Despite the age-old notion that “playing hard to get” can increase desire in the dating world, a new study suggests that it might be sending the wrong message.

Researchers from IDC Herzliya in Israel and the University of Rochester have found that people are more sexually attracted to a romantic partner when they feel certain their partner is reciprocating the same feelings.

The study is published in Computers in Human Behavior.

To test the debate of whether or not uncertainty in a romantic relationship affects sexual desire, the researchers conducted six interrelated studies.  

The first four studies focused on new relationships, as participants interacted online with prospective partners who were either clear or vague about their romantic intentions, and afterwards, were asked to rate their sexual desirability.

The last two studies explored already established relationships and focused on perceived partner regard.

Study on new relationships

In the first four studies, participants interacted online with a potential romantic partner via Instant Messenger. Unknown to the participants, the person they were chatting with was working with the researchers.

Each study included various elements intended to test whether uncertainty would affect participants’ sexual desire and willingness to speak with their partner again.

For instance, in the first study, the researchers told participants that they could send one final message to their partner at the end of the conversation.

Some participants were told that their chat partner sent a final message back, while others were told that there was no message waiting for them, triggering either feelings of certainty or  uncertainty of the chat partner’s intentions.

In the second study, the researchers wanted to know if the element of uncertainty would affect the participant’s desire to speak with their chat partner again. They determined this by looking at the final messages the participants sent to their partners and coded them for expressions of romantic interest and future meetings.

In the third study, which was similar to the first, the participants were given a guaranteed final message from their chat partner, written with either low or high romantic interest.

For instance, some participants received a final message from their partner saying, “I just got a knock on the door, so I’ll say bye and you were a nice distraction to a dull day” (high interest), while others received one that merely said “I just got a knock on the door, so I’ll say bye” (low interest).

The fourth study investigated whether or not a chat partner’s explicit interest instigated higher feelings of sexual desirability overall.

At the end of each of the four studies, the participants were asked to rate the sexual desirability of their partner on a 1-5 scale, with one being “not at all sexually desirable” and five being “very much so.”   

Overall, the researchers found that study participants who felt more certain about their chat partner rated them with higher sexual desirability than study participants who felt less certain.

In these situations, the mean of the partners sexual desirability was rated as 3.15, as opposed to 2.73 for less certain interactions.

“People may protect themselves from the possibility of a painful rejection by distancing themselves from potentially rejecting partners,” Harry Reis, a professor of psychology and Dean’s Professor in Arts, Sciences & Engineering at the University of Rochester, said in a statement.

To prevent this sense of rejection, people might seek out a more trusted partner.

“People tend to experience more desire for and seek out valued and trustful partners who will be there for them in times of need and who are less likely to cause them pain,” said Gurit Birnbaum, an associate professor of psychology at IDC Herzliya and lead author of the paper.

Study on established relationships

Similarly, in the two studies focused on established relationships, the researchers found that feeling more certain about a partner in the long term resulted in a greater desire for sex.

The fifth study surveyed participants and asked them to rank how positively their partners regarded them recently as well as their partner’s sexual desirability, while the sixth study asked both members of a couple to do the same over the course of 42 days.

Both studies found that lower uncertainty was associated with greater desire for sex with one’s partner.

Birnbaum explained that uncertainty can be even more detrimental in established relationships, as it can lead to a lack of trust and security.

“Uncertainty is more typical of initial romantic encounters, when little is known about partners, than during later relationship stages, when certainty about partners’ commitment intentions is relatively high,” she said. “Hence, when uncertainty about a partner’s interest emerges in established relationship, it clashes with the need for security that long-term relationships typically provide and means that the partner is insufficiently concerned with the relationship and cannot be trusted.”

The importance of knowing

While it’s common to be unclear in initial romantic relationships, the researchers found that, overall, knowing a partner’s romantic interest can make or break a relationship.

So, if “playing hard to get” has been an unsuccessful strategy for you in the past, perhaps you should think about being clear and honest with your intentions.

“Overall, I’d not recommend playing hard to get with a specific person you wish to interest because this may arouse this person’s rejection fears and decrease your appeal,” said Birnbaum. “Still, expressions of romantic interest should be reciprocal and gradual. Otherwise, they may backfire.”

While the findings “don’t put the final dagger in the heart of this idea,” Reis pointed out in a statement, they do put the notion of playing hard to get up for criticism, adding that the idea was “never supported by solid science—but folk wisdom at best.”