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Sure, your heart thumps, but let’s look at what’s happening physically and psychologically

“They gave each other a smile with a future in it.” — Ring Lardner

Love’s warm squishiness seems a thing far removed from the cold, hard reality of science. Yet the two do meet, whether in lab tests for surging hormones or in austere chambers where MRI scanners noisily thunk and peer into brains that ignite at glimpses of their soulmates.

When it comes to thinking deeply about love, poets, philosophers, and even high school boys gazing dreamily at girls two rows over have a significant head start on science. But the field is gamely racing to catch up.

One database of scientific publications turns up more than 6,600 pages of results in a search for the word “love.” The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is conducting 18 clinical trials on it (though, like love itself, NIH’s “love” can have layered meanings, including as an acronym for a study of Crohn’s disease). Though not normally considered an intestinal ailment, love is often described as an illness, and the smitten as lovesick. Comedian George Burns once described love as something like a backache: “It doesn’t show up on X-rays, but you know it’s there.”

Richard Schwartz , associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a consultant to McLean and Massachusetts General (MGH) hospitals, says it’s never been proven that love makes you physically sick, though it does raise levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that has been shown to suppress immune function.

Love also turns on the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is known to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers. Couple that with a drop in levels of serotonin — which adds a dash of obsession — and you have the crazy, pleasing, stupefied, urgent love of infatuation.

It’s also true, Schwartz said, that like the moon — a trigger of its own legendary form of madness — love has its phases.

“It’s fairly complex, and we only know a little about it,” Schwartz said. “There are different phases and moods of love. The early phase of love is quite different” from later phases.

During the first love-year, serotonin levels gradually return to normal, and the “stupid” and “obsessive” aspects of the condition moderate. That period is followed by increases in the hormone oxytocin, a neurotransmitter associated with a calmer, more mature form of love. The oxytocin helps cement bonds, raise immune function, and begin to confer the health benefits found in married couples, who tend to live longer, have fewer strokes and heart attacks, be less depressed, and have higher survival rates from major surgery and cancer.

Schwartz has built a career around studying the love, hate, indifference, and other emotions that mark our complex relationships. And, though science is learning more in the lab than ever before, he said he still has learned far more counseling couples. His wife and sometime collaborator, Jacqueline Olds , also an associate professor of psychiatry at HMS and a consultant to McLean and MGH, agrees.

Spouses Richard Schwartz and Jacqueline Olds, both associate professors of psychiatry, have collaborated on a book about marriage.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

More knowledge, but struggling to understand

“I think we know a lot more scientifically about love and the brain than we did a couple of decades ago, but I don’t think it tells us very much that we didn’t already know about love,” Schwartz said. “It’s kind of interesting, it’s kind of fun [to study]. But do we think that makes us better at love, or helping people with love? Probably not much.”

Love and companionship have made indelible marks on Schwartz and Olds. Though they have separate careers, they’re separate together, working from discrete offices across the hall from each other in their stately Cambridge home. Each has a professional practice and independently trains psychiatry students, but they’ve also collaborated on two books about loneliness and one on marriage. Their own union has lasted 39 years, and they raised two children.

“I think we know a lot more scientifically about love and the brain than we did a couple of decades ago … But do we think that makes us better at love, or helping people with love? Probably not much.” Richard Schwartz, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

“I have learned much more from doing couples therapy, and being in a couple’s relationship” than from science, Olds said. “But every now and again, something like the fMRI or chemical studies can help you make the point better. If you say to somebody, ‘I think you’re doing this, and it’s terrible for a relationship,’ they may not pay attention. If you say, ‘It’s corrosive, and it’s causing your cortisol to go way up,’ then they really sit up and listen.”

A side benefit is that examining other couples’ trials and tribulations has helped their own relationship over the inevitable rocky bumps, Olds said.

“To some extent, being a psychiatrist allows you a privileged window into other people’s triumphs and mistakes,” Olds said. “And because you get to learn from them as they learn from you, when you work with somebody 10 years older than you, you learn what mistakes 10 years down the line might be.”

People have written for centuries about love shifting from passionate to companionate, something Schwartz called “both a good and a sad thing.” Different couples experience that shift differently. While the passion fades for some, others keep its flames burning, while still others are able to rekindle the fires.

“You have a tidal-like motion of closeness and drifting apart, closeness and drifting apart,” Olds said. “And you have to have one person have a ‘distance alarm’ to notice the drifting apart so there can be a reconnection … One could say that in the couples who are most successful at keeping their relationship alive over the years, there’s an element of companionate love and an element of passionate love. And those each get reawakened in that drifting back and forth, the ebb and flow of lasting relationships.”

Children as the biggest stressor

Children remain the biggest stressor on relationships, Olds said, adding that it seems a particular problem these days. Young parents feel pressure to raise kids perfectly, even at the risk of their own relationships. Kids are a constant presence for parents. The days when child care consisted of the instruction “Go play outside” while mom and dad reconnected over cocktails are largely gone.

When not hovering over children, America’s workaholic culture, coupled with technology’s 24/7 intrusiveness, can make it hard for partners to pay attention to each other in the evenings and even on weekends. It is a problem that Olds sees even in environments that ought to know better, such as psychiatry residency programs.

“There are all these sweet young doctors who are trying to have families while they’re in residency,” Olds said. “And the residencies work them so hard there’s barely time for their relationship or having children or taking care of children. So, we’re always trying to balance the fact that, in psychiatry, we stand for psychological good health, but [in] the residency we run, sometimes we don’t practice everything we preach.”

“There is too much pressure … on what a romantic partner should be. They should be your best friend, they should be your lover, they should be your closest relative, they should be your work partner, they should be the co-parent, your athletic partner. … Of course everybody isn’t able to quite live up to it.” Jacqueline Olds, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

All this busy-ness has affected non-romantic relationships too, which has a ripple effect on the romantic ones, Olds said. A respected national social survey has shown that in recent years people have gone from having three close friends to two, with one of those their romantic partner.

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“Often when you scratch the surface … the second [friend] lives 3,000 miles away, and you can’t talk to them on the phone because they’re on a different time schedule,” Olds said. “There is too much pressure, from my point of view, on what a romantic partner should be. They should be your best friend, they should be your lover, they should be your closest relative, they should be your work partner, they should be the co-parent, your athletic partner. There’s just so much pressure on the role of spouse that of course everybody isn’t able to quite live up to it.”

Since the rising challenges of modern life aren’t going to change soon, Schwartz and Olds said couples should try to adopt ways to fortify their relationships for life’s long haul. For instance, couples benefit from shared goals and activities, which will help pull them along a shared life path, Schwartz said.

“You’re not going to get to 40 years by gazing into each other’s eyes,” Schwartz said. “I think the fact that we’ve worked on things together has woven us together more, in good ways.”

Maintain curiosity about your partner

Also important is retaining a genuine sense of curiosity about your partner, fostered both by time apart to have separate experiences, and by time together, just as a couple, to share those experiences. Schwartz cited a study by Robert Waldinger, clinical professor of psychiatry at MGH and HMS, in which couples watched videos of themselves arguing. Afterwards, each person was asked what the partner was thinking. The longer they had been together, the worse they actually were at guessing, in part because they thought they already knew.

“What keeps love alive is being able to recognize that you don’t really know your partner perfectly and still being curious and still be exploring,” Schwartz said. “Which means, in addition to being sure you have enough time and involvement with each other — that that time isn’t stolen — making sure you have enough separateness that you can be an object of curiosity for the other person.”

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• Published: 31 January 2024

A decade of love: mapping the landscape of romantic love research through bibliometric analysis

• Yixue Han 1 ,
• Yulin Luo 1 ,
• Zhuohong Chen 1 ,
• Nan Gao 1 ,
• Yangyang Song 1 &
• Shen Liu 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  187 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Given the limited availability of bibliometric and visual analysis on the topic of romantic love, the primary objective of the current study is to fill this gap by conducting a comprehensive visual analysis of relevant literature. Through this analysis, the current study aimed to uncover current research trends and identify potential future directions in the field of romantic love. The current study’s search criteria were met by an impressive 6858 publications found in the Web of Science database for the period between 2013 and 2022. A thorough analysis was conducted on the bibliographic visualization of the authors, organizations, countries, references, and keywords. Over time, there has been a remarkable surge in the number of significant publications. Among the authors in the field of romantic love, Emily A. Impett has emerged as the most prolific. The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships is indeed one of the top journals that has published a significant number of articles on the topic of romantic love. During the preceding decade, the University of California System emerged as a prominent producer of publications centered around romantic love, solidifying the United States’ position as a dominant player in this field. In recent times, there has been a significant surge in the popularity of keywords such as “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships” within academic literature. These topics have experienced a burst of attention, as evidenced by a substantial increase in references and citations. Through the use of visualization maps and analysis of key publications, the current study offers a comprehensive overview of the key concepts and potential avenues for future research in the field of romantic love. Gaining a deep understanding of the complex dynamics and societal implications of romantic love has been instrumental in formulating policies that embody increased compassion and support. As a result, these policies have played a pivotal role in fostering resilient familial ties and contributing to the enduring stability and prosperity of our social fabric.

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Introduction, the development course of romantic love.

