Imagine yourself sitting in a coffee shop with one of your friends. You’re chatting and sipping your lattes while you’re casually people watching.
The door swings open and you catch a glimpse of the person who walks in. Instantly, you feel those butterflies in your stomach or chest or wherever. You just can’t help but notice how attractive they are.
Do you ever wonder what’s really going through your head during those moments?
Researchers who study romance and attraction divide “love” into three different categories—lust, attraction, and attachment. When you’re physically attracted to someone, you’re experiencing neurological and hormonal changes that affect the way you feel.
Here’s what was going on in your brain when you’ve spotted that special someone.
Chemicals and Hormones
When you feel attracted to someone, several important chemicals and hormones interact within your brain and body.
Dopamine, for example, is released when you spend time with the one you’re attracted to. This activates the reward pathways in your brain and makes you feel “addicted” to that person. Basically, your reward centers are going wild when you look at the person you’re attracted to. It can feel similar to a “fight or flight” response, which is why you tend to get nervous around them.
You’re also feeling the effects of norepinephrine, which can make you feel practically euphoric. And finally, your serotonin levels also drop, which actually prompts those feelings of obsession with the object of your affections.
Snap Judgments
When you lock eyes with someone who you feel attracted to, what changes within your brain and body? There is measurable action in your ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
This region of the brain becomes activated when you notice someone who looks conventionally attractive. It happens within seconds. It’s not love at first sight, but it can sometimes feel like it!
Your brain is basically recognizing that this person has a symmetrical, youthful face. They look healthy and happy, and you naturally feel attracted to them. But as we all know, there is no single definition of beauty. This feeling could easily be fleeting—or it could turn into something deeper.
The Perfect Match
On any given day, you probably notice a few people who look attractive. But most of the time, that feeling just passes. How does your brain differentiate between people who are just conventionally good-looking and people who look exceptionally attractive according to your personal preferences?
That’s where your rostromedial prefrontal cortex comes into play. This region becomes quite active when you see someone who looks like your “type,” but they’re not getting much attention from other people.
Your brain starts evaluating whether or not they’re right for you. That’s because this region of your brain is heavily involved in social decisions, like figuring out how similar someone is to you. Overall, most people tend to be attracted to other people who share similarities with them.
Go for It?
Sometimes, you feel attracted to a person, but the feeling isn’t strong enough to motivate you to act on it. Other times, the pull feels magnetic. You can barely hold your feelings back! And even though you’re nervous, you know that you need to make a move. You just can’t miss this chance.
Which part of your brain helps you make that final judgment call? It’s your paracingulate cortex.
This region of the brain becomes especially active when you see the face of someone who you already feel attracted to—whether it’s in person or a photograph, and those feelings help compel you to take action.
However, do you ever wonder how much physical attraction matters? After all, that initial chemistry typically fades and attraction changes over time, as do the physical features that ignite them. When it comes to long-term happiness and real relationship satisfaction, what are the most important features you should be looking for? Watch for the answer in the my final blog post on the Science of Attraction. See Blog #1 in this series here.
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Wondering how your attraction to certain people is helping or hindering your love life? Dating Therapy might be the answer.
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