Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, My Mum’s super sensitive, That’s why I love you…
The Psychology of Love. ‘Oh no!’ I hear you cry. Half of you will have reacted like this because you think there is no such thing as science when it comes to love, that anything that claims to be will be soppy common sense rubbish that isn’t worth a read, oh! And that psychology isn’t a science anyway. And the other half, well you’ll be dreading Valentine’s Day and all it stands for and wishing everyone would just stop analysing the thing you can never seem to find.
But read on. I hope to convince the latter half of you that actually, science says singletons are in a better situation this Valentine’s. And as for the other half? Well, sorry to quash your romantic notions, but love is chemical, hormonal and very scientific (just like psychology).
As the discoveries surrounding oxytocin, a hormone released by the hypothalamus, multiplied, the ‘love hormone’ was catapulted into the pharmaceutical world, where it quickly became the ‘love drug’. Apparently capable of doing everything, and curing anyone, this hormone is responsible for bonding, maternal instinct, enduring friendship, and even orgasm. It’s the hormone that leads to feeling physically relaxed around those we trust, and physically excited by the touch of those we lust after. It’s the hormone that makes holding your new born baby the most amazing moment of your life, and the hormone that makes the baby’s mother look the most beautiful she ever will. There is now plenty of evidence that huge proportions of what we label ‘love’ are caused, physiologically, by the release of oxytocin. Naturally, therefore, it has to be a huge money maker. Oxytocin, in nasal spray form, has been suggested as a treatment for shyness, anxiety, and the social deficits of autism. Indeed, research has shown that stimulating oxytocin release can improve our empathetic accuracy.
However, this love drug has a darker side. In one experiment it was indicated that providing participants with a dose of oxytocin didn’t increase their love for the world or humanity in general, it increased the love and trust they felt towards their in-group. It was shown to lead to ethnocentrism, and favouring our ‘in-group’ in a task involving money distribution. Could this be why people in love only have eyes for each other? Why people can end up neglecting those around them, their hobbies, their work, even sometimes common sense?
And then there’s the gender inequality issue. In one small study, Roscoe et al. (1987) demonstrated that males look for pleasure in their relationships, be it sexual or ‘having fun in general’. Females on the other hand look for commitment, love and care, from an early stage in adolescence. Apparently this continues into adult life, and even into marriage!
So as we become adults, doomed to unequal love that’s all only chemical anyway, and makes us foolish, ethnocentric and blind to the truth, is there any psychology that can give us a little hope? . I’d still argue yes. The biggest factor in how we love, and are loved, is through rearing children. The huge area of attachment theory in psychology says that, once you’ve had that lovely oxytocin glow of holding your new-born for the first time, you begin forming attachments with your child. The sensitivity of baby’s primary caregivers can be directly mapped into the type of attachment formed. Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ study 1978 first demonstrated that children can be split into four types of attachment with their parents: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious-ambivalent and disorganised. It is a fascinating area of study, because these patterns don’t only affect the cognitive ability and emotional stability of children; they seem to be stable enough over time to completely affect their style of loving too.
Bowlby’s ‘internal working models’ mean that early attachment pattern maps onto adult attachment. Researchers have shown that undergraduate students with anxious-avoidant attachment patterns tend to idealise their partner and avoid intimacy. Those who were anxious-ambivalent as a child tend to avoid all companionate love, and act obsessively, neurotically and depend too much on their partner(Feeney & Noller, 1990).
So what I’ve basically just said, is that love isn’t as sparkly and rosy as the card companies like to make out. It feels pretty great, thanks to the ‘love hormone’, but it has the potential to make you into someone you’re not. However, if you’ve not seen yourself in the negative images of those in love I’ve just described, and you feel secure and trusting in your romantic relationships, it’s quite possible you’ve got your parents to thank this Valentine’s Day.
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