Romantic love (mental state)
Mental state of being in love
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In fields of the sciences,[note 1] romantic love refers to the mental state of being passionately attracted to a specific individual, with focused attention (salience), for the purpose of courtship or pair bonding.[6][7][4] The state of romantic love is considered to be a motivation or drive, which is distinct from (but related to) the concept of attachment.[8][6][9]
Laypeople may refer to the state as "being in love".[10] A variety of other terms are also commonly associated with it.[11][6] In psychology, it is often referred to as "passionate love".[4] Other terms used to refer to it are "infatuation", "limerence", "obsessive love", and "eros".[11][6] No single term has been universally adopted by academic literature on the subject.[4]
Research on the biology of romantic love indicates that the early stage of intense romantic love resembles addiction, but academics do not currently agree on how love addictions are defined.[4][12][13]
Love which is not reciprocated is called "unrequited love".[14]
Definition
The evolutionary anthropologists Bode and Kushnick undertook a comprehensive review of romantic love from a biological perspective in 2021. They considered the psychology of romantic love, its mechanisms, development across the lifespan, functions, and evolutionary history. Based on the content of that review, they proposed a biological definition:[4][3]
Romantic love is a motivational state typically associated with a desire for long-term mating with a particular individual. It occurs across the lifespan and is associated with distinctive cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, genetic, neural, and endocrine activity in both sexes. Throughout much of the life course, it serves mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding functions. It is a suite of adaptations and by-products that arose sometime during the recent evolutionary history of humans.
Researchers draw distinctions between the early stage of romantic love and the "attachment system" theorized by the attachment theorists like John Bowlby.[15][9][11] In the past, attachment theorists have argued that attachment theory and attachment styles can replace other theories of love, but academics on love have argued this is incorrect and that romantic love and attachment are not identical concepts.[16][11][15] The early stage of romantic love is thought to involve additional brain systems for other purposes, with distinct evolutionary histories.[15][6][9]
Romantic attraction is also distinct from sexual attraction, although they most often occur together.[6][9][17]
Romantic love is not necessarily "dyadic", "social", or "interpersonal", despite being related to pair bonding. Romantic love can be experienced outside the context of a relationship, for example, in the case of unrequited love where the feelings are not reciprocated.[18][14] A person can develop romantic love feelings before any relationship has occurred, for only a potential partner.[18][14][6][7] The potential partner can even be somebody they do not know well or are not acquainted with at all, as in cases of love at first sight and parasocial attachments.[18][19][20]
Variation exists in the way romantic love is expressed in the population. A cross-cultural study of currently in-love people found four clusters, with varying degrees of intensity, obsessive thinking, commitment, frequency of sex, and other differences.[21] Other studies indicate romantic love can be experienced both with or without obsessional features.[22][23] Typically, intense romantic love is limited to a duration of 12–18 months or as long as 3 years, depending on the estimate;[4][12] however, in the rare phenomenon of long-term intense romantic love, some people experience intense attraction inside a relationship, even for 10 years or more. This is similar to early-stage intense romantic love, but at this later stage they exhibit less of the obsessional features.[22][23]
Components
The most common measure of romantic love is called the Passionate Love Scale, created by Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher.[24][25][26] The components of passionate love according to Hatfield & Sprecher are:[27]
- Cognitive
- Intrusive thinking; preoccupation with the thoughts of the partner.
- Idealization of the loved one and the relationship.
- Desire for knowledge: to know and be known by the partner.
- Emotional
- Attraction to the other; pleasant feelings for the other when things go well.
- Ambivalence or negative feelings (emptiness, anxiety, despair) when things go awry.
- Longing for reciprocity.
- Desire for "complete union," permanency.
- Physiological (sexual) arousal.
- Behavioral
- Actions aimed at determining the other's feelings.
- Serving and helping the other.
