research paper on love

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When love and science double date.

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Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

Sure, your heart thumps, but let’s look at what’s happening physically and psychologically

“They gave each other a smile with a future in it.” — Ring Lardner

Love’s warm squishiness seems a thing far removed from the cold, hard reality of science. Yet the two do meet, whether in lab tests for surging hormones or in austere chambers where MRI scanners noisily thunk and peer into brains that ignite at glimpses of their soulmates.

When it comes to thinking deeply about love, poets, philosophers, and even high school boys gazing dreamily at girls two rows over have a significant head start on science. But the field is gamely racing to catch up.

One database of scientific publications turns up more than 6,600 pages of results in a search for the word “love.” The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is conducting 18 clinical trials on it (though, like love itself, NIH’s “love” can have layered meanings, including as an acronym for a study of Crohn’s disease). Though not normally considered an intestinal ailment, love is often described as an illness, and the smitten as lovesick. Comedian George Burns once described love as something like a backache: “It doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.”

Richard Schwartz , associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a consultant to McLean and Massachusetts General (MGH) hospitals, says it’s never been proven that love makes you physically sick, though it does raise levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that has been shown to suppress immune function.

Love also turns on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is known to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers. Couple that with a drop in levels of serotonin — which adds a dash of obsession — and you have the crazy, pleasing, stupefied, urgent love of infatuation.

It’s also true, Schwartz said, that like the moon — a trigger of its own legendary form of madness — love has its phases.

“It’s fairly complex, and we only know a little about it,” Schwartz said. “There are different phases and moods of love. The early phase of love is quite different” from later phases.

During the first love-year, serotonin levels gradually return to normal, and the “stupid” and “obsessive” aspects of the condition moderate. That period is followed by increases in the hormone oxytocin, a neurotransmitter associated with a calmer, more mature form of love. The oxytocin helps cement bonds, raise immune function, and begin to confer the health benefits found in married couples, who tend to live longer, have fewer strokes and heart attacks, be less depressed, and have higher survival rates from major surgery and cancer.

Schwartz has built a career around studying the love, hate, indifference, and other emotions that mark our complex relationships. And, though science is learning more in the lab than ever before, he said he still has learned far more counseling couples. His wife and sometime collaborator, Jacqueline Olds , also an associate professor of psychiatry at HMS and a consultant to McLean and MGH, agrees.

Spouses Richard Schwartz and Jacqueline Olds, both associate professors of psychiatry, have collaborated on a book about marriage.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

More knowledge, but struggling to understand

“I think we know a lot more scientifically about love and the brain than we did a couple of decades ago, but I don’t think it tells us very much that we didn’t already know about love,” Schwartz said. “It’s kind of interesting, it’s kind of fun [to study]. But do we think that makes us better at love, or helping people with love? Probably not much.”

Love and companionship have made indelible marks on Schwartz and Olds. Though they have separate careers, they’re separate together, working from discrete offices across the hall from each other in their stately Cambridge home. Each has a professional practice and independently trains psychiatry students, but they’ve also collaborated on two books about loneliness and one on marriage. Their own union has lasted 39 years, and they raised two children.

“I think we know a lot more scientifically about love and the brain than we did a couple of decades ago … But do we think that makes us better at love, or helping people with love? Probably not much.” Richard Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

“I have learned much more from doing couples therapy, and being in a couple’s relationship” than from science, Olds said. “But every now and again, something like the fMRI or chemical studies can help you make the point better. If you say to somebody, ‘I think you’re doing this, and it’s terrible for a relationship,’ they may not pay attention. If you say, ‘It’s corrosive, and it’s causing your cortisol to go way up,’ then they really sit up and listen.”

A side benefit is that examining other couples’ trials and tribulations has helped their own relationship over the inevitable rocky bumps, Olds said.

“To some extent, being a psychiatrist allows you a privileged window into other people’s triumphs and mistakes,” Olds said. “And because you get to learn from them as they learn from you, when you work with somebody 10 years older than you, you learn what mistakes 10 years down the line might be.”

People have written for centuries about love shifting from passionate to companionate, something Schwartz called “both a good and a sad thing.” Different couples experience that shift differently. While the passion fades for some, others keep its flames burning, while still others are able to rekindle the fires.

“You have a tidal-like motion of closeness and drifting apart, closeness and drifting apart,” Olds said. “And you have to have one person have a ‘distance alarm’ to notice the drifting apart so there can be a reconnection … One could say that in the couples who are most successful at keeping their relationship alive over the years, there’s an element of companionate love and an element of passionate love. And those each get reawakened in that drifting back and forth, the ebb and flow of lasting relationships.”

Children as the biggest stressor

Children remain the biggest stressor on relationships, Olds said, adding that it seems a particular problem these days. Young parents feel pressure to raise kids perfectly, even at the risk of their own relationships. Kids are a constant presence for parents. The days when child care consisted of the instruction “Go play outside” while mom and dad reconnected over cocktails are largely gone.

When not hovering over children, America’s workaholic culture, coupled with technology’s 24/7 intrusiveness, can make it hard for partners to pay attention to each other in the evenings and even on weekends. It is a problem that Olds sees even in environments that ought to know better, such as psychiatry residency programs.

“There are all these sweet young doctors who are trying to have families while they’re in residency,” Olds said. “And the residencies work them so hard there’s barely time for their relationship or having children or taking care of children. So, we’re always trying to balance the fact that, in psychiatry, we stand for psychological good health, but [in] the residency we run, sometimes we don’t practice everything we preach.”

“There is too much pressure … on what a romantic partner should be. They should be your best friend, they should be your lover, they should be your closest relative, they should be your work partner, they should be the co-parent, your athletic partner. … Of course everybody isn’t able to quite live up to it.” Jacqueline Olds, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

All this busy-ness has affected non-romantic relationships too, which has a ripple effect on the romantic ones, Olds said. A respected national social survey has shown that in recent years people have gone from having three close friends to two, with one of those their romantic partner.

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“Often when you scratch the surface … the second [friend] lives 3,000 miles away, and you can’t talk to them on the phone because they’re on a different time schedule,” Olds said. “There is too much pressure, from my point of view, on what a romantic partner should be. They should be your best friend, they should be your lover, they should be your closest relative, they should be your work partner, they should be the co-parent, your athletic partner. There’s just so much pressure on the role of spouse that of course everybody isn’t able to quite live up to it.”

Since the rising challenges of modern life aren’t going to change soon, Schwartz and Olds said couples should try to adopt ways to fortify their relationships for life’s long haul. For instance, couples benefit from shared goals and activities, which will help pull them along a shared life path, Schwartz said.

“You’re not going to get to 40 years by gazing into each other’s eyes,” Schwartz said. “I think the fact that we’ve worked on things together has woven us together more, in good ways.”

Maintain curiosity about your partner

Also important is retaining a genuine sense of curiosity about your partner, fostered both by time apart to have separate experiences, and by time together, just as a couple, to share those experiences. Schwartz cited a study by Robert Waldinger, clinical professor of psychiatry at MGH and HMS, in which couples watched videos of themselves arguing. Afterwards, each person was asked what the partner was thinking. The longer they had been together, the worse they actually were at guessing, in part because they thought they already knew.

“What keeps love alive is being able to recognize that you don’t really know your partner perfectly and still being curious and still be exploring,” Schwartz said. “Which means, in addition to being sure you have enough time and involvement with each other — that that time isn’t stolen — making sure you have enough separateness that you can be an object of curiosity for the other person.”

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The Research on Love: A Psychological, Scientific Perspective on Love

Dr. Nina Mikirova

And now here is this topic about love, the subject without which no movie, novel, poem or song can exist. This topic has fascinated scientists, philosophers, historians, poets, playwrights, novelists, and songwriters. I decided to look at this subject from a scientific point of view. It was very interesting to research and to write this article, and I am hoping it will be interesting to you as a reader.

Whereas psychological science was slow to develop active interest in love, the past few decades have seen considerable growth in research on the subject.  The following is a comprehensive review of the central and well-established findings from psychologically-informed research on love and its influence in adult human relationships as presented in the article: “Love. What Is It, Why Does It Matter, and How Does It Operate?”  by H. Reis and A. Aron. A brief summary of the ideas from this article is presented below.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOVE RESEARCH

Most popular contemporary ideas about love can be traced to the classical Greek philosophers. Prominent in this regard is Plato’s Symposium. It is a systematic and seminal analysis whose major ideas

have probably influenced contemporary work on love more than all subsequent philosophical work combined. However, four major intellectual developments of the 19th and 20th centuries provided key insights that helped shape the agenda for current research and theory of love.

The first of these was led by Charles Darwin, who proposed that reproductive success was the central process underlying the evolution of species. Evolutionary theorizing has led directly to such currently popular concepts as mate preference, sexual mating strategies, and attachment, as well as to the adoption of a comparative approach across species.

A second important figure was Sigmund Freud. He introduced many psychodynamic principles, such as the importance of early childhood experiences, the powerful impact of motives operating outside of awareness, the role of defenses in shaping the behavioral expression of motives, and the role of sexuality as a force in human behavior.

A third historically significant figure was Margaret Mead. Mead expanded awareness with vivid descriptions of cultural variations in the expression of love and sexuality. This led researchers to consider the influence of socialization and to recognize cultural variation in many aspects of love.

The emerging women’s movement during the 1970s also contributed to a cultural climate that made the study of what had been traditionally thought of as ‘‘women’s concerns’’ not only acceptable, but in fact necessary for the science of human behavior. At the same time, a group of social psychologists were beginning their work to show that adult love could be studied experimentally and in the laboratory.

WHAT’S PSYCHOLOGY GOT TO DO WITH LOVE

What is Love?  According to authors, Reis and Aron, love is defined as a desire to enter, maintain, or expand a close, connected, and ongoing relationship with another person. Considerable evidence supports a basic distinction, first offered in 1978, between passionate love (“a state of intense longing for union with another”) and other types of romantic love, labeled companionate love (“the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined”).

The evidence for this distinction comes from a variety of research methods, including psychometric techniques, examinations of the behavioral and relationship consequences of different forms of romantic love, and biological studies, which are discussed in this article.  Most work has focused on identifying and measuring passionate love and several aspects of romantic love, which include two components: intimacy and commitment.  Some scholars see companionate love as a combination of intimacy and commitment, whereas others see intimacy as the central component, with commitment as a peripheral factor (but important in its own right, such as for predicting relationship longevity).

In some studies, trust and caring were considred highly prototypical of love, whereas uncertainty and butterflies in the stomach were more peripheral.

Passionate and companionate love solves different adaptation problems. Passionate love may be said to solve the attraction problem—that is, for individuals to enter into a potentially long-term mating relationship, they must identify and select suitable candidates, attract the other’s interest, engage in relationship-building behavior, and then go about reorganizing existing activities and relationships so as to include the other. All of this is strenuous, time-consuming, and disruptive. Consequently, passionate love is associated with many changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior. For the most part, these changes are consistent with the idea of disrupting existing activities, routines, and social networks to orient the individual’s attention and goal-directed behavior toward a specific new partner.

Considerably less study has been devoted to understanding the evolutionary significance of the intimacy and commitment aspects of love. However, much evidence indicates that love in long-term relationships is associated with intimacy, trust, caring, and attachment; all factors that contribute to the maintenance of relationships over time.  More generally, the term companionate love may be characterized by communal relationship; a relationship built on mutual expectations that oneself and a partner will be responsive to each other’s needs.

It was speculated that companionate love, or at least the various processes associated with it, is responsible for the noted association among social relatedness, health, and well-being. In a recent series of papers, it was claimed that marriage is linked to health benefits. Having noted the positive functions of love, it is also important to consider the dark side. That is, problems in love and love relationships are a significant source of suicides, homicides, and both major and minor emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Love matters not only because it can make our lives better, but also because it is a major source of misery and pain that can make life worse.

It is also believed that research will address how culture shapes the experience and expression of love. Although both passionate and companionate love appear to be universal, it is apparent that their manifestations may be moderated by culture-specific norms and rules.

Passionate love and companionate love has profoundly different implications for marriage around the world, considered essential in some cultures but contraindicated or rendered largely irrelevant in others. For example, among U.S. college students in the 1960s, only 24% of women and 65% of men considered love to be the basis of marriage, but in the 1980s this view was endorsed by more than 80% of both women and men.

Finally, the authors believe that the future will see a better understanding of what may be the quintessential question about love: How this very individualistic feeling is shaped by experiences in interaction with particular others.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri–St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Affiliation Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

• Sandra J. E. Langeslag, 
• Jan W. van Strien

• Published: August 16, 2016
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087
• Reader Comments

Love feelings can be more intense than desired (e.g., after a break-up) or less intense than desired (e.g., in long-term relationships). If only we could control our love feelings! We present the concept of explicit love regulation, which we define as the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love. We present the first two studies on preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of love regulation. Questionnaire responses showed that people perceive love feelings as somewhat uncontrollable. Still, in four open questions people reported to use strategies such as cognitive reappraisal, distraction, avoidance, and undertaking (new) activities to cope with break-ups, to maintain long-term relationships, and to regulate love feelings. Instructed up-regulation of love using reappraisal increased subjective feelings of attachment, while love down-regulation decreased subjective feelings of infatuation and attachment. We used the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude as an objective index of regulation success. Instructed love up-regulation enhanced the LPP between 300–400 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship and in participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up, while love down-regulation reduced the LPP between 700–3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. These findings corroborate the self-reported feasibility of love regulation, although they are complicated by the finding that love up-regulation also reduced the LPP between 700–3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. To conclude, although people have the preconception that love feelings are uncontrollable, we show for the first time that intentional regulation of love feelings using reappraisal, and perhaps other strategies, is feasible. Love regulation will benefit individuals and society because it could enhance positive effects and reduce negative effects of romantic love.

Citation: Langeslag SJE, van Strien JW (2016) Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility. PLoS ONE 11(8): e0161087. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087

Editor: Alexandra Key, Vanderbilt University, UNITED STATES

Received: March 8, 2016; Accepted: July 31, 2016; Published: August 16, 2016

Copyright: © 2016 Langeslag, van Strien. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Our data cannot be made publicly available for ethical reasons. That is, participants were not asked for permission for their data to be shared. Parts of the data are available on request. Please send requests to Sandra Langeslag ( [email protected] ).

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Romantic love strikes virtually everyone at least once (i.e., its lifetime prevalence approaches 100%) [ 1 ] and has a great impact on our lives. Romantic love has positive effects on individuals and society as a whole. For example, love is associated with positive emotions such as euphoria [ 2 ] and romantic relationships enhance happiness and life satisfaction [ 3 ]. But love also has a negative impact on individuals and society. For example, love is associated with stress [ 4 ] and jealousy [ 5 ], and romantic break-ups are associated with sadness and shame [ 6 ], a decrease in happiness and life satisfaction [ 7 ], and depression [ 8 ]. The high prevalence of love combined with its significant positive and negative impact on individuals and society make it an important research topic.

The word ‘love’ has many different meanings and may have different meanings to different people. Researchers have proposed several taxonomies of love, with various numbers of love types or components [ 9 – 13 ]. In this study, two types of love feelings are considered: infatuation and attachment. Infatuation is the overwhelming, amorous feeling for one individual, and is similar to the concepts ‘passion’ or ‘infatuated love’ [ 10 ], ‘romantic love’ [ 11 ], ‘passionate love’ [ 12 ], and ‘attraction’ [ 13 ]. Attachment, on the other hand, is the comforting feeling of emotional bonding with another individual, and is similar to the concepts ‘intimacy’ with ‘decision/commitment’ [ 10 ], and ‘companionate love’ [ 10 – 12 ].

