Pursuing Those Who Are Hard to get
Pursuing Those Who Are Hard to get The Aronson and Linder finding suggests that we like others who are socially selective. This seems to sup- port the popular notion that you can spark romantic interest by playing hard to get. Several years ago, Ellen Fein and Sherri Schneider (1996) wrote a book for women titled The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right. What were the rules? Here’s one: “Don’t call him and rarely return his calls.” Here’s another: “Let him take the lead.” In all cases, the theme was that men are charmed by women who are hard to get. It’s an interesting hypothesis.
Despite intuition, researchers found that the hard-to-get effect is harder to get than originally anticipated (Walster et al., 1973). One problem is that we are turned off by those who reject us because they are committed to someone else or have no interest in us.
Another problem is that we tend to prefer people who are at least somewhat selective compared to those who are not selective (they have poor taste or low standards) or too selective (they are snobs). In a study that well illustrates the point, researchers arranged for male and female college students to have 4-minute speed dates with 10 or so other students of the opposite sex, after which they all rated each other and indicated on a website if they were interested in meeting again. Analyses of the ratings showed that participants liked dates who selectively desired them more than others, but they did not like nondiscriminating dates who had indicated a desire for several of the men they encountered.
