What science knows about love — and what an ordinary person should know
Love is a beautiful phenomenon in human life that cannot and should not be described from a scientific standpoint — so say some. Others are convinced that any emotion, feeling, or attraction is the result of complex processes taking place in our bodies, and therefore can be structured and described.
The scientific community strips the mystery and inexplicability from the concept of love and offers a fairly precise account of all the processes involved — from fleeting infatuation to lifelong devotion.
How does modern science describe love?
The easiest way to grasp the scientific definition of love is through neuroscience. In the study by Ortigue S. and colleagues titled “Meta-Analysis of Evidence for New Perspectives in Sexual Medicine” (The Journal of Sexual Medicine. 2010. V. 7), the researchers conclude that love is a “dopaminergic goal-directed motivation for pair-bond formation.”
In plain terms, under the influence of chemical substances — particularly the neurotransmitter dopamine — the human brain begins to form its own attitude toward the object of attraction. This process often involves a high degree of exaggeration. The object of attraction is ascribed qualities they do not possess, while negative character traits are smoothed over or ignored. Folk wisdom and fiction are full of familiar sayings that capture this: “Love is blind,” “Love forgives all,” “If you love someone, you forgive them.”
In reality, the task of love as a phenomenon arising between two people is to bring them into a pair bond, thereby ensuring the continuation of the species and subsequent care for offspring. Though not always. In some cases, living together proves simpler, more advantageous, more rational. A conflict arises: social norms come into contradiction with the subconscious.
The transformation of mild sympathy into infatuation and then into true love is possible thanks to sustained elevated dopamine levels. It is impossible to keep putting another person on a pedestal for long without a complex chain of subjective assessments of oneself and others. Long-term goals are achieved on roughly the same principle. For example, if a certain payoff looms ahead — even in the long run — dopamine will sustain motivation for days, months, and even years. Similar processes are observed in the body of a person in love.
The situation is different when it comes to love of one’s homeland, a hobby, or work. Here one cannot deny the influence of the “idiot box.” But in any case, another neurotransmitter comes into play — oxytocin. It strengthens social attachment and makes a person feel like a useful element of society. For instance, the highest concentration of oxytocin a person experiences in their entire life occurs in a woman immediately after childbirth. This is an indescribable state of happiness, bliss, and love, triggered by a manifold increase in hormone levels, oxytocin in particular. Presumably, this mechanism exists to bind the mother to her child as tightly as possible, thereby serving the interests of the newly born organism.
The subsequent “love” expressed in caring for a child over the following years — which entails heightened psycho-emotional and physical strain — is nothing other than a reformatting of the hormonal state. Adrenaline and cortisol levels rise, and the concentration of other neurotransmitters shifts.
Love of country, volunteering, helping those in need — these processes are governed by the hormonal system, which rewards a person with a release of oxytocin and serotonin when they make their contribution. In ancient times, survival was likely possible only collectively, which is why our bodies work this way.
The simple conclusion, then, is this: love is not at all what ordinary people imagine it to be. While creative types may endlessly shroud love in mystery, the scientific community does not mystify the phenomenon — it describes it quite concretely.
How Marketing and Sales — Mighty Money Machines — Use the Concept of Love for Their Own Ends
In his book All Marketers Are Liars, one Seth Godin analyzes how marketers spin different stories to get audiences to love their products, services, or themselves. And when we build relationships ourselves, aren't we doing the same thing — acting as our own marketers?
One of the fundamental human needs is not just to love, but to be loved. This plays out at every level of social life. An employee wants to be respected by colleagues, a politician welcomes another government award, and an entrepreneur craves positive reviews of their company's work.
In an annoying detergent commercial, you won't find a list of chemical properties — instead, you see happy children who love their mother. A premium car promo rarely goes without a shot of an expensive watch, sharp suits, a safe road, and a beautiful woman who presumably respects, loves, and admires her companion.
Every successful man wants to be loved. That's why he will never agree that a car is merely a means of transportation. The exception might be a renowned doctor, educator, or other qualified specialist who receives «love» through other channels and therefore feels no need for an expensive car, even if he can afford one. But even such people are unlikely to withstand the assault of marketers who, through television screens, will tell them about aftershave lotion, perfume, a shoe brand, or a clothing store.
