Information about Love (scientific Views)

Part of a series on Love Historically Courtly love Greek love Religious love Types of Emotion Erotic love Platonic love Familial love Puppy love Romantic love See Also Unrequited love Problem of love Sexuality Sexual intercourse Valentine's Day

Close relationships Affinity • Attachment • Bonding • Casual • Cohabitation • Compersion • Concubinage • Courtship • Divorce • Dower/-ry • Friendship • Family • Husband • Infatuation • Intimacy • Jealousy • Limerence • Love • Marriage • Monogamy • Nonmonogamy Office romance • Passion • Partner • Pederasty • Platonic love • Psychology of monogamy • Relationship abuse Romance Sexuality Separation • Wedding • Widowhood • Wife  •  • [ e]

Throughout history, predominantly, philosophy and religion have speculated the most into the phenomena of love. In the late 16th century, people referred to intimate relationships in terms of couples having "good" interpersonal chemistry, with reference to alchemical spells and chemical affinity. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. Recently, however, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have begun to take center stage in discussion as to the nature and function of love. The general consensus supposes that the phenomenon and process of love is subject to the laws of science just as is anything in the universe. Recent writings have focused on making a connection between love and evolution.

Overview

Biological models of sex tend to see it as a mammalian drive, just like hunger or thirst. Current psychological theories view love from a more social and cultural perspective. There are probably elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by one’s conceptions of love. Hence, from time immemorial, science, from naturalistic poetry to MRI neurochemistry, has since debated over the nature of love.

Human bonding

Main article: Human bonding

People, throughout history, have often considered phenomena such as “love at first sight” or “instant friendships” to be the result of an uncontrollable force of attraction or affinity. One of the first to theorize in this direction was the Greek philosopher Empedocles who in the fourth century BC argued for existence of two forces: love (philia) and strife (neikos), which were used to account for the causes of motion in the universe. These two forces were said to intermingle with the four elements, i.e. earth, water, air, and fire, in such a manner that love, so to say, served as the binding power linking the various parts of existence harmoniously together.

Later, Plato interpreted Empedocles’ two agents as attraction and repulsion, stating that their operation is conceived in an alternate sequence.^[5] From these arguments, Plato originated the concept of “likes attract”, e.g. earth is thus attracted towards earth, water toward water, and fire toward fire. In modern terms this is often phrased in terms of “birds of a feather flock together”. Later, following developments in electrical theories, such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, researchers on the nature of human mating, such as in evolutionary psychology, have agreed that pairs unite or are attracted to each other owing to a combination of opposites attract, e.g. people with dissimilar immune systems tend to attract, and likes attract, such similarities of personality, character, views, etc.^[6] In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and or affinities.

Biological theories

Chemical love: attraction and attachment

Main article: Human bonding#Neurochemistry

Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that a consistent number of chemicals are present in the brain when people testify to feeling love. These chemicals include; Testosterone, Oestrogen, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, and Vasopressin. More specifically, higher levels of Testosterone and Oestrogen are present during the lustful phase of a relationship. Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Serotonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase of a relationship. Oxytocin, and Vasopressin seemed to be more closely linked to long term bonding and relationships characterized by strong attachments.

In the February 2006 issue of National Geographic, Lauren Slater's cover page article "Love: The Chemical Reaction" discusses love and the chemicals responsible. In it Slater explains some of the research in the area. The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love — sexual attraction and attachment. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to his or her mother or father.

According to Slater's research, the chemicals triggered responsible for passionate love and long-term attachment love seem to be more particular to the activities in which both participate rather than to the nature of the specific people involved. Chemically, the serotonin effects of being in love have a similar chemical appearance to obsessive-compulsive disorder; which could explain why a person in love cannot think of anyone else. For this reason some assert that being on a SSRI and other antidepressants, which treat OCD, impede one's ability to fall in love. One particular case:

"I know of one couple on the edge of divorce. The wife was on an antidepressant. Then she went off it, started having orgasms once more, felt the renewal of sexual attraction for her husband, and they're now in love all over again." (38)

The long-term attachment felt after the initial "in love" passionate phase of the relationship ends is related to oxytocin, a chemical released after orgasm^[7]. Moreover, novelty triggers attraction. Thus, nerve-racking activities like riding a roller coaster are good on dates. Even working out for several minutes can make one more attracted to other people on account of increased heart rate and other physiological responses.

