A magnet as a symbol of the attraction of two loving hearts enhances the feelings of lovers - at least for a while
In psychology, there is a priming phenomenon, when an unconscious past experience affects our behavior in the future. For example, according to one of the classic experiments, after a person reads or hears something related to old age, he will begin to move more slowly - as if he himself suddenly grew old.
Priming has many varieties, and special attention of psychologists is attracted by those cases when it comes to social behavior, when priming is manifested in communication or when it is formed by the social environment and its institutions (for example, all kinds of mass media).
Recently, however, the concept of priming has come under a lot of criticism due to the fact that when trying to reproduce the old results, these same results are not reproduced - in particular, this is exactly what happened with the aforementioned study about walking and "age" words. On the other hand, modern psychologists in their works continue to stumble upon something that, in their opinion, cannot be explained otherwise than by priming.
Researchers from Texas A&M University surveyed 120 students on the subject of romantic relationships: how close they are with a partner, how much they are attracted to each other, how much they feel good about being together, etc.; it must be added that it was not only about the current relationship, but also about those that have recently ended - in this case, obviously, the strength of nostalgia was measured.
Before the survey, all the participants in the experiment were given “to play with cubes”: they had to add and disassemble various structures made of rectangular blocks. The trick was that some students were given blocks that were attracted to each other, others - which repelled from each other, finally, the third were given simple, non-magnetic "cubes".
In an article in PLoS ONE, the authors write that those who got the pulling blocks talked about a closer relationship, about loyalty, about obligations to others, and in general the relationship was more of a joy to them than those who got the repelling or non-magnetized "cubes" … (In the last two groups, by the way, there was no difference in the perception of their own love relationships.)
The experiment was repeated a little later, with a large number of participants and with only two types of blocks, attractive and simple. The result was the same, albeit with nuances: if the force of attraction - not to the magnet, but to the partner - increased, then the joy of the relationship and devotion to another weakened; the authors of the work explain this by the vicissitudes in their personal lives that happened to the students during their studies.
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We all know that people in love are said to be “drawn to each other like a magnet”. According to psychologists, in the case of real magnets, the attraction to a partner intensified precisely because both "love" and "magnets" and "attraction" are associatively connected, and social priming, embodied in the metaphor of love as a magnet, worked when a real magnet ended up in the hands.
In this case, the experiment was repeated twice, that is, the result was indeed reproducible; however, it would be good if the same experiment were repeated in some other laboratory and, perhaps, with a large number of participants.
Kirill Stasevich