the bird on fire

When Editor Quintus assigned us the theme of “Love,” James thought of Shaking Bridges. . . .

By James Zheng

There are plenty of interesting and bizarre psychological effects that appear really paradoxical but they actually turn out to be pretty intuitive. I remember one such psychological effect, the Shaking Bridge Effect–which should be taken into account as a representative effect pertaining to the core topic of Editor Quintus’s theme, love.  

The Shaking Bridge Effect usually occurs in a specific circumstance, which is when one rigorously walks through a shaking bridge. That experience would accelerate the heartbeat and unsettle the individual. At this moment, if the individual coincidentally (or deliberately) encounters another person, the individual would misperceive the current situation. The individual would misunderstand his/her accelerated heartbeat as the presence of his/her affection towards that person. So, falling in love is like when you are coming across the shaking bridge, and your heart is beating fast, and all of a sudden you see someone in your sight, you basically see this “heart beating” as a reaction to the “person” instead of the “shaking effect.” And eventually, this will root the seed of love in the bridge walker’s mind.

This psychological effect is proposed by Arthur Aron, who is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is best known for his work on intimacy in interpersonal relationships and development of the self-expansion model of motivation in close relationships. Coming back to the Shaking Bridge Effect, the premise  basically tells us a dangerous or stimulating situation could enhance the mutual relationship.

There is a famous experiment projected by Aron. The suspension bridge is 450 feet long and 5 feet wide. This suspension bridge has been suspended over the 230-foot high valley of the Kapolano river with two pieces of hemp rope and fragrant wood. The suspension bridge swings back and forth, which is not only exciting, but also frightening. The team asked a beautiful young woman to stand in the middle of the bridge, waiting for men between the ages of 18 and 35 who had no female companion to cross the bridge. She was directed to tell the men who crossed the bridge that she hoped they would participate in an ongoing survey. She asked them several questions and recorded their results.

Then, the same experiment was carried out on another ordinary bridge that spans a stream but is only 10 feet tall. The same beautiful lady showed the same questionnaire to the men crossing the bridge.

As a result, the men walking across the suspension bridge thought the woman was more beautiful, and about half of the men later asked for her phone number. And, for males crossing the stable bridge, only two of the 16 males asked for her phone number.

Researchers believe that, unlike people’s common sense, individual emotional experience is not formed spontaneously because of their own experiences; it is a two-stage process of self perception. In this process, people first experience their own physiological feelings, and then, in the surrounding environment, they will find a suitable explanation for their physiological feelings. For example, according to the shaking bridge theory, in the process of emotional experience, people first feel that their physiological performance is different from that in the usual time; their heart rate is accelerating, and their hands are shaking a little. Next, they will involuntarily observe the environment to find clues to explain why their physiological performance happens.

And based on that, this effect reveals a fact which this technique could trigger in any circumstances that are different from usual and lead us to want to obtain a reasonable explanation for it. However, this provokes another conclusion: in real life, there may be different but reasonable explanations for the same physiological performance. Sometimes, it is difficult for people to determine which factor causes their physiological performance. Because it is difficult to accurately point out the real reason of their physiological performance, people might have a wrong understanding of emotions. In psychological terms, scholars call the process of people making wrong inferences about their feelings as “misattribution of arousal.”

Finally, to summarize everything in a simplistic way, when you like someone secretly, don’t worry whether that person likes you or not, maybe you just need to take them on a walk on an unstable bridge.

Love Editor: Quintus Ni