Psychological theories

Platonic love

Main article: platonic love

In the fourth century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato [428-347BC], disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, posited that one would never love a person in that person’s totality, because no person represents goodness or beauty in totality. At a certain level, one does not even love the person at all. Rather, one loves an abstraction or image of the person’s best qualities. Plato never considered that one would love a person for his or her unique qualities, because the ideas are abstractions that do not vary.^[1]

The hunt for love

At the turn of the first millennium, the Roman writer Ovid [43BC – 17AD], whose narrative poems recount legends of miraculous transformation of forms from the time of creation, published a number of works on love including the Amores (the Loves), his first work, followed by Ars amatoria (the Art of Love) and Remedia amoris (Remedies for Love). Each, in theme, reflected a brilliant, sophisticated, pleasure-seeking society in which love is a transformative process driven by amorous intrigue. In the Art of Love, Ovid argues that "love" is a hunt: the lover and beloved are “shy predator and wily prey” and the nature of their love is “conquest”.

Crystallization

Main article: crystallization (love)

In the 1822 classic On Love French writer Stendhal,the father of love describes or compares the “birth of love”, in which the love object is crystallized in the mind in a manner similar to the chemical process of crystalization, and that this mental transformation is analogous to a trip to Rome. In the analogy, the city of Bologna represents indifference and Rome represents perfect love:

Stendhal's depiction of "crystallization" in the process of falling in love

When we are in Bologna, according to Stendhal, we are entirely indifferent; we are not concerned to admire in any particular way the person with whom we shall perhaps one day be madly in love with; even less is our imagination inclined to overrate their worth. In a word, in Bologna “crystallization” has not yet begun. When the journey begins, love departs. One leaves Bologna, climbs the Apennines, and takes the road to Rome. The departure, according to Stendhal, has nothing to do with one’s will; it is an instinctive moment. This "transformative process" actuates in terms of four steps along a journey:

1. Admiration – one marvels at the qualities of the loved one.
2. Acknowledgement – one notices the return affection of the charming person.
3. Hope – one envisions gaining the love of the loved one.
4. Delight – one exults in overrating the beauty and merit of the person he or she loves.

First, one admires the other person. Second, one acknowledges the pleasantness in having acquired the interest of a charming person. Third, hope emerges. In the fourth stage, one delights in overrating the beauty and the merit of the person whose love one hopes to win. This pictured journey of this crystallization process (shown above) was detailed by Stendhal on the back of a playing card, while speaking to Madame Gherardi, during his trip to Salzburg salt mine.

Formulaic models

Throughout history, various researchers from time to time have come forward with hypothetical formulas of love. One famous formula, from the early 20th century, was provided by the pioneer sexologist Havelock Ellis who postulated the following mathematical equality:

:

Love = Sex + Friendship

Although many do not find perfect agreement with this formula, it is one of the most referenced.^[2][3]

Limerence

Main article: limerence

Limerence is a term, coined in 1977 by psychologist Dorothy Tennov, which characterizes a "state of love" personified by a blending of passion, intrusive thinking, longing, uncertainty, and hope. The concept of limerence stems from Tennov’s research, beginning in the mid 60s, in which she interviewed, questioned, and surveyed over 500 people on the topic of romantic love. In doing so, she set out to understand and to quantify that variety of “passionate love” as described in Stendhal’s 1822 classic On Love wherein the concept of crystallization was developed.

Lovemaps

Main article: lovemap

In 1980, abnormal sexology researcher John Money developed the concept of lovemaps, defined as a set of love attachment predispositions, i.e. neurological love templates, developed or acquired through association in early youth. Lovemaps help to explain why people like what they like sexuoerotically, such as necrophilia, coprophilia, or masochism, etc. According to Money, a lovemap is "a developmental representation or template in the mind and in the brain depicting the idealized lover and the idealized program of sexuoerotic activity projected in imagery or actually engaged in with that lover." Although the concept of "lovemaps" originally focused on atypical love, it has since been referenced in discussions on typical love.

Triangular theory of love

Main article: triangular theory of love

In 1986 psychologist Robert Sternberg published his famous triangular theory of love in Psychological Review, which postulated a geometric interpretation of love. According to the triangular theory, love has three components:^[4]

1. Intimacy – which encompasses the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness.
2. Passion – which encompasses the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and sexual consummation.
3. Decision/Commitment – which encompasses, in the short term, the decision that one loves another, and in the long term, the commitment to maintain that love.

