People in Love Are Blind to Pretty Faces

If your loved one claims to “only have eyes for you”

it might be truer than you think

Research shows that people in a committed relationship who have been thinking about their partner actually avert their eyes from attractive members of the opposite sex without even being aware they are doing it

it takes longer for viewers to shift their attention away from attrac­tive faces of the opposite sex.

subjects who were married

Those who wrote about love actually turned their attention away from attractive members of the opposite sex even more quickly

than they looked away from average-looking people

This unconscious attentional bias probably evolved to help men and women stay in monogamous relation­ships

in humans tend to have a reproductive advantage

These biases have been built into our psychology to enhance people’s reproductive success.”