Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Department of Education and Psychology, Freie University, Berlin, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2022 Mar 21;12(1):4786. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-08582-6.
The decision with whom to form a romantic bond is of great importance, yet the biological or behavioral mechanisms underlying this selective process in humans are largely unknown. Classic evolutionary theories of mate selection emphasize immediate and static features such as physical appearance and fertility. However, they do not explain how initial attraction temporally unfolds during an interaction, nor account for mutual physiological or behavioral adaptations that take place when two people become attracted. Instead, recent theories on social bonding emphasize the importance of co-regulation during social interactions (i.e., the social coordination of physiology and behavior between partners), and predict that co-regulation plays a role in bonding with others. In a speed-date experiment of forty-six heterosexual dates, we recorded the naturally occurring patterns of electrodermal activity and behavioral motion in men and women, and calculated their co-regulation during the date. We demonstrate that co-regulation of behavior and physiology is associated with the date outcome: when a man and a woman synchronize their electrodermal activity and dynamically tune their behavior to one another, they are more likely to be romantically and sexually attracted to one another. This study supports the hypothesis that co-regulation of sympathetic and behavioral rhythms between a man and a woman serves as a mechanism that promotes attraction.
与谁建立浪漫关系的决定非常重要，但人类在这一选择过程中的生物学或行为机制在很大程度上仍是未知的。经典的伴侣选择进化理论强调了即时的和静态的特征，如外貌和生育能力。然而，它们并不能解释最初的吸引力如何在互动过程中随着时间的推移展开，也不能解释当两个人相互吸引时发生的相互的生理或行为适应。相反，关于社会联系的最新理论强调了在社会互动中进行共同调节的重要性（即伴侣之间生理和行为的社会协调），并预测共同调节在与他人建立联系中起着作用。在一个有 46 对异性约会者的快速约会实验中，我们记录了男性和女性在约会过程中自然发生的皮肤电活动和行为运动模式，并计算了他们在约会过程中的共同调节情况。我们证明，行为和生理的共同调节与约会结果有关：当一个男人和一个女人同步他们的皮肤电活动，并动态地调整彼此的行为时，他们更有可能相互产生浪漫和性吸引力。这项研究支持了这样一种假设，即男女之间交感和行为节律的共同调节是促进吸引力的一种机制。