The “amount” of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components; the “kind” of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other. The three components, pictorially labeled on the vertices of a triangle, interact with each other and with the actions they produce and with the actions that produce them so as to form seven different kinds of love experiences:

	intimacy	passion	commitment
Liking or friendship	x
Infatuation or limerence		x
Empty love			x
Romantic love	x	x
Companionate love	x		x
Fatuous love		x	x
Consummate love	x	x	x

Sternburg's Love Triangle

The size of the triangle functions to represent the amount of love - the bigger the triangle the greater the love. The shape of the triangle functions to represent the kind of love, which typically varies over the course of the relationship: passion-stage (right-shifted triangle), intimacy-stage (apex-triangle), commitment-stage (left-shifted triangle), typically. Of the seven varieties of love, consummate love is theorized to be that love associated with the “perfect couple”. Typically, couples will continue to have great sex fifteen years or more into the relationship, they can not imagine themselves happy over the long term with anyone else, they weather their few storms gracefully, and each delight in the relationship with each other.^[1]

Love styles

Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick developed a Love Attitude Scale based on John Alan Lee's theory called Love styles. Lee identified six basic theories that people use in their interpersonal relationships:

1. Eros (romantic love) — a passionate physical love based on physical appearance and beauty.
2. Ludus (game playing) — love is played as a game; love is playful; often involves little or no commitment and thrives on "conquests".
3. Storge (companionate love) — an affectionate love that slowly develops, based on similarity and friendship.
4. Pragma (pragmatic love) — inclination to select a partner based on practical and rational criteria where both will benefit from the partnership.
5. Mania (possessive love) — highly emotional love; unstable; the stereotype of romantic love; its characteristics include jealousy and conflict.
6. Agapē (altruistic love) — selfless altruistic love; spiritual

The Hendricks found men tend to be more ludic and manic, whereas women tend to be storgic and pragmatic. Relationships based on similar love styles were found to last longer.

Phases

In 1992, anthropologist Helen Fisher, in her ground-breaking book the Anatomy of Love, postulated three main phases of love:

1. lust - an intense longing.
2. attraction - an action that tends to draw people together.
3. attachment - a bonding progression.

Generally love will start off in the lust phase, strong in passion but weak in the other elements. The primary motivator at this stage is the basic sexual instinct. Appearance, smells, and other similar factors play a decisive role in screening potential mates. However, as time passes on , the other elements may grow and passion may shrink — this depends upon the individual. So what starts as infatuation or empty love may well develop into one of the fuller types of love. At the attraction stage the person concentrates their affection on a single mate and fidelity becomes important.

Likewise, when a person has known a loved one for a long time, they develop a deeper attachment to their partner. According to current scientific understanding of love, this transition from the attraction to the attachment phase usually happens in about 30 months. After that time, the passion fades, changing love from consummate to companionate, or from romantic love to liking.

Similarly, according to psychologist many see love as being a combination of companionate love and passionate love. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate). Companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy not accompanied by physiological arousal.

See also

• Biological Attraction
• Love
• Love (cultural views)
• Love (religious views)

References

5. ^ Jammer, Max (1956). Concepts of Force. Dover Publications, Inc.. ISBN 0-486-40689-X. 
6. ^ Berscheid, Ellen; Walster, Elaine, H. (1969). Interpersonal Attraction. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.. CCCN 69-17443. 
7. ^ Carmichael MS, Humbert R, Dixen J, Palmisano G, Greenleaf W, Davidson JM. (1987) Plasma oxytocin increases in the human sexual response. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 64:27-31 PMID 3782434

End Notes

1. ^ Tennov, Dorothy (1979). Love and Limerence. Maryland: Scarborough House. ISBN 0812823281. 
2. ^  Article: "On Being Limerent" [Source: flatrock.org]
3. Shadi Bartsch and Thomas Bartscherer, eds. Erotikon: Essays on Eros, Ancient and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
4. Helen Fisher. Why We Love: the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love
5. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini and Richard Lannon, A General Theory of Love. New York, Vintage Books, 2000. ISBN 0375709223
6. Thomas Jay Oord, Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being. Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2004.
7. ^  R. J. Sternberg. A triangular theory of love. 1986. Psychological Review, 93, 119–135
8. R. J. Sternberg. Liking versus loving: A comparative evaluation of theories. 1987. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 331–345
9. ^ Sternberg, Robert (1998). Cupid's Arrow - the Course of Love through Time. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47893-6. 
10. Dorothy Tennov. Love and Limerence: the Experience of Being in Love. New York: Stein and Day, 1979. ISBN 0-8128-6134-5
11. Dorothy Tennov. A Scientist Looks at Romantic Love and Calls It "Limerence": The Collected Works of Dorothy Tennov. Greenwich, CT: The Great American Publishing Society (GRAMPS), http://www.gramps.org/limerence
12. Wood, Wood and Boyd. The World of Psychology. 5th edition. 2005. Pearson Education, 402–403