Romantic love, as defined by Hatfield and Rapson ( 1987 ) as an intense longing for union with another, has long been recognized as a driving force behind some of humanity’s most remarkable achievements. Studies by Bartels and Zeki ( 2000 ) and the work of Fehr ( 2013 , 2015 ) have further emphasized its profound impact. Previous research has suggested that romantic love has a crucial role in the development and maintenance of romantic relationships. It involves a transition from the significant investment of time and attention in the initial stages to enhanced communication and satisfaction in committed partnerships (Mizrahi et al. 2022 ). However, recent research has shown that in the United States, the divorce rate has consistently remained at historically high levels. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( 2017 ), ~40–50% of first marriages end in divorce. In recent times, there has been a trend toward shorter and more prevalent romantic relationships. Alirezanejad ( 2022 ) found that different generations of women have maintained distinct expectations and experiences when it comes to love. Additionally, the significance of commitment in romantic relationships has witnessed a decline. These findings also indicate that there are additional factors at play that influence the dynamics between romantic love and the duration of relationships. The triangular theory of love, being one of the most widely used theories on romantic love, proposes that romantic love consists of three components: intimacy, passion, and an absence of commitment, alongside a willingness to invest resources without expecting reciprocation (Jimenez-Picon et al. 2022 ). The Love Attitude Scale (LAS) developed by Clyde and Susan Hendrick has been a significant contribution in the study of romantic love using psychometric methods. Tobore ( 2020 ) introduced a comprehensive four-fold framework that aims to elucidate the dynamics of how love evolves and diminishes. This framework includes the elements of attraction, empathy or connection, trust, and respect. As a result, the enigmatic and unique nature of romantic love has captivated the attention of scholars from various disciplines, including psychology, biology, sociology, and neuroscience. These scholars have conducted extensive research and investigations into the complexities of romantic love. Thus, the present study conducted a comprehensive and in-depth analysis and discourse on romantic love, spanning multiple research domains. Additionally, the publication emphasized the influence of romantic love on positive emotions as well as its association with various negative behaviors. Furthermore, it underscored the importance of utilizing bibliometric analysis as a valuable approach to study and understand romantic love.

The research directions of romantic love in different disciplines

Psychologists have focused on exploring the relationship between romantic love and negative emotions in individuals with mental illnesses. Lafontaine et al. ( 2020 ) found a correlation between romantic love insecurity, specifically anxiety and avoidance, and the occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV). This pattern of behavior was shown to undermine relationships and diminish individuals’ sense of security. Moreover, individuals with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions faced significant challenges in building and sustaining healthy interpersonal connections, partly due to the enduring stigma associated with mental illness (Budziszewska et al. 2020 ). Biological researchers have delved into the physiological activities and responses associated with romantic love. Furthermore, biological research has demonstrated that communication plays a crucial role in enhancing romantic relationships by facilitating physiological and behavioral adaptations between partners. For instance, a study by Zeevi et al. ( 2022 ) revealed that men and women in a romantic relationship can enhance their romantic interest in each other by synchronizing their skin electrical activities and modifying their behavior. These findings suggest that the social adaptation of the sympathetic nervous system and motor behavior play a critical role in the romantic attraction between partners. Furthermore, recent biological research conducted by Kerr et al. ( 2022 ) has discovered a correlation between unsuitable adult attachment in romantic relationships and the interpersonal circumplex, which is a component of personality pathology. Furthermore, a sociological study on pair-bonding conducted by Fletcher et al. ( 2015 ) highlighted that romantic love is intricately linked to the evolution and survival of Homo sapiens, making it a biologically significant function with profound evolutionary implications. Neuroscientists have examined the activation of different brain regions that are triggered by romantic love activities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has emerged as a prominent technique for studying the neurobiological basis of love. Researchers such as Acevedo et al. ( 2020 ) and Chester et al. ( 2021 ) have utilized fMRI to investigate the neural correlates of romantic love and gain insights into the brain mechanisms underlying this complex phenomenon. Neuroscientists have identified specific brain regions associated with love, including the insula and anterior cingulate cortex. These regions are involved in the processing of emotional experiences related to valued objects. A study by Bartels and Zeki ( 2000 ) highlighted the involvement of these brain regions in the experience of romantic love, shedding light on the neural mechanisms underlying the emotional aspects of love. The activation of reward-related areas in the brain, particularly those rich in oxytocin, has been observed in individuals experiencing love. Studies by Acevedo et al. ( 2012 ) and Bartels and Zeki ( 2004 ) have shown that regions associated with reward processing, such as the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, are involved in the experience of romantic love. Indeed, the involvement of the reward system in love has surpassed expectations. During the initial stages of romantic love, research conducted by Fisher et al. ( 2010 ) has shown that reward-related brain regions, including the bilateral ventral tegmental areas, are activated more strongly compared to the later stages of passion.

The social impact of romantic love

Undoubtedly, falling in love has a profound impact on people’s daily lives, as highlighted by research conducted by Quintard et al. ( 2021 ). Falling in love has been associated with enhanced well-being and has been correlated with fervor, activity, pleasure, and other positive emotions, as noted in research conducted by Langeslag ( 2022 ). However, it is important to acknowledge that the pitfalls of romantic love are often overlooked. Research, such as that conducted by Lonergan et al. ( 2022 ), has found associations between romantic love and criminal activity as well as psychological disorders. Additionally, studies by Aron et al. ( 2005 ), Merritt et al. ( 2022 ) and Li et al. ( 2022 ) have highlighted the presence of unpleasant affective states such as hyperarousal, anxiety, and depression in the context of romantic love. In recent decades, romantic love has undergone significant transformations that have had a substantial impact on both personal and societal life, as emphasized by research conducted by Reis et al. ( 2013 ).

The necessity of bibliometric analysis

Bibliometrics is a field that encompasses the quantitative study of documents, aiming to provide researchers with insights into academic, technological, and scientific advancements (William and Concepción 2001 ). The methodology utilized a range of techniques, including author analysis, concept mapping, clustering, factor analysis, and citation analysis, to investigate historical data and assist scholars in identifying significant trends and emerging directions within their disciplines (Daim et al. 2006 ; Hou et al. 2022 ). The term “bibliometrics” was coined by the distinguished British scientist Allen Richard in 1969, replacing the previously employed term “statistical bibliography.” In recent years, there has been a surging interest in this approach, with a growing number of researchers incorporating it into their work. Bibliometric analysis has been employed in various research domains, including the study of romantic love. These analyses offer valuable insights into the research areas that have been investigated, as well as potential future trends, challenges, and opportunities in the field. To the best of our knowledge, there have been limited previous publications that have specifically analyzed romantic love based on the triangular theory of love development and explored the concept across different disciplines.

In the current study, we utilized state-of-the-art analytical tools, including CiteSpace (6.2.R2), VOSviewer (1.6.18), Microsoft Excel (2019), and Scimago Graphica (1.0.26), in conjunction with the most recent data obtained from the Web of Science (WOS) core collection database. These tools allowed us to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric and visual analysis of publications related to romantic love published in the last decade. By employing these cutting-edge tools and leveraging the extensive data available from WOS, we aimed to gain valuable insights into the research landscape surrounding romantic love during this specific time frame. Our study aimed to achieve several objectives. First, we sought to identify the current research hotspots and trends within the field of romantic love. Second, we aimed to conduct an in-depth examination of visual maps and seminal articles, providing a comprehensive overview of the literature.

Material and methods

Data acquisition and search strategy.

The Web of Science (WOS) platform served as a valuable resource, containing a vast collection of over 9000 significant academic articles. This database stands as one of the oldest and most comprehensive citation index records, encompassing a wide range of disciplines, including social science, engineering technology, biomedicine, arts and humanities, and various other subjects. Since its establishment in 1900, the Web of Science (WOS) has served as a cornerstone of scholarly research and has wielded significant influence within academic circles (Ellegaard and Wallin 2015 ). The quantitative analysis feature of the platform facilitated the acquisition of various types of information related to scholarly publications. This included data on the annual number of papers published, papers published by state or region, popular journals within specific disciplines, frequently utilized publishing houses, and highly downloaded and cited literature. Indeed, references that receive multiple citations play a crucial role in providing a robust foundation for the study of romantic love, as emphasized by Xu et al. ( 2022 ).

The subject matter of romantic love and its interrelation with romantic relationships has a profound impact on the satisfaction and longevity of love between individuals, as highlighted by Zagefka ( 2022 ). Passionate love is a fundamental concept within romantic relationships, as emphasized by Mizrahi et al. ( 2022 ). Sternberg’s triangular theory of love stands as one of the most substantial and frequently referenced frameworks for understanding love, as noted by Sorokowski et al. ( 2021 ). To comprehensively explore the topic, the search strategy incorporated the inclusion of the following elements: The topic could encompass “romantic love,” OR “passionate love,” OR “romantic relationship,” OR “triangular theory of love.”‘ The search was conducted within the Web of Science Core Collection database, which covers the time period from 2013 to 2022. The database indexes the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and Social Science Citation Index-Expanded (SSCI-EXPANDED). The search was limited to publications written in the English language. To refine the search and focus on specific types of publications, certain categories were excluded from the search results. These excluded categories included early access, book chapters, proceeding papers, data papers, and retracted publications. By excluding these categories, the search aimed to prioritize reviews and articles, which are typically considered primary sources of scholarly information. As a result of these refined search criteria, a total of 6858 relevant items were identified and included in the analysis.