Obsessive thinking
Obsessive thinking about a loved one has been called a hallmark or a cardinal trait of romantic love,[9][28] ensuring that the loved one is not forgotten.[29] Some reports have been made that people can even spend as much as 85 to 100% of their days and nights thinking about a love object.[30] One study found that on average people in love spent 65% of their waking hours thinking about their beloved.[31] Another study used cluster analysis to find several different groups of lovers, with the least intense group spending 35% of their time on average and the most intense at 72%.[21]
Since the late 1990s, these obsessional features have been compared to obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).[15][32][33] Another theory relates obsessive thinking to addiction, because drug users exhibit obsessive thoughts about drug use as well as compulsions.[34][35]
Positive illusions
People in love tend to overemphasize the positive aspects of their loved one or relationship, while overlooking or devaluing negative aspects.[37][36][4] This is regarded as a type of cognitive bias called positive illusions.[4][38][39] The phenomenon has also been referred to as crystallization,[37] idealization,[38] "love is blind" bias,[4] putting the loved one on a pedestal,[40] or seeing through rose-colored glasses.[41][42]
In the past, some authors have depicted the phenomenon as a malady, arguing that people who idealize would have their partner fall short of their high expectations as a relationship progresses; however, despite this, significant modern scientific evidence has shown that positive illusions actually contribute to relationship satisfaction, long-term well-being and decreased risk for relationship discontinuation.[38][39][37]
Emotional valence
Rather than being a specific emotion itself, romantic love is believed to be a motivation or drive which elicits different emotions depending on the situation: positive feelings when things go well, and negative feelings when awry.[18][28][43] Reciprocated love may elicit feelings of joy, ecstasy, or fulfillment, for example, but unrequited love may elicit feelings of sadness, anxiety, or despair.[18][44]
A 2014 study of Iranian young adults found that the early stage of romantic love was associated with the brighter side of hypomania (elation, mental and physical activity, and positive social interaction) and better sleep quality, but also stronger symptoms of depression and anxiety. Those authors conclude that romantic love is "not entirely a joyful and happy period of life".[45]
The feeling of romantic love may be either pleasant or unpleasant, regardless of the intensity level.[46][47] One of Dorothy Tennov's interview participants recalls being in love this way: "When I felt [Barry] loved me, I was intensely in love and deliriously happy; when he seemed rejecting, I was still intensely in love, only miserable beyond words."[47] The intensity of love feelings is also distinct from whether an individual is satisfied with their relationship (although the measures have been shown to be related to some extent). One can be satisfied with their relationship because it fulfills some other need besides love for their partner (like money or child care), or conversely be in love with an abuser in an abusive relationship.[18]
Unrequited love is common among young adults.[14] A study by Roy Baumeister and Sarah Stillwell found that 92.8% of participants reported at least one "powerful or moderate" experience of unrequited love in the past 5 years.[48] A different study found 63% had a "huge crush" at least once in the past 2 years (but not letting the person know), and unrequited love was four times more frequent than equal love.[14] Another found that 20% had experienced unrequited love more than 5 times, according to a definition that "When one is experiencing this emotion, it has been described as having one’s emotions on a roller coaster, finding it difficult to concentrate, and thinking constantly about the person with whom you are in love. The person is said to have the power to produce extreme highs and lows of emotion in you, depending on how he or she acts towards you."[49]
Obsessive and harmonious passion
The dualistic model of passion (DMP) is a theory invented by the psychologist Robert Vallerand which suggests that passion can be split into two components, termed "obsessive" and "harmonious" passion:[50][51][52]
- In obsessive passion, a person's passion is driven by internal pressure, controlling them and interfering with other aspects of their life.
- In harmonious passion, the person experiencing it retains their autonomy, and their passion is more in harmony with other life domains.
DMP has been extended to romantic passion,[50] with a study finding that harmonious romantic passion was associated with secure attachment, while obsessive romantic passion was associated with anxious attachment.[51]
The obsessive–harmonious distinction has also been compared to the distinction between two of the love styles invented by John Alan Lee: mania (obsessive) and eros (harmonious).[51] Both eros and mania correspond to concepts like romantic love,[53] passionate love,[54] and falling in love;[55] however, mania is regarded as the more obsessive of the two.[22][51]
"Limerence" is a term invented by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov to refer to the state of being in love,[56][57] particularly when it takes the form of obsessive passion.[58] Limerence and mania have been compared as being similar concepts, invented around the same time.[59]
Research on the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) by Bianca Acevedo and Arthur Aron also found that while it was intended as a unidimensional measure of love feelings, it actually has two general components (called factors): an obsession factor and a non-obsession factor.[60][52][22] The PLS obsession factor has items like "Sometimes I feel I can't control my thoughts; they are obsessively on my partner." and "An existence without my partner would be dark and dismal."[22][23] The non-obsession factor has items like "For me, my partner is the perfect romantic partner." and "I want my partner—physically, emotionally, and mentally."[22]
Acevedo & Aron also compare being in love with obsessional elements to concepts like mania and limerence, while love without obsession is compared to eros. Taken together, eros and mania correspond to the way passionate love is operationalized on the PLS.[22]
