Popular science article, here I will explain what love is from three parts: the composition of love, the types of love, and the origin of love.
1. The composition of love - Steinberg's love triangle theory
Love is the spark of life, the sublimation of friendship, and the harmony of the soul. If human emotions can be divided into grades, then love should belong to the highest level.
- Shakespeare
The composition of love - Love Triangle Theory
The pursuit and worship of love has been the same fierce since ancient times. We praise love, we yearn for love, we are tortured by love, and we are also ecstatic for love. Shakespeare once said: "Love makes cowards bold, but makes brave men cowards." This shows the magic and power of love.
Love seems to be a topic that none of us can escape, but it is also full of mystery to each of us. So, what emotional elements does love consist of? What kind of love is the ideal and perfect love? Today, I will introduce and discuss the composition of love and perfect love from a psychological perspective.
When it comes to the composition of love, we cannot but mention the psychologist "Steinberg".
Robert Steinberg, a social psychologist at Yale University in the United States J. Sternberg believes that love is a triangle composed of three factors: intimacy (mutual liking, understanding and expectation), passion (charm and sexual attraction) and commitment (determining the development of a stable relationship). "Passion" is the erotic component of love, which is the emotion.
"intimacy" refers to the warm experience that can be induced in a love relationship;
"commitment" refers to the decision to maintain the relationship expectations or guarantees .
The "three elements" of passion, intimacy and commitment make up "seven" different types of love:
The first type is "like" love, also called "friendship" love, which has only intimacy without passion and commitment, such as friends of the opposite sex and good friends. Obviously, friendship is not love, and liking does not equal love. However, it is still possible for friendship to develop into love. In life, it is often the case that friendship is the basis for a gradual combination that leads to impulse and commitment.
The second type is "obsessive" love, which has only passion, without intimacy and commitment, such as first love, secret love, and star chasing when you were very young. The first love is always full of passion, but lacks maturity and stability. It is a green activity that is guided and guided by instinct.
The third type is "empty" love, which only has commitment and lacks intimacy and passion, such as love purely for the purpose of marriage, such as a marriage ordered by parents, or a hasty marriage due to age. This kind of "love" may seem fine, but in modern society, there are hidden dangers after marriage.
The fourth type is "romantic" love, which only has passion and intimacy, no commitment. This kind of "love" advocates the process and does not care about the results. Many people in modern times enjoy this kind of love without commitment, which has also given rise to emotional fast foodism. Love without commitment is fragile. Either you don't like it enough from the beginning, or you are ready to withdraw at any time, and the results are often not optimistic.
The fifth type is "partnership" love, which only has intimacy and commitment, but no passion. Most old couples and couples who have been together for a long time have this love pattern. This kind of love becomes tired due to lack of passion. If the intimacy is reduced (such as conflicts increase) and there are no other guarantees (such as marriage and children), it can easily lead to breakup.
The sixth type is "stupid" love, which only has passion and commitment, but no intimacy.Passion without intimacy is at best a physical impulse, and commitment without intimacy is nothing more than a promise. Many scumbag men cheat on you and have a relationship with your lover, or the boy insists on marrying you as soon as the relationship is established. Most of them belong to this kind of love.
The seventh type is "perfect" love, which includes passion, commitment and intimacy. Only in this type can we see the true face of love. It is the most ideal state of love, but unfortunately, this kind of ideal love rarely exists, or it exists for a very short time.
In every period, we may encounter the above different types of love, which may not be typical at times, or even a mixture of several states, but we still need to examine our own love status more clearly. Are we stuck in stupid love? Have you neglected cultivating mutual intimacy in love and added too many conflicts?
Although perfect love may not be easy to achieve and maintain, we still need to work hard to keep our love on the road to perfection.
2. Types of Love - Hatfield Intimacy Love and Partner Love
Some people say that love should be about heartbeat, passion, and wanting to be with the other person every day. Some people also think that love should be about plain dependence. So, what should love look like?
Types of love - passionate love and companionate love
According to psychological research, whether it is passionate love full of sexual drive or plain warm and intimate love, they are different manifestations of love. Mode, An intimate relationship may be mainly passionate love, or it may be mainly dull and intimate love. Even many intimate relationships often experience these two different modes of love. The love mode may be different in different emotional stages.
So, when it comes to different modes and types of love, we have to mention The famous American psychologist in the field of emotionElaine Hatfield(Elaine Hatfield), she was in 1979 In the book "Love Revisited", which won the American Psychological Association's National Advocacy Tool Award in 2016, love is classified into "Passionate Love" based on the social exchange theory. love)" and "Companionate love (Companionate love)" .
"Passionate love": A strong emotional state in which almost the entire mind is occupied by another person. This kind of love full of strong emotional colors satisfies our desire to "fall in love". Our emotions and autonomic nervous systems are highly aroused, excited, excited, full of energy, and we want to be connected and intimate with each other all the time. This kind of love is often accompanied by idealization and fantasy, and will reflect our beautiful longing for love and partners into real emotions. We will see more of the other person's advantages and ignore some of the other person's shortcomings. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is probably a description of this stage.
"Companionate love": Its development is mainly based on respect, mutual understanding and confidence in each other's love. It is not accompanied by great emotional ups and downs. What it brings to people is a kind of warmth, intimacy and understanding acceptance. Its characteristic is that the two people in this kind of love relationship have a high degree of self-disclosure towards each other, are more frank and accepting, and can see the true side of each other without over-idealizing the other person.