The retrieval strategy employed in this research was designed to maintain the integrity and impartiality of the search process (see Fig. 1 ).

To ensure that the search results were not influenced by daily database updates, all searches were conducted on a single day, specifically on March 26, 2023.

Analysis tool

For bibliometric analysis, the current study utilized a powerful combination of CiteSpace (6.2.R2), VOSviewer (1.6.18), Microsoft Excel (2019), and Scimago Graphica (1.0.26). These state-of-the-art software tools seamlessly integrated insights from scientometrics, information science, computer science, and other related fields to generate highly intuitive and informative visual maps. These maps revealed the development trajectory and structural underpinnings of scientific research. Indeed, each of these four software applications held unique and irreplaceable significance, excelling in specific domains of bibliometric analysis. Excel, for instance, demonstrated unparalleled proficiency in the intuitive transformation of charts. CiteSpace specialized in the clustering of topics and the delineation of the spatio-temporal background of words. VOSviewer played a pivotal role in both displaying and analyzing keywords, leveraging its distinctive capabilities. Lastly, Scimago Graphica contributed significantly to the geographical perspective of statistical analysis, offering insights that were unmatched in their comprehensiveness. Collectively, these tools not only proved indispensable but also brought their individual strengths to the forefront, contributing uniquely to the overall analytical landscape. Indeed, the Excel program was commonly employed to comprehensively analyze key data points such as the number of published papers, frequency of citations, and matched published documents. It was also employed to synthesize all the information for creating intuitive visual representations (Fig. 2 ) to illustrate the trends in the number of publications, citations, and their corresponding fitting functions during different periods. The use of CiteSpace in the current study was focused on highlighting the most salient occurrence burst on a timeline map and detecting the centrality of romantic love studies (Zhang et al. 2022a ). In order to attain a comprehensive understanding of the progress in romantic love research, an evolutionary analysis was undertaken, utilizing CiteSpace’s burst function. Co-occurrence analysis on pertinent keywords is another valuable method used to gain insights into the relationships and patterns among keywords in a specific research domain. Indeed, the analyses conducted, including the evolutionary analysis and co-occurrence analysis, facilitated an examination of the prevailing themes and trends of romantic love across different generations from a chronological perspective. VOSviewer, a powerful visualization tool, was utilized in the current study to portray the borders of romantic love with varying color clusters. It also facilitated the exploration of the co-occurrence of authors, institutions, and keywords associated with romantic love. The circles of various colors and sizes were used to represent the occurrence frequency of distinct cluster words and different keywords, respectively. The examination of keywords in the current study, augmented by chart analysis, delved into a more profound, comprehensive, and scientific level. Scimago Graphica 1.0.18, a tool designed for visualizing international collaboration, proved highly effective in the current study for facilitating the visualization of international collaboration (He et al. 2022 ). By organically combining the atlas and the world map, researchers were able to intuitively observe differences in the number of publications across various countries and the extent of national collaboration between different regions.

The trend exhibited an upward trajectory, with an estimated 938 publications in 2021, compared to 502 publications in 2013. Notably, the annual publication volume in the field of romantic love had reached its peak in 2021, as indicated by the fitted equation. However, it is worth mentioning that there was a slight decrease in publication numbers during specific periods. From 2017 to 2018, the annual publication count declined from 644 to 608. Similarly, from 2019 to 2020, there was a minor decrease from 872 to 861 publications annually. Additionally, there was a slight decline from 2021 to 2022, with the number of publications decreasing from 938 to 817 annually.

In the previous study, a comprehensive range of factors was considered to provide a thorough and scientifically rigorous atlas analysis of romantic love research. These factors included the annual publication rate, citation counts, H-index, impact factor, centrality, and occurrence/citation burst. An increase in the volume of publications can indicate the growth of a field and provide insights into future research directions (Wang 2016 ). While the number of citations a paper receives may not directly measure an author’s academic influence, it can indicate the recognition of the author’s work by peers worldwide. The “H-index” was a tool for evaluating academic influence, where a researcher with an “H-index” of 10 had 10 papers that had been cited at least 10 times (Wang et al. 2021 ). Since its inception in the 1950s, the impact factor has been widely regarded as a prominent index for ranking scientific literature. It has become an emblem of the prestige and significance of journals and authors in determining the relevance of a journal (Oosthuizen and Fenton 2014 ). For the current study, Journal Citation Reports (JCR) were utilized to calculate impact factors (2021). The centrality of research objects can indeed reflect their impact on the entire field, with greater centrality indicating a greater representation of homologous study content within a subject area. In the study conducted by Gao et al. ( 2021 ), betweenness centrality scores were adjusted to the range of [0, 1]. Specifically, if the betweenness centrality score of a main keyword exceeded 0.10, it was considered to indicate the significance of the study target. In the study conducted by Xu et al. ( 2022 ), the concept of a “burst term” was utilized to refer to an unexpected term that emerged in the research, potentially indicating new directions or orientations discovered during the investigation. The Kleinberg burst detection method, which is implemented in the CiteSpace software, was employed to identify these burst terms and highlight them as indicators of frontier research.

Publication outputs

A total of 6858 records met the search criteria. As depicted in Fig. 2 , the number of annual publications in the field of romantic love has shown a consistent upward trend since 2013. This increase is accompanied by a corresponding surge in citation counts, as indicated by the fitted equation. Citation counts in the field of romantic love have also experienced a significant upsurge since 2013, with an approximate 90-fold increase by 2022. Furthermore, based on current trends and fitting curves, the number of studies in this field is expected to continue rising, with an increasing number of researchers focusing on this topic.

Distribution by journals

The current study retrieved a total of 6858 records from 1251 journals, with ~33.79% of the material published by 20 publications that released more than 50 papers in this field. The top ten journals, accounting for 23.78% (92–400) of all papers published, had an average publication count of 134 papers per journal (see Table 1 ). Among them, the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (400 publications, IF 2021 = 2.681) had the highest number of papers on romantic love research, followed by Personal Relationships (189 publications, IF 2021 = 1.528), and Personality and Individual Differences (185 publications, IF 2021 = 3.950). Notably, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology was the most influential professional core journal in this field, boasting the highest impact factor (8.460). Both European and American journals have made significant contributions to this field, with the United States and the United Kingdom accounting for 40% and 50% of the top 10 journal publishing countries/regions, respectively. The impact factors of the top 10 most-published journals ranged from 1.528 to 8.460, with an average of 4.070. It is worth noting that publishing romantic love-related articles in high-impact journals remains challenging.

Distribution by authors and research areas

A staggering 15,088 authors contributed to the total number of papers. In Fig. 3 , the collaborative efforts of the writers were illustrated through a network map, where the connections between the nodes signified their collaborative affiliations. Among the top three clusters, the red cluster included authors Joseph P. Allen, Martine Hebert, and Marie-France Lafontaine, who had converged due to their shared research interests in adolescent dating violence and aggression (Cenat et al. 2022 ; Niolon et al. 2015 ). The blue cluster consisted of authors Frank D. Fincham, James K. Monk, and Ashley K. Randall, who had explored the interplay between relationship satisfaction, stress, and relationship maintenance in romantic relationships (Randall and Bodenmann 2017 ; Vennum et al. 2017 ). The yellow cluster included authors Todd K. Shackelford, William J. Chopik, and Justin K. Mogilski, whose work focused on the topic of polygamy (Moors et al. 2019 ; Sela et al. 2017 ). Martine Hebert, Todd K. Shackelford, Frank D. Fincham, and Emily A. Impett emerged as the cooperative network’s central nodes, underscoring their crucial role in advancing research on romantic love.

The authors’ cooperative network was partitioned into eight distinct clusters.

Table 2 provided a rundown of the most productive authors, with their published works ranging from 28 to 74 publications, averaging 41. The H-index, a yardstick for measuring academic influence, was employed to assess their impact. Notably, Emily A. Impett emerged as the dominant force within the cohort of scholars dedicated to the study of romantic love, having authored the most papers among the group (74 publications, H-index = 38). Additionally, Nickola C. Overall (42 publications, H-index = 19) and Amy Muise (60 publications, H-index = 30) also featured prominently as leading contributors to the field.

Table 3 and Fig. 4 displayed the number of publications in different fields of study related to the topic of romantic love. Notably, publications in the fields of biology, neuroscience, and economics were also included in Table 3 . The humanities were increasingly collaborating on romantic love research. Furthermore, the topic of romantic love was gaining popularity in the fields of psychology and sociology.

The field of psychology, including psychology and psychiatry, was significantly ahead. The field of sociology encompassed various topics in the social sciences, including sociology and social work.

Distribution by country and institution

A total of 6858 publications had been published and disseminated to 104 countries and regions worldwide. In the country analysis, Scimago Graphica had been used to explore the geographic collaboration network of participating nations. The participants of the current study were drawn from 104 different countries spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America, with Europe exhibiting the highest level of overall engagement, underscoring the global trend toward collaboration. The United States and the United Kingdom had demonstrated the greatest degree of cooperation. Notably, China, South Africa, Spain, Italy, France, and other countries with high cooperation densities had formed the most significant multi-center cooperation network in this field (see Fig. 5 ). Figure 6 illustrated international collaboration.

