Decoding Love - Andrew Trees [10]
This doesn’t mean that you should rely on these friends to tell you whether or not you should date someone (as we’ve just seen, there are some serious pitfalls to this approach), but it might not be a bad idea to get their help clarifying what will make you happy in a relationship. You may think that you don’t care very much about a certain quality, such as thoughtfulness, but your friend may be able to remind you of the intense frustration you have felt toward everyone who lacks that quality. You may also think that something is desperately important, while your friend can remind you that your last partner had that quality, and it didn’t make you any less unhappy. One woman admitted that she almost decided to end the relationship with the man she eventually married until one of her friends chided her for undervaluing the importance of kindness.
YOU WORE RED—NO, I WORE BLUE. AH, YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL.
Given all of this, it won’t come as any great surprise that our memory is not particularly reliable, either, and we are likely to recall events in a number of deeply inaccurate ways that have profound implications for dating. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for his ingenious work on these issues, has discovered that we don’t remember an experience with equal intensity throughout. We tend to remember it at its most intense, and we tend to remember the end—what Kahneman has dubbed the “peak-end” rule. In a sign of just how far scientists are willing to go to understand this phenomenon, they did a study of men who underwent colonoscopy exams. Needless to say, having a tube with a camera (thank God for miniaturization!) inserted into your rectum and then being poked and prodded with it for several minutes is not a pleasant experience, and this unpleasantness is itself significant—people will skip regular testing to avoid it, despite the medical benefits. So, if doctors could find a way to make the experience less unpleasant, patients might be more willing to have the procedure. Researchers decided to take advantage of Kahneman’s peak-end rule. One group received the standard colonoscopy. The second group also received the standard colonoscopy with one twist (well, not a literal twist—that would be most uncomfortable). After the exam was over, the doctor left the scope in for a brief period of at least twenty seconds. Although still not enjoyable, those final moments were much less distressing than when the scope was being moved around. But the proof is in the, er, pudding. How did the extra time affect the patients? Kahneman’s theory held true: the second group remembered the experience as less unpleasant and were more likely to agree to follow-up colonoscopies than the first group.
Your average date is, I hope, much more pleasant than your average colonoscopy, but Kahneman’s peak-end rule does provide some easy advice. Try to make sure that the date includes at least one really intense moment of happiness. That will be the moment your date will remember. And whatever you do, end the date on a high note. That will color your date’s memory of the entire experience.
BEWARE EXPECTATIONS
Our experience is not only hostage to our slippery memory—it’s also powerfully shaped by the expectations we bring with us. Even something as fundamental as how we taste food is remarkably susceptible to manipulation based on our expectations. You only need to look at Brian Wansink’s brilliant work as the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. He has done a number of clever studies at the Spice Box, a laboratory that masquerades as a restaurant. In one experiment, he offered diners a free glass of Cabernet