Love feelings are sometimes weaker than desired. Infatuation is typically most intense at the early stages of love after which it decreases relatively quickly [ 13 – 15 ] and attachment takes some time to develop [ 13 – 15 ] after which it decreases over the course of decades [ 16 ]. The decrease of infatuation and attachment over time threatens the stability of romantic relationships. Indeed, falling out of love is the primary reason for divorce [ 17 ]. Love feelings can also be stronger than desired. People may, for example, be in love with someone who does not love them back or who has broken up with them. Clearly, it would be advantageous if we could regulate love feelings at will, so that we could up-regulate them when they are weaker than desired, and down-regulate them when they are stronger than desired.

We define love regulation as the use of behavioral or cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love. In an interview study, participants reported that their love feelings were involuntary and uncontrollable [ 2 ]. Nevertheless, three lines of research suggest that love regulation may actually be feasible. First, it is well known that people can regulate their emotions [ 18 – 21 ], which entails generating new emotions or changing the intensity of current emotions using behavioral or cognitive strategies [ 20 ]. There are multiple emotion regulation strategies, including situation selection, distraction, expression suppression, and cognitive reappraisal. Situation selection is to avoid or seek out certain situations to change the way you feel (e.g., attending a party to have fun) [ 21 ]. Distraction entails performing a secondary task to reduce the intensity of emotions (e.g., playing a video game to forget about a bad incident at work) [ 20 ]. Expression suppression involves inhibiting the expression of an emotion (e.g., keeping a poker face) [ 22 ]. Cognitive reappraisal involves reinterpreting the situation to change the way you feel (e.g., decreasing or increasing nervousness by reinterpreting an upcoming job interview as an opportunity to learn more about the company or as a once in a lifetime opportunity, respectively) [ 22 ]. Emotion regulation can be used to up- and down-regulate positive and negative emotions [ 23 ] and may happen implicitly or explicitly [ 18 ].

However, love is sometimes considered a motivation (or drive) rather than an emotion [ 24 ]. One reason why love would not be an emotion is that it elicits different emotions depending on the situation. Reciprocated love, for example, may elicit the emotion euphoria, while unreciprocated love may elicit the emotion sadness. It is therefore important that a second line of research has shown that people can use cognitive strategies to regulate their motivations, including sexual arousal [ 25 ], excitement about monetary reward [ 26 – 29 ], and craving for alcohol, food, and cigarettes [ 30 , 31 ]. The evidence that motivations can be regulated intentionally supports the idea that explicit love regulation may be feasible.

Finally, a third research line has shown that people think more favorably of their romantic partner than objectively justified [ 32 , 33 ]. Importantly, people who idealize their partner and whose partners idealize them have happier relationships [ 34 ]. These findings suggest that implicit up-regulation of love feelings for the current romantic partner is feasible and that it contributes to relationship satisfaction.

Even though this last research line shows that people can regulate their love feelings implicitly, there are no studies that provide information about the deliberate, explicit up- and down-regulation of love feelings. In two studies, we systematically examined preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of explicit regulation of love feelings. The first goal was to determine whether people think that love feelings can be controlled or not. Participants answered a series of questions that measured perceived control over love feelings and previous research [ 2 ] led us to hypothesize that people would perceive love feelings as uncontrollable. The second goal was to reveal which strategies people use when they try to up- and down-regulate their love feelings. Participants responded to four open questions and we expected that people would report the use of typical behavioral and cognitive emotion regulation strategies mentioned above. First, we conducted a pilot study (Study 1) and then we conducted another study (Study 2) to confirm the findings of the pilot study.

In addition, Study 2 employed a love regulation task to achieve the final research goal, which was to examine if people can intentionally up- and down-regulate love feelings. In this first empirical test of the feasibility of love regulation, we focused on the reappraisal strategy because it is considered effective in altering feeling intensity and beneficial for cognitive and social functioning [ 21 ]. Situation-focused reappraisal entails changing the emotional meaning of a situation by reinterpreting it [ 21 ], for example by focusing on positive or negative aspects of the situation, or by imagining a positive or negative outcome [ 35 ]. The use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate love feelings is related to the notion that cognitive processes, including making attributions, are associated with relationship satisfaction [ 36 , 37 ]. We focus on the intensity of infatuation and attachment rather than relationship outcomes, since love feelings do not occur exclusively in the context of romantic relationships [ 14 ].

Because it depends on the situation whether people would benefit from love up- or down-regulation, we tested a group of people who were involved in a romantic relationship and a group of people who had recently experienced a romantic break-up. People who are currently in a romantic relationship were expected to benefit from love up-regulation, because that would stabilize their relationship. People who have just experienced a break-up, in contrast, would benefit from love down-regulation, because that could help them cope with the break-up. Because previous research has shown that intense feelings of romantic love can be elicited by viewing pictures of the beloved [ 38 ], pictures of the (ex-)partner were used to elicit feelings of love, which participants were instructed to regulate in an explicit regulation task. Because self-reports are the only way to assess phenomenology (i.e., how someone feels) [ 39 ], participants rated how infatuated and how attached they felt after each regulation condition. It was hypothesized that love up-regulation would increase feelings of infatuation and attachment, whereas love down-regulation would decrease feelings of infatuation and attachment in both groups. It is of course important to dissociate between the concept of love regulation and the well-established concept of emotion regulation. Therefore, participants also rated how negative or positive they felt after each regulation condition. It was expected that love up-regulation would make the relationship group feel more positive, while love down-regulation would make them feel more negative. The opposite pattern was expected for the break-up group: feeling more negative following up-regulation and more positive following down-regulation. This hypothesis shows how love regulation is theoretically distinct from emotion regulation. That is, love regulation targets the intensity of love feelings rather than emotions. Of course, the change in love feelings may in turn influence emotions or affect. The direction of the effect of love regulation on emotion or affect may differ depending on the context, as indicated by the hypothesized opposite effects of love regulation on emotion/affect in the relationship and break-up groups.

Even though self-reports gain a unique insight into what people experience, they also suffer from social desirability biases and demand characteristics [ 40 , 41 ]. Therefore, in addition to subjective self-reports, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) as a more objective measure of love regulation success. ERPs have been used before to study emotion regulation and to study romantic love, but not to study love regulation. The late positive potential (LPP) reflects multiple and overlapping positivies over the posterior scalp beginning in the time range of the classic P300, i.e., around 300 ms after stimulus onset. The LPP amplitude is typically enhanced for negative and positive compared to neutral stimuli [ 19 ] and is therefore thought to reflect the affective and motivational intensity of information and the resulting motivated attention [ 42 ]. Correspondingly, we have shown that the LPP is enhanced in response to pictorial and verbal beloved-related information compared to control information [ 32 , 43 , 44 ]. Importantly, the LPP amplitude is modulated by emotion regulation instructions according to the regulatory goal: emotion down-regulation reduces the LPP amplitude, while emotion up-regulation enhances the LPP amplitude [ 27 , 45 – 49 ]. The LPP amplitude can therefore be used as an objective measure of regulation success [ 19 ]. Because the LPP reflects affective and motivational significance and the resulting motivated attention, rather than valence [ 42 ], regulation effects in the LPP amplitude reflect how regulation changes the affective and motivational intensity of information and the amount of motivated attention allocated to that information. It was expected that love up-regulation would enhance the LPP in response to pictures of the (ex-)partner in both groups, which would indicate that love up-regulation would enhance the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner. Love down-regulation, in contrast, was expected to reduce the LPP amplitude to (ex-)partner pictures in both groups, which would indicate that love down-regulation would reduce the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner.

Study 1 –Methods

Participants.

Thirty-two participants (18–30 yrs, M = 21.4, 7 men) who were in love by self-report were recruited from the University of Maryland community in the US. Being in love was an inclusion criterion because some of the questions assessing perceived control over love feelings (see below) contained a blank in which the participants had to mentally insert the name of their beloved. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Maryland and written informed consent was obtained. Participants were remunerated with $10.

First, participants completed some questions about their love feelings and their romantic relationship [ 44 ]. Participants also completed the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS) [ 14 ], and the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) [ 50 ] to assess the intensity of infatuation and attachment. Then, participants completed 17 questions to assess perceived control of love feelings (Cronbach’s alpha = .93), see the S1 Appendix . These questions were phrased to measure perceived control over love in general, and over infatuation and attachment specifically. They were also phrased to measure perceived control over one’s own vs. people’s love feelings, and over the intensity and object of love feelings. Participants responded using a 9-point Likert scale (1 = totally disagree, 9 = totally agree).

Subsequently, participants answered four open questions about the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships. We distinguished between emotion regulation and love down-regulation in the context of heartbreak by asking two questions: “What do you do or think to feel better when you have a broken heart?” (i.e., emotion regulation), “What do you do or think to decrease feelings of love when you have a broken heart?” (i.e., love down-regulation). In addition, we distinguished between maintaining relationships and love up-regulation in the context of long-term relationships by asking two questions: “What do you do or think to maintain a long-term relationship?” (i.e., maintaining relationships), and “What do you do or think to prevent that feelings of love decline in a long-term relationship?” (i.e., love up-regulation). If participants had not experienced heartbreak or any long-term relationships, they replied with what they think they would do in those circumstances.

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was subjected to a one-sample t -test against 5, to test if it differed from neutral. In addition, responses on subsets of the 17 questions that measured perceived control over a certain aspect of love were averaged to obtain measures of perceived control over seven different aspects of love (love in general, infatuation, attachment, self, people in general, intensity of love, and object of love). Five paired sample t -tests were conducted to test for differences in perceived control between related aspects of love (i.e., love in general vs. infatuation, love in general vs. attachment, infatuation vs. attachment, self vs. people in general, and intensity vs. object of feelings).

The responses to the four open strategy questions were analyzed qualitatively. Many participants listed multiple strategies in response to each of the four open strategy questions. Each strategy was scored as being an exemplar of a certain category. A priori categories were emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, distraction, and suppression [ 20 , 21 ]. In the heartbreak context, reappraisal was subdivided into “focus on the negative aspects of the beloved/relationship”, “think of negative future scenarios”, “think about the positive aspects of the situation”, and “other”. In the long-term relationship context, reappraisal was subdivided into “focus on the positive aspects of the beloved/relationship”, and “think of positive future scenarios”. Other categories such as avoidance (see Tables 1 and 2 ) were added on the basis of participants’ responses.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t002

Study 1 –Results

Participant characteristics.

All participants had an opposite-sex beloved. Twenty-seven (84%) of the participants reported to be in a relationship with their beloved, which supports the idea that love does not occur exclusively in the context of relationships [ 14 ]. See Table 3 for the other love characteristics.

Means (ranges in parentheses).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t003

Perceived control

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was 4.5 ( SD = 1.4). A one-sample t -test revealed that this tended to be lower than 5 (= neutral), t (31) = -1.9, p = .066, which implies that participants perceive love feelings as neither controllable, nor uncontrollable, or as somewhat uncontrollable, if anything. See Table 4 for the mean perceived control over the seven different aspects of love. Participants felt more in control of feelings of attachment than infatuation, t (31) = 2.4, p = .022. There was no difference between the perceived control over the own vs. people’s feelings, t (31) = 0.5, p = .64. Participants felt more control over the intensity than the object of their love feelings, t (31) = 2.1, p = .047.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t004

See Tables 1 and 2 for the regulation strategies reported. In the context of heartbreak, participants mostly used distraction, social support, and reappraisal. Distraction (e.g., watching TV, listening to music, focusing on work or school, or exercise) and seeking social support (e.g., talking to or spending time with family/friends) were used more to feel better than to decrease love feelings. In contrast, reappraisal was used more to decrease love feelings than to feel better. Reappraisal by focusing on negative aspects of the beloved was the most popular reappraisal strategy. Examples of other reappraisal strategies were thinking that time will heal, finding someone else to love, or focusing on positive aspects of oneself or one’s life. Thinking about positive aspects of the situation (e.g., focusing on the advantages of being single or being hopeful for the future), as well as avoidance (i.e., not talking about the beloved, getting rid of all pictures, and eliminating all contact) were moderately popular strategies to decrease love feelings. Strategies such as reappraisal by thinking about negative future scenarios (“it just wasn’t meant to last”), eating/smoking, and expressing emotions (“cry”) were used least often. None of the participants reported the use of suppression. Two participants reported that they did not, or could not, decrease love feelings.

In the context of long-term relationships, participants stressed the importance of communication/honesty and undertaking (new) activities with their beloved. Communication/honesty was deemed important for maintaining long-term relationships, whereas undertaking (new) activities with the beloved, which is a situation selection strategy, was mostly used to prevent love feelings from declining. Other strategies such as expressing love feelings to the beloved, trust, spending (quality) time with the beloved, loving unconditionally/making compromises, the two reappraisal strategies, and spending time apart from the beloved were mentioned as well. Six participants stated that love feelings would not decline if the relationship was good and/or that they would end the relationship if love feelings would decline.

In short, several behavioral and cognitive strategies were used in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships. Some of these strategies were the typical cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal, distraction, and situation selection. While some strategies seemed specific for feeling better during heartbreak or for maintaining long-term relationships, strategies such as reappraisal by focusing on negative aspects of the beloved or the relationship and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved seemed specific for down- and up-regulation of love feelings, respectively.

Interim Discussion

The results of this first exploratory study show that people perceive love feelings as neither controllable, nor uncontrollable (or as somewhat uncontrollable, if anything). People did perceive more control over some aspects of love than others and the majority of people reported to use a variety of strategies when heartbroken or when in a long-term relationship. Some strategies seemed specific for changing the intensity of love feelings, rather than for regulating emotions or maintaining relationships. Because this was only a pilot study with mostly female participants, we conducted a follow-up study (Study 2) to replicate and confirm these preliminary findings in a more gender-balanced sample. As mentioned in the introduction, Study 2 also included a love regulation task to test the feasibility of love regulation.

Study 2 –Methods

Twenty participants who were in a romantic relationship (19–25 yrs, M = 21.7, 10 men) and 20 participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (19–26 yrs, M = 21.9, 10 men) were recruited from the Erasmus University Rotterdam community in The Netherlands. For brevity, we will use the words ‘partner’ and ‘relationship’ in the remainder of the paper regardless of whether the relationship was ongoing or had dissolved. Inclusion criteria were normal or corrected to-normal vision, right-handedness (as determined by a hand preference questionnaire [ 51 ]), no use of medication known to affect the central nervous system, and no mental disorders. The reason for excluding participants with mental disorders was that many mental disorders are associated with emotion dysregulation [ 23 ], which indicates that love regulation may also be different in patients than in healthy controls. Four participants had to be excluded from the EEG analyses because of experimenter error during the EEG recording ( n = 3) or too many artifacts ( n = 1, more information below). Therefore the EEG analyses are based on 18 participants who were in a romantic relationship (19–25 yrs, M = 21.8, 9 men) and 18 participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (19–26 yrs, M = 21.7, 8 men). The study was approved by the Psychologie Ethische Commissie of the Erasmus Universiteit Rottterdam and written informed consent was obtained. Participants were remunerated with course credit or €15.

