Flirting Series: The importance of flirting

Flirting, although enormously important in showing your romantic interest, has an effect on variety of aspects such as your own psychological wellbeing, your health and continued relationship development. As our flirting series continues, we’ll address how flirting plays an important part on these aspects of life, creating positivity and wellbeing.

Psychological Wellbeing & Health

Flirting is important for your health and psychological wellbeing. When you flirt, and it is reciprocated, it builds confidence and self-esteem, which, in turn, increases a sense of inner happiness. This allows you to combat stress and anxiety through the release of endorphins, a ‘feel good’ hormone which scientists have proven cases a ‘blissful’ state, helping you to feel an increased sense of energy and optimism as well as a feeling of elation and happiness.

Whilst flirting from a chemical and psychological point of view seems to have numerous benefits, flirting also has physical health benefits. Whilst flirting, your white blood count and immunoglobulin levels significantly increase. This improves your immunity to sickness and illnesses, reducing the likeliness that you will become unwell. It has also been linked to an increase of life expectancy.

Sustaining Relationships

Many people keep flirting for just the initial stage of a relationship. However, if you look at causes of relationship success, flirting is a positive predictor. As your relationship develops flirting can help re-light passions of lust, in a similar form as when you were both dating.  If you feel the lust has gone, try just flirting for a month without leading on to any sexual encounters – this will help you remember the importance of flirting, and the importance of sexual tension between a couple in the bid to keep the passion alive.

By flirting with your partner, you are also showing them that you find them attractive. No one else, them. This, coupled with the release of feel good hormones (dopamine, serotonin and a pinch of adrenaline), make flirting feel addictive, boosting your relationship confidence and happiness of both you, and your partner, in your relationship.

This means that if you continue to flirt throughout your relationship not just when it starts, not only will it promote health benefits, but it can also ensure that your relationship will stand the test of time.

Flirting with Others

Although dubbed as harmless, flirting can also be a cause behind breaking down strong relationships leading to jealously, upset and heartbreak. But why, when we are in a happy long relationship, do we feel the need to flirt with other people?

As relationships progress and the ‘honeymoon period’ dies, flirting with others can become more appealing. Psychologists believe this to be down to humans being sensual beings who have an innate need for sexual awakening. When we converse with someone who is tantalising and interesting, our own sexual and sensual desires are reconfirmed to us, giving us a psychological boost. When we are then rewarded with a release of pheromones and dopamine (pleasure hormone), the positive reinforcement encourages us to continue to flirt.

Firstly it’s important to know that this boost can be obtained through flirting with your partner on a more significant level. Talking openly and deeply about joint sensuality with your partner will create a profound connection and boost you with the same release of chemicals as trivial flirting creates. However, if you are to flirt outside of the relationship, it’s important to understand what your partner sees as ‘acceptable flirting’ – speak about flirting to create boundaries, which you both work within. These boundaries create and element of security and allow an open dialog between a couple to understand what each other deem acceptable within the grounds of a relationship.

An open dialog about flirting with others allows for reassurance, rather than insecurity and eliminates the element of secrecy in flirting. This in turn creates an environment where both parties can feel comfortable and at ease.

Flirting therefore, has positive effects on health, psychological wellbeing and indeed on your current, and yet to be, relationships. However, flirting isn’t all “dopamine and serotonin” - our next blog in the flirting series will explore what happens when flirting goes wrong…

 

Ways to reduce the emotional distress of Rejection.

 

In my last blog I talked about how our need, as social animals living in groups, motivates us to avoid rejection and to seek acceptance. And, when rejection does occur, how we are differentially affected. Some of us experience strong responses to being rejected becoming emotional, even hostile, or emotionally withdrawn and depressed. Others amongst us take it more calmly and rationalise it as part of life’s ups and downs.

In this, my final discussion on rejection, I give some ideas about how we can deal with rejection and move forward in a more positive and healthy frame of mind. I will be specifically focusing on improvement strategies related to our levels of self-esteem and our emotional sensitivity to rejection; both of which I identified in my last blog, as factors that differentiate our individual reaction to rejection.

Increasing our self-esteem:

Recent neuro-scientific evidence[i]  has found that individuals with higher levels of self-esteem seemed to be more resilient to the psychological distress caused by rejection and that positive self-esteem acted as an emotional buffer to the rejection experience. So how do we increase our self-esteem?

