9 facts about flirting that single — and married — people should know

      

What could be more terrifying than talking to someone you're attracted to? 

Luckily, social science has figured out what makes flirting work — or not.

Couples need to flirt, too.

Like Tinder, cats, and dying alone, flirting is usually associated with single people. 

But couples need to know how to flirt, too.

After studying 164 married people for a 2012 study, University of Kentucky researcher Brandi Frisby noted that most of them flirted as a means of maintaining and emphasizing intimacy. Oftentimes, she wrote in her paper, married couples flirted to "create a private world with the spouse." 

People flirt for six different reasons.

In a 2004 review of the literature on flirting, Northern Illinois University professor David Dryden Henningsen identified six different motivations for the behavior: 

• Sex: trying to get in bed
• Fun: treating it like a sport
• Exploring: trying to see what it would be like to be in a relationship
• Relational: trying to increase the intimacy of a relationship
• Esteem: increasing one's own self esteem
• Instrumental: trying to get something from the other person

In that study, Henningsen asked 101 female and 99 male students to write out a hypothetical flirty conversation between a man and a woman, then identify the motivations for the things they said. 

The behaviors broke down along gender norms: Men were significantly more likely to have a sexual motivation, while women tended to have a relational one.

Some conversation starters are better than others.

For a study in the journal Sex Roles, University of Alaska psychologist Chris L. Kleinke asked 600 respondents to rate the effectiveness of three varieties of opening lines in a flirtatious situation: 

• "Pick-up" lines like "You must be a librarian, because I saw you checking me out" 

• Open-ended, innocuous questions like "What do you think of this band?" or "What team are you rooting for?"

• Direct approaches like "You're cute — can I buy you a drink?" 

The responses were pretty evenly split along gender lines: While the men in the study tended to prefer the more direct approach, the women tended to prefer the open-ended, innocuous questions. Not surprisingly, very few people said they preferred the pick-up lines.

Men overestimate how interested women are.

Evidence from multiple studies supports the idea that, among heterosexual people, men tend to overperceive sexual interest from women, while women tend to underperceive sexual interest from men.

In other words, men tend to think women are into them when they aren't, and women tend to not notice when men are into them.

In a 2000 analysis of several of these studies, University of Texas psychologists Martie G. Haselton and David M. Buss offered several explanations for this finding, including that men are raised to see more sex in their environments while women are brought up to be more modest, but psychologists still haven't quite nailed down a perfect explanation for their observations.

The most attractive characteristics depend on gender.

According to a 2011 study led by University of British Columbia psychologist Jessica Tracy, heterosexual men and women diverge greatly in the facial expressions they fancy. 

After showing 1,041 people images of different facial expressions, Tracy found that: 

• Happiness was the most attractive female expression, but one of the least attractive for men.

• Pride was the most attractive male expression, but one of the least attractive for women.

Subtlety goes a long way.

University of New Mexico evolutionary psychologist Steven W. Gangestad recently told Psychology Today that flirting is a "negotiation process" that happens after the first moments of attraction.  

It's a subtle sort of testing the waters. You don't just say I'm attracted to you; are you attracted to me?

"It works much better to reveal [your attraction] and have it revealed to you in smaller doses," Gangestad says. "The flirting then becomes something that enhances the attraction."

It's not about being the most attractive person in the room.

It's about signaling that you're available. 

According to research from Webster University psychologist Monica Moore — who studied people's flirting behavior at singles bars, shopping malls, and other places where young people meet — people who smiled and made eye contact with others were more likely to be approached than those who were simply good-looking

Eye contact really helps.

Without being too much of a creep, staring into another person's eyes really does have effects.

In one study, researchers had 48 pairs of unacquainted, opposite-sex undergrads spend two minutes at each of the following tasks: 1) gazing at their partner’s eyes, 2) gazing at their partner’s hands, and 3) counting how many times their partner blinked.

When both pairs were doing the eye-gazing task at the same time — meaning they were looking at each other — they were far likely to report feelings of affection than when they were doing any other task. 

People feel connected when they get past the small talk.

You probably already know that asking questions of the person you fancy is a good idea. 

But it's all about the kind of questions you ask. 

According to a widely cited 1997 study by State University of New York psychologist Arthur Aron, people feel more closely bonded when they ask each other intimate questions, as in "What roles do love and affection play in your life?" and "What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?" 