By leveraging Scimago Graphica, it was possible to merge geographical perspectives with national publications and collaborative relationships, providing an intuitive and scientific method to illuminate the various conditions of countries involved in the research on romantic love.

The largest blue cluster was comprised of the United States, China, Switzerland, Turkey, and Norway, demonstrating collaboration across the Americas, Europe, and East Asia.

Table 4 outlined the specifics of the top ten countries in the landscape of romantic love research. The United States topped the list with 4092 publications, followed by Canada with 802 publications, and the United Kingdom with 540 publications. It is noteworthy that the majority of publications were disseminated from high-income countries, aligning with the overall prosperity of those nations. Most papers were disseminated in high-income countries. This trend might have stemmed from the overarching principles governing scientific inquiry, or it could be attributed to authors in these nations having the freedom to engage in research spanning areas not necessarily centered on economic growth. However, within the realm of general well-being, this emerges as a pertinent concern. Primarily, high-income countries historically boasted more affluent reservoirs of research resources, encompassing financial backing, cutting-edge equipment, and a pool of adept talent. This affluence empowered researchers in these nations to embark on a diverse array of investigations, spanning domains intricately tied to economic growth and extending to those delving into broader realms such as general well-being and social development. The discernible divergence in resource allocation likely contributed to the disproportionate prevalence of publications in high-income countries. Secondarily, the scrutiny of whether the romantic love research domain intricately correlates with economic growth warrants profound contemplation. At times, the merit of research doesn’t solely reside in its potential to spur short-term economic growth but extends to its impact on the overarching well-being and sustainable evolution of society. High-income countries, historically oriented toward prioritizing protracted social well-being, manifested a proclivity to endorse research that, while not directly contributing to economic growth, played an indispensable role in the comprehensive development of society. Institutional collaboration was vividly portrayed in Fig. 7 , which consisted of six clusters. A total of 3328 institutions contributed to the 6858 articles on romantic love. Of the top 10 organizations, universities occupied the top spot (as indicated in Table 5 ), with the State University System of Florida (246 publications), the University System of Ohio (248 publications), and the University of California System (365 publications) leading the pack. Notably, nine out of the top 10 institutions hailed from the United States, which was a testament to the country’s exceptional research prowess in this field.

The red cluster denoted collaboration among Florida State University, University of Michigan, University of Washington, and Indiana University; the green cluster represented Ohio State University, University of Basel, and Nanyang Technological University; while the blue cluster embodied York University, the University of Toronto, Northwestern University, and Carleton University. Northwestern University, Florida State University, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Toronto were the major nodes in the cooperative network.

Analysis of references

Reference analysis played a critical role in bibliometric research, as the references with the highest citation bursts formed the foundation of knowledge at the forefront of research (Fitzpatrick 2005 ). In Fig. 8 , the current study presented the most relevant references on romantic love, which had experienced a surge in citations over the past decade. By the end of 2022, Mikulincer and Shaver’s ( 2016 ) articles had seen a significant increase in their citation counts, with the highest spike (14.35) observed in 2016, followed by Wincentak et al.’s ( 2017 ) studies (9.9). These two studies had been widely cited over the years and accurately captured the latest trends in romantic love research.

These references were represented by red and green bars, indicating their frequent and less frequent citation, respectively.

Mikulincer and Shaver’s ( 2016 ) delved into the causes and methods for measuring individual differences in adult attachment, as well as how to modify attachment styles, using several empirical studies. Additionally, they explored the cutting-edge genetics, neurological, and hormonal substrates of attachment, expanding the impact model’s depiction of how the attachment system functioned. In the study, Wincentak et al. ( 2017 ) discussed the prevalence of dating violence among adolescents of different genders using a meta-analysis method, while also examining the potential regulatory effects of age, demographics, and measurement. Research has shown that in adolescent dating violence, the crime rate of women was significantly lower than that of men. Based on the analysis of these articles, current research trends in romantic love included adult attachment and the examination of adolescents’ irrational beliefs about love and the resulting adverse consequences, such as dating violence.

Analysis of keywords

Keyword burst refers to keywords that have shown a sharp increase in frequency over time, enabling the assessment of the current study focus in this area and reflecting the development pattern of future research. The current study extracted the burst terms of various years in the area of romantic love to obtain the burst terms of various years in the area of romantic love (see Fig. 9 ). As we’ve seen, the field had a diverse range of research interests. By the end of 2022, the three words with the highest peak were “same-sex” (2020–2022), “conflict resolution” (2020–2022), and “social relationships” (2020–2022):

Same-sex: in a society that valued heterosexual relationships, same-sex relationships were often met with shame and stigma, leading to additional pressures uniquely linked to their sexual orientation and partnership (Feinstein et al. 2018 ; Rostosky and Riggle 2017 ). Moreover, the online conduct of gay individuals has been demonstrated to have significant implications for their sexual risk behaviors and emotional well-being in romantic relationships (Zhang et al. 2022b ). The development of effective dual interventions has been shown to enhance the health and well-being of same-sex couples and their families. These interventions should also educate parents about the potential negative effects of heteronormative assumptions and attitudes on their children’s positive adolescent development (Pearson and Wilkinson 2013 ).

Conflict resolution: previous research has shown the irony that a person’s favorite individual, such as their romantic partner, is often the very person with whom they engage in destructive behavior during conflicts, making this destructive response one of the most challenging issues in relationships (Alonso-Ferres et al. 2021 ). As a result, it was critical to effectively resolve conflicts in a constructive manner. The emergence of computer-mediated communication (CMC) as a novel conflict resolution approach prompted researchers to explore this matter. Ultimately, they discovered that there were no differences in pain, anger, and conflict resolution levels between face-to-face and CMC discussions (Pollmann et al. 2020 ). Another study focused on neural activity during conflict resolution, revealing that mediation could enhance conflict resolution and was linked to increased activity in the nucleus accumbens, a crucial area of the brain’s reward circuit (Rafi et al. 2020 ). The finding emphasizes the importance of identifying neural mechanisms that could enhance conflict resolution and improve relationship outcomes. By exploring various conflict resolution approaches and associated neural mechanisms, researchers can facilitate a deeper understanding of how to successfully resolve conflicts and enhance relationship satisfaction.

Social relationships: long-term relationships are vital to the mental health of both humans and animals. Positive emotions and experiences, such as romantic or platonic love, play a significant role in the establishment and maintenance of social bonds. With this in mind, researchers integrated brain imaging studies on emotions characterized by social connections to investigate whether and how humans and animals experience social emotions and influences similarly in the context of social relationships (Zablocki-Thomas et al. 2022 ). An ecological and cross-cutting perspective study found that black Americans viewed their partner’s interactions regarding discrimination as an opportunity for their romantic partner to offer support, as revealed in semi-structured interviews (Rice 2023 ). Furthermore, as romantic relationships represent one of the most unique types of social connections, researchers utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning techniques to explore the neurobiological mechanisms of romantic relationships (Eckstein et al. 2023 ), offering valuable insight for the preservation and maintenance of social relationships and interactions.

Over the last 10 years, the most popular keywords were “same-sex” (11.07), “dating relationships” (9.22), and “HIV” (9.05), indicating high demand for these topics in recent years. The keywords with the longest blasting times were “dating relationships” (2014–2017) and “delinquency” (2014–2017). The phrases that were still trending in 2022 were hotspots.

Figure 10 illustrated the relationship between keywords. The connection strength between two nodes was a quantitative measure of their relationship. The most frequently used keyword, “romantic relationship,” was represented by the largest node in Fig. 10 (see Table 6 ). The “romantic relationship” (2036) node had thicker lines than “attachment” (766), “gender” (728), “satisfaction” (664), “behavior” (529), “marriage” (508), “commitment” (419), “adolescents” (417), “associations” (395), and “intimate partner relationship” (336). The nodes had a minimum link strength of 150. The close connections between “romantic relationship” and “marriage,” “commitment,” and “intimate partnership” demonstrated the importance of stable, long-term relationships in maintaining romantic love (Fu et al. 2012 ).

The connection strength between two nodes was a quantitative measure of their relationship. The total link strength of a node was the sum of its link strengths relative to all other nodes (Liao et al. 2018).