Looking back at real life, when we are attracted to a person, go through the ambiguous period, and then officially get together, and then enter the process of passionate love period , we are often in passionate love ; when two people have been together for a long time After a long time, the passion began to fade, and the relationship began to slowly enter the dull period. After experiencing the running-in without separation, each other understood and accepted each other better. Although there was less passion and excitement, each other felt that the other could make them feel at ease and comfortable, and they were still willing to stay with each other. The love in this period was mostly the love of partners.
I personally believe that the beginning of an intimate relationship often stems from passionate love. We are shot by Cupid's arrow and have the urge to get close to the other person. But maintaining a long-term relationship often relies on the love of a partner . Most of the love in marriage is this kind of love. In
consultation, we found that many failures in intimate relationships are not due to lack of passionate love, but most of them are due to the failure to successfully obtain the love of a partner .
No one can be in love all the time. Brother Ke suggested that we girls in love should realize that all feelings will be dull. When your boyfriend seems not to be as passionate about you as he was in love, in addition to complaining and blaming, it is more important and critical to try to think more about how to establish and manage your partner's love .
3. The Origin of Love - Helen Fisher Biological Analysis of Love
In addition to being composed of psychological factors such as emotions and emotions, what substances are produced by love in the biology of the human body and what role does it play?
The origin of love - talking about love from a biological perspective
Previously we have understood the composition of love and the types of love from a psychological perspective. Today we will further analyze love from a biological perspective to understand the origin of love . What substances in the human body are responsible for our passionate love, intimate love and unyielding love for our lovers? What roles do these different substances play in love?
When it comes to analyzing love from a biological perspective, we have to mention Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and biologist at Rutgers University in the United States.
Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and biologist at Rutgers University in the United States, is committed to explaining the feeling of love from multiple perspectives.
After years of painstaking research, she discovered that the human love process is divided into three stages, namely "desire stage", "attraction stage", and "attachment stage". These three stages are caused by the human body releasing different chemicals and hormones to play different roles.
"Desire Stage": At this stage, we have sexual desire for the target, which is a biological instinct.
is mainly involved in hormones:
Sex hormones: Females are mainly estrogen and progesterone, and males are mainly androgens testosterone . Testosterone secreted by sexual organs controls sexual desire and stimulates the secretion of dopamine . Men with high testosterone rarely marry, often have relationships with strangers of the opposite sex, and break up quickly.
"Attraction Stage": In this stage, you fall in love with each other and feel happy and happy. This is the stage of love.
is mainly involved in hormones:
Dopamine: a happy hormone, can produce a very happy feeling, it stimulates the secretion of oxytocin , and the sense of security and satisfaction when hugging is inseparable from it.
Norepinephrine: vasoconstriction and nerve conduction , which will cause blood pressure , heartbeat, and blood sugar to increase. When your body is full of these substances, it is also when you are confused and confused.
Serotonin: It is a messenger that produces pleasant emotions. People with low serotonin levels are more likely to develop depression, impulsive behavior, alcoholism, suicide, aggression and violence.
phenylethylamine : love hormone, Love at first sight or love for a long time, that "calling" feeling is the masterpiece of this hormone. nervous system regulates its secretion level. It is actually a stimulant, making people feel extremely excited, energetic, confident and courageous. Make you like loving. The face becomes red and the pupils are dilated. amphetamine-amphetamine: The main component of ecstasy, its structure is similar to it.
"Attachment Stage": In this stage, both parties in an intimate relationship are more attached to each other. Long-term relationships, marriage and having children are at this stage.
is mainly involved in hormones:
oxytocin : the love hormone , which reduces stress and feels relaxed and comfortable. This hormone plays the role of this hormone when partners feel comfortable and relaxed together.
Vasopressin: the loyalty hormone , the key to controlling loyalty, wants to turn feelings into an eternal hormone. Vasopressin levels affect a person's loyalty and intimacy with their partner.
Endorphins : marriage hormone , the feeling of comfort, warmth, intimacy and calm after the excitement. Make you like being in love. (its effect is close to morphine), some people just can't get enough endorphins to calm themselves down.
"In the first stage when we are driven by desire, sex hormones that control and enhance sexual desire occupy a dominant position." , it induces a high degree of arousal in some autonomic nervous systems. At this time, norepinephrine, which regulates lust and improves mood, joins in, causing blood pressure to rise, heartbeat to accelerate, and sweating to increase.
"Then in the second stage, lust increases and becomes a high-level attraction. At this time, phenylethylamine and dopamine play a major role." . Phenylethylamine is related to love at first sight. Studies have proven that couples in love will be stimulated to produce 2 to 5 times higher levels of phenylethylamine than usual.
"Finally entering the third stage, the passion begins to slowly fade away, and the main hormones oxytocin and endorphins that maintain the relationship begin to increase." . Oxytocin, known as the "love hormone", plays a key role in determining the final stage of intimate relationships. This substance synthesized in the hypothalamus encourages people to form emotional connections.
Women who are pregnant, breastfeeding, and reaching orgasm can secrete large amounts of oxytocin. Oxytocin also promotes erections and ejaculation in men. Oxytocin and endorphins have a synergistic effect. The former initiates the desire to attach to others, and the latter provides the warm and intoxicating feeling when being with your lover.
At this point, all the basic elements and processes required for a stable and lasting relationship between the sexes are in place.
I am profound, national second-level psychological counselor , translator of the book "Non-Violent Communication between Gender", member of Dalian Psychological Association, 34 years old, married and with children, willing to share my own attitude with everyone.
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