A rational checklist is no match for heart emotions

For many people, few things are more rewarding than scratching an item on the checklist. But what if the checklist is about your dream partner? And if the checklist is wrong?

"Relationshopping" means that you are looking for the ideal partner, as if people were products. Online dating, now used by almost 40% of "single and seeking" Americans, could normalize this trend. Often aided by search filters, potential daters look for the perfect combination of attributes rather than focusing on the experience of being with a person.

Relationships can work if people know each other well, but research indicates otherwise. In recent years, psychologists, economists and neuroscientists have found that decisions are largely driven by emotions. Moreover, in the stable and logical environment in which we anticipate our decisions, people find it difficult to account for visceral drives such as excitement, hunger and badual arousal.

Researchers in psychology like me call it "empathy between hot and cold". This distance between our predicted behaviors in a cold and rational state and our actual behaviors in a hot, excited state explains why people often do not do what they say. This could explain, for example, why you swore to no longer eat New Year cookies – and you really did – and then ate a dozen (they smelled so good!) When your colleague brought them to job.

In the cold state, it's easy to forget the power of emotions. Given the strong and complex feelings involved, you may be subject to a lack of empathy in finding the ideal partner.

Hot-cold decision-making in dating

Studies have highlighted the gap between empathy and warmth in many behaviors, including the inability of young men to use condoms under the shock of badual arousal and the inability of people to demonstrate compbadion for social suffering unless you feel the same pain.

Psychology researchers are now turning to the empathy gap between hot and cold to understand why the attributes that people say they want in a romantic partner often differ from the attributes they actually chose in real life. Speed-dating studies provide an ideal framework to examine this question: researchers are able to compare people's reports on what they want with their decisions about who to date.

In a study of speed-dating, the preferences of students in a partner showed typical differences between the bades. Women preferred wealth more than men, and men preferred beauty more than women. When these same participants quickly dated, there was no difference between the bades in preferences for wealth and beauty. In addition, the preferences declared by the participants do not allow to predict to whom they proposed a date in the event of speed-dating.

In another study, men found that smarter women were more desirable in hypothetical situations, but less desirable if they actually interacted with them in a real-world scenario. These findings may be attributable to people's inability to account for their emotions – such as the excitement of beauty or inadequacy caused by a smarter woman – in the presence of a potential partner. In the heat of the moment, emotions can override preconceived ideas about what you want.

Although some of the current research gives the impression that "hot" states are misleading people in love, they may have a brighter side. At present, ethnic preferences for attendance are common, even among the most educated. Interested in understanding the correspondence between declared and actual ethnic preferences, I conducted a study of "speed dating" on young Americans of Asian origin, who can approach love in a more practical way in because of the cultural will to meet the expectations of their families rather than satisfy them. Thus, Americans of Asian descent may not show lack of empathy in dating when they give high priority to their cold list of attributes approved by their parents rather than their own. To their burning emotions.

Unsurprisingly, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Filipino American participants told me in advance that they preferred to go out with their own group. Their fast dating decisions, however, do not reflect their stated preferences. Fast daters were no more inclined to want to see partners of the same ethnic group. Perhaps in person, they were too overwhelmed by the desire to take into account the negative social consequences, such as parents' disapproval, of leaving their ethnicity. The visceral experience once again beat the logical checklist.

How to jump beyond the gap

With the knowledge of the empathy gap between hot and cold, finding a partner can seem even more daunting. However, there are some things you can do to bridge the gap between your hot and cold states and hope to get closer to finding love.

Start by understanding your own biases so you can report back. How? Ask the others. Research suggests that people easily identify the prejudices of others, but not theirs. Another way is to put yourself in the "hot" state and think about what really gets you into a person. In one study, the researchers provoked rejection from the teachers – only in this situation did the teachers really understand the pain felt by the students being bullied.

Once you have identified them, you can avoid some of the decisions you make in your "hot" states. Another tactic is to avoid undesirable situations. For example, you may be attracted to "bad boys" or "bad girls". Knowing the power of emotions, move away from places where you might encounter one, for example if friends or family hold you accountable.

So be reasonable in your expectations. Carefully go through your "cold" checklists of desired qualities in a potential partner and consider removing superficial ones. All of these criteria may not count as much as you think when it comes to falling in love. Determine if you are unnecessarily excluding people based on ideas of what you should want.

Too many options can mean never being happy. Rather than always looking for the best thing to do and the "relationshipshopping", the researchers suggest that people should try to "relationshiphipping" – develop a healthy partnership through time and mutual effort. It does not mean settling with anyone. Look for someone who is willing and able to invest the blood, sweat and tears needed for a fruitful relationship.

Even though it's easy to blame our emotions for "irrational" decisions, people should also celebrate their emotions. Sometimes "hot" emotions move people in a more positive direction, perhaps making them less aware of the ethnicity or potential income of potential partners. Emotions serve an important evolutionary purpose, prompting us to act. They urge us to help each other, to create bonds and to make the leap of faith necessary to find and build love, sometimes in places where we least expect it.