Six months later, two of the participants (a tiny fraction of the original study group) even found themselves in love — an intriguing result, though not a significant one.

http://www.techinsider.io/9-facts-about-flirting-2015-6

What We Now Know About Jealousy in Relationships

Where do you land on the scale?

No one wants to be abandoned by their romantic partner. But in some relationships,jealousy or possessiveness threatens to drive people apart. When jealousy is fueled by insecurity and turns into possessiveness, a relationship may take an unwanted turn. You probably don’t want to feel owned, and your partner likely desires at least some autonomy.

Recent research illuminates how cultures and genders exhibit possessive behaviors. Evolutionary psychologists assert that complex human behaviors can be traced to their roots in protecting the species. Relationship researchers focus on mate guarding, a term that refers to an organism’s tendency to defend its territory, including its sexual partner. According to psychologists Abraham Buunk and Alejandro Castro Solano, some birds (e.g. bank swallows) may stalk their mate, spying on them as often as 100 times a day. Buunk and Solano’s work specifically addresses the possibility that cultural influences shape whether and how humans express possessive tendencies toward our partners.

Different societies have different norms. Mate guarding among human groups ranges from keeping constant tabs on a mate (like a bank swallow) to executing females who commit adultery, where it is considered a “crime of honor.” Although most studies of mate guarding have focused on males, one study surveying 137 societies conducted in the 1980s found that arguments over men were the main reason that women fought with each other. Women exhibited similar levels of jealous emotions—such as anger and aggression—as did men toward the thought of their partners becoming unfaithful.

Possessiveness can be traced to evolutionary roots, but many suspect that socialization and personality also influence whether a man or woman tries to control a partner’s behavior. In Western cultures, men do not prevent their partners from meeting other men, and may even accept the idea that their partners occasionally (and innocently) flirt; in many Islamic cultures, however, women are veiled and prohibited from interacting with men.

To explain these variations, Buunk and Solano posit that mate guarding is more likely to occur in societies in which arranged marriages are the norm. When people are not free to choose who they marry, they may require more protection to ensure that someone they do love will not come along and threaten the marriage. As Buunk and Solano state, “as one knows that the spouse did not enter the marriage out of love, one may perceive a high risk that the spouse might become sexually involved with, or might fall in love with, someone else” (p. 105). Their theory is that when people choose each other on the basis of love, they will be less concerned with the possibility that their partner will pursue a rival. 

To test their hypothesis, Buunk and Solano surveyed one sample of exchange students in the Netherlands, and one sample of Argentinians ranging from 18 to 41 in age, 64% of whom were already partnered. Participants rated their perceived degree of parental influence over their choice of mate and their perception of how much parental influence was considered normative in their home country.

These 8 items were on the possessiveness scale. Participants rated each from 5 (very much applicable) to 1 (not applicable):

1. I do not want my partner to meet too many people of the opposite sex.
2. It is not acceptable to me if my partner sees people of the opposite sex on a friendly basis.
3. I demand from my partner that he/she does not look at other women/men.
4. I am quite possessive with respect to my partner.
5. I do not want my partner to go his/her own way.
6. I demand from my partner that he/she does not flirt with other men/women.
7. I prefer it that my partner does not leave the house alone.
8. I have the feeling my partner is mine, and that others have to keep their hands off him/her.

The average score of all participants on this scale was right in the middle (approximately 2.5 per item, or a total of 20 on all items). However, people scored higher on this score if they perceived their parents to have an influence on their partner choice. Moreover, this effect was stronger among people who closely identified with their own culture of origin’s family values. Most important, the findings were similar for men and women.

Women and men share the responsibility for possessiveness and jealousy in a relationship. Moreover, the findings illustrate the important role of family values in influencing behaviors associated with personality characteristics such as anxious attachment—the fear of being abandoned by your partner. Some speculate that people would be more possessive of partners they perceived as attractive, and who might be the target of others. However, there was a zero correlation between perceived partner attractiveness and individuals' feelings of possessiveness toward that partner. 

If you score high on the possessiveness scale (or your partner does), it might mean that you and/or your partner have a "jealousy-predisposing" personality. Consider how your own cultural background influences the feelings that you and your partner have toward possessiveness. You may be mapping your own cultural attitudes in a way that causes undue worry and may harm your relationship's future.

Understand how your culture influences your personality and relationship to pinpoint the origins of your feelings toward your partner. Your greater awareness will help you get more fulfilment out of that relationship without worrying about losing it.

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201505/what-we-now-know-about-jealousy-in-relationships