Attention is love

One of my favorite quotes conveying a principle to live by is from The Power of Fun by Catherine Price: "Our lives are what we pay attention to." She has explained elsewhere that what she means by this is that "when we decide what to pay attention to in the moment, we are making a broader decision about how we want to spend our time alive."

 

After I responded to this idea, I started seeing variations on the theme all over. In How To Know a Person, David Brooks wrote that "[t]he quality of your life depends quite a bit on the quality of attention you project out onto the world." In The Good Life, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz quote the French philosopher Simone Weil as saying, "Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

 

From there, it's just a small step to John Tarrant writing in The Light Inside the Dark that "[a]ttention is the most basic form of love." Stated otherwise, "[t]he nature of love is about paying attention to the people who matter," as Deborah Blum wrote in Love at Goon Park, her fascinating book about the early attachment theorist Harry Harlow. In their new book Our New Social Life, the JMU [1] social psychologists Natalie Kerr and Jaime Kurtz sum it up by reference to this scene in "Lady Bird":

 

 

 

At the end of the book, Professor Kurtz notes her personal agreement with the notion that love and attention are the same thing and how it has changed her way of being in the world: 

I’ve come to be much more appreciative of the simple gift of another person’s attention. Those people in my life who will sit with me and hear me, without defensiveness, without turning the conversation back to themselves as quickly as possible, and without checking their devices—these have become the people I have come to cherish and seek out the most. And I, in turn, have been trying to intentionally give that gift to others, hopefully offering them the space to feel authentically heard[.]

This quote gives some idea what Professors Kurtz and Kerr think it means to show love through focused attention, including active listening by various methods such as asking questions (especially follow-up questions) and then "being present for the person's response." Such attentive listening gives rise to the darling of relationship scientists: "perceived partner responsiveness," which Guy Itzchakov and Harry Reis define as "the belief that an interaction partner understands and validates the self and is willing to support one's needs." [2] The key to perceived partner responsiveness, they confirm, is "high-quality listening," which requires "attention," that is, "focusing on the speaker's message" while avoiding external stimuli such as text messages.

These and other authorities demonstrate that attention through high-quality listening is undermined by our ever-present smartphones. Psychologists have found this to be the case generally in our social relationships. [3] In the first study cited below, the researchers found that even just having a phone on the table during a meal shared at a restaurant with friends or family caused the participants to feel "more distracted, which reduced how much they enjoyed spending time with their
friends/family."

 

This has become such a problem that it now has its own name: "phubbing," a portmanteau of phone + snubbing. [4] Another study focused more specifically on "partner phubbing," or "Pphubbing," which is "the extent to which an individual uses or is distracted by his/her cell phone while in the company of his/her relationship partner." [5] The researchers concluded that the use of cell phones in the presence of a romantic partner "impacts the partner's satisfaction with their relationship, which in turn can negatively impact their personal well-being."

 

The researchers measured distraction through cell phone use by employing a Pphubbing scale, which can helpfully be used to assess phubbing friends and family as well as relationship partners. The questions on the scale are:

1. During a typical mealtime that my partner and I spend together, my partner pulls out and checks his/her cell phone.
2. My partner places his or her cell phone where they can see it when we are together.
3. My partner keeps his or her cell phone in their hand when he or she is with me.
4. When my partner's cell phone rings or beeps, he/she pulls it out even if we are in the middle of a conversation.
5. My partner glances at his/her cell phone when talking to me.
6. During leisure time that my partner and I are able to spend together, my partner uses his/her cell phone.
7. My partner does not use his or her phone when we are talking.
8. My partner uses his or her cell phone when we are out together.
9. If there is a lull in our conversation, my partner will check his or her cell phone.

If your partner answers some or all of these questions in the affirmative (except the seventh question, which is reversed), then you may want to rethink your cell phone use when you're together.

 

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[1] Go Dukes! 

 

[2] Itzchakov, G. & Reis, H. (2021). How to foster perceived responsiveness: High-Quality Listening Is Key. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, DOI:10.1111/spc3.12648.

 

[3] See, e.g., Dwyer, R. J., Kushlev, K., & Dunn, E. W. (2018). Smartphone use undermines enjoyment of face-to-face social interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 78, 233–239; Barrick, E. M., Barasch, A., & Tamir, D. I. (2022). The unexpected social consequences of diverting attention to our phones. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 101, 104344.

 

[4] I love a good portmanteau!

 

[5] Roberts, J. A., & David, M. E. (2016). My life has become a major distraction from my cell phone: Partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction among romantic partners. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 134–141.

 

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Do you want a way other than focused attention to show your partner, friends, and/or family that you love them? Make them this dish! Dylan and Moriah first made this for us, and we all loved it so much that I made it the next week. There are some moving parts, but it generally comes together pretty easily, and the payoff is really worth it. It feels like an indulgence with the creaminess, which is not always so easy with a vegetarian main dish.

Creamy Tomato Beans and Arugula

Adapted from Alexa Weibel via NYT Cooking (Apr. 24, 2024)

Time: ~45 minutes

2 (14-ounce) cans cannellini beans or other creamy white beans
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
35 grams (~⅔ cup) panko bread crumbs
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 medium yellow onion, minced
Up to ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
80 grams (⅓ cup) tomato paste
230 grams (1 cup) heavy cream
½ cup jarred chopped or julienned sun-dried tomatoes in oil
40 grams (~⅔ cup) finely grated Pecorino or Parmesan, divided
85 grams (3 ounces / 4 packed cups) baby arugula
2 teaspoons zest and 4 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
Toasted bread, for serving

    1. Drain the beans, reserving ⅓ cup of the liquid, then rinse the beans.
    2. In a 12-inch skillet or sauté pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium heat. Add the panko and stir to coat with the oil. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the panko is toasted and golden, about 3 minutes; watch carefully, as they’ll burn easily. Transfer to a plate lined with a paper towel. Carefully wipe out the skillet with another paper towel.
    3. Return the clean skillet to the heat and add another 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the onion and red pepper flakes, and stir to coat. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened but not brown, about 4 minutes.
    4. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute.
    5. Stir in the tomato paste. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomato paste gets deep red, about 3 minutes.
    6. Stir in the beans, heavy cream, sun-dried tomatoes and ⅓ cup reserved bean juice from the can (or water if you forgot to save any bean juice). Adjust the heat to maintain a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.
    7. Stir in half of the cheese. Taste for seasoning.
    8. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, toss the arugula with the toasted panko, lemon zest and juice, remaining cheese, and remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Season with salt and pepper.
    9. Top the bean mixture with the greens. Serve promptly with toasted bread. Serves 4.