Questionnaires

In addition to the questions about their love feelings and their romantic relationship [ 44 ], the 17 perceived control questions (Cronbach’s alpha = .92), the four open regulation strategy questions, the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS) [ 14 ], and the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) [ 50 ] used in Study 1, participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) [ 22 ] to assess individual differences in the habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Participants also completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedules (PANAS) twice, once about the last two weeks and once about this moment [ 52 ].

Participants provided 30 digital pictures of their partner. There were no other requirements than that the pictures had to contain the partner. Therefore, the pictures could display parts of the partner (e.g., just the face) or the whole body of the partner, people other than the partner, a variety of facial expressions, objects, and scenery. The pictures were presented to elicit love feelings [ 38 ] and to help the participant come up with negative or positive aspects of the partner/relationship and future scenarios (see below). It is important to note that the variety of information on the pictures does not confound the effects of regulation, because the same 30 partner pictures were presented in each regulation condition. For the same reason, differences in picture content between the two groups could not confound the differences in regulation effects between groups. In addition, the pictures ensure high ecological validity, as the partner is typically encountered in a wide variety of contexts and with varying facial expressions. The neutral stimuli were 30 neutral pictures displaying humans from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) [ 53 ] with neutral normative valence ( M = 5.4, SD = 0.5) and low normative arousal ( M = 3.5, SD = 0.5) ratings, see S1 Text .

Love regulation task

Participants completed a love regulation task, see Fig 1 , while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. In the first two blocks, participants passively viewed partner and neutral pictures (order counterbalanced between participants). In the third and fourth block, participants were instructed to up- and down-regulate their love feelings in response to the partner pictures (order counterbalanced between participants) using reappraisal. Up-regulation instructions were to increase love feelings by thinking about positive aspects of the partner (e.g., “He is so funny”) or relationship (e.g., “We get along so well”), or positive future scenarios (e.g., “We’ll get married”). Down-regulation instructions were to decrease love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of the partner (e.g., “She is so lazy”) or relationship (e.g., “We often fight”), or negative future scenarios (e.g., “We won’t stay together forever”). Participants could use the information in the picture for inspiration. For example, the partner wearing a yellow shirt and standing next to a friend on a picture could inspire the participant to up-regulate love feelings by thinking “I love that yellow shirt he’s wearing” and to down-regulate love feelings by thinking “He is always hitting on that friend, and he might cheat on me one day”. These are instructions of situation-focused reappraisal, which involves reinterpreting “the nature of the events themselves, reevaluating others’ actions, dispositions, and outcomes” rather than self-focused reappraisal, which involves altering “the personal relevance of events” ([ 35 ], p. 484). That is, focusing on negative/positive aspects of the partner involves a reevaluation of the partner’s dispositions (“My partner is a wonderful person” when focusing on positive aspects vs. “My partner is a terrible person” when focusing on negative aspects), focusing on negative/positive aspects of the relationship involves a reevaluation of the relationship (“I am/was in a good relationship” when focusing on positive aspects, and “I am/was in a bad relationship” when focusing on negative aspects), and imagining positive/negative future relationship scenarios involves reevaluation of outcomes.

Please note that the stimulus in this figure is not actually one of the pictures that were submitted by the participants. Instead, it is an IAPS picture [ 53 ] that resembles the kinds of pictures that participants submitted.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g001

Each block started with an instruction word (‘view’, ‘increase’, ‘decrease’) for 4 sec and consisted of 30 trials. Trial structure was: fixation cross for 900–1100 ms, picture for 3 sec, and blank screen for 2 sec. After each block, participants completed four ratings on a 1–5 scale: infatuation, attachment, valence, and arousal, and they also completed the PANAS at this moment [ 52 ]. After the regulation task, participants wrote down what they had thought to up- and down-regulate love feelings to verify that they had followed the instructions.

EEG recording and preprocessing

The EEG was recorded using a 32-channel amplifier and data acquisition software (ActiveTwoSystem, BioSemi). The 32 Ag-AgCl active electrodes were placed upon the scalp by means of a head cap (BioSemi), according to the 10–20 International System. Vertical electro-oculogram and horizontal electro-oculogram were recorded by attaching additional electrodes (UltraFlat Active electrodes, BioSemi) above and below the left eye, and at the outer canthi of both eyes. Another two electrodes were attached to the left and right mastoids. An active electrode (common mode sense) and a passive electrode (driven right leg) were used to comprise a feedback loop for amplifier reference. All signals were digitized with a sampling rate of 512 Hz, a 24 bit A/D conversion and a low pass filter of 134 Hz. The EEG data were analyzed with BrainVision Analyzer 2 (Brain Products, Gilching, Germany). Per participant, a maximum of one bad electrode included in the analyses (see below) was corrected using spherical spline topographic interpolation. Offline, an average mastoids reference was applied and the data were filtered using a 0.1–30 Hz band pass filter (phase shift-free Butterworth filters; 24 dB/octave slope) and a 50 Hz notch filter. Data were segmented in epochs from 200 ms pre-stimulus until 3000 ms post-stimulus onset. Ocular artifact correction was applied semi-automatically according to the Gratton and Coles algorithm [ 54 ]. The 200 ms pre-stimulus period was used for baseline correction. Artifact rejection was performed at individual electrodes with the criterion minimum and maximum baseline-to-peak -75 to +75 μV. Because at least 12 trials are needed to adequately estimate emotion regulation effects in the LPP amplitude [ 55 ], the one participant that had fewer than 12 trials left per electrode per condition was excluded from the EEG analyses, as mentioned above. At the three electrodes used in the analyses (see below), the average number of accepted trials per condition ranged from 29.5 to 29.8 out of 30.

Statistical analyses

Questionnaire scores were analyzed with independent samples t -tests to test for differences between groups (adjusted t , df , and p values are shown when the Levene’s test for equality of variances indicated variance differences between the groups). Besides the one-sample t -test against 5 (= neutral), the perceived control scores were analyzed with three ANOVAs: one ANOVA with factors Love type (love in general, infatuation, attachment) and Group (relationship, break-up), one ANOVA with factors Self/People (self, people in general) and Group, and one ANOVA with factors Intensity/Object (intensity, object) and Group. Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between the seven perceived control scores and the two ERQ subscales across groups. Ratings and PANAS scores after the view conditions were analyzed with an ANOVA with factors Picture (partner, neutral) and Group. Ratings and PANAS scores following the three conditions with partner pictures were analyzed with an ANOVA with factors Regulation (view, up-regulation, down-regulation) and Group. In this analysis, only significant effects involving the factor Regulation are reported, because the main effect of Group is not relevant for the research question.

Because the LPP begins in the time range of the classic P300 [ 19 ] and can last as long as the stimulus duration [ 56 ], the ERP was quantified by mean amplitude measures in four time windows based on previous work [ 47 , 48 , 56 – 58 ]: 300–400 ms, 400–700 ms, 700–1000 ms, 1000–3000 ms. For each time window, mean amplitudes measures at Fz, Cz, and Pz were subjected to two ANOVAs. The first concerned the two view blocks and tested the factors Picture, Group, and Caudality (Fz, Cz, Pz). Only significant effects involving the factor Picture are reported, because those are relevant for the research question. The second ANOVA concerned the three blocks with partner pictures and tested the factors Regulation, Group, and Caudality. In this analysis, only significant effects involving the factor Regulation are reported, because those are relevant for the research question. When applicable, the degrees of freedom were corrected using the Greenhouse-Geisser correction. The F values, uncorrected degrees of freedom, the ε values and corrected probability values are reported. A significance level of 5% (two-sided) was selected and Fisher’s least significance difference (LSD) procedure was applied. This procedure controls type I error rate by conducting follow-up tests for significant main and interaction effects only. Those follow-up tests were paired samples t -tests testing differences between conditions across both groups (in case of significant main or interaction effects without the factor Group) or within groups (in case of significant interactions with the factor Group).

Study 2 –Results

Group characteristics.

All participants had an opposite-sex partner. The average time since the break-up was 3.0 months (range = 0.5–13.5). Ten of these break-ups were initiated by the partner, six by the participant, and four break-ups were a joint decision. See Table 4 for the other group characteristics and the statistics related to group differences. The relationship and break-up groups did not differ in how long they had known their partner for, how long ago their love feelings had started, and the duration of their relationships. The break-up groups did tend to report lower relationship quality than the relationship group. The break-up group also felt less attached and tended to feel more infatuated with their partner than the relationship group. Moreover, the break-up group tended to have experienced less positive affect during the past two weeks and had experienced more negative affect in the past two weeks and at the start of the testing session than the relationship group. Finally, the relationship and break-up groups did not differ in their habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Thus, the two groups differed from each other on variables that can be expected to be related to whether someone is in a relationship or has experienced a break-up, but the groups did not differ on variables that should be unrelated to relationship status.

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was 4.5 ( SD = 1.4). A one-sample t -test showed that this was significantly lower than 5 (= neutral), t (39) = -2.2, p = .032, which suggests that participants perceive love feelings as uncontrollable. See Table 3 for the mean perceived control over the seven different aspects of love. There was a significant main effect of Love type, F (2,76) = 19.8, ε = 1.0, p < .001. Participants felt more in control of feelings of attachment than of feelings of infatuation or love in general, both p s < .001. In addition, there tended to be a main effect of Self/People, F (1,38) = 3.9, p = .056. Participants tended to feel that they were less able to control their love feelings than people in general are. Finally, there was a main effect of Intensity/Object, F (1,38) = 14.6, p < .001. Participants felt more in control of the intensity than of the object of their love feelings. In none of these analyses, the main effect of Group or interactions with Group were significant, all F s < 2.4, all p s > .13, so perceived control over different aspects of love feelings did not differ between the relationship and break-up groups.

The ERQ reappraisal score correlated positively with perceived control over individual love feelings, r (38) = .32, p = .044, and tended to correlate positively with perceived control over the intensity of love feelings, r (38) = .30, p = .056, and with perceived control over the object of love feelings, r (38) = .29, p = .075, see Fig 2 . These findings suggest that the more participants used the reappraisal strategy to regulate emotions in their daily life, the more they perceived love feelings as controllable.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g002

See Tables 1 and 2 for the regulation strategies reported. Participants mostly used distraction and reappraisal when heartbroken. Distraction was used more to feel better, while reappraisal by focusing on the negative aspects of the beloved/relationship was used more to decrease love feelings. The other strategies, such as reappraisal by thinking about the positive aspects of the situation, other ways of reappraising, avoidance, suppression (“making yourself strong (pretend) for the outside world”), eating/smoking, and expressing emotions were used least often when heartbroken. None of the participants reported the use of reappraisal by thinking about negative future scenarios. Two participants reported that they could not decrease love feelings. The use of the different strategies did not appear to differ between the relationship and break-up groups. Seeking social support was less popular in the current Dutch sample than in the US sample in Study 1.

Participants stressed the importance of communication/honesty and undertaking (new) activities with their beloved during long-term relationships. Communication/honesty was mostly used for maintaining long-term relationships. The break-up group used undertaking (new) activities with the beloved mostly to prevent love feelings from declining, while the relationship group used this strategy both to maintain their relationship and to prevent love feelings from declining. Strategies such as expressing love feelings to the beloved, spending (quality) time with the beloved, and loving unconditionally/making compromises were mentioned by some participants. The latter was used more for maintaining long-term relationships than for preventing love feelings from declining. Both reappraisal strategies (i.e., focusing on positive aspects of the beloved/relationship and thinking about positive future scenarios), trust, and spending time apart from the beloved were mentioned by some participants. Two participants specifically stated that love feelings would not decline if the relationship was good and/or that they would end the relationship if love feelings would decline. Other than the above-mentioned difference in the context of undertaking (new) activities, there were no obvious differences between the relationship and break-up groups. There were no major differences between this Dutch sample and the US sample in Study 1.

To conclude, participants reported to use several behavioral and cognitive strategies in heartbreak and long-term relationship contexts. As in Study 1, some of these strategies were the typical cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal, distraction, situation selection, and suppression. As in Study 1, some strategies seemed specific for feeling better during heartbreak (i.e., emotion regulation) or for maintaining long-term relationships, while strategies such as reappraisal by focusing on the negative aspects of the beloved or the relationship and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved were used to down- and up-regulate love feelings, respectively.

See Fig 3 for the infatuation, attachment, valence, and arousal ratings at the end of each block in the regulation task.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g003

View blocks.

The infatuation ratings after the two view blocks showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 27.1, p < .001, and Group, F (1,38) = 5.6, p = .023. Infatuation was higher after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, and higher in the relationship than the break-up group. Attachment ratings also showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 23.9, p < .001, and Group, F (1,38) = 5.6, p = .023. Attachment was higher after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, and higher in the relationship than the break-up group. Thus, partner pictures elicited more feelings of infatuation and attachment than neutral pictures in both groups, which shows that the use of partner pictures was effective in eliciting love feelings [ 38 ].

For valence ratings, the main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 9.9, p = .003, and Group, F (1,38) = 7.7, p = .008 were modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 20.7, p < .001. The relationship group felt more positive after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, whereas the break-up group did not, p = .41. Arousal ratings showed a main effect of Picture, F (1,38) = 26.8, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 7.9, p = .008. The relationship group felt more aroused after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, whereas the break-up group did not, p = .10. Thus, partner pictures elicited positive and arousing feelings in the relationship group but not in break-up group, which confirms that the two groups differed in anticipated ways.

Regulation blocks.

The infatuation ratings after the three blocks with partner pictures showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 39.6, ε = .84, p < .001. Infatuation was lower after down-regulation than after passive viewing or up-regulation, both p s < .001. Attachment ratings also showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 36.7, ε = .91, p < .001. Attachment was highest after up-regulation, intermediate after passive viewing, and lowest after down-regulation, all p s < .013. Valence ratings showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 31.6, ε = .98, p < .001. Participants felt less positive after down-regulation than after passive viewing or up-regulation, both p s < .001. Arousal ratings showed no significant effects involving the factor Regulation, all p s > .26. To summarize, subjective love feelings were modulated in the expected directions by instructed love regulation in both groups. Up-regulation of love increased feelings of attachment, and down-regulation of love decreased feelings of infatuation and attachment. Finally, down-regulation of love decreased the pleasantness of feelings in both groups.

Positive and negative affect

See Fig 4 for positive and negative affect during the regulation task.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g004

Positive affect after the two view blocks showed a main effect of Picture, F (1,38) = 27.2, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 21.7, p < .001. The relationship group experienced more positive affect after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, while the break-up group did not, p = .71. Negative affect showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 9.6, p = .004, and Group, F (1,38) = 25.7, p < .001, which were modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 8.7, p = .005. The break-up group experienced more negative affect after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p = .006, while the relationship group did not, p = .69. In short, partner pictures elicited positive affect in the relationship group, but negative affect in the break-up group, again confirming that the groups differed in expected ways.

Positive affect after the three blocks with partner pictures showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 21.3, ε = .94, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Regulation x Group interaction, F (2,76) = 8.4, ε = .94, p = .001. While the relationship group experienced most positive affect after passive viewing of partner pictures, intermediate positive affect after up-regulation and least positive affect after down-regulation, all p s < .034, positive affect in the break-up group was not affected by instructed love regulation, all p s > .17. Negative affect showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 6.4, ε = .74, p = .007, which was modulated by a significant Regulation x Group interaction, F (2,76) = 5.0, ε = .74, p = .017. The relationship group experienced most negative affect after down-regulation, both p s < .008, whereas negative affect in the break-up group was not affected by instructed love regulation, all p s > .67. To summarize, love regulation decreased positive affect in the relationship group, although down-regulation decreased positive affect more than up-regulation. Down-regulation also increased negative affect in the relationship group. Regulation of love feelings did not influence affect in the break-up group.

