Love

For long, I have searched the meaning of love. Many reasons for this quest; primarily confusion over what the different feelings were and how to differentiate between them.

It is pure serendipity that I come across the answer in a course on Introductory Psychology. Peter Salovey's guest lecture in Paul Bloom's course on Introduction to Psychology cleared all my doubts. At least, the old doubts are clear, new doubts have crept in!

Peter Salovey refers to Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Love; the figure below is self explanatory.

From: http://www.intrapsychictaxonomy.org/sternlv.jpg

With this I get the understanding that love consists of Intimacy, Passion & Commitment; various combination of these cause various types of love. But what causes love in the first place? Why do people fall in love? Why do we love whom we love?

For starter, Proximity, Similarity and Familiarity are the most important and most prevalent determinants of love. Yes, there does exist the odd love at first sight, like the ones one witnesses in movies. But, its exception. As a rule, these three factors determine who falls in love with whom and when! As Peter Salovay says, these three are easily understandable and evidently visible to even casual observers. However, there are 4 more factors that are more difficult to comprehend and may not be so obvious. These are as follows:

Competence: This seems straight forward. We love competent people. But, there is a twist here. If the competent person falters, we like him even more. This is called the Pratfall effect. [wikipedia]The Pratfall Effect is a  psychological  phenomenon whereby the attractiveness of a person perceived as competent increases if the person commits a blunder. Conversely, the attractiveness of a person perceived as incompetent decreases if the person commits a blunder.

Physical Attractiveness: Ask anyone, to describe what they look for in a prospective partner or better what would make them fall in love? Most likely answers are, “…warmth is important, sensitivity is important, intelligence is important, compassion is important, a sense of humor is important, and they'll say that looks aren't important…” Various experiments have proven that Physical Attractiveness is one of the most important determinants of who falls in love with whom!

Gain Loss Effect: Richa found Salman attractive and competent but Salman did not take much notice of it. They were good friends. Over time, as Richa started spending more time with Salman, Salman started liking Richa (remember proximity, familiarity). Now, in this case, Richa has a Gain over her original position. She would be much more committed to the relationship and derive more satisfaction out of it. The opposite is also true. If Richa’s attention towards Salman reduces, he may experience Loss over his original position and he may not be as committed to the relationship.

In this effect, the original position is very important.

Lastly, Misattribution. “…This is a phenomenon about the misattribution for the causes of arousal. You feel physiologically aroused but you're not completely sure why, and you have to make up an explanation for it…”  There are many experiment that prove this. This may also be the reason why people stay in physically abusive relationship! This may also explain the Stockholm Syndrome.

Here is the lecture by Peter Salovay: