3 : How To Love Someone
Scientists in fields ranging from anthropology to neuroscience have been asking this same question (albeit less eloquently) for decades. It turns out the science behind love is both simpler and more complex than we might think.
3 : How to Love Someone
According to a team of scientists led by Dr. Helen Fisher at Rutgers, romantic love can be broken down into three categories: lust, attraction, and attachment. Each category is characterized by its own set of hormones stemming from the brain (Table 1).
Is there drugs out there, that can block these chemicals so that we can never be attracted & attached to a significant other, therefore we can never be hurt by love and stay content and happy as a single free human?
I can speak from personal experience about what George is saying. I was taking an ADD medication called Dexedrine. One of the effects of Dexedrine is that it boosts dopamine levels. It had lots of very harmful side-effects. Coincidentally this was around the same time that I was falling in love with someone, and I can tell you the experience was at least 10 times worse for everyone because of the medication.
To be honest, humans probably do not even have free will. Our bodies have to obey the physical laws of the universe, but in order to predict what someone will do we have to know the starting conditions of almost everything. Because this truth alludes us, we explain it by saying we have free will, just like we explain miracles as phenomena. In reality, and court cases, while the chemical imballance standpoint could be argued, that would either be too out there to be valid, or it would be the same as arguing they were not mentally aware of their actions.
I loved the article but I would love if an explanation was given on how the brain is involved to regulate the three parts of love , attraction, lust, and attachment, I mean what is the controlling chemical for the free will?
Excellent research. As a marketing manager, I can say that love and passion can be very effective sales tools. And here all this is explained from the point of view of chemistry and biology. Thank you for the work done.
Reading this article made me know a lot more about love in the scientific aspect of it. It is good to know the different factors that affect our emotions when we feel love. As it is stated in the article, love is something that we need to formulate. We need to find balance in everything because too much of something is not good for us. Balance our emotions to be able to express our love more genuinely. But love is not always about the good explosion of dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. There will always be pain. Love will let us feel pain to wake up our senses and know our worth and know where to limit ourselves.
Love can be described as a strong and passionate feeling of attraction and attraction towards another person or things. This emotion can also be described as an intense desire to be close to someone or something in particular.
Are the chemical reactions a response to maturation i.e., does a child react the same as an adult? If not does it not suggest that the release of chemical triggering romantic love is a behavioral response? Also, what can be expected of a parentless child raised in an institution by indifferent caretakers until the age of 21? Where is the attachment (bonding)? How would this deprivation affect meaningful relationships and intimacy as an adult?
Consider the most recent time you encountered someone you found appealing. You may have stuttering and sweaty hands; you may have said something horribly stupid and fallen spectacularly while attempting to go away (or is it just me?).
Most likely, your heart was pounding in your chest. It is hardly surprising that, for centuries, people believed that love and most other emotions originated in the heart. As it turns out, love is all about the brain, which causes the rest of the body to go bonkers.
when Your partner shows oxytocin more than dopamine You know your love is an overripe fruit at this point and be sure You or Your partner will miss that dopamine and will find in again with others. Oxitocine based love is no worth if you have any other options.
Also, an opinion I have is that love is partially a social construct too. Like the basic feelings are undoubtedly brain chemistry, but the more specific things could be just how we were raised to believe it should be done?
In my book Principia Amoris: The New Science of Love, I explain the three natural phases of love. While being in love is a very complex experience, my research has identified choice points when love may either progress to a deeper place, or deteriorate.
Phase 3 of love is about building true commitment and loyalty. It is about a couple either cherishing one another and nurturing gratitude for what they have with their partner, or the couple nurturing resentment for what they think is missing. This third phase is about making a deeper love last a lifetime, or slowly nurturing a betrayal.
An important metric in Phase 3 of love is what I call the fairness metric. The sense that power is fairly distributed in a relationship is what the fairness metric is all about. It is very difficult to establish deep and lasting trust in a relationship that has an unwelcome power asymmetry, one in which the distribution of power feels unfair to at least one person.
DACHER KELTNER Yeah, and then great questions in relationships point to that space. And I love your use of the word space. I think a lot of relational life is about creating the right spaces.
9. I love you because of the simple reminder of looking at the sky and seeing how bright, big, vast yet serene it is. It makes me realize how small I am in this world but also that there is someone who loves me dearly. You!
Michelle Jarrel is the venue manager at Sandy Creek Farms. She has been planning weddings for over 15 years and loves working with wedding couples. You can find her running around the property during weddings to make sure everything is running smoothly and in the office talking to out-of-town wedding couples.
To love someone is to accept them fully, blemishes and all. We all know this definition of love. Over the years, certain behaviors, rituals, and symbols have become synonymous with this all-encompassing notion of an eternal bond, such as the institution of marriage.
However, such a binary and rigid view of love can cause us to ignore its many gray areas. We can start indulging in behavior that is to our detriment and allow for behavior that is obviously problematic.
Mental-health research has proven time and again that love can look and feel different from the way it appears in books, movies, and music. Here are three common mistakes people make when they view their intimate relationships too rigidly.
A love triangle is not the same thing as the triangular theory of love. In a love triangle, three people may either be involved in a polyamorous relationship or two people may compete for the love of a third person.
According to Sternberg, consummate love may be harder to maintain than it is to achieve, as the components of love must be put into action. Without behavior and expression, passion is lost and love may revert back to the companionate type.
Couples who have been together for a long time are the most likely to have companionate love. While the initial passion may have faded, the relationship is still marked by deep intimacy and long-term commitment to one another.
Compassionate love is another term for companionate love. According to Sternberg, liking and intimacy are the two components that make up this type of love. It is the lack of passion that distinguishes companionate love from passionate love.
Understanding the seven types of love that Sternberg described can help give people who are dating greater insight into their relationships. Being able to recognize which type of love a person is experiencing can help them decide if the relationship has long-term potential.
Love at first sight would qualify as infatuation in Sternberg's triangular theory of love. It is characterized by an immediate and intense attraction to another person. This type of love includes passion, but it lacks the liking and commitment components of love.
Sorokowski P, Sorokowska A, Karwowski M, et al. Universality of the triangular theory of love: adaptation and psychometric properties of the triangular love scale in 25 countries. J Sex Res. 2021;58(1):106-115. doi:10.1080/00224499.2020.1787318
Are you in a similar situation, experiencing broken-down love? Do you forget the good times, rewrite your shared history negatively, see your relationship as defective, and no longer look forward with enthusiasm to a future together? You may be wondering: "I thought things were so strong between us. What happened?"
1. No longer feeling appreciated, respected, or valued by their partner. Early in the relationship, it feels like love is unconditional, but as the infatuation stage inevitably cools, the tendency is to start taking each other for granted. When your relationship is left on autopilot, the stressors of daily life get in the way of giving compliments, showing gratitude, or even acknowledging caring behaviors. As respect, attention, and kindness wane, so can feelings of love.
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure.[1][2] An example of this range of meanings is that the love of a mother differs from the love of a spouse, which differs from the love for food. Most commonly, love refers to a feeling of a strong attraction and emotional attachment.[3][4][5]
Love is considered to be both positive and negative, with its virtue representing human kindness, compassion, and affection, as "the unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another" and its vice representing human moral flaw, akin to vanity, selfishness, amour-propre, and egotism, as potentially leading people into a type of mania, obsessiveness or codependency.[6][7] It may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions towards other humans, one's self, or animals.[8] In its various forms, love acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.[9] Love has been postulated to be a function that keeps human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species.[10] 041b061a72