Event-related potentials

See Fig 5 for the ERP waveforms and Fig 6 for the scalp topographies of the differences between partner and neutral pictures in the view blocks. In all four time windows, there was a significant main effect of Picture (300–400 ms: F (1,34) = 72.6, p < .001, 400–700 ms: F (1,34) = 101.6, p < .001, 700–1000 ms: F (1,34) = 112.3, p < .001 and 1000–3000 ms: F (1,34) = 51.1, p < .001), indicating that the ERP between 300–3000 ms was more positive in response to the partner than neutral pictures. The interactions involving the factors Picture and Group were not significant in any of the time windows, all F s < 1, ns , which indicated that the ERP response to the partner compared to the neutral pictures did not differ between the relationship and break-up groups. Partner and neutral pictures differ in multiple ways: partner pictures were familiar to the participants, elicited emotional feelings, displayed at least one familiar person, and may have displayed the participant him-/herself. Because all of these factors modulate the ERP [ 32 , 42 , 59 – 61 ], it is not surprising that the ERP difference between partner and neutral pictures is so extended in time and topography, and similar between the two groups. Please note that the up- and down-regulation effects of interest discussed below involve comparisons between up- and down-regulation of responses to the partner pictures only.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g005

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g006

See Fig 5 for the ERP waveforms and Fig 7 for the scalp topographies of the differences between regulation and view conditions. In the 300–400 ms time window, there were a main effect of Regulation, F (2,68) = 4.4, ε = .96, p = .018, and a Regulation x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 3.7, ε = .62, p = .020. The ERP was more positive for up-regulation than passive viewing at Cz and Pz, both p s < .004. In the 400–700 ms time window, there was a Regulation x Group x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 4.9, ε = .72, p = .004, but none of the post hoc tests were significant. In the 700–1000 ms, there were Regulation x Caudality, F (4,136) = 5.8, ε = .65, p = .002, and Regulation x Group x Caudality, F (4,136) = 5.2, ε = .65, p = .004, interactions. In the relationship group, the ERP was less positive for up- and down-regulation than passive viewing at Pz, both p s < .002. In the break-up group, none of the post hoc tests were significant. In the 1000–3000 ms time window, there was a Regulation x Group x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 2.7, ε = .78, p = .048. In the relationship group, the ERP was less positive for down-regulation than passive viewing at Cz and Pz, both p s < .041, and for up-regulation than passive viewing at Pz, p = .005. In the break-up group, none of the post hoc tests were significant. Inspection of the data revealed that even though the break-up group showed a less positive ERP for down-regulation at Cz (and at Pz to a lesser extent), the variation in ERP amplitudes was larger in the break-up group (down-regulation effect at Cz = -1.7 μV, SD = 4.0) than the relationship group (down-regulation effect at Cz = -1.6 μV, SD = 3.0), which explains why the effect did not reach significance in the break-up group.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g007

To explore any associations between the LPP amplitude and self-reports measures, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between regulation effects in the LPP amplitude and regulation effects in infatuation ratings, attachment ratings, valence ratings, arousal ratings, positive affect, and negative affect, across groups. Because the regulation effects were largest at electrodes Cz and/or Pz, LPP regulation effects were averaged across these two electrodes. In the 700–1000 ms time window, the up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude was negatively correlated with the up-regulation effect in negative affect, r (34) = -.40, p = .015, see Fig 8 . This correlation was not inflated by the possibly outlying data point (i.e., up-regulation effect in negative affect = 1.5), because the correlation was even greater and more significant after exclusion of this data point, r (33) = -.44, p = .008. As can be seen in Fig 8 , the more participants showed an enhanced LPP in response to up-regulation compared to passive viewing between 700–1000 ms, the more their negative affect decreased as a result of love up-regulation. The other correlations between the up-regulation effects in the LPP amplitude in any of the time windows and the up-regulation effects in self-reports were not significant, -.31 < all r s(34) < .32, all p s > .063. None of the down-regulation effects in the LPP amplitude in any of the time windows were significantly correlated with down-regulation effects in self-reports, -.20 < all r s(34) < .24, all p s > .17.

A negative up-regulation effect in negative affect means a reduction in negative affect due to love up-regulation. A positive up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude means that the LPP was enhanced for love up-regulation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g008

To summarize, up-regulation elicited a more positive ERP than passive viewing at midline centro-parietal electrodes between 300–400 ms. In addition, up- and down-regulation elicited a less positive ERP than passive viewing mostly at midline parietal electrodes between 700–3000 ms in the relationship group. The more love up-regulation enhanced the LPP amplitude between 700–1000 ms, the greater the decrease in negative affect by love up-regulation.

Because love feelings may be more or less intense than desired, it would be helpful if people could up- and down-regulate feelings of romantic love at will. In two studies, we examined preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of love regulation.

As expected, participants had the preconception that love is somewhat uncontrollable, as indicated by their scores on the series of questions assessing the perceived controllability of love feelings. Moreover, a few participants reported that they are unable to decrease love feelings when heartbroken. Some participants even stated that love feelings should not be up-regulated to maintain long-term relationships, because declining love feelings would indicate that the relationship is not meant to be. Research, however, has shown that infatuation (i.e., passionate love) and attachment (i.e., companionate love) typically do decline over time [ 14 , 16 ], so having this opinion might limit one’s chances of having long-lasting relationships. However, the mean score on the perceived control questions approached the midpoint of the scale, indicating that participants did not entirely reject the idea of controllable love. In addition, participants perceived some aspects of love to be more controllable than other aspects. Participants perceived feelings of attachment as more controllable than feelings of infatuation and they felt more in control of the intensity of love feelings than of who they are in love with. Finally, the more participants use the reappraisal strategy to regulate emotions in their daily life, the more they perceived love feelings as controllable, which provides a hint that reappraisal may be an effective love regulation strategy. Nevertheless, the questions about perceived control over love feelings have a couple of limitations. First, the two studies were conducted in different countries, in different languages, and with relatively small samples with different gender ratios. Second, in order to not be too statistically conservative in this explorative study, we did not correct for the number of statistical tests employed. Please note that the tests we performed are not independent, which reduces the chance of type I errors [ 62 ]. In addition, we used two-sided tests even when we had an a priori directional hypothesis. This was done to not increase the chance of Type I errors and to not exclude the possibility of observing any effects that were contrary to the hypothesis, again, because of the exploratory nature of the study. Finally, to the extent that the measures in Studies 1 and 2 overlapped, we base the conclusions above only on findings that replicated in both studies. This greatly reduces the chance that our conclusions are based on country-, language-, or gender-specific effects, or on spurious findings. It would be interesting to test whether perceived control over love feelings varies between regulation directions (i.e., whether people think it is easier to down-regulate love than to up-regulate love, or vice versa) in future studies.

We asked participants what they typically do or think when they are heartbroken and when maintaining long-term relationships. Participants reported the use of prototypical emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, distraction, and situation selection. Only one participant mentioned using suppression. Research has shown that expression suppression does not actually alter the intensity of feelings and that it has negative effects on cognitive and social functioning [ 21 ], so it might not be an adaptive strategy for regulating love feelings.

Importantly, responses to the questions suggested that there was a dissociation in the use of certain strategies for regulating actual love feelings (i.e., love regulation) versus feeling better during heartbreak (i.e., emotion regulation) or maintaining long-term relationships. In the context of heartbreak, reappraisal was often used, especially to decrease love feelings rather than to feel better. In contrast, distraction was used during heartbreak more to feel better than to decrease love feelings. It has been shown that people prefer to use distraction over reappraisal in situations in which emotions are very intense [ 63 ], which is often the case during heartbreak. Reappraisal may be more advantageous in the long run though, because decreasing love feelings might help people to move on after a break-up.

Some participants reported avoiding beloved-related cues, such as pictures or conversations, when heartbroken, which is a situation selection strategy [ 21 ]. It has been proposed that romantic love shows parallels to drug addiction [ 2 , 64 ]. Beloved-related cues elicit love feelings [ 38 ], just like drug-related cues increase drug craving [ 65 ], so avoiding beloved-related cues may reduce ‘craving’ for the beloved in the short term. However, one type of treatment for substance dependence and other mental disorders is exposure therapy, which is based on the mechanism of extinction [ 66 ]. Because avoidance of beloved-related cues might prevent extinction of the love feelings, it may not be a suitable strategy for down-regulating love feelings in the longer term.

In the context of long-term relationships, participants often mentioned the importance of communication/honesty and of undertaking (new) activities with their beloved. While communication/honesty was used more to maintain long-term relationships than to prevent love from declining, undertaking (new) activities with the beloved was mostly used to prevent love from declining. Previous work suggests that doing exciting things with the beloved may indeed be a successful strategy for love up-regulation [ 67 , 68 ]. Correspondingly, research on long-term romantic love has shown that married couples who engaged in novel and challenging activities together reported increases in love, closeness, and relationship quality [ 69 , 70 ]. Thus, undertaking novel and exciting activities with the beloved, which is a situation selection strategy [ 21 ], may be an effective behavioral strategy for up-regulating love feelings. Surprisingly, reappraisal was mentioned only infrequently in the context of maintaining long-term relationships. Given that reappraisal is an effective and healthy emotion regulation strategy [ 21 , 22 ], it may be an adaptive strategy to prevent love feelings from declining in long-term relationships.

The four open questions about the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships have some limitations. First, these data were analyzed qualitatively rather than quantitatively. Second, the other questionnaires and tasks used in both studies restricted the samples to participants who were in love (Study 1), who were in a romantic relationship, or who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (Study 2). Therefore, participants will have answered questions that did not match their current status (e.g., answering questions about heartbreak while in a happy relationship) or prior experience (i.e., some participants may have never been heartbroken or in a long-term relationship, in which case they replied what they think they would do in those circumstances). It is important to note that these four strategy questions were used more to explore what types of strategies people employ in their love life to aid the design of future studies on love regulation rather than to provide a stringent test of a priori hypotheses. Nevertheless, the current findings await confirmation in future studies with quantitative analyses and matching of questions with prior experience and/or current status.

In the four open strategy questions, we did not ask participants about the effectiveness of the strategies they listed. In Study 2, in contrast, we did assess the effectiveness of explicit love up- and down-regulation using the cognitive reappraisal strategy. We measured regulation success by asking participants how much infatuation and attachment they experienced after each regulation condition, because self-report is the only way to assess phenomenological experience [ 39 ]. When instructed to up-regulate love feelings by thinking about positive aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining positive future scenarios, participants reported increased levels of attachment. Although love up-regulation numerically increased feelings of infatuation, this effect was not statistically significant. Thus, love up-regulation using reappraisal may be more successful for up-regulating attachment than infatuation. Future research could test whether other strategies may be more effective for up-regulating infatuations levels. Because long-term relationships are threatened by diminishing levels of infatuation and attachment over time [ 14 , 16 ], up-regulation of love feelings might help to stabilize long-term relationships. Although it has been shown before that people idealize their beloved [ 32 , 33 ] and that partner idealization is associated with greater relationship satisfaction [ 34 ], the current study is unique in showing that people are capable of up-regulating their love feelings deliberately and intentionally.

When instructed to down-regulate love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining negative future scenarios, participants reported decreased levels of infatuation and attachment, as expected. This has important implications for people whose love feelings are stronger than desired. For example, this finding suggests that after the dissolution of a long-term relationship, when levels of attachments are presumably higher than levels of infatuation [ 14 ], love regulation using reappraisal may be used to cope with the break-up by decreasing feelings of attachment. In addition, the current findings suggest that love down-regulation using reappraisal may be used to decrease feelings of infatuation, for example when early stage love feelings are unreciprocated or when someone develops a crush on someone else than their partner. Although previous studies have shown that people can implicitly derogate the attractiveness of people other than the current partner [ 71 , 72 ], the current investigation is unique because it reveals that people can deliberately down-regulate their love feelings for their (ex-)partner.

Because self-reports are the only way to assess subjective feelings [ 39 ], they are often used in behavioral and neuroimaging studies on emotion regulation as a way to assess regulation success (e.g., [ 49 , 57 , 73 , 74 ]). However, self-reports do suffer from desirability biases and demand characteristics [ 40 , 41 ]. Participants were not informed of the exact research purpose or hypothesis before testing, but they were instructed to increase or decrease their love feelings using cognitive reappraisal. So when they were asked to rate infatuation and attachment levels at the end of each block, their responses may have been biased by their perception of the study’s hypothesis. Still, the instructions mentioned ‘love feelings’ whereas the ratings mentioned ‘infatuation’ and ‘attachment’, which may have made our expectations a little less obvious. Also, even though we did not have different expectations about the feasibility of increasing and decreasing love, and participants had no reason to assume we had, the up-regulation effects in self-reported infatuation and attachment were numerically smaller (0.1 to 0.3 points on a 1–5 scale) than the down-regulation effects (0.5 to 1.0 points on a 1–5 scale), which makes it less likely that participants responded according to a perceived hypothesis rather than according to their feelings. Nevertheless, the current results await replication in studies in which the hypothesis would be more obscure to participants. This could for example be established by instructing participants to think about positive/negative aspects or future scenarios without mentioning that this is supposed to change the intensity of their love feelings. Also, note that the self-reports regarding valence, arousal, positive affect, and negative affect discussed next are less susceptible to demand characteristics since participants were not instructed to change how positive, negative, or aroused they felt.

Because it is important to dissociate the concept of love regulation from the well-established concept of emotion regulation, we asked participants how negative or positive they felt after each regulation condition. Participants who were in a romantic relationship with their beloved experienced more unpleasant feelings, less positive affect, and more negative affect following love down-regulation. This was expected, as down-regulation of love feelings for a current long-term partner is usually undesirable. However, also participants who had recently experienced a break-up unexpectedly experienced more unpleasant feelings after love down-regulation. It may be that love down-regulation by focusing on negative aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining negative future scenarios makes people feel bad because it involves negative thoughts. Although the current study did not study the long-term effects of love down-regulation using reappraisal, it has recently been shown that thinking negative thoughts about the relationship has adaptive features when recovering from a romantic break-up [ 75 ]. So, it is important to investigate both the short- and the long-term effects of love regulation, as those may be dissociated.

Love up-regulation resulted in decreased positive affect in participants who were in a relationship, which was unexpected. This may have occurred because of the effort it takes to apply cognitive reappraisal [ 18 ]. It could be that people who are in a happy relationship (as indicated by self-reported relationship quality) may prefer to just look at their partner, rather than to have to come up with positive aspects of the partner or the relationship, or positive future scenarios on demand. We did not test the long-term effects of love regulation, but it might be that even though it may be cumbersome at this moment to use reappraisal to up-regulate love feelings, it may have beneficial long-term effects in the context of romantic relationships. Future studies are needed to replicate this unexpected effect, to determine why it occurs, to explore if and how it can be reduced, and to test if it is perhaps accompanied by an advantageous long-term effect. Even though love up-regulation resulting in decreased positive affect in participants who were in a relationship is in contrast to the hypothesis, it does show that participants were not just regulating their emotions. In that case, love up-regulation would have resulted in more positive feelings in both groups. This suggests that it is important to distinguish between the effects of love regulation on love feelings and on affect, as a desired effect in love feelings might not result in better affect in the short run.

