The Science of Seduction: To seduce is to flatter.
Research has shown that couples leaving a movie theatre after watching a thriller are closer physically, touch each other more and talk more than couples who have seen a more neutral film...
This is a series of four issues about the basic of psychological findings about the science behind seduction; each issue will be posted on Monday.
The first one: The Science of Seduction: Fooling the other's brain was published last week.
Countless guides, coaches and fortune-tellers claim to hold — and deliver — the recipe for seduction. And what do scientists say about it? Are they interested in the question? Without claiming that seduction is a science, psychologists show that if the unexpected reigns supreme, there are a few ways to optimize one's chances, starting by asking the right questions: where, how and with whose help?
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To seduce is to flatter.
Even if there is no carnival in your town, there is still the possibility of taking him or her to the cinema. Research has shown that couples leaving a movie theatre after watching a thriller are closer physically, touch each other more and talk more than couples who have seen a more neutral film or documentary. Again, the emotional stimulation caused by the film seems to facilitate misattribution or simply stimulate the emotional system.
Moreover, studies have shown that, unlike carnivals, cinema amplifies desire and love behavior even in people who are already in a couple. What can we learn from this still embryonic research? That seduction is favored by everything that triggers emotions. It is not by chance that young men like to take their young conquests on motorcycles!
Plato liked to say that flattery is the honey and condiment of any human relationship. In one of our studies, we asked a rather handsome 20-year-old young man to walk through the streets of a city on a sunny day and try to get the phone numbers of young girls walking alone, aged about 18 to 22.
The boy was instructed to make eye contact with the girl, smile at her and literally say, "Hello. You know you're very pretty, don't you? I'm sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you would like to have a drink with me if you have some time. In a control condition, the young man made the same request, but without the key phrase: "Do you know you're very pretty?"
The results showed that with the compliment, he got 23 percent acceptance. Without the compliment, however, only nine percent responded positively to his invitation. Moreover, even when they refused, the complimented girls did so with a smile and remained friendly, finding an excuse and wishing him a good day. We observed the girls who refused the request and found that they smiled longer after they had gone on their way. Thus, a compliment, even an undisguised and almost "too big" one, always has a positive effect in terms of seduction. The man is less often rejected, and if he is, it is with more courteous forms.
Thanks for reading this issue! See you Thursday for another content about seduction and Monday for another issue of The Science of Seduction.
Next week, we will go over the “The chameleon's strategy”. The name is quite self-explanatory.
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