Love at first sight, or in half a second?

Don't believe in love at first sight? New research shows it only takes half a second to decide if someone is attractive and a potential mate.

Psychologist Jon Maner of Florida State University discovered that people tend to fixate on attractive faces within the first half-second of seeing them before sizing them up as a possible mate or rival.

In the study university students were shown pictures of very attractive or average-looking people for one second before being asked to look at something else. By measuring people's reaction time, Maner and his team were able to determine that half a second is all it takes to decide if someone is attractive.

The researchers also noticed that people fixated on attractive faces for half a second longer after the one second time limit.

Single people in the study were interested in members of the opposite sex.

"These are the kind of people we might prefer as romantic partners, but it doesn't mean we'd be able to have a relationship with them because highly attractive people are very sought after," said Maner.

But people in committed relationships who viewed the pictures were interested in attractive members of the same sex.

"These are the type of people we are jealous of and vigilant towards, worrying about infidelity as we try to guard our mates," Maner explained.

The study also showed the pitfalls of visual fixation, including negative effects on self-esteem when looking at an attractive person of the same sex. Maner said the negativity could potentially be linked to illnesses such as bulimia.

Another pitfall is that people may become less satisfied in their current relationships.

"The evidence shows when we see attractive alternatives to our partners it can make us feel less satisfied and less committed with our current partner, which clearly has implications for relationship success," said Maner.

The findings were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

© The Calgary Herald 2007 - taken from here.

Definition of Sex and Love Addiction

Love addicts go through life with desperate hopes and constant fears. Fearing rejection, pain, unfamiliar experiences, and having little faith in their ability or right to inspire love, they wait and wish for love, perhaps their least familiar real experience.

Addictive sexuality is like most other compulsive behaviors: a destructive twist on a normal life-enhancing activity. Defining sex addiction depends less on the behavior itself than on the person's motivation.

Sex addicts lack the ability to control or postpone sexual feelings and actions, with the need for arousal often replacing the need for intimacy. Eventually, thrill seeking becomes more important than family, career, even personal health and safety.

The sex addict follows a routine or ritual leading to acting out on desires, and is then fraught by feelings of denial then shame, despair, and confusion.

Addiction is characterized by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance or activity despite negative social, psychological and/or physical consequences. It is often (but not always) accompanied by physical dependence, withdrawal syndrome and tolerance.

Withdrawal consists of a predictable group of signs resulting from abrupt removal of, or a rapid decrease in the dosage of, a psychoactive substance or activity. The syndrome is often characterized by overactivity of the physiologic functions that were suppressed by the drug and/or depression of the functions that were stimulated by the object of addiction.

Tolerance is a state in which a drug or activity produces a diminishing response. That is to say, higher doses (or in the case of sex addicts, riskier behavior) is needed to produce the same effect that the user experienced initially.

Taken from here.