Love regulation did not change subjective arousal (cf. [ 76 ]. It could be that the five-point rating scale we used was too coarse to detect any changes in arousal due to love regulation. It may be better to use a finer scale in future studies. Alternatively or additionally, recent work has shown that reappraising anxiety as excitement (i.e., changing the valence from negative to positive) improved performance in anxiety-provoking tasks compared to trying to calm down (i.e., reducing arousal) [ 77 ], so it may be more beneficial to change valence rather than arousal when regulating love feelings. More research is needed to test this suggestion.

Unlike the self-reported infatuation and attachment levels, the LPP amplitude is not a direct measure of love intensity. The advantage of the LPP amplitude over self-reported feelings is that it is not susceptible to social desirability biases and demand characteristics. Because the LPP amplitude is typically enhanced in response to both positive and negative stimuli, the LPP does not reflect whether a stimulus elicits positive or negative feelings. Instead, the LPP amplitude has been used as an objective measure of regulation success [ 19 ] because it reflects the affective and motivational significance of a stimulus and the resulting motivated attention instead [ 42 ]. So, the LPP amplitude in response to a picture of the partner indicates how emotionally or motivationally significant the partner is and how much attention is being paid to him/her. The instruction to up-regulate love feelings resulted in a more positive ERP between 300–400 ms (cf. [ 27 ]. The latency and the midline centroparietal topography of this regulation effect confirms that regulation instructions modulated the LPP component [ 42 ]. The enhanced LPP indicates that love up-regulation enhances the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner. Because stronger love feelings would result in enhanced significance of the partner, the enhanced LPP with love up-regulation corroborates the self-report finding that people are able to up-regulate their love feelings deliberately.

Love down-regulation decreased the LPP amplitude between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship, which indicates that love down-regulation reduced the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the partner. Because weaker love feelings would result in reduced significance of the partner, the reduced LPP with love down-regulation corroborates the self-report finding that people are able to down-regulate their love feelings deliberately. It is important to note that the ERP reflects brain activation elicited by events, which are the presentations of partner and neutral pictures in this case. A reduced LPP amplitude by down-regulation is therefore not at odds with the increased self-reported negative affect at the end of the down-regulation block. That is, a reduced affective and motivational significance of, and motivated attention to the partner pictures (as reflected by the LPP amplitude) may very well be accompanied by an increase in general negative affect that is not linked to the 3-sec presentation of a picture and will therefore not be reflected in the ERP (e.g., because the baseline correction removed the effect). It is interesting that the down-regulation effect occurred a few hundred milliseconds later than the up-regulation effect (cf. [ 78 ]), which suggests that love down-regulation takes more time to take effect than love up-regulation. The down-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude did not reach significance in participants that had experienced a break-up, which is ironic because love down-regulation might benefit them more than people who are in a happy relationship. Greater interindividual variation is the likely cause of the down-regulation effect not being significant in the break-up group. This variation may have been due to the break-up group being rather heterogeneous in terms of time since break-up, intensity of love feelings for the ex-partner, and levels of positive and negative affect, since factors like these may affect love down-regulation success.

In contrast to the hypotheses, and to the notion that the LPP amplitude is modulated by regulation instruction according to the regulatory goal [ 19 ], the LPP amplitude was numerically, but not significantly, enhanced for down-regulation between 300–400 ms in both groups, and significantly reduced for up-regulation between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship. Interpreting the LPP amplitude as reflecting the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to a stimulus [ 42 ], the significantly reduced LPP amplitude for up-regulation between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship suggests that, even though up-regulation initially (i.e., between 300–400 ms) increases the significance of, and attention to a current partner, it reduces it eventually (i.e., after 700 ms). Interestingly, the up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude between 700–1000 ms showed significant individual differences. Even though the LPP was reduced by love up-regulation at the group level, participants who actually showed a more enhanced LPP amplitude as a result of love up-regulation in this time window also showed a greater decrease in negative affect as a result of love up-regulation. Because correlation does not imply causation, this effect could be interpreted in several ways. It might be that love up-regulation only leads to a reduction in negative affect when it is successful (as indicated by an enhanced LPP). Future research will need to replicate this effect and clarify its interpretation.

The unexpected LPP findings challenge the interpretation of the regulation effects in the LPP amplitude. It is important to note that the observed pattern resembles some previous emotion regulation studies that have revealed numerically or significantly enhanced LPP amplitudes for down-regulation [ 27 , 48 , 57 , 76 ] and numerically reduced LPP amplitudes for up-regulation [ 46 ] as well. There are several potential factors that could have caused these unexpected effects in the current and previous studies, such floor and ceiling effects [ 27 , 46 , 48 ], presentation of regulation instructions in a blocked rather than an intermixed fashion [ 47 , 78 ], letting participants choose between different regulation strategies [ 57 ], or switching between up- and down-regulation. More research is needed to systematically test these and other factors to better understand the effects of regulation task characteristics on the LPP amplitude. For example, the first author is currently working on studies testing whether floor and ceiling effects cause the unexpected effects of emotion regulation instructions on the LPP. In addition, future studies could directly compare the effects of presentation of regulation instructions in a blocked versus an intermixed fashion, and the effects of letting participants choose between different regulation strategies versus instructing them to use one particular strategy. In addition, it would be informative to compare the effects of having participants perform both up- and down-regulation in a testing session versus only one of the two. Studies like those will provide more information about what exactly the LPP amplitude reflects in regulation tasks. Depending on the conclusions of those studies, the LPP amplitude may or may not have limited usability as a measure of regulation success. Alternative measures that could have merit as an objective measure of love regulation success in future studies are behavioral measures, skin conductance, heartbeat-related measures [ 79 ], facial electromyography [ 80 ], and activation of brain regions that have been associated with love [ 81 ].

To conclude, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study concerning explicit regulation of love feelings. We argue that love regulation targets actual love feelings and we recognize that that in turn may affect emotions and relationship characteristics. The results showed that people have the preconception that love is somewhat uncontrollable. Nevertheless, they use various behavioral and cognitive strategies to cope with romantic break-ups and to maintain long-term relationships. In the context of heartbreak, distraction was used to feel better after a break-up (i.e., emotion regulation), while reappraisal was used to down-regulate love feelings. In the context of long-term relationships, communication/honesty was important for maintaining long-term relationships, while undertaking (new) activities with the beloved was used to prevent love feelings from declining (i.e., love up-regulation). These preconceptions of, and strategies for love regulation were replicated in two independent samples. Importantly, people were able to up-regulate their love feelings by thinking about the positive aspects of their partner and/or relationship and imagining positive future scenarios. People were also able to down-regulate their love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of their partner and/or relationship and imagining negative future scenarios.

This study, being the first of its kind, provides many suggestions for future research. In this study, we only tested the short-term effects of love regulation. For daily life applicability, it would of course be important that the effects of love regulation are long-lived and/or that people are able to perform love regulation habitually to obtain a sustained effect. Therefore, future studies should examine the long-term effects of love regulation, including its effects on well-being and relationship stability and satisfaction, as well as ways in which love regulation can become habitual. It would also be interesting to examine the effectiveness of behavioral and cognitive strategies other than reappraisal for regulating love feelings, including distraction, avoidance, and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved. In addition, it is important dissociate the effects of love regulation on love feelings and on affect, as a desirable effect on love feelings may be accompanied by an undesirable effect on affect, or vice versa. Love up- and down-regulation have numerous applications, ranging from stabilizing long-term relationships including marriages, reducing heartbreak after romantic break-ups, ameliorating unwanted crushes and forbidden loves, and perhaps even coping with the death of a beloved. In short, love regulation may increase the positive effects and decrease the negative effects of love on individuals and on society and therefore deserves much attention from the scientific community.

Supporting Information

S1 appendix. questions about perceived control over love feelings..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.s001

S1 Text. Neutral IAPS pictures.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.s002

Acknowledgments

We thank Annemieke van Arum, Mandy van Dijk, Liesbeth Janssen, and Ginger Sassen for help with the data collection.

Author Contributions

• Conceptualization: SJEL JWvS.
• Formal analysis: SJEL.
• Investigation: JWvS.
• Methodology: SJEL JWvS.
• Resources: JWvS.
• Software: SJEL.
• Supervision: JWvS.
• Visualization: SJEL.
• Writing - original draft: SJEL.
• Writing - review & editing: SJEL JWvS.
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I love the way you love me: Responding to partner’s love language preferences boosts satisfaction in romantic heterosexual couples

Olha Mostova

1 Doctoral School of Social Sciences, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Maciej Stolarski

2 Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

Gerald Matthews

3 Department of Psychology, George Mason University, Orlando, FL, United States of America

Associated Data

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files

Chapman’s Love Languages hypothesis claims that (1) people vary in the ways they prefer to receive and express affection and (2) romantic partners who communicate their feelings congruent with their partner’s preferences experience greater relationship quality. The author proposes five distinct preferences and tendencies for expressing love, including: Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time and Gifts. In the present study partners ( N = 100 heterosexual couples) completed measures assessing their preferences and behavioral tendencies for a) expressions of love and b) reception of signs of affection, for each of the five proposed “love languages”. Relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and empathy were also assessed. The degree of the within-couple mismatch was calculated separately for each individual based on the discrepancies between the person’s felt (preferred) and their partner’s expressed love language. The joint mismatch indicator was a sum of discrepancies across the five love languages. Matching on love languages was associated with both relationship and sexual satisfaction. In particular, people who expressed their affection in the way their partners preferred to receive it, experienced greater satisfaction with their relationships and were more sexually satisfied compared to those who met their partner’s needs to lesser extent. Empathy was expected to be a critical factor for better understanding of and responding to the partner’s needs. Results provided some support for this hypothesis among male but not female participants.

Introduction

Everyone has their own preferences for expressing and receiving romantic feelings. Based on his clinical observations Chapman [ 1 ] identified five distinct ways in which people show and want to receive the signs of commitment. He labeled them ‘love languages’ (LLs) and proposed division into the following domains: 1) words of affirmation (verbal compliments, or words of appreciation), 2) quality time (time spent together implying focused attention of both partners), 3) receiving gifts (visual symbols of affection), 4) acts of service (helping mate with necessary tasks) and 5) physical touch (from holding hands to sexual intercourse).

Chapman [ 1 ] used a metaphor of a ‘love tank’, which reflected people’s emotional need to feel loved. The ‘love tank’ of both partners is filled when each of them expresses the affection in a way another one prefers to receive it. According to Chapman and Southern, “once you identify and learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language…you will have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage” [ 2 , p. 18]. Thus, the author is convinced that conducting interventions designed to foster better understanding of the partner’s LLs, as well as educating people on how to put this knowledge into practice would lead to a greater relationship maintenance and satisfaction.

People often speak and understand their primary LLs, but they may “learn a secondary love language” [ 2 , p.14]. For example, the husband may be aware of his wife’s desire to receive compliments–words of affirmation, although he himself prefers being physically touched. Therefore, LLs can be divided into those in which people tend to communicate to their partners (expressed love language) and those they prefer to receive in order to keep their emotional ‘love tank’ full (felt love language).

The assumption of basic and fundamental need for love and affection is well-established and empirically supported [ 3 – 5 ]. Multiple research findings also support the notion that human’s need for love and affection boosts both personal well-being [e.g. 6 ] and satisfaction in various types of relationships [e.g. 7 , 8 ].

Research has also addressed the effects of similarity between partners on relationship outcomes. It is well established that similarity and convergence of different types in romantic partners promotes greater relationship satisfaction. For example, similarity in communication values, such as ego support or conflict management, has been shown to promote attraction and greater relationship satisfaction in couples which described themselves as ‘seriously involved’ [ 9 ].

Gonzaga and colleagues [ 10 ] also found that similarity and convergence in the personality between partners promotes similarity in their shared emotional experiences and relationship quality. Yet another study demonstrated that romantic couples who converge in their emotional experiences manifest greater relationship cohesion, while their relationships are less likely to dissolve [ 11 ]. In another study perceived similarity in text messaging, including frequency of initiating a text message exchange and expressing affection, was associated with greater relationship satisfaction [ 12 ].

Sexual satisfaction is another broadly-studied concept in the research on couples and romantic relationships. Various studies found an association between sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction [ 13 , 14 ]. For instance, in a study conducted on 387 couples, sexual satisfaction and communication independently predicted the relationship satisfaction [ 14 ]. Thus, romantic partners who are having difficulties communicating, but are at the same time sexually satisfied, will experience greater marital satisfaction. Similarity in personality traits between marital partners also proved to predict sexual satisfaction [ 15 ] In another study, de Jong and Reis [ 16 ] found that complementarity, but not similarity, in sexual preferences predicted sexual satisfaction, consistent with LL hypothesis. Being aware of one’s partner’s preferences and acting accordingly may increase the couple’s sexual satisfaction.

The act of giving may potentially be more satisfying than benefiting oneself. One study [ 17 ] found that spending more of one’s income on others predicts greater happiness than spending money on themselves. Prosocial spending is positively correlated with greater happiness in both poor and rich countries and even recalling the past instance of spending money on others has a causal impact on happiness [ 18 ]. Thus, it is possible that helping others to match their needs produces a greater emotional benefit than receiving and caring for oneself. Thus, compatibility in LLs may benefit the person as a giver, as well as a receiver.

Empathy is often believed to play a crucial role in relationships of various kinds and to be a key component of effective communication. It can be defined as the “reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another” [ 19 , p.113]. Empathy is primarily related to one’s ability to understand and share the emotional experiences of others [e.g., 20 ]. According to Davis [ 19 , 21 ], empathy can be divided into four domains, including: empathic concern, personal distress, perspective taking and fantasy.

Research demonstrates a positive relation between a partner’s empathic accuracy and their degree of relationship satisfaction [ 22 , 23 ], when it is present in mundane and nonconflictual settings. Various studies have also found that people with higher levels of empathy are better in detecting their partners’ needs and providing them with higher-quality advice and instrumental support [ 24 – 26 ]. On the other hand, subjective perceptions of empathy may be more important for relationship satisfaction than empathic accuracy [ 27 ], i.e., the objective ability to determine one’s partners views.

Empathic accuracy implies accurate perception of people’s mental states, including thoughts and feelings [ 24 ] people that are more proficient in mentalizing may also be more skillful in understanding their partner’s needs and preferences. Such an awareness may in turn increase the likelihood of fulfilling such needs and make them choose and adjust their behavior more consciously. Thus, empathy may support congruence in LLs. Although there were some attempts to examine the factors that may moderate the relationship satisfaction when partners are misaligned in their LLs [e.g. 28 ], to our knowledge, none of the previous studies have examined the potential mediators that may drive LL matching, leading to elevated satisfaction. An empathic individual may be both more effective in giving the form of love desired by the partner, and in guiding the partner towards understanding their own needs.

Despite the great popularity that Chapman’s work had gained worldwide among both clinicians and general public, the concept of LLs remains relatively unstudied. Egbert and Polk [ 29 ] developed the Love Languages Scale based on concepts found in Chapman’s [ 1 ] LLs and suggested that the five-factor LL model had some psychometric validity. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated significant relationship between the five LLs and Stafford, Dainton, and Haas’ [ 30 ] relational maintenance typology, thus supporting their construct validity.

