TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 17 If seeking a mate or sizing up a potential rival, good-looking people capture people's attention in half of a second, a Florida State University study found.
"It's like magnetism at the level of visual attention," study leader Jon Maner said in a statement.
In a series of three experiments, Maner and colleagues found that the study participants, all heterosexual men and women, fixated on highly attractive people quickly and automatically.
Single people ogled the opposite sex, but those in committed relationships also checked people out,. However, they were more interested in beautiful people of the same sex, the study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found.
"If we are interested in finding a mate, our attention gets quickly and automatically stuck on attractive members of the opposite sex," Maner said. "If we are jealous and worried about our partner cheating on us, attention gets quickly and automatically stuck on attractive people of our own sex because they are our competitors."