External links

• The Science of Love
• The Thermodynamics of Love
• Thermodynamics, Psychology, Chemistry, and Love
• Chemistry - a Central Pillar of Human Culture

Harry Harlow

• The Nature of Love (1958) - Harry Harlow, American Psychologist, 13, 573-685
• Harry Harlow - A Science Odyssey: People and Experiments

Love is an intense feeling of affection related to a sense of strong loyalty or profound oneness.^[] The meaning of love varies relative to context.
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Courtly love was a medieval European notion of ennobling love which found its genesis in the ducal and princely courts in regions of present-day southern France at the end of the 11th century.
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Greek love is a relatively modern coinage (generally placed within quotation marks) intended as a reference to male bonding and intimate relations between males as practised in Ancient Greece, as well as to its application and expression in more recent times, particularly in a
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religious love can be expressed in similar terms to interpersonal love is a matter for philosophical debate. Religious 'love' might be considered a euphemistic term, more closely describing feelings of deference or acquiescence.
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Eroticism is an aesthetic focus on sexual desire, especially the feelings of anticipation of sexual activity. It is not only the state of arousal and anticipation, but also the attempt through whatever means of representation to incite those feelings.
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Platonic love in its modern popular sense is a non-sexual affectionate relationship, especially in cases where one might easily assume otherwise. A simple example of platonic relationships is a deep, non-sexual (i.e.
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In sociology, familial love is a type affinity or natural affection felt between members of a group bound by common ancestry or blood ties, or through friendship and care. Familial love can also be experienced through kindhearted teachers to their students too.
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human sexuality is how people experience and express themselves as sexual beings.^[1] The study of human sexuality is comprised of a broad range of behaviors, processes, and societal topics.
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Sexual intercourse or copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals.^[1] The two entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails.
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Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day is a holiday on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards or candy. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day.
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Affinity in terms of sociology, refers to "kinship of spirit", interest and other interpersonal commonalities. Affinity is characterized by high levels of intimacy and sharing, usually in close groups, also known as affinity groups.
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Cohabitation is an emotional and physical intimate relationship which includes a common living place and which exists without legal or religious sanction.

Description

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Concubinage is the state of a woman or youth in an ongoing, quasi-matrimonial relationship with a man of higher social status. Typically, the man has an official wife and, in addition, one or more concubines.
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Courtship, traditionally the wooing of a female by a male that, for example, includes activities such as dating (dinner and a movie, a picnic, or general "hanging out"), along with other forms of activity, such as meeting online (also known as virtual dating), chatting on-line,
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Divorce or dissolution of marriage is the ending of a marriage before the death of either spouse.

It can be contrasted with an annulment, which is a declaration that a marriage is void, though the effects of marriage may be recognized in such unions, such as spousal
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A dowry (also known as trousseau) is either the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage or a gift of money or property by a man to or for his bride.
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Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humans. This article focuses on the notion specific to interpersonal relationships.
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worldwide view of the subject.
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Family is a Western term used to have denote a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups linked through descent (demonstrated or stipulated)
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A husband is a male participant in a marriage.

Origin and etymology

The term husband refers to Middle English huseband, from Old English hsbnda, from Old Norse hsbndi
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Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoning passion or love; addictive love. Infatuation usually occurs at the beginning of relationship when sexual attraction is central.
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Jealousy typically refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that occur when a person believes a valued relationship is being threatened by a rival. This rival may or may not know that he or she is perceived as a threat. The opposite of jealousy is compersion.
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Limerence, as posited by psychologist Dorothy Tennov, is an attempt at a scientific study into the nature of romantic love. The meaning of the word, which was coined by Tennov in 1977, is an involuntary
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Love is an intense feeling of affection related to a sense of strong loyalty or profound oneness.^[] The meaning of love varies relative to context.
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