According to a meta-analysis by Acevedo & Aron, romantic love with and without obsession (using the PLS) have slightly different trajectories in a relationship. Romantic love with obsession was more associated with satisfaction in short-term relationships than long-term, whereas the associations between satisfaction and romantic love without obsession were similar and large for both short-term and long-term groups. Additionally, it was found that romantic love may sustain over a longer period than previously assumed, but without the obsessional features.[22][61] Another meta-analysis found that the mania love attitude was associated with decreased satisfaction, as it continues over time in a relationship.[62]
Neuroscience
Dopamine
The early stage of romantic love is being compared to a behavioral addiction (i.e., addiction to a non-substance) but the "substance" involved is the loved person.[64][65][66][67] Addiction involves a phenomenon known as incentive salience, also called "wanting" (in quotes).[68][69] This is the property by which cues in the environment stand out to a person and become attention-grabbing and attractive, like a "motivational magnet" which pulls a person towards a particular reward.[70][69] Incentive salience differs from craving in that craving is a conscious experience while incentive salience may or may not be. While incentive salience can give feelings of strong urgency to cravings, it can also motivate behavior unconsciously, as in an experiment where cocaine users were unaware of their own decisions to choose a low dose of cocaine (which they believed was placebo) more often than an actual placebo.[71] In the incentive-sensitization theory of addiction, repeated drug use renders the brain hypersensitive to drugs and drug cues, resulting in pathological levels of "wanting" to use drugs.[67][69] People in love are thought to experience incentive salience in response to their beloved. Lovers share other similarities with addicts as well, like tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, relapse, craving, and mood modification.[66]
Incentive salience is mediated by dopamine projections in the mesocorticolimbic pathway of the brain, an area generally involved with reward, motivation, and reinforcement learning.[68][69][72][73] Dopamine signaling for incentive salience originates in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and projects to areas such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the ventral striatum.[74][69] The VTA is one of two main areas of the brain with neurons which produce dopamine (the other being the substantia nigra pars compacta). Projections from the VTA innervate the NAc, where dopamine activity attaches motivational significance to stimuli associated with rewards.[75] Brain scans of people in love using fMRI (commonly while looking at a photograph of their beloved) show activations in these areas like the VTA and NAc.[66][67][76] Another dopamine-rich area of the reward system shown to be active in romantic love is the caudate nucleus, containing 80% of the brain's dopamine receptor sites, located in the dorsal striatum.[66][73][77][78] The dorsal striatum is implicated in reinforcement learning,[79] and the caudate nucleus has shown activity in response to a monetary reward and cocaine.[77][80][81] This activity in reward and motivation areas suggests that early-stage intense romantic love is a motivation system or goal-oriented state (rather than a specific emotion), consistent with the description of romantic love as a desire or longing for union with another person.[77][67][73] These activations are also consistent with the similarity between romantic love and addiction.[66][67]
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is sometimes called the "love hormone", because of its involvement in the mechanisms of maternal behavior and adult pair bonding. Oxytocin is synthesized primarily in an area of the hypothalamus and released into the blood via the pituitary gland, where it has been found circulating in people in the early stages of romantic love.[82][83][84] Additionally, the hypothalamus projects oxytocin to other areas of the brain, like the ventral tegmental area (VTA), nucleus accumbens (NAc), amygdala, and hippocampus. The projections to reward areas (VTA and NAc) are thought to modulate social salience, or i.e. the level of dopamine activity in response to socially-relevant stimuli.[82][85] This oxytocin signaling in reward pathways may also be the source of salience in response to a loved one.[85]
Opioids
Modern research is increasingly showing the importance of endogenous opioids in love and social attachment, particularly the β-endorphin (the most potent endogenous opioid) and the μ-opioid receptor system.[83][86][87][88] While opioids have their origin being the body's natural painkiller, they're also implicated in a variety of other systems, essentially like neurotransmitters.[86][89] Opioid receptors are located throughout the brain, including in the limbic system (affecting basic emotions) and neocortex (affecting more conscious decision-making).[90] Opioids are linked to the consummatory part of reward, or i.e. "liking" or pleasure, and released in areas of the brain called hedonic hotspots (or pleasure centers). Hedonic hotspots are located in the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and other areas.[86][87][74] This function includes social reward, or the pleasurable aspect of social interactions.[86]
See also
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- Biology of romantic love – Evolution and neuroscience of romantic love
- Infatuation – Intense but shallow attraction
- Limerence – Love madness or intense infatuation
- New relationship energy – State of mind during new relationship
- Obsessive love – Possessiveness and inability to accept rejection
- Passionate and companionate love – Two basic ways to experience romantic feelings
- Romance – Love focused on feelings
- Theories of love – Psychological and sociological theories
Notes
- The term "romantic love" has a complicated history, and several common definitions.[1][2] In biopsychology, there is a convention among the most prominent authors that the term refers to the mental state of being in love.[3][4] Other areas of psychology may use the term with other connotations, referring to culture or beliefs, for example.[1][5]