Imprinting and Love in Childhood
Even though each of us has our own wants and preferences, we keep gravitating toward the same type of person. Ever noticed? The brain seems to constantly evaluate those we might start a relationship with, and in the end, it zeroes in on the same kind again and again. This applies both to appearance and to the inner world. Some are drawn to the thoughtful type, others to the cheerful and upbeat. And some keep finding «the wrong partner,» which is neatly captured by the old saying: «If your third husband drinks, the problem isn't the husband.» It all comes down to imprinting — the mechanism of image imprinting that takes shape in early childhood.
So where does it all begin? With childhood, of course! The understanding of love starts with love in childhood — parents tell a child they love them. This isn't love, but rather a manifestation of a social function. A child is a defenseless creature, a dependent member of society, so the parent must be an authority figure.
Caring parents don't actually love their children — they activate what's called the behavioral attachment system. It's a simple, understandable psychological model that provides infants, children, and adolescents with emotional support and protection.
In any case, the love parents give their children in childhood transforms decades later into love from the children toward their parents. But what's really at work is the same oxytocin — a neurotransmitter whose job is to ensure close interaction between a particular biological organism and society at large, and with the people closest to it in particular.
The influence of fiction and cinema
In the early grades, a child becomes acquainted with the concept of love for one's homeland and country, and in middle school — with numerous works of literature and cinema. Vividly portrayed romantic experiences help children see another side of love — sentiment, romance, wistful sighs and the like. But relationships in film and literature are certainly not love; they are merely excerpts from the characters' lives. Everything else, including what is less appealing to the reader's or viewer's eye and ear, is simply ignored.
This fosters the impression that tragic, self-sacrificing love is something beautiful — yet in reality, finding anything «like that» in life is extremely rare.
Having absorbed subjective notions of love, a child grows into a teenager and then an adult without understanding how the hormonal system works — which quite simply explains what infatuation is and why «love lasts three years».
Helen Fisher, an anthropology expert at Rutgers University, believes that love is a stage-by-stage emotion that should be viewed as a sequence of phases. She compares it to thirst or hunger. And really, can we mystify or romanticize the state of a hungry person, or someone who set off on a long run but forgot their water bottle?
Love at first sight, about which so many films have been made and so many books written, is in fact a powerful jolt to the body. You know yourself that the emergence of attraction, which grows into attachment and then into «love», is a matter of seconds. Imprinting comes into play once again. The new person is not really new, because their image is already familiar to you. As a result, a person's perception of reality becomes distorted, the partner is idealized, and they seek the solution to the problem outside themselves — even though, from a neurobiological standpoint, this is merely the body's reaction to an external stimulus.
Without learning about the biological aspect of love and having instead absorbed numerous distorted notions, people start dating in real life and online in hopes of beginning a relationship — but they already carry so many incorrect behavioral patterns that the odds of a positive outcome are extremely low. Only after decades of failed trials do people adapt to one another, and even then, not always.
Many people do not understand what love is or whether it exists at all, despite seeing this very love in commercials, newspaper articles, books and entertainment videos. Even the simple question of what love is would baffle not only a high school graduate but also a highly educated person.
Self-education can help you prepare for an adequate perception of infatuation and love, and teach you to respond properly to instincts. In his book «The Brain and Love: Secrets of Practical Neuroscience», Daniel G. Amen provides a detailed account of how the hormonal system works and cites a large number of scientific studies, including those conducted with computed tomography. He vividly demonstrates that mad obsession, mad infatuation and unrequited love are all changes in the concentration of adrenaline, noradrenaline, serotonin, dopamine and phenylethylamine.
But what is one to do with such knowledge? After all, realizing the scientific explanation of what hunger is won't make you stop wanting to eat. True — but you will understand how to manage hunger properly, how to avoid overeating, which foods are beneficial and which are harmful.
So away with wistful sighs and all that lyricism! It all comes down to chemistry and imprinting!
To find true love, you can study how your body works and run a series of experiments to identify your own reactions.
Or you can simply use our service, where we have already done it all for you.