Top tips for increasing Self-Esteem;

v  Having good self-esteem is synonymous with self-acceptance; accepting yourself the way you are, without judgement. It does not mean that you can’t be better, more successful in the future; each of us are a ‘work in progress’. But recognising and accepting weaknesses as well as strengths helps to give us the confidence to be or do better in the future. Start by writing down the positive and negative aspects of yourself, at least ten of each – make it equal. This process by itself will act as a positive affirmation of self-acceptance.

v  Avoid any unfair and unnecessary criticism of yourself.  When criticism happens challenge yourself on the fairness of the criticism. If it is justified, accept it and use it to help you set goals for yourself - working towards positive and active change rather than ruminating in paralysing negativity.

v  Pay attention properly to any nice things that happen to you, celebrate your successes and believe it when individuals compliment you.

v  When criticised and rejected use the experience to practice self-acceptance which will in turn weaken the thinking associated with low self-esteem and strengthen positive self-regard.

 

Reducing the effects of high rejection sensitivity:

Interestingly the research shows that developing an ability to exercise self-control helps to create an emotional buffer to rejection, even for those with high rejection sensitivity[ii] Further research has also shown that when individuals, whose personality predisposes them to experiencing a strong emotional response to rejection, learn a coping strategy which involves a rational thinking style, such as deciding to view the situation from another more positive perspective, their ability to control their emotional response to rejection increases.[iii]

Top Tips in learning how to control our emotions

v  Practice Mindfulness and learn, through meditation, how to control your emotions by focusing on ‘the moment’. So rather than engaging with your thoughts immediately as they arise in your mind, choose instead not to engage with or let those thoughts run rampant but instead just observe them, let them pass and then decide when you are going to pay attention to those specific thoughts, including those that might worry you.

v  Learn about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and then practice a number of different strategies including: reinterpreting the event, (describe the experience (i.e. rejection) in a way that is detached and uses non-emotive language), reappraise the event by seeing any positives in the event, for example viewing it as a learning experience rather than focusing on the negative and catastrophising.

v  Put your feelings into words as recent neuro-scientific research[iv] has shown that putting our feelings into words reduce the emotional impact of negative emotional events such as rejection.

We have focused on rejection recently because it is a huge factor that inhibit us from fulfilling our relationship goals. Hopefully, this series of blogs will help you to look at rejection a little differently, fear it less and take steps to build self-esteem and find the relationship you deserve.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] Onoda, K., Okamoto, Y., Nakashima. K., Nittono, H., Yoshimura, S., Yamawaki, S., Yamaguchi, s., & Ur, M (2010). Does low self-esteem enhance social pain? The relationship between trait self-esteem and anterior cingulate cortex activation induced by ostracism. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. Dec; 5(4): 385-91.

 

[ii] Carducci, B. J. (2009). "Basic Processes of Mischel's Cognitive-Affective Perspective: Delay of Gratification and Conditions of Behavioral Consistency". The Psychology of Personality: Viewpoints, Research, and Applications. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 443–4. ISBN 978-1-4051-3635-8.

 

[iii] Kross, E., & Clasen, P. (2008). Neural Processes in Rejection Sensitivity: Differences in Emotional Appraisal or Control? In F. Erkman (Ed.), Acceptance: The Essence of Peace. Selected Papers from the First International Congress on Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection, (pp. 51-66). Istanbul: Turkish Psychology Association.

 

[iv] Lieberman, M.D, Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M.J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M.( 2007). Putting Feelings into Words. Psychological Science, 18,(5), 421-428.

How does Rejection affect us?

As social animals, we choose to live in groups and because of this close dependency on others within our environment, we are motivated to avoid rejection and to seek acceptance. 

However, most people will experience rejection at some point in their life time. It is also likely that your life experience has already shown you that some people seem to handle rejection better or worse than others. Some of us have a strong emotional response and reaction when we are rejected, becoming emotional, even hostile, or emotionally withdrawn and depressed. Others amongst us take it more calmly, perhaps believing that it is, “Part of life”, and “An opportunity for learning and personal growth.”

It is clear that our personal experience of rejection is by definition subjective and influenced by individual differences including our emotional sensitivity to it and our levels of self-esteem.

Rejection Sensitivity

Research studies by Geraldine Downey and Scott Feldman[1] in the 1990’s showed that sensitivity to rejection differed quite dramatically between individuals with some people being much more sensitive to the experience of rejection; whether in their individual expectations of it happening, their individual perception of it, as well as their emotional reaction to it. Downey & Feldman suggested in their research that it is our early experiences of rejection by significant others that could explain why some of us have a tendency towards higher rejection sensitivity. Not surprisingly, the same research also found high rejection sensitivity to be associated with an individuals’ greater tendency to experience unsatisfactory and disappointing relationships.

Levels of Self-Esteem and Self-Worth

It might be natural for us to assume that we should all share a predisposition to liking ourselves and that because we have a positive view of ourselves, we should all have high self-esteem and self-worth. However, social psychology research shows us there are a number of factors which can influence an individual’s level of self-esteem; an important one being the views that we believe that others have of us.

