Male singletons counting down the days to Valentine's Day might want to take note。
A woman is more attracted to a man when she is uncertain about how much he likes her, according to scientists。
A study published in the journal Psychological Science said: 'When people first meet, it may be that popular dating advice is correct - keeping people in the dark about how much we like them will increase how much they think about us and will pique their interest.'
To arrive at their conclusion, the researchers - Erin Whitchurch and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University - analysed 47 female undergraduates。
But, in order to get a natural response, the University of Virginia volunteers didn't know the exact nature of the experiment they were taking part in。
Instead, they were told scientists were conducting a survey into whether Facebook could work as an online dating website。
Each student was told that male students from two other universities had viewed her profile and those of 15 to 20 other females。
Then the women were shown four men's Facebook profiles that they thought were real, but were actually fictitious。
Some of the women were told they'd seen the four men who liked them the most, while others were informed these were four men who rated them about average。
A third group was told the men could be either the ones who liked them most or the ones who liked them about average - so those women didn't know about the level of the men's interest in them。
Women who believed the men liked them a lot were more attracted to the men than women who thought the men liked them only an average amount。
However, the women who found the men most attractive were the ones who weren't sure whether those men were into them or not。
The authors said: 'Numerous popular books advise people not to display their affections too openly to a potential romantic partner and to instead appear choosy and selective.'
那些为情人节的到来而发愁的单身男士们需要看看这篇文章。
科学家们发现，如果一个女人不确定一个男人有多喜欢她，那么这个女人更容易被该男人吸引。
一项发表在《心理科学》杂志上的研究报告称：“有个流行的约会建议也许说的没错——初次见面时，不要让对方看出你有多喜欢他/她，这样会给你的形象加分，并会引起对方的兴趣。”
为了证实以上结论，研究人员分析了47个女大学生的反应。参与该研究的研究人员有弗吉尼亚大学的埃林?惠特彻奇和蒂莫西?威尔逊、以及哈佛大学的丹尼尔?吉尔伯特。
不过，为了确保被调查者的反应是自然的，弗吉尼亚大学的这些志愿者们并不知道她们参与的这项调查的实质内容。
研究人员告诉志愿者说，科学家们在研究Facebook网站是否能发挥婚恋交友网站的功能。
研究人员告诉每个女学生说其他两个大学的男生已经看过了她们以及其他15到20个女性的个人资料。
接着研究人员给这些女学生看了四个男生在Facebook上的个人资料，这些资料是虚构的，但是女生们并不知情。
研究人员告诉一些女生说她们看过的这四个男生是最喜欢她们的，同时告诉另一些女生说这四个男生觉得她们挺普通的。
第三组人则被告知说这些男生可能最喜欢她们，也可能对她们没什么特别感觉。于是这些女生就不知道男生们对她们的兴趣有多大。
和那些认为男生对她们感觉一般的女生相比，那些相信男生很喜欢她们的女生更容易被男生吸引。
然而，认为这些男生最有魅力的却是那些不确定男生是否喜欢她们的女生。
几位作者说：“很多畅销书都建议人们不要对一个潜在的恋爱对象过于明显地表露他们的情感，相反，这些书建议人们应该表现得更挑剔一些。”
