Because they're beautiful, that's why. And it makes us feel good, and gives us ideas, and gives rise to fantasies that lift us above our humdrum lives.
And there's probably some caveman mentality going on there, too—we're always looking to procreate and spread our, well, seed among the most promising candidates we see.
It takes about half a second for a heterosexual man or woman to lock onto a hot member of the opposite sex.
It's called "attentional adhesion." As in, "Sorry, honey, I'm just suffering from attentional adhesion, but I'm almost over it. That Claritin helped."
A professor at Florida State took a long look at this phenomenon and found some startling facts.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070917112220.htm
Among them: Once we're in a committed relationship, we're just as likely to stare at attractive men as at attractive women. Why? We view them as rivals, says Jon Maner, Ph.D.
"Men tend to be most concerned with other men being more dominant, funny, or charismatic than they are. When they're feeling jealous, men are attentive to attractive men because they think their girlfriend or wife may be too," he says.
Maner says our radar has evolved over the eons so that we can quickly size up potential mates and potential rivals.
One modern-day drawback: Advertising, magazines and movies and TV know how much we like to look at beautiful women. So our standards have become artificially high.
"It can make us feel bad and can hurt our commitment to our partner," he says. "One strategy is to pay attention to normal-looking people because that may give us a more realistic standard of beauty and make us feel better about ourselves and our relationships."
No comments:
Post a Comment