In one version of the scale participants responded about how they tend to feel love. To remain consistent with the literature we followed the term ‘felt LL’ that was used in Egbert and Polk’s [ 31 ] study to infer the preferred way of receiving love from one’s partner. However, it should be noted that two forms of the LL scale provide the data on what makes people feel loved without directly examining what is being preferred, which might be a potential conceptual problem with the LL measure.

Another study utilized measures of the autonomic nervous system, such as skin conductance and respiration rate [ 32 ]. First, 89 participants were asked to complete Chapman’s LLs questionnaire. Next, their psychophysiological responses (skin conductance, heart rate and pulse rate) were measured, while they were listening to the recorded imagery scripts (imaginal exposure and guided imagery) describing each of the LLs. It was found that participant’ arousal level increased when they were listening to their dominating or preferred LL. Specifically, a significant association was found between hearing the imagery script of their primary LL and person’s heart rate and skin conductance, although no significant increase was found in the respiration rate. In addition, good internal consistency and reliability was reported for the scale measurement of the preferred LL [ 33 ].

Other aspects of Chapman’s [ 1 ] claim have not been supported. Egbert and Polk [ 31 ] tested 84 university student couples, who had been together for at least two months. The aims was to check whether partners well-matched in their reported preferences and expressions of LLs reported greater relationship quality. They were grouped into three categories including matched, mismatched and partially matched; however, no significant effect of matching on relationship quality was found. According to later research [ 28 ] sharing the same primary (expressed) LL again did not result in relationship satisfaction. However, the researchers found that female participants’ self-regulation significantly improved partners’ satisfaction when their LLs were misaligned.

Veale [ 34 ] aimed to test whether becoming aware of one’s partner’s preferred LL would result in behavioral adaptation in the absence of any identified external motivation. First, the researcher checked whether participants felt that the love expression used by their partner was correctly identified. Second, descriptions of the LL profiles and category membership were provided to each participant, and the couples were given a brief overview of the love expression behavior related to each of five categories. Additionally, the study considered whether LL expression knowledge would influence participants’ emotional state and behavior, as well as whether efforts to make behavioral accommodation would be noticed by their partners. The research found no statistically significant difference between pre- and posttest means for any of the categories, although in general respondents agreed that their LL was correctly identified. It should be noted that LLs in the study were evaluated categorically using Chapman’s Love Language Profile, which shares the assumption that people have one dominating LL that they both feel and express the most.

The present study: Aims and hypotheses

Chapman’s [ 1 ] basic claim is that people who “talk” their partner’s LL are more satisfied in their relationships, but empirical support for the LL hypothesis remains equivocal. In the present study, we aimed to extend previous findings [e.g. 31 ] by adopting a novel, continuous approach to measure match/mismatch between partners’ LLs. Treating LL mismatch as a continuous dimension may preserve information on level of mismatch that is lost by assessing it on a categorical basis, and provide a more sensitive test of its relationships with other variables. First, we aimed to check whether romantic partners who receive affection in ways consistent with their partner’s style of expressing love report higher relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. We asked people separately about when they feel loved the most (i.e., preference for receiving love) and how they prefer to express affirmation of love. The aim was to assess the partner’s match not only in term of their dominant love language, but to also take into account possible that one’s preferences for receiving love may differ from one’s style of expressing and communicating love.

Second, we aimed to distinguish “actor” effects (mismatch lowers one’s own satisfaction) and “partner” effects (mismatch lowers the other person’s satisfaction). Chapman’s [ 1 ] hypothesis emphasizes the former, but there may also be a reciprocal effect, i.e., if my partner feels s/he is not receiving the love affirmations s/he wants, the partner’s deficit in feeling loved may lower my satisfaction. This approach provided a full picture of the interplay between both partners’ expressed and felt LLs, contrary to Chapman’s assumption that people give and feel only one dominating LL.

We aimed to test four hypotheses:

• Relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction are negatively associated with the mismatch between the person’s felt and their partner’s expressed LLs (actor effect). This is the central claim of Chapman [ 1 ]. His account of the LLs hypothesis does not imply that the importance of LLs varies for men and women, but we tested for possible gender differences on an exploratory basis.
• Relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction are negatively associated with the mismatch between the person’s expressed and their partner’s felt LLs (partner effect). The partner’s feelings of not being adequately loved may influence actor satisfaction.
• Matching in LLs is associated with empathy levels, given that empathy is likely to support adaptation to the partner’s needs. Given that empathy is a multifaceted construct, we hypothesized that its most adaptive facets, i.e., empathic concern (emotional empathy) and perspective taking (cognitive empathy), would be the aspects related to LLs.
• Empathy is associated with higher relationship and sexual satisfaction, as in multiple previous studies [e.g. 35 – 37 ]. We also anticipated testing the mediating role of empathy in the LL mismatch–satisfaction association, contingent on support for the third and fourth hypotheses.

Participants

The working sample consisted of 100 heterosexual couples (100 men, 100 women), who were sexually active with their partners. All the participants were in a current romantic relationship for at least 6 months. Relationship length varied between 6 months and 24 years ( M = 3.5 years). The initial sample consisted of N = 110, but data from 10 couples was discarded, as only one partner have completed the questionnaire or there was a significant amount of incomplete or missing information for one or both partners. When an individual item was not scored by the respondent, the average over available items was calculated and multiplyed with the number of items in the questionnaire to replace the missing value.

Age of the participants ranged from 17 to 58 (mean: 27.34). Among male participants age varied from 18 to 58 with a mean value of 28.58 ( SD = 9.68). Female age ranged from 17 to 57 with an average value of 25.10 ( SD = 7.89).

The sample was culturally diverse and it included representatives of 31 nationalities. The most commonly occurring nationalities were Ukrainians (N = 67), Poles (N = 24), Belgians (N = 15), Russians (N = 13), Americans (N = 12) and Swedes (N = 12). Majority of both male and female participants indicated their marital status as never married ( n = 116), followed by married ( n = 63), “other” ( n = 13) and divorced ( n = 8).

The participants were recruited using social media and personal connections. The online questionnaire was distributed to volunteers that provided written consent and reported being in the romantic relationships with their current partner for at least 6 months and were either native speakers of English and/or communicated in English to each other, or reported having sufficient fluency to freely and effortlessly communicate with native speakers (i.e., at least B2 level). The data were collected between October 2018 and March 2019. The subjects spent an average of 23 minutes responding to the questionnaire and were not rewarded. The attention check items with reverse wording were used respectively for each inventory to prevent incomplete and low-effort answers.

All participants gave their informed consent to participate in the study of “communication and satisfaction among couples” that is intended to gather information about various aspects of romantic relationships. They were also informed that their answers will not be assessed individually and that they will not receive any feedback on their results as a couple). We asked participants about the relationship’s length and the time since the first sexual intercourse with a current partner to ensure that the participants were sexually active with their current partners, as well as to eliminate the possibility of the ‘honeymoon effect’ [ 38 ]. We also asked both partners about their fluency in English language. Couples were asked not to discuss or compare their results with each other.

Materials and procedure

LLs were assessed using two methods. The first was the forced-choice method used by Egbert and Polk [ 31 ], while the second one included two forms of a LL scale (LLS) requiring independent ratings of preferences, which was developed and validated by Egbert and Polk [ 29 ].

First, participant received a forced-choice LL measure [ 31 ] including the following instructions: “I feel the most loved when my partner: (1) physically touches me (i.e., gives a hug, gives a kiss, holds my hand, touches me), (2) helps me out (i.e., running an errand, finishing a chore for me, helping me out, helping to keep things cleaned up), (3) spends quality time with me (i.e., really listening, doing something we both like, engages in quality conversation, spending free time), (4) says encouraging words (i.e., compliments, expresses appreciation for me, gives me credit for something I did, gives me positive comments), and (5) gives me gifts (i.e., a thoughtful birthday gift, a greeting card, a present for no special reason, a gift after being away)”. This item served only for the purpose of its later comparison to the two versions of LLS in order to check for the consistency of participant’s responses. Thus, this tool was not used as the main indicator of couples’ LLs in the subsequent analysis.

The LLS assessment [ 29 ] involved four behavioral indicators representing each of the ways to feel and express affection. In the first form of the LLS participants were asked to rate the extent to which they tend to express (or give ) love to their partners by engaging in the listed behaviors. The second form of the LLS included the same list of behaviors, but this time participants were asked to rate the extent to which each expression makes them feel loved by their partners. Thus, each version of LLS consisted of 20 self-report items, including four items per each of the five LLs described by Chapman [ 1 ], e.g., “I tend to express my feeling to my partner by telling that I appreciate him/her”. The items were rated using a five-point Likert-type scale to assess the extent of agreement on a scale of 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ). Egbert and Polk [ 29 ] reported sufficient construct validity and reliability of the questionnaire in assessing LLs.

As both partners responded to the two versions of LLS, we obtained information about how they tend to express and prefer to feel love. We could then calculate the discrepancy between these measurements. Thus, the degree to which one’s (partner) preferred to feel love (e.g., when holding hands), as rated on the Likert scale, differed from the second partner’s (actor) degree of expressing love in this way (e.g., by holding hands) served as an indicator of extent to which the respondents felt that their partners were meeting needs in terms of LLs. The sum of the discrepancy scores on the five individual LL components then reflected the degree of match or mismatch.

To remain consistent with the literature we used the term ‘felt LL’ to infer the preferred way of receiving love from one’s partner, as we were following the term used by in the previous studies. However, it should be noted that LLS measure provides the data on what makes people feel loved without directly examining what is being preferred, which might be a potential conceptual problem with the LL measure proposed by Egbert and Polk [ 29 ].

In particular, a value of 0 indicated a complete match between the way the respondent preferred to feel and how their partner expressed love (e.g., participant X rates preference for being complimented as 5, and X’s partner rates his/her expression of compliments as 5). A negative value meant that one’s partner does not express a form of love to the extent desired (e.g. participant X rates preference for being complimented as 5, and X’s partner rates his/her expression of compliments as 1). A positive value indicated that one’s partner overly expressed a form of love that the participant did not require to such an extent (e.g. participant X rates preference for being complimented as 1, and X’s partner rates his/her expression of compliments as 5). Because our interest was in overall mismatch, we converted all discrepancy scores to absolute values and computed the item-level sum of the four scores for each LL. We then summed these discrepancy scores for each individual, to provide an overall index of mismatch between one’s preferences for being loved and partner’s ways of expressing love, based on the 20 item-level discrepancy scores. Our primary outcome measure was thus overall LL mismatch; higher scores indicated greater mismatch. The internal consistency of the calculated sum of discrepancies in our study amounted to Cronbach’s α = .61 for male and α = .70 for female participants.

In addition, the internal consistency was confirmed to be acceptable or good for all of the five LLs scales before they were combined to create the discrepancy scores. In particular, the results suggested a good fit for each of the five expressed LLs: Acts of Service (α = .70), Physical Touch (α = .89), Words of Affirmation (α = .79), Quality Time (α = .78) and Gifts (α = .77). The internal consistency was also confirmed for the five felt LLs scales: Acts of service (α = .74), Physical Touch (α = .85), Words of Affirmation (α = .82), Quality Time (α = .75) and Gifts (α = .84).

Participants’ sexual satisfaction was assessed using the Index of Sexual Satisfaction questionnaire [ISS, 39 ]. The scale consists of 25-Likert-type items (e.g., “I enjoy the sex techniques that my partner likes or uses”, or “I feel that my sex life is boring”) and demonstrated high internal consistency among men (α = .91) and women (α = .92). The participants rated the statements on a 7-point Likert-type, where 1 indicated none of the time and 7 indicated all of the time . The items that implied lower sexual satisfaction (e.g., “I feel that my sex life is boring”) were reversed scored and the total score was calculated as a sum of all item scores. Higher scores indicated greater level of sexual satisfaction.

Relationship satisfaction was measured using the Relationship Assessment Scale [RAS, 40 ], one of the most frequently used questionnaires used for studying relationship quality. RAS consists of seven items measuring general relationship satisfaction (e.g., “To what extent has your relationship met your original expectations?”). Respondents are asked to rate each statement using a 5-point scale. High internal consistency of the measure was confirmed for male (α = .85) and female (α = .87) participants.

Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI; 19 ] was applied as a multi-dimensional assessment of empathy. This widely used self-report metric comprises 28 items. The participants are asked to rate their response on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (“ does not describe me well” ) to 5 (“ describes me very well” ). IRI consists of four distinct subscales, including: 1) perspective taking–the tendency to spontaneously adopt the psychological point of view of others; 2) fantasy–indicating tendencies to transpose oneself imaginatively into the feelings and actions of fictitious characters in books, movies, and plays; 3) empathic concern–assessing other-oriented feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others; and 4) personal distress–measuring self-oriented feelings of personal anxiety and unease in tense interpersonal settings.

We hypothesized that perspective taking and empathic concern scales would be negatively associated with LL mismatch, and positively related to satisfaction measures. Fantasy did not appear directly relevant to LLs, whereas personal distress might be positively associated with mismatch. Internal consistencies were acceptable for all four subscales among male subjects, including perspective taking (α = .74), fantasy (α = .77), empathic concern (α = .70), and personal distress (α = .70). In female participants the indicators were acceptable for the empathic concern (α = .80) and fantasy (α = .75) subscales, but poorer for perspective taking (α = .62) and personal distress (α = .60).

Preliminary analyses

This section reports descriptive statistics for the study variables, as well as tests for gender differences. We also tested within-couple correlations to investigate “assortative mating”; the extent to which people partner with those of similar characteristics to themselves.

Table 1 shows LL preferences on the forced-choice measure. Quality time was the most frequently declared LL, followed by physical touch, acts of service, words of affirmation and receiving gifts. In accordance with prior research [ 31 ], there was no significant association between gender and participants’ responses in the forced-choice LL measurement, χ 2 (1) = 14.85, p = .25 (see Table 1 ).

Note . χ 2 (1) = 9.52, p = .25. Numbers in parentheses indicate column percentages.

Table 2 shows means and SDs for the continuous scores. The rank-ordering of means differed a little from the forced-choice data, in that Physical Touch was the highest-rated preference, in both genders, although Quality Time was also highly rated. Also, contrasting with the forced-choice data, women obtained higher mean scores in four out of five LLs dimensions–all except for acts of service. It seems that women generally preferred to receive love from their partners more intensely than men did (see Table 2 ). Table 2 also shows data for ratings of expressed love. The order of preferences was similar to that for feeling preferences. Participants tended to express love to their partners primarily by physically touching them, followed by spending quality time together, saying words of affirmation, doing acts of service and giving gifts. No significant sex difference was observed for any but one expressed LL: female participants scored slightly higher than male participants in the expression of quality time LL.

Note . E = expressed; F = felt; LLs = love languages. LL Mismatch reflects the misfit between one’s felt and their partner’s expressed love languages accumulated for all LLs; higher values indicate poorer fit. Hedges’ g is an effect size indicator endorsed for paired samples t-test (see King & Minium, 2003)

*p < .05,

**p < .01.

Table 2 shows that, despite the gender differences in felt LLs, men and women did not differ on the overall indicator of LL mismatch, i.e., inconsistency between one’s LL preferences and the partner’s ways of expressing love. The mismatch indicator does not capture directional biases; i.e., whether mismatch results from the partner providing a deficiency of acts of love, or providing more than the person wants. The raw differences were calculated by subtracting the partner’s expressed LL from the actor’s felt (preferred) level of LLs. Positive values indicate deficiency, while negative values signify excess. The analysis demonstrated that the female participants generally experienced a "lack" in terms of their preferred levels of receiving LLs, particularly in the case of Quality Time. On the other hand, male participants seemed to perceive or feel the affection to a lesser extent than their female partners reported expressing it, thus indicating an "excess". However, this was not the case for men’s Acts of Service LL.

