Love on a Wobbly Bridge: The Experiment That Mixed Up Fear and Flirting

In 1974, two psychologists sent an interviewer onto a swaying bridge 70 metres above a river to see if fear could feel like a crush. What happened, later research, and Zurich dates for a head start.

By Match Lab · 2 November 2026

Picture this: Vancouver, early 1970s. You're crossing the Capilano Suspension Bridge, 137 metres long, swaying in the wind, about 70 metres above rocks and rapids. The handrails are low. Your knees are doing their own thing. And halfway across, a friendly stranger asks if you'd fill out a quick survey.

Congratulations, you've just walked into one of the most famous experiments in the psychology of attraction. 🌉💘

The setup

Psychologists Donald Dutton and Arthur Aron wanted to test a cheeky idea: if your heart is pounding for one reason, could your brain decide it's pounding for someone? (Dutton & Aron, 1974)

So they picked two bridges over the Capilano River. One was the famously wobbly suspension bridge. The other, further upriver, was a sturdy cedar bridge just three metres above a small stream: solid, boring, zero drama.

Men crossing either bridge were approached by an attractive female interviewer. She asked them to write a short story about a picture, and then came the trick: she tore off a corner of the page, wrote down her name and phone number, and said they could call her if they wanted to hear more about the study. 📞

The results

On the sturdy bridge, 2 of the 16 men who took her number called her. On the wobbly bridge? 9 of 18. Their stories also contained more romantic and sexual imagery.

And when the interviewer was a man, the bridge made basically no difference. So it wasn't just "scary bridge makes people chatty".

Why would fear feel like a crush?

The idea is called misattribution of arousal. A racing heart, sweaty palms and shallow breathing feel pretty similar whether you're scared or smitten. If someone attractive happens to be standing right there, your brain might file the butterflies under "them" rather than "the 70-metre drop".

Did it hold up?

Pretty well, with some twists. 🔍

A 1998 meta-analysis pooled 33 experiments and with 1,232 participants. Arousal made attractive people seem more attractive, but made less attractive people seem less so, even when participants knew why their heart was racing (Foster et al., 1998).
At amusement parks, Cindy Meston and Penny Frohlich showed people a photo of a stranger just before or right after a roller coaster. People leaving the ride rated the photo as more attractive, but only if they weren't riding with a romantic partner (Meston & Frohlich, 2003). Your date in the next seat seems to soak up the effect instead.

The fine print: the original study was small, it only included men approached by a woman, and real attraction obviously needs more than a racing pulse. A wobbly bridge won't make someone like you. It might just turn the volume up a little.

Lab tips for UZH students 🧪

Want to put a little Capilano into your Zurich plans? Try a date or a hangout that gets the heart going:

Climb together at a bouldering gym. Bonus: lots of high-fives.
Hike up the Uetliberg and catch the view at the top.
Swim in the lake or the Limmat in summer, or brave a cold dip in winter. ❄️
Watch a horror film and pretend you weren't scared.
Go ice skating and see who wobbles first.

And if your heart is racing before an exam presentation? Maybe don't make any big romantic decisions right after. 😉

From Capilano to campus

At Match Lab, a student association at UZH, we love experiments like this one, because they show how much the situation shapes who we click with. We turn research like this into events and social experiments for students in Zurich. Follow @matchlabzh to see what we try next, or check our open positions to help run it.

Sources

Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4), 510–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0037031
Foster, C. A., Witcher, B. S., Campbell, W. K., & Green, J. D. (1998). Arousal and attraction: Evidence for automatic and controlled processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 86–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.86
Meston, C. M., & Frohlich, P. F. (2003). Love at first fright: Partner salience moderates roller-coaster-induced excitation transfer. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 32(6), 537–544. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1026037527455