Infatuation: Can You Trust The Emotional Rush Of New Love?
SOURCE CREDIT: The Deceptive Power of Love’s First Moments: Published on July 13, 2012 by Susan Heitler, Ph.D. in Resolution, Not Conflict at Psychology Today
New love is the ultimate turn on. In the first moments and days of love, the neuro-chemicals that create feelings of happiness all explode out the starter gate. But does an explosion of happiness chemicals that triggers the thought “I want this person to be in my life forever!” necessarily mean that you and your new love would in fact make good chemistry together forever?Before you make a mad dash to the altar, better read on.
Why do decisions to marry that are made in the early exciting stage of love, the stage of infatuation, so often turn out to be a big mistake?
I recently read an exceptionally clear explanation.
Early romantic experiences leave a lasting imprint on who we are—and who we fall for.
Chana Levitan is the author of a particularly helpful ‘Is this the right one for me to marry?’ book. I Only Want To Get Married Once explains that infatuation is “ the spark at the beginning” that suddenly ignites with a new person or in a situation that has newly switched from businesslike or friendship to romantic and sexualized. Because that spark, that sparkling, delightfully sexually intense feeling when you first fall in love, feels so good, you are likely to want the feeling to last forever.
Alas, it won’t.
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Levitan explains that no matter how good the match, the strong sexualized draw of infatuation, even in the best of marriages, is only a temporary phenomenon associated with newness and insecurity.
Levitan quotes the research of psychologist Dorothy Tennov who found that the duration of infatuation typically lasts at most “between approximately 18 months and three years.” Circumstances like a long-distance relationship or chronic relationship insecurity may articfically extend the tingling phenomenon, at the cost of delaying the shift either into a departure from the relationship or into commitment to a mature and reliable love partnership.
Infatuation also poses a second trap. It’s easy to confuse loving the feeling of infatuation with the totally separate issue of how loving you are likely to feel toward that person after the infatuation has worn off.
Love is blind while you are in the intital infatuation stage. After that, clarity about reality tends to emerge. Continuing to love someone is likely to depend on how suitable that person is as a partner in the project of living.
Fortunately, it’s possible to look ahead even when you are feeling swept off your feet. Your capacity for longer range vision can help you evaluate if the person you love so intensely today is likely to become a burden or an asset over time. Does your current infatuation seem to be with someone who will turn into a stranger from a strange land or someone with whom openness, intimacy and a shared life style would be possible? Would that person be a supportive partner or a controlling tyrant?
Levitan offers a handy list of five signs suggest that an infatuation is not to be trusted. Here goes her Five Signs list:
- The infatuation is the whole relationship. There’s nothing else there. No shared vision or values of the life pathways you both want. Minimal shared interests. Not much to talk about after the initial getting-to-know-you conversations.
- You’re so caught up in the chemistry of initial attraction that you can’t, or don’t want to, see who the person really is.
- You’re infatuated and at the same time know that the person is bad for you.
- You’re moving toward marriage but find yourself thinking about someone you’ve dated in the past, or looking at others you might date in the future.
- You know at some level that you are wasting your time enjoying being infatuated with someone whom you wouldn’t want to marry.
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Is infatuation a reliable guide?
So are all initial strong feelings untrustworthy? Absolutely not. Strong feelings alone do not a good match make, but strong feelings plus good sense can enable couples to make a marriage choice early on that leads to a relationship that proves to be long-lasting and ever-loving. I knew the man I married for less than two months, and was thoroughly infatuated, when we decided to wed. Now, forty years, four children and ten grandchildren later I’m still thrilled with my choice of mates.Who to marry is the single most important decision a person makes in their life. It’s especially important, as Levitan puts it so nicely in the title of her book, “I Only Want to Get Married Once.” So pick thoughtfully. And once you’ve picked, make sure to learn the communication skills for marriage success!
Susan Heitler, PhD is a clinical psychologist in Denver who specializes in helping couples to build strong and loving partnerships. Her book The Power of Two is the basis for the fun interactive online marriage education program PowerOfTwoMarriage.com.
