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Read the article below. Add a post underneath with your name and your reactions to the article. Then write the claim (which side is the article on about love at first sight)? Write 1-2 pieces of evidence the article gives to support its claim?

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Key points

Love at first sight is a strong initial attraction that could later become a relationship.

Love at first sight is usually one-sided, but the other person may later adjust their recollection and believe they experienced it, too.

Love at first sight can happen multiple times.

Love at first sight: Is it possible? Do people really meet and in moments simply know they're meant to be? New evidence suggests: Yes, they do.

The idea is wonderfully romantic: Two strangers see each other "across a crowded room," there's an instant attraction, an electric spark, and suddenly they've found their match and never look back. In a world where dating often requires a lot of work-that comes with disappointment, rejection, and uncertainty-falling in love at first sight has strong appeal.

People say it happens all the time. If you start with personal testaments, love at first sight seems like the real deal. Prince Harry reportedly experienced it, saying he knew Meghan Markle was the one for him the "very first time we met" (BBC interview). Portia de Rossi has said pretty much the same about Ellen DeGeneres, as has Matt Damon about his wife, Luciana. Of course, celebrities have no monopoly on the phenomenon; some evidence suggests that about 60 percent of people have experienced it (Naumann, 2004). You probably have friends who swear this happened to them, or maybe you yourself just "knew" in that very first moment you laid eyes on your current partner.

But did it really happen?

Rarely have scientists empirically studied love at first sight, but new research out of the Netherlands offers evidence in support of the phenomenon (Zsok, Haucke, De Wit, & Barelds, 2017). The researchers asked nearly 400 men and women to complete surveys about potential romantic partners immediately after first encountering those individuals. This included indicating their agreement with the statement, "I am experiencing love at first sight with this person," as well as reporting how physically attractive they found the person, and how much passion ( sexual attraction) they felt. Data collection was dispersed across three contexts-online; in the lab (where pictures of potential partners were shown); and in person (where individuals saw each other face-to-face).

With a real-time measure of love at first sight, what exactly did Zsoks and colleagues (2017) learn?
1. Love at first sight isn't just biased memory.
People really do report experiencing love at first sight, or the instant they encounter a person. It's a strong initial attraction that could later become a relationship. One compelling counter-argument-that people have biased memories and essentially create the illusion of having fallen for each other instantly-isn't an appropriate explanation for all cases of love at first sight.
2. You're more likely to feel love at first sight with beautiful people
In this study, strangers were more likely to report experiencing love at first sight with physically attractive others; in fact, one rating higher in attractiveness on the scale that the researchers used corresponded with a nine times greater likelihood that others would report that electric love-at-first-sight feeling.
3. Men report love at first sight more than women.
The researchers aren't sure why this happens, but it begs for more investigation. Might women be less inclined to this experience because they are more selective in whom they might date, as other research has shown? Men might, for example, report this experience with multiple potential partners. But whether this translates into relationships is another question.
4. Love at first sight isn't usually mutual.
A comparison of participant reports of love at first sight showed that it's typically a one-sided phenomenon; this suggests that shared instant love isn't very common. The researchers suspect, however, that one partner's intense initial experience could help shape the other person's recollection, shifting it toward a belief that he or she also experienced love at first sight.
5. Love at first sight isn't really "love."
The kind of qualities that are known to reflect love- intimacy, commitment, passion-are not particularly strong in those first moments when people say they've fallen in love at first sight. At least, these emotions are not experienced to the same degree as they are by people in established relationships. The extent to which people in relationships report feeling intimacy and commitment and passion toward their partners far exceeds reports of these emotions by people who experience love at first sight. Yet the love-at-first-sight experience appears open to these emotions to a greater extent than first meetings where love at first sight is not reported.

In sum, science favors the romantics. Love at first sight actually is experienced by people, but it's not so much "love" or "passion," Instead, it's a strong pull or attraction that makes someone particularly open to the possibilities of a relationship (Zsoks et al., 2017). Love at first sight can happen multiple times, and maybe the instances where it fizzles or simply never translates into a relationship are forgotten. But when love at first sight does launch a sustained relationship, the story is a great one.

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Love at first sight is a strong initial attraction that could later become a relationship. Love at first sight is usually one-sided, but the other person may later adjust their recollection and believe they experienced it, too. Love at first sight can happen multiple times. Love at first sight: Is it possible?

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Read the article below. Add a post underneath with your name and your reactions to the article. Then write the claim (which side is the article on about love at first sight)? Write 1-2 pieces of evidence the article gives to support its claim?

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Love at first sight might not be a real thing, according to new research.

It could simply be instant physical attraction, or a result of attaching present feelings to past memories.

No study covers all situations though, so don't give up hope just yet.

Everyone is in the mood for love after finding out about Price Harry and Meghan Markle's engagement. In their first interview after making the announcement, Harry delighted us by saying he knew Markle was "the one" the very first time they met.

However, the cynics among us don't believe in love at first sight - and according to science, we might be right.

A new study, published in the journal Personal Relationships, is one of the first papers to try and get to the bottom of whether people really can be smitten right from the first moment they see each other.

Researchers from the University of Groningen studied 396 Dutch and German students, asking them to fill out a questionnaire about their current romantic relationship status, as well as looking at pictures of several potential partners they'd never met.

They were asked to rate their feelings of attraction to the strangers, as well as any feelings of love, intimacy, passion, and commitment. They also had to state whether or not they agreed with the statement: "I am experiencing love at first sight."

More participants came into a psych lab and were asked similar questions about pictures of potential lovers.

Others took part in two studies involving speed dating exercises. Potential couples met for either 90 or 20 minutes, then were asked about how attracted they were to their dates, and whether they thought it was love at first sight.

Overall, the study concluded that love at first sight probably isn't real - sorry.

It turns out it's probably nothing to do with true love at all, but "lust at first sight," or an instant sexual connection or attraction to another person. While we may convince ourselves love at first sight happened with our significant other, it's more likely just us projecting our current feelings to past memories.

Across the whole study, 32 participants described 49 times they thought they experienced love at first sight, either towards real people in the dating scenario or a photo. However, none of the declarations of love at first sight were reciprocated.

"Our findings suggest that love at first sight reported at actual first sight resembles neither passionate love nor love more generally," the researchers concluded in the study.

Still, the next time someone is gushing about their love at first sight and it's making you feel bad about your own romantic situation, remind youself it could just be a fragment of their imagination.

For the romantics out there, don't worry - all of these scenarios in the study were artificially set up, and the people reporting instant love did genuinely believe in it, so that's something.

Don't lose hope of a prince falling in love with you the first time he sees you just yet.

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Love at first sight probably isn't a real thing - here's why

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Love at first sight might not be a real thing, according to new research. It could simply be instant physical attraction, or a result of attaching present feelings to past memories. No study covers all situations though, so don't give up hope just yet.

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Add any questions you have about either article here. This could be anything that confuses you, words you don't know the meaning to, etc.