An established social psychology theory known as ‘Sociometer Theory’ [2] describes our self-esteem as an internal measure of the extent to which we feel socially accepted and/or rejected. In other words, this theory suggests that our level of self-esteem is defined by others.  Based on this theory it might be logical to assume that those of us who suffer from low self-esteem and hold negative views of ourselves might be particularly vulnerable to social rejection.

Levels of self-esteem and sensitivity can make us differ in our response to rejection. In the next article, my final discussion on rejection, I give some ideas about how we can deal with rejection by developing and strengthening our self-esteem and emotionally buffering ourselves against the impact that rejection can have, even for those people with high rejection sensitivity.

 

1       Downey, G., & Feldman, S. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1327-1343.

2       Leary, M. R., Tambor, E. S., Terdal, S. K., & Downs, D. L. (1995). Self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor: The sociometer hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 518-530.

 

 

 

Flirting Series: Flirting Communication Styles

On the surface, flirting may be described as an ‘art’ which becomes an expertise and we naturally try (some more successfully than others) to master. Individuals naturally perfect the way they view flirting; it may be a certain look, a flutter of eye lids, a puff of their chest, a touch of their hand… however these self-made flirting experts may be unsure if their date is picking up on their [less than] subtle cues, or may not know if their date is flirting back.

Being unable to recognise if someone you are dating is flirting with you is a natural occurrence. “I am not sure if he/she liked me?” is something even elite Matchmakers regularly answer and address with their clients. Ask yourself if you are aware if someone whom you thought you had a connection with, is flirting with you? Unless you both happen to have the same flirting style – you are likely to be unsure of the answer!

So what is a flirting style? Although flirting is about nonverbal sexualised and romantic communication, which seems quite straight forward, it is vital to recognise the importance social psychology and individual differences play in this apparently ‘playful’ act. It has been suggested that we each have our own unique mix of flirting communication styles and as such, we accept and see flirting in different ways.

Dr Hall, expert in communication, identified five key communication styles in flirting[1]:

1.     Physical           - Emphasis on body language & the physical expression of interest with

sexual intent

2.     Polite              - Focus on manners and politeness

3.     Playful            - Focus on flirting with little or no long term romantic interest

4.     Sincere           - Focus on creating a sincere and strong emotional connection

5.     Traditional      - Focus on traditional roles of male and female input

Individuals have a mix between these five styles, with higher percentages in certain areas. Depending on their own individual differences they develop, experience and subsequently uphold different types of relationships;

1.  Physical          Develop relationships quickly and experience a strong sexual chemistry.

2.  Polite             Develop deeper relationships which are long standing and mature over a period       of time. They do not enjoy the flirting norms.

3.   Playful           Need flirting to boost self-esteem & generally see it as a playful, meaningless act rather than an important stage of developing a relationship.

4.   Sincere          Develop meaningful relationships with sexual chemistry being secondary to emotional connection.

5.   Traditional     Women who are traditional often feel as if they are not noticed by men. Traditional males will wait longer before developing a relationship with their match and the process of courting will be slow.

Understanding these differences helps us understand that someone who is dominant in a physical style may not connect with an individual who shows dominance in a polite style… these differences can be one reason why some people just don’t ‘click’ or cannot find a connection despite being similar in interests and lifestyle. We previously discussed how ‘just not clicking’ could be due to the ‘mate assessment’ stage of attraction, and as such could be due to the Power of Smell [http://www.seventy-thirty.com/blog/2014/12/psychology-of-attraction-the-power-of-smell] or the Power of the First Kiss [http://www.seventy-thirty.com/blog/2014/11/the-psychology-of-the-first-kiss].

Although on a basic level we are now aware of differences in how individuals interpret flirting, we are none the wiser on the style mix of our current match. We can however look at generalisations where research based on 5,020 participates found that women score higher on physical, polite, sincere and traditional styles where as men showed higher scores in playful styles. Hall et al (2010) also found that a mix of high scores/dominance in physical, sincere and playful styles actually is a predictor of dating success and relationship success is seen in those with mutually high scores in physical and sincere styles.

It is therefore important to understand that your intention: long term relationship vs short term fling, and your flirting style: dominance in physical, polite, playful, sincere or traditional, are in line with one another. It is at this point that you may be able to look at previous unsuccessful dates and recognise the similarities creating an unsuccessful interaction and subsequently you can make positive change.

[1] Hall. J.A (2013). The Five Flirting Styles: Use the Science of Flirting to Attract the Love You Really Want.

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