Why Can't We Take Our Eyes Off Attractive People?

- The biological factors

She scorns you because you don't miss any pretty face on the street. Don't worry: she too does the same. The truth revealed by a new Florida State University research is that no matter if we are looking for a mate or assessing a potential rival, beautiful people capture our attention nearly instantaneously. "It's like magnetism at the level of visual attention," said Jon Maner, an assistant professor of psychology at FSU. "The paper is one of the first to show how strongly, quickly and automatically we are attuned to attractive people," he said.

Maner's team discovered that the study's subjects, all heterosexual men and women, focussed on attractive people within less than 0.5 seconds from the moment they saw them.

Single folks checked all the opposite sex representatives, but those in long-term relationships presented a major difference: their interest in beautiful people of the same sex. "If we're interested in finding a mate, our attention gets quickly and automatically stuck on attractive members of the opposite sex. If we're jealous and worried about our partner cheating on us, attention gets quickly and automatically stuck on attractive people of our own sex because they are our competitors.", said Maner.

Our brains have evolved to react strongly to signs of physical attractiveness to detect the best mate and warding off potential competitors. "These kinds of attentional biases can occur completely outside of our conscious awareness," he said.

This comes with annoyances in our romantic relationship: even if we are committed in long-term relationships, we find it difficult to shift our attention from images of attractive individuals of the opposite sex. Focusing on images of potential romantic rivals triggers feelings of insecurity (translated to jealousy) in our partners.

This trap is increased by modern technology. There may be people of striking beauty in real life, but they can be industrially produced by movies, magazines or on the Internet. "It may be helpful to try to minimize our exposure to these images that have probably been 'doctored'. We should pay attention to all of the regular-looking people out in the world so that we have an appropriate standard of physical beauty. This is important because too much attention to ultra-attractive people can damage self-esteem as well as satisfaction with a current romantic partner.", said Maner.

The new research was made on 442 subjects who completed questionnaires assessing how much they were motivated to look for members of the opposite sex. After that, they watched images of highly attractive men, highly attractive women, average-looking men and average-looking women. After a photo of a face appeared in one quadrant of a computer screen, the subjects were asked to shift their attention to somewhere else on the screen. The researchers discovered that it took the subjects longer to shift their attention from the photos of the highly attractive people.

"I am surprised that my studies showed little differences between the sexes when it came to fixating on eye-catching people. Women paid just as much attention to men as men did to women. I was also surprised that jealous men paid so much attention to attractive men. Men tend to worry more about other men being more dominant, funny or charismatic than they are. But when it comes to concerns about infidelity, men are very attentive to highly attractive guys because presumably their wives or girlfriends may be too.", said Maner.

By: Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

The Humor of Melvin Durai

INDIAN ENGLISH: IT VILL BE WERY HELPFUL, YAAR!

It is the year 2020 and call centers are opening all over the West, as the new economic power India outsources work to the countries where many jobs originated. Millions of Americans, still struggling to adapt to a global economy, are willing to accept jobs that pay them in a new currency sweeping much of the world: EuRupees.

Some of them, eager to land one of the customer service jobs from India, are attending special training sessions in New York City, led by language specialist Dave Ramsey, who goes by a simpler name for his Indian clients: Devendra Ramaswaminathan.

On this warm afternoon, the professor is teaching three ambitious students how to communicate with Indian customers.

Professor: "Okay, Gary, Randy and Jane, first we need to give you Indian names. Gary, from now on, you'll be known to your customers as Gaurav. Randy, you'll be Ranjit. And Jane, you'll be Jagadamba. Now imagine you just received a call from Delhi. What do you say?"

Gary: "Name as tea?"

Professor: "I think you mean 'namaste.' Very good. But what do you say after that?"

Gary: "How can I help you?"

Professor: "You're on the right track. Anyone else?"

Jane: "How can I be helping you?"

Professor: "Good try! You're using the correct tense, but it's not quite right. Anyone else?"

Randy: "How I can be helping you?"

Professor: "Wonderful! Word order is very important. Okay, let's try some small talk. Give me a comment that would help you make a connection with your Indian customers."

Randy: "It's really hot, isn't it?"

Professor: "The heat is always a good topic, but you haven't phrased it correctly. Try again."

Randy: "It's deadly hot, isn't it?"

Professor: "That's better. But your tag question can be greatly improved."

Randy: "It's deadly hot, no?"

Professor: "Wonderful! You can put 'no?' at the end of almost any statement. You are understanding me, no?"

Jane: "Yes, we are understanding you, no?"

Professor (smiles): "We may need to review this later. But let's move on to other things. Have you ever heard Indians use the word 'yaar'?"

Randy: "Yes, my Indian friends use it all the time. Just last night, one of them said to me, 'Randy, give me yaar password. I am needing it to fix yaar computer."

Professor (laughs): "That's a different 'yaar,' yaar. The 'yaar' that I'm talking about means friend or buddy. You can use it if you've developed a camaraderie with a customer. For example, you can say, 'Come on, yaar. I am offering you the best deal.' Do you understand, Jagadamba?"

Jane: "Yaar, I do."

Professor (smiles): "Okay, let's talk about accents. If your client says 'I yam wery vorried about vat I bought for my vife,' how would you respond?"

Randy: "Please don't be vorrying, yaar. She vill be wery happy and vill give you a vild time tonight."

Professor: "Vunderful! I mean, wonderful. You have a bright future, Ranjit. And so do you, Jagadamba. But Gaurav, you haven't said anything in a while. Do you have any questions about what we've just learned?"

Gary: "Yes, Professor, I do have one question: Wouldn't it be simpler to learn to speak Hindi?"