Keywords are essential in identifying the central themes and prospective avenues of a publication. By examining the co-occurrence of keywords, one can discern the current trajectory of research and development in a specific field (Zhang et al. 2022c ). In the present investigation, a total of 16,148 keywords were extracted from 6858 articles related to romantic love, with 10,571 being used only once, accounting for 65.46% of the total keywords. Through keyword co-occurrence analysis, six distinct color-coded clusters were identified, comprising attachment, gender, romantic relationships, personality, communication, and dynamics. The red cluster, attachment, delved into the complex relationships among commitment, fulfillment, companionship, and attachment insecurity. To address the diminished satisfaction in partner relationships caused by attachment insecurity, promoting healthy dualistic coping strategies (DCS) was recommended (Peloquin et al. 2022 ). The green cluster, gender, focused on the issues of dating violence victimization experienced by young individuals of different genders, with sexual minorities being particularly vulnerable to bullying (Cosma et al. 2022 ). The blue cluster, romantic connections, primarily examined the link between depressive symptoms and violent intimate partner relationships. Recent studies showed that dating violence and peer victimization were prevalent among young individuals (Smith et al. 2021 ) and that dating aggression was associated with both internalized and externalized psychopathology in young couples (Lantagne and Furman 2021 ). Additionally, the misuse of internet dating may lead to depression (Toplu-Demirtas et al. 2020 ). Apart from the six clusters mentioned, there was a noticeable trend toward integrating research with neuroimaging technology, which might lead to the emergence of new clusters in the realm of romantic love. The interconnectedness of attachment, gender, and romantic relationships was evident in the strong theoretical foundation and widespread attention these clusters received, whereas the clusters of personality, communication, and dynamics were more peripherally related. Due to their significance, future research on romantic love will continue to explore topics such as intimate partner violence, teenage dating violence victimization, attachment insecurity, and sexual abuse, with a focus on the three interconnected clusters of attachment, gender, and romantic relationships. In traditional notions, our understanding of romantic love had primarily consisted of terms such as romantic relationships and intimate commitments. However, practical issues such as misperceptions about love and a lack of regard for partners have gradually shifted the subject matter of research pertaining to romantic love toward dating violence. The research trajectory demonstrates a shift in the focus of romantic love research from a more idealized perspective toward a more realistic one. Finally, Fig. 11 displayed a keyword timeline graph that depicted when the most prevalent keywords first appeared and their evolving importance over time.

This keyword timeline graph was depicted when the most prevalent keywords first appeared and their evolving importance over time.

The current study used advanced bibliometrics and literature data visualization techniques with CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Web of Science to examine the growth of research publications in the field of romantic love, as well as the main research nations, journals, and emerging trends. The thorough review provided insight into the present status of development and research in this field, while also clarifying the historical path of scholarship and providing clear guidance for future research. Using bibliometric methods, the study investigated romantic love research from 2013 to 2022. The results showed a steady increase in publications on this topic, with a slight decrease noted in 2019, likely due to the detrimental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on academic research. However, the analysis of current trends indicates a projected increase in research output on romantic love in the coming years.

Romantic love has been a global phenomenon, with Europe and the United States leading in widespread participation and clear concentration. Among the top 10 countries producing research in this field, the United States led with 4092 publications between 2013 and 2022. China, ranking fourth in terms of publications, emerged as the most prolific developing nation (328). However, compared to the United States, China lagged behind in publications and international collaboration. Therefore, China needs to expand its research efforts in this area and broaden its international partnerships. The top ten research institutions, mainly universities, played a vital role in advancing this field. Notably, nine out of ten of these institutions were located in the United States, further highlighting the preeminent position of American academic institutions in this area of study.

In the current study, we have discovered noteworthy findings regarding notable authors in the field of romantic love. The research studies have primarily focused on four distinct perspectives: the Limerence Theory, the Rate of Change in Intimacy Model, the Self-Expansion Model, and the Triangular Theory of Love. These perspectives have proposed four possible sources of romantic passion and assessed empirical evidence for and against each. Among the authors, Emily A. Impett has emerged as the most prolific author (Carswell and Impett 2021 ). Frank D. Fincham, who has the highest H-index, has conducted extensive research on the interplay between mindfulness and idiosyncratic mindfulness in romantic relationships. Notably, his research on adolescent intimate partner violence has received the most citations (Cui et al. 2013 ; Frank and Ross 2017 ; Kimmes et al. 2018 ). Furthermore, we found that an author’s centrality and citation frequency did not always correlate with their number of publications, indicating that various factors had contributed to an author’s academic influence (Zhang et al. 2022a ).

The term “burst term” refers to a term that unexpectedly appears in research and may indicate new directions or a novel perspective derived from research (Xu et al. 2022 ). According to Fig. 8 , the following references experienced a citation burst by the end of 2022: (1) Mikulincer and Shaver ( 2016 ) delved into the causes and measures of individual differences in adult attachment, explored the modifiability of attachment styles, and unveiled cutting-edge research in genetics, neurology, and hormones associated with attachment. They also extended the impact model’s depiction of the attachment system’s operation. (2) Wincentak et al. ( 2017 ) conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the prevalence of dating violence among adolescents of various genders, while also examining the potential impact of age, demographic factors, and measurement methods. Their findings suggested that the rate of perpetration of dating violence was significantly higher among male adolescents than female adolescents. In other words, male adolescents were more likely to engage in dating violence than their female counterparts. This gender difference in dating violence rates highlighted the need for targeted prevention and intervention efforts to address this issue among young people.

CiteSpace displayed keywords in bursts, as shown in Fig. 9 . These data were significant for reference in cutting-edge prediction research. The terms “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships” might be used frequently in the coming years, indicating potential areas of focus within the domain of romantic love:

Same-sex: same-sex relationships faced unique pressures and stigma in a society that largely valued heterosexual partnerships, leading to feelings of shame and additional stressors based on sexual orientation (Feinstein et al. 2018 ; Rostosky and Riggle 2017 ). Notably, studies have revealed that the online behavior of gay individuals could significantly impact their emotional well-being and sexual risk behaviors within their romantic relationships (Zhang et al. 2022b ). To improve the health and well-being of same-sex couples and their families, effective dual interventions have been developed, including educating parents about the potential harm caused by heteronormative assumptions and attitudes on their children’s adolescent development (Pearson and Wilkinson 2013 ).

Conflict resolution: prior research has revealed the paradox that a person’s beloved partner, such as their significant other, is often the individual with whom they engage in harmful behavior during conflicts. The negative reaction could be one of the most challenging issues in a relationship (Alonso-Ferres et al. 2021 ). Therefore, it is imperative to resolve conflicts in a successful manner. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has emerged as a novel approach to conflict resolution, and researchers have investigated this matter, concluding that there are no disparities in the levels of pain, anger, and conflict resolution between face-to-face and CMC discussions (Pollmann et al. 2020 ). Another study explored the neural mechanisms during conflict resolution, and researchers discovered that mediation could improve conflict resolution and was linked to elevated activity in the nucleus accumbens, a crucial area in the brain’s reward circuit (Rafi et al. 2020 ).

Social relationships: long-term relationships play a critical role in maintaining the mental health of both humans and animals. Positive emotions and emotional experiences, such as romantic or platonic love, are intricately linked to the formation and sustenance of social bonds. To gain insights into how social emotions manifest in both humans and animals, researchers integrated brain imaging studies of emotions associated with social connections (Zablocki-Thomas et al. 2022 ). From an ecological and cross-cutting perspective, another study found that Black Americans viewed their partner’s interactions around discrimination as an opportunity for their romantic partner to provide support, as revealed in semi-structured interviews (Rice 2023 ). Furthermore, given the unique nature of romantic relationships in social interactions, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to investigate the neurobiological mechanisms of such relationships (Eckstein et al. 2023 ), which could serve as a reference for the preservation and cultivation of social relationships.

To our knowledge, our study represented a novel application of quantitative bibliometric tools such as CiteSpace and VOSviewer to analyze the literature on romantic love over the past decade. While our analysis yielded intriguing insights into the research landscape of this field, our study was not without limitations. First and foremost, our sample was limited to articles and reviews available in a single database, and thus, may not have been fully representative of the entire research landscape on this topic. Second, the current study restricted our data collection to English-language publications, and future studies may benefit from including publications in other languages to ensure a more comprehensive analysis. Additionally, including different types of publications, such as conference papers and working papers, might have provided further insights into recent advancements in the field. Furthermore, it could be acknowledged that the analysis in the current study could be expanded to consider the contributions of other scholars and institutions in the field, beyond those captured by our data set. Finally, while the bibliometric tools used in our analysis were objective, our interpretation of the results remained subjective and may have been subject to varying interpretations.

Concluding remarks

Research significance and future development.

The present study’s comprehensive analysis of the literature on romantic love, as well as its reporting of research findings across diverse domains over the past decade, offered a solid groundwork for future research and potential worldwide applications. From 2013 to 2022, a staggering 6858 articles and reviews on romantic love were published globally, indicating a bright future for this field of inquiry. In terms of research potency, the United States led the pack, with the University of California System accounting for the majority of publications in the area of romantic love, and Emily A. Impett ranking as the most prolific contributor. The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships had published the most articles on romantic love research, while the most recent trends in romantic love-related keywords included “same-sex,” “conflict resolution,” and “social relationships.” The current research was predominantly centered around intimate relationships, evolutionary psychology, sexual orientation, and symptoms of depression. The trends elucidated by these findings underscore the holistic and interdisciplinary nature of romantic love within the realms of psychology, sociology, biology, and neuroscience. Subsequent investigations into romantic love hold the promise of a more profound amalgamation of methodologies derived from psychology and neuroscience, thereby illuminating the physiological underpinnings of love and emotional experiences. This prospect entails a meticulous exploration of brain activity, probing how intricate psychological processes intertwine with biology to forge the intricacies of romantic relationships. Furthermore, romantic love research stands poised to cultivate seamless integration and interdisciplinary cooperation across a spectrum of fields in the future, yielding profound ramifications.