Table 2 also shows the cross-gender correlations for LLs. Overall LL mismatch was quite substantially correlated across the couples. However, at the level of individual feelings and expressions, only two out of five LLs–acts of service and gifts–showed significant correlations (assortative mating). Thus, the least valued LLs showed assortative mating but the most valued did not, for both feelings and expressions.

Table 2 also provides descriptive statistics for the satisfaction and empathy variables. There were no significant gender differences in satisfaction, but consistent with other studies [e.g. 41 ] female participants’ advantage in empathy was observed across all the IRI dimensions. Of the IRI scales, only empathic concern showed a significant though small-magnitude correlation.

Hypotheses testing

In line with our first hypothesis, we obtained a significant negative association between relationship satisfaction and the LL mismatch indicator, in both men and women (see Table 3 ). Thus, the greater the discrepancy between preferred and felt LLs, the less satisfied the participants were with their relationships. Similar associations were observed for sexual satisfaction. The actor effects of LL mismatch were stronger in men, particularly for sexual satisfaction, for which the correlations were -.37 (men) and -.21 (women).

Note . Partner effects are shadowed in light grey. Assortative mating effects are provided in bold font.

Discrepancies in three LLs appeared to be particularly important for participants’ relationship and sexual satisfaction (see S1 Appendix ). Specifically, mismatch in Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation and Quality Time LLs separately were significantly associated with both male and female partners’ relationship satisfaction. Each of these love languages separately was also significantly associated with men’s sexual satisfaction. However, among female participants this association was only significant for the Physical Touch and Quality Time LLs, and their sexual satisfaction.

In addition, supporting the second hypothesis, partner effects proved significant–the respondent’s satisfaction with their relationship was associated with their partner’s LL mismatch. Partner effects were significant for both men and women. It may be as important to properly respond to the partner’s LL needs as to have one’s own LL preferences satisfied.

The third hypothesis was that cognitive and emotional facets of empathy would be associated with lower LL mismatch (see Table 3 ). The results indicated some significant actor effects in men. In particular, empathic concern ( r = -.27, p < . 01 ) and perspective taking ( r = -.34, p < . 01 ) components of empathy were higher in male individuals with smaller LL discrepancy, consistent with the hypothesis. However, this was not the case for female participants (see Table 3 ). Women whose partners scored higher on perspective taking ( r = -.26, p < . 01 ) and fantasy dimensions of IRI also showed lower LL mismatch. Our hypothesis regarding the links between empathy and LL matching was then only partially supported.

Contrary to the fourth hypothesis, IRI empathy dimensions proved generally unrelated to both relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. The only two exceptions referred to men’s perspective taking (positive actor effect on sexual satisfaction in men) and personal distress (women’s distress was related to lower men’s relationship satisfaction). Although some scholars [e.g. 42 ] would emphasize that the absence of the association is not disqualifying the possibly of mediation, we found that in the present analysis there was no reason to test models in which empathy mediated effects of LL mismatch on satisfaction.

Finally, we compared actor and partner effects in LL mismatch–satisfaction associations (see Table 4 ). The bivariate associations suggested both effects. For example, for men, relationship satisfaction was related both to their own and the woman’s mismatch ( r s of -.40 and -.36). To conduct a more rigorous comparison, we ran regression analyses with both men and women LL mismatch as predictors, by gender and by satisfaction scale. At the first step, these analyses controlled for length of relationship, which may be a confound of satisfaction. The second step entered either men or women LL mismatch, and the final step included both mismatch variables. Such a procedure allowed to examine the added value of each step of the model and to test for the incremental validity of actor vs. partner effects. For all analyses, both men and women LL mismatch contributed significantly to the regressions when entered separately at Step 2, consistent with the bivariate results. For men, the final regressions at Step 3 showed independent effects of both mismatch variables; male relationship and sexual satisfaction depends on both actor and partner effects. For women, the final regression for relationship satisfaction was similar, but the female mismatch predictor fell just short of significance. Neither predictor was significant at Step 3 for sexual satisfaction. Women’s sexual satisfaction was more weakly predicted overall than the other outcome measures in these analyses (10% variance explained vs. 21–25%).

Note . Mismatching on LL = the degree of discrepancy between one’s preferred and partners’ expressed LL; lower values indicate a better match. RS = Relationship satisfaction, SS = Sexual Satisfaction.

† Compared with step 2a.

Overall, both actor and partner effects were found, providing further support for both the first and second hypotheses. We also tested for interactive effects of both partners’ LL matching indicators in all four analyses. No significant interaction effects were found, indicating that benefits of LL matching are additive.

In addition, we found that relationship length was more consistently associated with lower relationship satisfaction than with sexual satisfaction. However, no significant correlation between LL mismatch and relationship length was observed for both men ( r = .01, p = .90) and women ( r = .01, p = .91), which suggests that partners do not adjust their expressed LL to their counterpart’s preferences over time.

The present study sought to test empirically Chapman’s [ 1 ] hypothesis of LLs and their association with relationship and sexual satisfaction, as well as to explore whether matching on LLs is associated with empathy. This was accomplished by examining partners’ preferences for receiving and expressing love and assessing their relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and four features of empathy.

Our study provides novel evidence in support of Chapman’s [ 1 ] notion that speaking one’s partner love language leads to higher quality relationships and create a positive emotional climate within the couple. In particular, the findings supported our major hypothesis that individuals whose partners express love in the way they prefer to receive it experience elevated relationship and sexual satisfaction. Previous work on sexual satisfaction has focused on discrepancies in desire as an influence on dissatisfaction [e.g. 43 ]. The present data suggest a broader role for discrepancy in displays of love that are not overtly sexual. The substantial positive correlations found between relationship and sexual satisfaction are consistent with previous research [ 44 ].

There were no significant gender differences in relationship and sexual satisfaction, nor in overall LL mismatch. However, women scored higher than men on four of the five “feeling” scales, indicating greater levels of need than men, with the largest effect sizes found for the desires for quality time and words of affirmation. This result contrasts with previous findings that men appear to rely more on their partner for social and emotional support than women do [ 45 , 46 ]. Possibly, men are more focused on fulfilling the social role of being in a committed relationship than specific affectionate behaviors, whereas women require more visible signs of love from their partner. Dykstra and Fokkema [ 46 ] suggest that women are more strongly oriented towards expressive and nurturing functions in marriage, implying greater awareness of whether their male partners is providing affirmations of love. Socialization to be emotionally independent may also contribute to men downplaying their needs for intimacy and affection [ 47 ]. Thus, the LL mismatch variable may not fully capture gender differences in the experience of relationships. Despite differences in the means of the “feeling” variables, our main predictions were supported for both male and female participants, implying that LLs function similarly in both genders.

In addition, findings supported the second hypothesis, that the actor’s satisfaction would be negatively associated with the partner’s LL mismatch. The regression analyses confirmed that both actor and LL mismatch predicted lower satisfaction. In the analyses of male respondents, both types of mismatches added significantly to the variance explained; findings in women showed a similar trend although not all effects reached significance, especially for sexual satisfaction. Partner effects tended to be slightly stronger predictors of relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction than the person’s own degree of matching. Previous findings in the field of positive psychology [e.g. 17 , 18 ] showing that acts of giving such as prosocial spending may potentially be more satisfying and lead to greater happiness, when compared to benefiting oneself. The partner effect is important in that it implies that LL matching is related to the actual quality of loving actions and communication between partners, and not merely individual perceptions. By contrast, higher emotional intelligence benefits the actor but not the partner, implying that this factor enhances actor perceptions of relationship quality, but it is not transmitted to the partner so that the benefit is internal to the actor [ 48 ].

Our findings were also in line with the previous research conducted with respect to other forms of behaviors that contribute to the quality of relationships. For instance, in two studies, relational maintenance strategies strongly predicted commitment, relational satisfaction, stability and loving others [ 49 , 50 ]. Among other maintenance strategies, the studies examined positivity (e.g., upbeat during conversations, avoiding criticism), assurance (e.g., expressions of love, affirming commitment), social networks (e.g., spending time with common friends) and sharing tasks (e.g., engaging in household chores), which also resemble some aspects of the Words of Affirmation, Quality Time or Acts of service LLs. In addition, romantic physical touch was previously found to be strongly correlated with the relationship and partner satisfaction [ 51 ]. Receiving gifts was yet another factor that was previously found to be positively associated with the relationship strength, perceived similarity, as well as evaluation of the relationships’ future potential [e.g. 52 , 53 ].

The regression analyses showed that LL–satisfaction associations remained robust with length of relationship controlled. Relationship length was negatively correlated with the relationship satisfaction, as in other studies [e.g. 54 , 55 ]. However, no meaningful association was observed between the length of relationship and matching on LLs, implying that people do not necessarily learn LLs of their partners with time. A focus on LLs might thus be of value in relationship counseling.

To our knowledge, this is the first study that found empirical support for LL hypothesis, contrasting with Egbert and Polk’s study [ 31 ], which found no significant association between matching on LLs and relationship satisfaction. This discrepancy in the results between the previous research and our findings may a consequence of the method used to assess LLs. In our analysis we treated felt and expressed LLs as continuous dimensional qualities rather than categorizing participants based on a single dominant LL. The method based on collapsing couple types (e.g. matched, partially matched, or mismatched) appeared to exaggerate differences in preferences for the five LLs. Dimensional assessment may be preferable to typologizing LLs. In the light of the present data, Chapman’s [ 1 ] claims that people tend to manifest one, dominant LL should be revised in favor of assessing multiple preferences for expressing and giving love using the five LLs.

We further hypothesized that empathy may be a factor that drives matching on LLs, which in turn leads to the higher relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction among romantic partners. We aimed to check whether people, who scored higher on empathy scale (perspective taking and empathetic concern subscales, in particular), would also be more successful in expressing love in the way their partners prefer to receive it. Nevertheless, we did not find support for this prediction. Although small significant associations between matching in LLs and some empathy subscales (namely: perspective taking and fantasy) were observed among men, analogical effects were not observed in women. It is possible that because men tend to be less empathetic than women [e.g. 56 , 57 ], the effect that high scores on empathy have on their relationships is stronger. However, the two significant associations in men did not transfer into significantly higher satisfaction among female partners.

Thus, benefits of LL matching on relationship and sexual satisfaction do not appear to be mediated by empathy. From a relationship counseling perspective, the implication is that training couples to improve matching may be addressed instrumentally as a skill to be acquired. For instance, such an intervention program could begin with measuring the level of discrepancies between partners in expressed vs. felt LLs, and providing both partners with ideas for specific behaviors that they could use to better meet the emotional needs of each other, as endorsed by Chapman [ 1 ]. Expressing love in the form desired may enhance relationship quality, even if the actor lacks cognitive and emotional insight into the partner’s needs.

There are several other strengths and limitations of the current study that should be noted. Our sample included participants from different age groups, cultural backgrounds and with various relationship duration, which might serve as an indicator of greater generalizability and external validity of the findings. On the other hand, the multicultural sample might have been a confounding variable, which has influenced the findings in an uncontrolled way. Future research could study bigger and more homogeneous samples. Although in the precent study we have controlled for relationship length, when testing our hypotheses, in the subsequent researches more could be done to examine the association between the relationship length and matching on LLs (e.g., controlling for log or inverse values of the relationship duration).

This study applied an online self-report survey method which results in several significant limitations as well as response biases related to social desirability [ 58 ]. Other potentially problematic issues associated with the present study design include increased possibility of condescending responses, participants’ self-selection, low response rate, submitting multiple responses, duration of the questionnaire, biased distribution channels as well as limited introspective ability of the respondent. At the same time, these methods could be associated with greater self-disclosure due to an online disinhibition effect [ 59 ].

The lack of suitable remuneration for the participants may have resulted in the response biases and nonprobability sampling. Other methods of assessment, as well as strategies aimed to prevent the response biases (i.e. adding several attention checks) and encouraging subjects providing reimbursement for participation are needed to eliminate the response and participation biases.

Another point that has to be addressed is the direction of causality. Even though the present results confirmed LL–satisfaction associations, future research should seek to establish the direction of causation between those factors. For instance, there is a possibility that romantic partners who are more satisfied in their current relationships are also more likely to give and appreciate LLs behaviors. Our study also did not assess other factors that might drive matching on LLs. The observed association could also be multi-directional or be mediated by another variable. For instance, emotional intelligence may contribute to romantic relationship satisfaction and quality [see 60 , 61 ]. Matching on LLs may also be a byproduct of assortative mating for personal characteristics like intelligence or personality type [ 62 ]. Other individual differences that were shown to influence relationship quality, such as time perspective or chronotype, could be also taken into account as potential mediators or confounders of the effects of LLs on relationship outcomes [e.g. 55 ; 63 ].

In conclusion, this study provides a unique contribution to the empirical literature on Chapman’s basic assumption of Five Love Languages [ 1 ]. Our findings suggest that people who better match each other’s preferences for LLs are more satisfied with their relationships and sexual life. Moreover, it appears that satisfying the needs of one’s partner has at least as strong an impact on the individual’s perceptions of relationship quality as receiving expression of love in the desired ways does. However, contrary to our hypothesis, small associations between matching on LLs and degree of empathy were observed only for some empathy subscales among male, but not female participants, and empathy was unrelated to satisfaction. Future work may explore other possible mediators of the LL matching–relationship satisfaction association.

The present findings, particularly the novel way to assess matching for LLs presented in the present paper, may be important for the subsequent research in the field of the romantic relationships. They also provide useful practical implications for marital and family counseling, as well as for laymen who aim to improve the quality of their relationship. Learning to recognize and react to one’s partners love needs may be an important skill for building relationship satisfaction in both partners.

Supporting information

S1 appendix, funding statement.

This work was supported by the University of Warsaw, from the funds awarded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the form of a subsidy for the maintenance and development of research potential.

Data Availability

• PLoS One. 2022; 17(6): e0269429.

Decision Letter 0

PONE-D-21-38702I love the way you love me: Responding to partner’s love language preferences boosts satisfaction in romantic heterosexual couplesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Stolarski,

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Methods: Questionnaires:. Provide information about the dates on which the questionnaire was applied on the average time spent on responses (discuss whether there could have been condescending responses and other response biases), and whether there were several attention checks. Clarify if there were payments to participants as a way to encourage participation.

In research in which self-response questionnaires are used, there could have been condescending responses and other response biases related to the social desirability.  The results of online surveys may be affected by bias due for example to low response rates, to a self-selection linked to the salience of a topic, the length of time required to complete the survey, the presentation of the questionnaire, the contact delivery modes, the use of pre-notifications and the presence of incentives. Furthermore, in online surveys, subjects often have greater self-disclosure. The results of the web-based surveys must consider all these aspects to be considered valid and reliable.  Moreover, about bias in participation, note the possible self-selection bias and the nonprobability sampling used to select the participants. See for example Van de Mortel, T.F. Faking it: Social desirability response bias in self-report research. Aust. J. Adv. Nurs. 2008, 25,40. Please provide information about this topic on methods section.

