Why Your Best Friend Ditched You For His Girlfriend

Why Your Best Friend Ditched You For His Girlfriend: How far is a person will to go in order to attract a romantic partner? It’s a question oft pondered by lonely college students and conniving heartbreakers. Some new research by Erica Slotter and Wendi Gardner finds that, at least from a psychological perspective, the answer is quite far. The researchers asked subjects to rate themselves [...]...

...That fact that a person may be willing to explicitly take on a negative view of themselves in order to attract a partner reveals the sheer magnitude of the positivity we feel from beginning a romantic relationship. And that’s why your no-longer-single friend isn’t coming over to play Portal 2 tonight.''

Slotter, E., & Gardner, W. (2012) The dangers of dating the “bad boy” (or girl): When does romantic desire encourage us to take on the negative qualities of potential partners?. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.05.007  The dangers of dating the “bad boy” (or girl): When does romantic desire encourage us to take on the negative qualities of potential partners?

So romance is an epidemic of badness?