Method limitation

The current study, which utilized tools such as CiteSpace and Vosviewer for a quantitative analysis of the literature on romantic love over the past 10 years, is the first of its kind to our knowledge. Our investigation, though producing intriguing results through bibliometric analysis and visualization of related articles, is not without its limitations. Firstly, the samples utilized were limited to a single database (WOS), which may not encompass all relevant publications on the subject. Secondly, the scope of our data collection was limited to articles and reviews in English only, leaving out potential information from other types of publications such as working papers and conference papers. In future studies, a broader consideration of different languages should also be given. Additionally, the neural mechanism and physiological function of romantic love remain an under-researched area with limited empirical evidence to support ongoing controversy.

Data availability

Original data for the current study are available via this link: https://rec.ustc.edu.cn/share/0d874150-b039-11ee-be97-f5a41b2eeb6e .

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This research was supported by the Starting Fund for Scientific Research of High-Level Talents at Anhui Agricultural University (rc432206) and the Outstanding Youth Program of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Anhui Province (2022AH030089) to SL.

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Han, Y., Luo, Y., Chen, Z. et al. A decade of love: mapping the landscape of romantic love research through bibliometric analysis. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 187 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02665-7

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Research Article

Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri–St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America

Affiliation Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

• Sandra J. E. Langeslag, 
• Jan W. van Strien

• Published: August 16, 2016
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087
• Reader Comments

Love feelings can be more intense than desired (e.g., after a break-up) or less intense than desired (e.g., in long-term relationships). If only we could control our love feelings! We present the concept of explicit love regulation, which we define as the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love. We present the first two studies on preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of love regulation. Questionnaire responses showed that people perceive love feelings as somewhat uncontrollable. Still, in four open questions people reported to use strategies such as cognitive reappraisal, distraction, avoidance, and undertaking (new) activities to cope with break-ups, to maintain long-term relationships, and to regulate love feelings. Instructed up-regulation of love using reappraisal increased subjective feelings of attachment, while love down-regulation decreased subjective feelings of infatuation and attachment. We used the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude as an objective index of regulation success. Instructed love up-regulation enhanced the LPP between 300–400 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship and in participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up, while love down-regulation reduced the LPP between 700–3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. These findings corroborate the self-reported feasibility of love regulation, although they are complicated by the finding that love up-regulation also reduced the LPP between 700–3000 ms in participants who were involved in a relationship. To conclude, although people have the preconception that love feelings are uncontrollable, we show for the first time that intentional regulation of love feelings using reappraisal, and perhaps other strategies, is feasible. Love regulation will benefit individuals and society because it could enhance positive effects and reduce negative effects of romantic love.

Citation: Langeslag SJE, van Strien JW (2016) Regulation of Romantic Love Feelings: Preconceptions, Strategies, and Feasibility. PLoS ONE 11(8): e0161087. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087

Editor: Alexandra Key, Vanderbilt University, UNITED STATES

Received: March 8, 2016; Accepted: July 31, 2016; Published: August 16, 2016

Copyright: © 2016 Langeslag, van Strien. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Our data cannot be made publicly available for ethical reasons. That is, participants were not asked for permission for their data to be shared. Parts of the data are available on request. Please send requests to Sandra Langeslag ( [email protected] ).

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

Romantic love strikes virtually everyone at least once (i.e., its lifetime prevalence approaches 100%) [ 1 ] and has a great impact on our lives. Romantic love has positive effects on individuals and society as a whole. For example, love is associated with positive emotions such as euphoria [ 2 ] and romantic relationships enhance happiness and life satisfaction [ 3 ]. But love also has a negative impact on individuals and society. For example, love is associated with stress [ 4 ] and jealousy [ 5 ], and romantic break-ups are associated with sadness and shame [ 6 ], a decrease in happiness and life satisfaction [ 7 ], and depression [ 8 ]. The high prevalence of love combined with its significant positive and negative impact on individuals and society make it an important research topic.

The word ‘love’ has many different meanings and may have different meanings to different people. Researchers have proposed several taxonomies of love, with various numbers of love types or components [ 9 – 13 ]. In this study, two types of love feelings are considered: infatuation and attachment. Infatuation is the overwhelming, amorous feeling for one individual, and is similar to the concepts ‘passion’ or ‘infatuated love’ [ 10 ], ‘romantic love’ [ 11 ], ‘passionate love’ [ 12 ], and ‘attraction’ [ 13 ]. Attachment, on the other hand, is the comforting feeling of emotional bonding with another individual, and is similar to the concepts ‘intimacy’ with ‘decision/commitment’ [ 10 ], and ‘companionate love’ [ 10 – 12 ].

Love feelings are sometimes weaker than desired. Infatuation is typically most intense at the early stages of love after which it decreases relatively quickly [ 13 – 15 ] and attachment takes some time to develop [ 13 – 15 ] after which it decreases over the course of decades [ 16 ]. The decrease of infatuation and attachment over time threatens the stability of romantic relationships. Indeed, falling out of love is the primary reason for divorce [ 17 ]. Love feelings can also be stronger than desired. People may, for example, be in love with someone who does not love them back or who has broken up with them. Clearly, it would be advantageous if we could regulate love feelings at will, so that we could up-regulate them when they are weaker than desired, and down-regulate them when they are stronger than desired.

We define love regulation as the use of behavioral or cognitive strategies to change the intensity of current feelings of romantic love. In an interview study, participants reported that their love feelings were involuntary and uncontrollable [ 2 ]. Nevertheless, three lines of research suggest that love regulation may actually be feasible. First, it is well known that people can regulate their emotions [ 18 – 21 ], which entails generating new emotions or changing the intensity of current emotions using behavioral or cognitive strategies [ 20 ]. There are multiple emotion regulation strategies, including situation selection, distraction, expression suppression, and cognitive reappraisal. Situation selection is to avoid or seek out certain situations to change the way you feel (e.g., attending a party to have fun) [ 21 ]. Distraction entails performing a secondary task to reduce the intensity of emotions (e.g., playing a video game to forget about a bad incident at work) [ 20 ]. Expression suppression involves inhibiting the expression of an emotion (e.g., keeping a poker face) [ 22 ]. Cognitive reappraisal involves reinterpreting the situation to change the way you feel (e.g., decreasing or increasing nervousness by reinterpreting an upcoming job interview as an opportunity to learn more about the company or as a once in a lifetime opportunity, respectively) [ 22 ]. Emotion regulation can be used to up- and down-regulate positive and negative emotions [ 23 ] and may happen implicitly or explicitly [ 18 ].

However, love is sometimes considered a motivation (or drive) rather than an emotion [ 24 ]. One reason why love would not be an emotion is that it elicits different emotions depending on the situation. Reciprocated love, for example, may elicit the emotion euphoria, while unreciprocated love may elicit the emotion sadness. It is therefore important that a second line of research has shown that people can use cognitive strategies to regulate their motivations, including sexual arousal [ 25 ], excitement about monetary reward [ 26 – 29 ], and craving for alcohol, food, and cigarettes [ 30 , 31 ]. The evidence that motivations can be regulated intentionally supports the idea that explicit love regulation may be feasible.

Finally, a third research line has shown that people think more favorably of their romantic partner than objectively justified [ 32 , 33 ]. Importantly, people who idealize their partner and whose partners idealize them have happier relationships [ 34 ]. These findings suggest that implicit up-regulation of love feelings for the current romantic partner is feasible and that it contributes to relationship satisfaction.

Even though this last research line shows that people can regulate their love feelings implicitly, there are no studies that provide information about the deliberate, explicit up- and down-regulation of love feelings. In two studies, we systematically examined preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of explicit regulation of love feelings. The first goal was to determine whether people think that love feelings can be controlled or not. Participants answered a series of questions that measured perceived control over love feelings and previous research [ 2 ] led us to hypothesize that people would perceive love feelings as uncontrollable. The second goal was to reveal which strategies people use when they try to up- and down-regulate their love feelings. Participants responded to four open questions and we expected that people would report the use of typical behavioral and cognitive emotion regulation strategies mentioned above. First, we conducted a pilot study (Study 1) and then we conducted another study (Study 2) to confirm the findings of the pilot study.

In addition, Study 2 employed a love regulation task to achieve the final research goal, which was to examine if people can intentionally up- and down-regulate love feelings. In this first empirical test of the feasibility of love regulation, we focused on the reappraisal strategy because it is considered effective in altering feeling intensity and beneficial for cognitive and social functioning [ 21 ]. Situation-focused reappraisal entails changing the emotional meaning of a situation by reinterpreting it [ 21 ], for example by focusing on positive or negative aspects of the situation, or by imagining a positive or negative outcome [ 35 ]. The use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate love feelings is related to the notion that cognitive processes, including making attributions, are associated with relationship satisfaction [ 36 , 37 ]. We focus on the intensity of infatuation and attachment rather than relationship outcomes, since love feelings do not occur exclusively in the context of romantic relationships [ 14 ].

