Do you know exactly how you chose your loved one? Did the commonality of views, hobbies and preferences play a decisive role? Maybe. But what attracted us in the first place is not at all from the field of intelligence. What do we really choose?
Sociocultural factors undoubtedly play a large role in choosing a life partner. All world literature, art and, of course, psychology are about this. But what is the very first impulse? Without what, we are unlikely to even analyze the similarity of cultural preferences?
Physiologists and psychologists say that three main ways of perception are involved in choosing a partner: visual, kinesthetic and auditory. Let’s try to understand the meaning of each of them.
Dictatorship of evolution
We get to know a person, our eyes instantly scan the type of his appearance, our ears evaluate the timbre and melody of the voice – the first impression is ready before we even realize it. The results of visual and auditory perceptions are described in detail by physiologists and psychologists, and their assessments are almost unanimous.
Evolutionary biologist William Brown of Brunel University London has published the results of a study on the basis on which people choose sexual partners. He writes that experiments have confirmed the common truth – women prefer broad-shouldered and narrow-hip men, while men, for the most part, respond to the difference between a thin waist and wide hips.
The explanation lies in the background of our choice, which we are not always aware of. Nature pushes women to strong partners who are able to give healthy offspring, and dictates the same to men – it fixes their attention on the external signs of a woman’s ability to bear and give birth to children. These preferences have developed over thousands of years of evolution, and they do not depend much on aesthetic tastes and on whether we are looking for a partner for the long term or planning a short-term pleasant adventure.
Pascal Boyer, professor of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis, notes that an important additional stimulus, also operating at the subconscious level, is the timbre of the voice. He cites research data showing that most women prefer men with a deep and low voice.
The final verdict
After the eyes and ears have left a new acquaintance on the list of contenders for our attention, the kinesthetic aspect of our perception enters the arena. Behind this term, which is not entirely clear at first, lies a whole set of evaluative gradations, which allows the subconscious to pass a sentence: we consider a stranger as a possible sexual partner or completely excluded.
Kinesthetic perception includes olfactory and tactile impressions. Simply put, we catch the subtlest smells that are not fixed on a conscious level, evaluate touches – skin texture, temperature, the finest features of motor skills.
This is exactly what authors of women’s novels love to write about so much: he took her hand, and … By the time “her heart is ready to jump out of her chest”, as a rule, visual, auditory and kinesthetic perception has already worked, – this is how the theory explains ecstasy of the “wonderful moment”.
From simple reactions to conscious choice
These are the first impulses of sexual interest, which are usually not read by consciousness, but then replenish the treasury of romantic memories. And our stories to children and grandchildren will be about how we met eyes, but by no means about types of perception.
An emotional superstructure and the subsequent development of relationships may or may not arise, it depends on the rational assessment of the partner: whether he is right for you, whether the main life priorities and attitudes, interests, plans coincide. Primary impulses came to us from our ancestors in the course of evolution.
In popular psychological literature, the statement wanders from publication to publication that there are three sexual types – visuals, auditory and kinesthetics.
In the first, according to the authors of publications on similar topics, visual sources of excitation dominate, in the second case – sound, and in the third – tactile or tactile. This is an erroneous statement that follows from the identification of three main types of perception. However, on this basis, practical advice is given on how to deal with a partner who supposedly belongs to one of these three types.
Physiologists say that such types do not exist in their pure form. We all have a whole set of exciting factors. In what proportion they are inherent in a particular person depends on the situation and on the partner, the stage of the relationship, the time of day, the mood, literally the weather.
The common truth that a man loves with his eyes, and a woman with her ears, may turn out to be true at some point, but you should not take it as a guide to action, you can get a result opposite to what you want. There is evidence that the proportion of visual images in exciting factors in men is greater than in women, and data on the predominance of the audio factor in the sexual arousal of women. But so far they are fragmented and contradictory and have not received scientific justification.
So it is best to remember that we perceive the world in colors and shapes, melodies and sounds, smells and sensations. It is this complex harmony that will tell you what will bind you stronger with your partner – a sunny spring morning or, conversely, a dark starry night.