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You Can Trust Me More Than You Can Trust Them: Cynicism & The Trust Gap
Read the original research paper HERE (PDF)
Credit: Jeremy Dean from Psyblog
How do people come to believe that others are so much less trustworthy than themselves?
Much as we might prefer otherwise, there’s solid evidence that, on average, people are quite cynical. When thinking about strangers, studies have shown that people think others are more selfishly motivated than they really are and that others are less helpful than they really are.
Similarly in financial games psychologists have run in the lab, people are remarkably cynical about the trustworthiness of others. In one experiment people honored the trust placed in them between 80 and 90 percent of the time, but only estimated that others would honor their trust about 50 percent of the time.
Our cynicism towards strangers may develop as early as 7 years old (Mills & Keil, 2005). Surprisingly people are even overly cynical about their loved ones, assuming they will behave more selfishly than they really do (Kruger & Gilovich, 1999).
What could create such a huge gap between how people behave themselves and how they think others behave?
Trust me
People often say that it’s experience that breeds this cynicism rather than a failing in human nature. This is true, but only in a special way.
Think about it like this: the first time you trust a stranger and are betrayed, it makes sense to avoid trusting other strangers in the future. The problem is that when we don’t ever trust strangers, we never find out how trustworthy people in general really are. As a result our estimation of them is governed by fear.
If this argument is correct, it is lack of experience that leads to people’s cynicism, specifically not enough positive experiences of trusting strangers. This idea is tested in a new study published in Psychological Science. Fetchenhauer and Dunning (2010) set up a kind of ideal world in the lab where people were given accurate information about the trustworthiness of strangers to see if that would reduce their cynicism.
They recruited 120 participants to take part in a game of economic trust. Each person was given €7.50 and asked if they’d like to hand it to another person. If the other person made the same decision the pot would increase to €30. They were then asked to estimate whether the other person would opt to give them their half of the total winnings.
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The participants watched 56 short videos of the people they were playing against. The researchers set up two experimental conditions, one to mimic what happens in the real world and one to test an ideal world scenario:
1. Real life condition: in this group participants were only told about the other person’s decision when they decided to trust them. The idea is that this condition simulates real life. You only find out if others are trustworthy when you decide to trust them. If you don’t trust someone you never find out whether or not they are trustworthy.
2. Ideal world condition: here participants were given feedback about the trustworthiness of other people whether or not they decided to trust them. This simulates an ideal-world condition where we all know from experience just how trustworthy people are (i.e. much more trustworthy than we think!)
Breaking down cynicism
Once again this study showed that people are remarkably cynical about strangers. Participants in this study thought that only 52 percent of the people they saw in the videos could be trusted to share their winnings. But the actual level of trustworthiness was a solid 80 percent. There’s the cynicism.
That cynicism was quickly broken down, though, by giving participants accurate feedback about others’ trustworthiness. People in the ideal world condition noticed that others could be trusted (they upped their estimate to 71 percent) and were also more trusting themselves, handing over the money 70.1 percent of the time.
People in the ideal world condition could even be seen shedding their cynicism as the study went on, becoming more trusting as they noticed that others were trustworthy. This suggests people aren’t inherently cynical, it’s just that we don’t get enough practice at trusting.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Unfortunately we don’t live in the ideal world condition and have to put up with only receiving feedback when we decide to trust others. This leaves us in the position of trusting to psychology studies like this one to tell us that other people are more trustworthy than we imagine (or at least people who take part in psychology studies are!).
Trusting others is also a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, just as we find in interpersonal attraction. If you try trusting others you’ll find they frequently repay that trust, leading you to be more trusting. On the other hand if you never trust anyone, except those nearest and dearest, then you’ll end up more cynical about strangers.
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Read the original research paper HERE (PDF)
About Peter
Peter Brown BHMS (Hons) MPsychClin MAPS
I’m a Clinical Psychologist and have a private practice and consultancy in Brisbane Australia. I have 24 years experience in child, adult and family clinical psychology. I have a wonderful wife and three kids.
I am co-founder of Christian Wholeness Counselling Services.
I like researching issues of the brain & mind, reading and seeking out new books and resources for myself and my clients. I thought that others might be interested in some of what I have found also, hence this blog…
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