Because it depends on the situation whether people would benefit from love up- or down-regulation, we tested a group of people who were involved in a romantic relationship and a group of people who had recently experienced a romantic break-up. People who are currently in a romantic relationship were expected to benefit from love up-regulation, because that would stabilize their relationship. People who have just experienced a break-up, in contrast, would benefit from love down-regulation, because that could help them cope with the break-up. Because previous research has shown that intense feelings of romantic love can be elicited by viewing pictures of the beloved [ 38 ], pictures of the (ex-)partner were used to elicit feelings of love, which participants were instructed to regulate in an explicit regulation task. Because self-reports are the only way to assess phenomenology (i.e., how someone feels) [ 39 ], participants rated how infatuated and how attached they felt after each regulation condition. It was hypothesized that love up-regulation would increase feelings of infatuation and attachment, whereas love down-regulation would decrease feelings of infatuation and attachment in both groups. It is of course important to dissociate between the concept of love regulation and the well-established concept of emotion regulation. Therefore, participants also rated how negative or positive they felt after each regulation condition. It was expected that love up-regulation would make the relationship group feel more positive, while love down-regulation would make them feel more negative. The opposite pattern was expected for the break-up group: feeling more negative following up-regulation and more positive following down-regulation. This hypothesis shows how love regulation is theoretically distinct from emotion regulation. That is, love regulation targets the intensity of love feelings rather than emotions. Of course, the change in love feelings may in turn influence emotions or affect. The direction of the effect of love regulation on emotion or affect may differ depending on the context, as indicated by the hypothesized opposite effects of love regulation on emotion/affect in the relationship and break-up groups.

Even though self-reports gain a unique insight into what people experience, they also suffer from social desirability biases and demand characteristics [ 40 , 41 ]. Therefore, in addition to subjective self-reports, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) as a more objective measure of love regulation success. ERPs have been used before to study emotion regulation and to study romantic love, but not to study love regulation. The late positive potential (LPP) reflects multiple and overlapping positivies over the posterior scalp beginning in the time range of the classic P300, i.e., around 300 ms after stimulus onset. The LPP amplitude is typically enhanced for negative and positive compared to neutral stimuli [ 19 ] and is therefore thought to reflect the affective and motivational intensity of information and the resulting motivated attention [ 42 ]. Correspondingly, we have shown that the LPP is enhanced in response to pictorial and verbal beloved-related information compared to control information [ 32 , 43 , 44 ]. Importantly, the LPP amplitude is modulated by emotion regulation instructions according to the regulatory goal: emotion down-regulation reduces the LPP amplitude, while emotion up-regulation enhances the LPP amplitude [ 27 , 45 – 49 ]. The LPP amplitude can therefore be used as an objective measure of regulation success [ 19 ]. Because the LPP reflects affective and motivational significance and the resulting motivated attention, rather than valence [ 42 ], regulation effects in the LPP amplitude reflect how regulation changes the affective and motivational intensity of information and the amount of motivated attention allocated to that information. It was expected that love up-regulation would enhance the LPP in response to pictures of the (ex-)partner in both groups, which would indicate that love up-regulation would enhance the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner. Love down-regulation, in contrast, was expected to reduce the LPP amplitude to (ex-)partner pictures in both groups, which would indicate that love down-regulation would reduce the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner.

Study 1 –Methods

Participants.

Thirty-two participants (18–30 yrs, M = 21.4, 7 men) who were in love by self-report were recruited from the University of Maryland community in the US. Being in love was an inclusion criterion because some of the questions assessing perceived control over love feelings (see below) contained a blank in which the participants had to mentally insert the name of their beloved. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Maryland and written informed consent was obtained. Participants were remunerated with $10.

First, participants completed some questions about their love feelings and their romantic relationship [ 44 ]. Participants also completed the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS) [ 14 ], and the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) [ 50 ] to assess the intensity of infatuation and attachment. Then, participants completed 17 questions to assess perceived control of love feelings (Cronbach’s alpha = .93), see the S1 Appendix . These questions were phrased to measure perceived control over love in general, and over infatuation and attachment specifically. They were also phrased to measure perceived control over one’s own vs. people’s love feelings, and over the intensity and object of love feelings. Participants responded using a 9-point Likert scale (1 = totally disagree, 9 = totally agree).

Subsequently, participants answered four open questions about the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships. We distinguished between emotion regulation and love down-regulation in the context of heartbreak by asking two questions: “What do you do or think to feel better when you have a broken heart?” (i.e., emotion regulation), “What do you do or think to decrease feelings of love when you have a broken heart?” (i.e., love down-regulation). In addition, we distinguished between maintaining relationships and love up-regulation in the context of long-term relationships by asking two questions: “What do you do or think to maintain a long-term relationship?” (i.e., maintaining relationships), and “What do you do or think to prevent that feelings of love decline in a long-term relationship?” (i.e., love up-regulation). If participants had not experienced heartbreak or any long-term relationships, they replied with what they think they would do in those circumstances.

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was subjected to a one-sample t -test against 5, to test if it differed from neutral. In addition, responses on subsets of the 17 questions that measured perceived control over a certain aspect of love were averaged to obtain measures of perceived control over seven different aspects of love (love in general, infatuation, attachment, self, people in general, intensity of love, and object of love). Five paired sample t -tests were conducted to test for differences in perceived control between related aspects of love (i.e., love in general vs. infatuation, love in general vs. attachment, infatuation vs. attachment, self vs. people in general, and intensity vs. object of feelings).

The responses to the four open strategy questions were analyzed qualitatively. Many participants listed multiple strategies in response to each of the four open strategy questions. Each strategy was scored as being an exemplar of a certain category. A priori categories were emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, distraction, and suppression [ 20 , 21 ]. In the heartbreak context, reappraisal was subdivided into “focus on the negative aspects of the beloved/relationship”, “think of negative future scenarios”, “think about the positive aspects of the situation”, and “other”. In the long-term relationship context, reappraisal was subdivided into “focus on the positive aspects of the beloved/relationship”, and “think of positive future scenarios”. Other categories such as avoidance (see Tables 1 and 2 ) were added on the basis of participants’ responses.

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Study 1 –Results

Participant characteristics.

All participants had an opposite-sex beloved. Twenty-seven (84%) of the participants reported to be in a relationship with their beloved, which supports the idea that love does not occur exclusively in the context of relationships [ 14 ]. See Table 3 for the other love characteristics.

Means (ranges in parentheses).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t003

Perceived control

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was 4.5 ( SD = 1.4). A one-sample t -test revealed that this tended to be lower than 5 (= neutral), t (31) = -1.9, p = .066, which implies that participants perceive love feelings as neither controllable, nor uncontrollable, or as somewhat uncontrollable, if anything. See Table 4 for the mean perceived control over the seven different aspects of love. Participants felt more in control of feelings of attachment than infatuation, t (31) = 2.4, p = .022. There was no difference between the perceived control over the own vs. people’s feelings, t (31) = 0.5, p = .64. Participants felt more control over the intensity than the object of their love feelings, t (31) = 2.1, p = .047.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.t004

See Tables 1 and 2 for the regulation strategies reported. In the context of heartbreak, participants mostly used distraction, social support, and reappraisal. Distraction (e.g., watching TV, listening to music, focusing on work or school, or exercise) and seeking social support (e.g., talking to or spending time with family/friends) were used more to feel better than to decrease love feelings. In contrast, reappraisal was used more to decrease love feelings than to feel better. Reappraisal by focusing on negative aspects of the beloved was the most popular reappraisal strategy. Examples of other reappraisal strategies were thinking that time will heal, finding someone else to love, or focusing on positive aspects of oneself or one’s life. Thinking about positive aspects of the situation (e.g., focusing on the advantages of being single or being hopeful for the future), as well as avoidance (i.e., not talking about the beloved, getting rid of all pictures, and eliminating all contact) were moderately popular strategies to decrease love feelings. Strategies such as reappraisal by thinking about negative future scenarios (“it just wasn’t meant to last”), eating/smoking, and expressing emotions (“cry”) were used least often. None of the participants reported the use of suppression. Two participants reported that they did not, or could not, decrease love feelings.

In the context of long-term relationships, participants stressed the importance of communication/honesty and undertaking (new) activities with their beloved. Communication/honesty was deemed important for maintaining long-term relationships, whereas undertaking (new) activities with the beloved, which is a situation selection strategy, was mostly used to prevent love feelings from declining. Other strategies such as expressing love feelings to the beloved, trust, spending (quality) time with the beloved, loving unconditionally/making compromises, the two reappraisal strategies, and spending time apart from the beloved were mentioned as well. Six participants stated that love feelings would not decline if the relationship was good and/or that they would end the relationship if love feelings would decline.

In short, several behavioral and cognitive strategies were used in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships. Some of these strategies were the typical cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal, distraction, and situation selection. While some strategies seemed specific for feeling better during heartbreak or for maintaining long-term relationships, strategies such as reappraisal by focusing on negative aspects of the beloved or the relationship and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved seemed specific for down- and up-regulation of love feelings, respectively.

Interim Discussion

The results of this first exploratory study show that people perceive love feelings as neither controllable, nor uncontrollable (or as somewhat uncontrollable, if anything). People did perceive more control over some aspects of love than others and the majority of people reported to use a variety of strategies when heartbroken or when in a long-term relationship. Some strategies seemed specific for changing the intensity of love feelings, rather than for regulating emotions or maintaining relationships. Because this was only a pilot study with mostly female participants, we conducted a follow-up study (Study 2) to replicate and confirm these preliminary findings in a more gender-balanced sample. As mentioned in the introduction, Study 2 also included a love regulation task to test the feasibility of love regulation.