Did you have any missing data or did everyone answer all the questions? If you did have missing data, how did you treat the "missingness"?

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Author response to Decision Letter 0

17 May 2022

Thank you for your email dated April 5th, 2022 that addresses the points raised during the review process. We highly appreciate the Reviewer’s generous comments on the manuscript.

We have carefully reviewed them and revised the manuscript to address the following concerns, as well as the Journal Requirements.

We have addressed the editorial points as follows:

ad.1: “Provide information about the dates on which the questionnaire was applied on the average time spent on responses (discuss whether there could have been condescending responses and other response biases), and whether there were several attention checks”.

The questionnaire was applied over the period between October 2018 to March 2019. The subjects spent an average of 23 minutes responding to the questionnaire.

We have used the reverse wording items for each inventory to screen out careless respondents. No additional attention checks were used in the survey.

We are aware that self-response questionnaires tend to be affected by the response biases. We have clarified it in the Methods section and proposed an additional future research suggestion to address the potential flaws.

The information is now provided in the manuscript in lines 236-239, and 562-569.

ad. 2: “Clarify if there were payments to participants as a way to encourage participation”.

No, the subjects participated in the survey voluntary and were not paid for their participation. It is now clarified in the Method section and addressed as a potential limitation in the Discussion.

The information is now provided in the manuscript in lines 237-238, and 570-574.

ad. 3: “In research in which self-response questionnaires are used, there could have been condescending responses and other response biases related to the social desirability…Please provide information about this topic on methods section”.

We have provided information on the potential biases in response and participation in our survey, including the possibility of the condescending responses. It is now addressed in the Method and Discussion sections.

The information is now provided in the manuscript in lines 562-574, and addressed in 238-244.

ad. 4: “Did you have any missing data or did everyone answer all the questions? If you did have missing data, how did you treat the "missingness"?”

Yes. Ten couples were discarded from the study due to significant amount of missing information for one or both partners. When one question was missed (i.e. not scored) by the respondent, the average over available items was calculated and multiplied with the number of items in the questionnaire to replace the missing value.

The information is now provided in the manuscript in lines 215-222.

Formal suggestion: Please change "female” or "male" to "woman” or "man" as appropriate, when used as a noun

This point is now addressed across the entire manuscript; the only remaining uses of “male” and “female” are when these words are used as adjectives.

We have attached a marked-up copy that highlights changes made to the original version, as well as unmarked version of our revised manuscript. If you have any further questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us directly.

Submitted filename: Response-to-Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

23 May 2022

PONE-D-21-38702R1

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Acceptance letter

27 May 2022

Dear Dr. Stolarski:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

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Review: Love and Society by Sven Seebach

2018, Digithum

Love and Society by Swen Seebach is a sociological study of love at its best. In recent years, there has been a global boom in the scientific studies of love (García-Andrade, 2014). Why? How has love become as crucial in science as it has in our lives? This book intends to understand why and how love has come to be the center stage from a sociological point of view. I also emphasize this is a sociological endeavor because the questions at hand are: What is love’s contribution to social cohesion? How do we bond with each other when we are ‘in love’? Why is it so central in our societies, contrary to other historical periods?

Related Papers

The American Sociologist

Nicola Montagna

Love is a theme at the centre of all our lives, including those of sociologists and social scientists. It has been widely addressed and described in literature and poetry, extensively depicted in the pictorial arts, sung about in music. Even philosophy, from its very beginnings, has devoted beautiful and intense pages to this theme. For reasons difficult to understand, the founding fathers of our discipline have been reluctant to enter the analytical realm of love. They touched this theme, but only marginally. It is only relatively recently that more insightful and focused discussions have come from some key figures of contemporary sociology in works by Niklas Luhmann, Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, Zygmunt Bauman and, more recently, Eva Illouz that demonstrate the profoundly social nature of our most intimate feelings and convey how the transformation of love and intimacy is related to wider social changes. In this sense, this collection edited by Silvia Cataldi and Gennaro Iorio aims to fill a major gap, while fuelling the debate on social love and its implications as a transformative force in an era characterised by multiple crises. By bringing together scholars from across several countries, not only it collates the fruit of years of research, but it also launches new developments in the debate on social love and set a new research agenda.

"Social Love as an Approach: Notes from the field". Silvia Cataldi and Gennaro Iorio. Social Love and the Critical Potential of People: When the Social Reality Challenges the Sociological Imagination. London and New York: Routledge.

Sari Hanafi

The history of sociology has an ambiguous relationship with social love, considered something as either purely public generating the social (Cataldi, 2020) or as purely private that should be removed from the field of scientific discursivity as something emotional and non-rational. Social love can be best expressed among the primary groups that Max Weber highlighted as kin, friends and neighbors. Yet for the longest time, many sociologists argue that in our post-modern world and late modernity these groups become obsolete. Others contest that arguing that neighbors can best handle immediate emergencies; kin, long term commitments; and friends, heterogeneity (Litwak & Szelenyi, 1969). However, as the work of Gennaro Iorio (2016) and Silvia Cataldi (2020) point out, social love should be understood in a more complex way and go beyond these primary groups. For them, there are four dimensions of social love: overabundance (i.e., love exceeds social expectations and breaks with the exchange logic), care of others, recognition, and finally universalism (i.e. looking at the other beyond in-group). Social actors can have social love toward ethical or religious community and even toward humanity.

Paulina Sabugal

Thomas J Oord

Analize - Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies

Daniela Cutas

What is love? Is it an uncontrollable emotion? Is it, instead, socially shaped, both an emotion and a social practice? Can the bonds of care and affection between humans and non-human animals be said to be on a par with parent-child relationships between humans? Do parents owe love to their children – and do mothers and fathers, respectively, owe it to different degrees? Do subversive weddings challenge normative ideals about love? What is the significance of love for the value of close personal or family relationships? All these questions and more are discussed in the articles included in this special issue. The contributors draw from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, sociology, political science, religious studies, and history, as well as from empirical work that they have undertaken in Canada, Belgium, Portugal, or Romania. From these different perspectives and experiences, each contribution addresses important questions about love and its relation to sexuality, monogamy, friendship, the family, parenthood, or society in general.

Patricia Grosse Brewer

Theory, Culture and Society 15: 243-63

Charles Lindholm

How culturally and historically specific is the experience of romantic love. Western expectations and beliefs about romantic love clearly develop out of our unique historical trajectory and cultural background. But this obvious truth should not blind us to deeper correspondences between our emotional lives and the emotional lives of people in cultures different from our own, who, like lovers in our society, report an intense idealization of a loved person, feelings of exaltation in their presence, and suicidal despair when they are absent. The cross-cultural and historical instances presented in this article shows that romantic love is not necessarily the prerogative of a leisured class or a complex society; it is not solely heterosexual, nor does it always lead to marriage; it is not intrinsically linked to capitalism, small families, sexual oppression, a cult of motherhood, or a quest for identity, and is not simply a disguise for lust or evidence of the unseen hand of evolution at work. The extraordinary phenomenon of romantic attraction ought to be understood as a peculiarly human response to characteristic social contradictions and tensions that people seek to escape through the love of another individual.

Andrey Korotayev

We propose that romantic love is a biosocial phenomenon that may well be a universal and that its cultural aspects are a product of social conditions. This position is unique because romantic love is promoted as a cultural rather than social universal. We argue that culture, social, and psychological phenomena are too frequently conflated and their core definitional features underdefined by researchers. Culture refers to learned practices that have collectively shared meanings to the members of a society. Under social conditions in which romantic love does not confer reproductive and health advantages to a mother and child, it will often be suppressed, undeveloped, and rejected as a cultural component. Through a cross-cultural study, we show that female status and family organization are important features that help in regulating the sociocultural importance of romantic love as a basis for marriage. The authors propose that romantic love is more likely to be a biosocial universal than a biocultural universal. We understand that there is a great deal of overlap between social and cultural, but we intend to make clear the distinctions, as we see them, between these two concepts. Boyd and Richerson (1985, 2005) and Boehm (1999, 2012) have been proponents of a biocultural approach to the study of ''the origin and evolution of cultures.'' These researchers have developed a biocultural approach that remains true to the ethnographic cross-cultural approach of anthropology first advocated by Tylor (1889). Our work fits into this model for cross-cultural research, with the notable addition that the focus is on social conditions and practices from which cultural configurations emerge. In this study, we hope to accomplish the following tasks: First, we intend to demonstrate that the social aspect of romantic love has been neglected in cross-cultural research on love and is just as important as culture, if not more so, for the study of romantic love; second, we intend to show that female status and family organization are important features in regulating the sociocul-tural importance of romantic love, particularly (but not exclusively) as a basis for marriage; third, in our discussion, we present an argument for attending more carefully to definitions of core concepts (e.g., culture, romantic love) and the explanatory limits and strengths (or parameters) of those definitions ; and fourth, we seek to stimulate interest in developing better (i.e., more reliable and valid) codings of the concept of romantic love (and other expressive/subjective concepts) in the cross-cultural databases. We began such studies over 15 years ago (de Munck & Korotayev, Creative Commons CC-BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Acta Universitatis Lodziensis Folia Sociologica

Julita Czernecka

The goal of this paper is to increase knowledge about the social definition of love in the context of an intimate relationship. The empirical material analyzed comes from Focus Group Interviews, Bulletin Board Discussions online, and representative research conducted using the CAWI method. The research was an exploratory study, and the analyzed material presents one thematic area concerning how participants understand love and the importance they attribute to it in the duration of an intimate relationship. The first part of the paper will present thematic areas related to the attempt to understand what love is that were indicated by the respondents at the stage of qualitative research. The second part of the article will present the typology of attitudes towards love on the basis of the analysis of data derived from quantitative research. The following types were distinguished: optimists in love, waiting for love, rationalists in love, distanced from love.

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Richard Rapson

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Listen to the essay, as read by Emanuele Lugli, assistant professor of art and art history in the School of Humanities & Sciences.

My colleagues chuckle when I confess it. My mum stares at me as if I told her that I have just seen an alien drop down out of the sky. Countless others have feigned surprise – and I am just talking about the nice people. Still, no one can make me change my mind. For me, the most fascinating question, the one I return to over and again as it makes the wheels of my brain spin at unprecedented speed, is about the nature of love at first sight. Does it exist or is it just a collective hallucination?

The reason that I find love at first sight bewitching is that it is a complete mystery, and yet people behave as if it were not. The industry of dating apps is built on the notion that romance must come to you in the form of pictures. And these apps contribute to why more than 50 percent of Americans claim to believe in it . (Another reason, of course, is that the notion has been drilled into them by countless novels, plays, Hollywood movies, and TV shows.)

Yet, no one can explain it.

So, as an art historian – someone who researches the ways images are constructed and the ways visual culture shapes society – I feel it is my duty to find an answer. I ask left and right. Cognitive scientists tell me that more than 50 percent of the cortex, the surface of the brain, is devoted to processing visual information , thus making a point of why vision plays such a fundamental role not just in life but also in love. Biologists direct me to phenotypes, the physical manifestations of DNA, which communicate reproductive fitness. They thus present falling in love less as a magical surrender than a natural process of mate selection.

Psychologists and sociologists look for conditioning elements but, like most academics involved in the quest, produce clinical discussions that ignore that jolt of joy that makes love at first sight so irresistible. For me, forgetting about this pleasure is like expatiating on the notes of champagne and forgetting about the fizz.

It is not just scientists who exhaust this effervescence. Plenty of writers, artists, and filmmakers have dulled the sparkle of love at first sight by presenting it in stereotypical terms. So I was captivated, elated even, when I watched Heartstopper , the Netflix coming-of-age drama that has become a hit. Like many, I was struck the first time I saw Charlie meeting soulmate Nick in a crowd of students. The camera follows Charlie’s gaze as he searches for the new desk to which he has been assigned; a backpack moves out of the frame, and here he is: Nick, out of focus, bathed in the rainbow morning light. Charlie freezes, and the camera with him. His vision sharpens. A synth grates in, a drum mimics a heartbeat, and two hand-drawn leaves enter the screen, gently flying around Charlie’s face, which opens into a smile.

The ancient Greek lyric poet Sappho captures a similar state by speaking of a delicate fire that suddenly rushes under her skin at the sight of an attractive woman. Sappho’s heart flutters: her tongue cannot move. Almost three millennia have passed since she wrote those verses, and love at first sight continues to be articulated as a paradox. When it occurs, reality is no longer whole: there is now an outside that the lover occupies like an extraneous body, and an interiority, teeming with unaccountable life. Heartstopper visualizes such a split by introducing the cartoon leaves, as a way to suggest both the shift to a symbolic plane (the leaves are two to make us think of coupling) and the presence of a mysterious wind, the very breath of life.

Emanuele Lugli, assistant professor of art and art history (Image credit: Harrison Truong)

I know it sounds trite – the suspension of reality, the ocular flirtation, the colored sunbeams – but this simplicity, call it innocence even, may be the reason why love at first sight feels so irresistible. It conjures up ideas of a blank slate, a new starting point where life bursts at its fullest because it is not corrupted by prejudices, obligations, and crippling ideas of the self. When we see someone new, even our notions of the self brims with possibilities. In other words, love at first sight brings hope.

The possibility of a different future, as well as the fact that the notion of love at first sight is shared by many cultures, are exhilarating to me. You see: I did not use to think like this. I grew up in Italy, a country that has turned the idea that walking into the world and meeting love, from everyone, everywhere, is an actual thing. I used to think of this national delusion as a product of my country’s heavy-handed cultural policy. Most of Italy’s literary and artistic achievements (Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Michelangelo) – those that saturate the curricula of its high schools and universities – are so drenched in love at first sight references that I am not surprised that, deep down, Italians think that their passions are somewhat ruled by the gods, catching glimpses of them from above the clouds, determining their amorous interests by firing arrows.

But Italians are not unique in their infatuation with the idea of love at first sight. The more I look, the more I discover its global influence (a famous example from China: Wang Shifu’s The Story of the Western Wing ). Such a realization leads me to reflect on the possibility of knowing.

Do we believe in love at first sight because its idea started spreading such a long time ago that today, after an unfathomable scalar growth of hundreds of years, it passes for truth? Or does the expression define a condition that transcends languages and cultures and is somewhat intrinsic to human life (hence, the biologists’ argument)? Is it even possible to separate personal experience from something common to everyone, and thus in a sense timeless?

These are the questions that I ask myself and my students. At Stanford, I teach a whole course on it, one that exposes students to many artworks that maintain the belief that love at first sight exists and that makes them question the role of vision in the nature of knowing.

In a way, love at first sight is for me less a theme in my scholarship than something I return to test the structure of thinking. Where does nature end and culture start? When does the individual merge into the collective? What is virtual and what is actual? Reading and thinking about love at first sight help me refine my research framework while reminding me of a need for academia to deal with the erotic. Many intellectuals, such as Audre Lorde and Fred Moten, emphasize how academic work ditches love in order to favor and even naturalize misery and alienation.

Pleasure is regrettably absent from most scholarly endeavors. So, to return to love at first sight is a way to make sure that research can be as electrifying as a leap into the imaginary embrace of someone we have never seen before.

Emanuele Lugli is assistant professor of art and art history in the School of Humanities & Sciences .

In Their Own Words is a collaboration between the Stanford Public Humanities Initiative  and Stanford University Communications.

If you’re a Stanford faculty member (in any discipline or school) who is interested in writing an essay for this series, please reach out to Natalie Jabbar at [email protected] .