anxiety as attraction.
Heightened physical arousal from an external source is frequently mislabeled as intense romantic or social interest.
In a 1974 study, men who crossed a fear-inducing bridge were more likely to call a female interviewer than those who crossed a stable bridge. The body experiences a spike in heart rate, and the brain searches for an explanation, often selecting the most socially available target. You cannot always tell the difference between excitement and affection.
Your feelings are often just a story your brain tells your body.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Dutton and Aron (1974)
- What the check found
- The core finding of the 1974 study supports the theory of misattribution of arousal, though the claim generalizes the frequency of this phenomenon beyond the experimental conditions.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.