The misattribution of arousal

It turns out when our body gets excited about something, we can’t reliably tell what caused the excitement.

In David McRaney’s brilliant article , he explains how we routinely misattribute physiological arousal and how the most common target of misattribution is other people. It’s part of why doing challenging or exciting activities with your partner can help strengthen your relationship, and why roller coasters and scary movies can make great first dates — when we reflect on the time, we often assume that it was the person we were with that helped get our heart racing rather than the excitement of the activity.

This is an aspect of attribution theory more generally, attributing our physical arousal in a stressful situation to a nearby person. It's been suggested as a potential reason for Debussy's love for Madame Vasnier , who performed together and for whom Debussy wrote many songs.

Don’t use this effect for evil.

Related Ideas to the Misattribution of Arousal

Also see:

• Joy: the most vulnerable emotion
• Grow not in each other's shadow
• How to instantly feel better
• Everyone's a geek about something
• Vorfreude
• Contentment
• Notice when you're happy