Study 2 –Methods

Twenty participants who were in a romantic relationship (19–25 yrs, M = 21.7, 10 men) and 20 participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (19–26 yrs, M = 21.9, 10 men) were recruited from the Erasmus University Rotterdam community in The Netherlands. For brevity, we will use the words ‘partner’ and ‘relationship’ in the remainder of the paper regardless of whether the relationship was ongoing or had dissolved. Inclusion criteria were normal or corrected to-normal vision, right-handedness (as determined by a hand preference questionnaire [ 51 ]), no use of medication known to affect the central nervous system, and no mental disorders. The reason for excluding participants with mental disorders was that many mental disorders are associated with emotion dysregulation [ 23 ], which indicates that love regulation may also be different in patients than in healthy controls. Four participants had to be excluded from the EEG analyses because of experimenter error during the EEG recording ( n = 3) or too many artifacts ( n = 1, more information below). Therefore the EEG analyses are based on 18 participants who were in a romantic relationship (19–25 yrs, M = 21.8, 9 men) and 18 participants who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (19–26 yrs, M = 21.7, 8 men). The study was approved by the Psychologie Ethische Commissie of the Erasmus Universiteit Rottterdam and written informed consent was obtained. Participants were remunerated with course credit or €15.

Questionnaires

In addition to the questions about their love feelings and their romantic relationship [ 44 ], the 17 perceived control questions (Cronbach’s alpha = .92), the four open regulation strategy questions, the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS) [ 14 ], and the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) [ 50 ] used in Study 1, participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) [ 22 ] to assess individual differences in the habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Participants also completed the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedules (PANAS) twice, once about the last two weeks and once about this moment [ 52 ].

Participants provided 30 digital pictures of their partner. There were no other requirements than that the pictures had to contain the partner. Therefore, the pictures could display parts of the partner (e.g., just the face) or the whole body of the partner, people other than the partner, a variety of facial expressions, objects, and scenery. The pictures were presented to elicit love feelings [ 38 ] and to help the participant come up with negative or positive aspects of the partner/relationship and future scenarios (see below). It is important to note that the variety of information on the pictures does not confound the effects of regulation, because the same 30 partner pictures were presented in each regulation condition. For the same reason, differences in picture content between the two groups could not confound the differences in regulation effects between groups. In addition, the pictures ensure high ecological validity, as the partner is typically encountered in a wide variety of contexts and with varying facial expressions. The neutral stimuli were 30 neutral pictures displaying humans from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) [ 53 ] with neutral normative valence ( M = 5.4, SD = 0.5) and low normative arousal ( M = 3.5, SD = 0.5) ratings, see S1 Text .

Love regulation task

Participants completed a love regulation task, see Fig 1 , while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. In the first two blocks, participants passively viewed partner and neutral pictures (order counterbalanced between participants). In the third and fourth block, participants were instructed to up- and down-regulate their love feelings in response to the partner pictures (order counterbalanced between participants) using reappraisal. Up-regulation instructions were to increase love feelings by thinking about positive aspects of the partner (e.g., “He is so funny”) or relationship (e.g., “We get along so well”), or positive future scenarios (e.g., “We’ll get married”). Down-regulation instructions were to decrease love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of the partner (e.g., “She is so lazy”) or relationship (e.g., “We often fight”), or negative future scenarios (e.g., “We won’t stay together forever”). Participants could use the information in the picture for inspiration. For example, the partner wearing a yellow shirt and standing next to a friend on a picture could inspire the participant to up-regulate love feelings by thinking “I love that yellow shirt he’s wearing” and to down-regulate love feelings by thinking “He is always hitting on that friend, and he might cheat on me one day”. These are instructions of situation-focused reappraisal, which involves reinterpreting “the nature of the events themselves, reevaluating others’ actions, dispositions, and outcomes” rather than self-focused reappraisal, which involves altering “the personal relevance of events” ([ 35 ], p. 484). That is, focusing on negative/positive aspects of the partner involves a reevaluation of the partner’s dispositions (“My partner is a wonderful person” when focusing on positive aspects vs. “My partner is a terrible person” when focusing on negative aspects), focusing on negative/positive aspects of the relationship involves a reevaluation of the relationship (“I am/was in a good relationship” when focusing on positive aspects, and “I am/was in a bad relationship” when focusing on negative aspects), and imagining positive/negative future relationship scenarios involves reevaluation of outcomes.

Please note that the stimulus in this figure is not actually one of the pictures that were submitted by the participants. Instead, it is an IAPS picture [ 53 ] that resembles the kinds of pictures that participants submitted.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g001

Each block started with an instruction word (‘view’, ‘increase’, ‘decrease’) for 4 sec and consisted of 30 trials. Trial structure was: fixation cross for 900–1100 ms, picture for 3 sec, and blank screen for 2 sec. After each block, participants completed four ratings on a 1–5 scale: infatuation, attachment, valence, and arousal, and they also completed the PANAS at this moment [ 52 ]. After the regulation task, participants wrote down what they had thought to up- and down-regulate love feelings to verify that they had followed the instructions.

EEG recording and preprocessing

The EEG was recorded using a 32-channel amplifier and data acquisition software (ActiveTwoSystem, BioSemi). The 32 Ag-AgCl active electrodes were placed upon the scalp by means of a head cap (BioSemi), according to the 10–20 International System. Vertical electro-oculogram and horizontal electro-oculogram were recorded by attaching additional electrodes (UltraFlat Active electrodes, BioSemi) above and below the left eye, and at the outer canthi of both eyes. Another two electrodes were attached to the left and right mastoids. An active electrode (common mode sense) and a passive electrode (driven right leg) were used to comprise a feedback loop for amplifier reference. All signals were digitized with a sampling rate of 512 Hz, a 24 bit A/D conversion and a low pass filter of 134 Hz. The EEG data were analyzed with BrainVision Analyzer 2 (Brain Products, Gilching, Germany). Per participant, a maximum of one bad electrode included in the analyses (see below) was corrected using spherical spline topographic interpolation. Offline, an average mastoids reference was applied and the data were filtered using a 0.1–30 Hz band pass filter (phase shift-free Butterworth filters; 24 dB/octave slope) and a 50 Hz notch filter. Data were segmented in epochs from 200 ms pre-stimulus until 3000 ms post-stimulus onset. Ocular artifact correction was applied semi-automatically according to the Gratton and Coles algorithm [ 54 ]. The 200 ms pre-stimulus period was used for baseline correction. Artifact rejection was performed at individual electrodes with the criterion minimum and maximum baseline-to-peak -75 to +75 μV. Because at least 12 trials are needed to adequately estimate emotion regulation effects in the LPP amplitude [ 55 ], the one participant that had fewer than 12 trials left per electrode per condition was excluded from the EEG analyses, as mentioned above. At the three electrodes used in the analyses (see below), the average number of accepted trials per condition ranged from 29.5 to 29.8 out of 30.

Statistical analyses

Questionnaire scores were analyzed with independent samples t -tests to test for differences between groups (adjusted t , df , and p values are shown when the Levene’s test for equality of variances indicated variance differences between the groups). Besides the one-sample t -test against 5 (= neutral), the perceived control scores were analyzed with three ANOVAs: one ANOVA with factors Love type (love in general, infatuation, attachment) and Group (relationship, break-up), one ANOVA with factors Self/People (self, people in general) and Group, and one ANOVA with factors Intensity/Object (intensity, object) and Group. Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between the seven perceived control scores and the two ERQ subscales across groups. Ratings and PANAS scores after the view conditions were analyzed with an ANOVA with factors Picture (partner, neutral) and Group. Ratings and PANAS scores following the three conditions with partner pictures were analyzed with an ANOVA with factors Regulation (view, up-regulation, down-regulation) and Group. In this analysis, only significant effects involving the factor Regulation are reported, because the main effect of Group is not relevant for the research question.

Because the LPP begins in the time range of the classic P300 [ 19 ] and can last as long as the stimulus duration [ 56 ], the ERP was quantified by mean amplitude measures in four time windows based on previous work [ 47 , 48 , 56 – 58 ]: 300–400 ms, 400–700 ms, 700–1000 ms, 1000–3000 ms. For each time window, mean amplitudes measures at Fz, Cz, and Pz were subjected to two ANOVAs. The first concerned the two view blocks and tested the factors Picture, Group, and Caudality (Fz, Cz, Pz). Only significant effects involving the factor Picture are reported, because those are relevant for the research question. The second ANOVA concerned the three blocks with partner pictures and tested the factors Regulation, Group, and Caudality. In this analysis, only significant effects involving the factor Regulation are reported, because those are relevant for the research question. When applicable, the degrees of freedom were corrected using the Greenhouse-Geisser correction. The F values, uncorrected degrees of freedom, the ε values and corrected probability values are reported. A significance level of 5% (two-sided) was selected and Fisher’s least significance difference (LSD) procedure was applied. This procedure controls type I error rate by conducting follow-up tests for significant main and interaction effects only. Those follow-up tests were paired samples t -tests testing differences between conditions across both groups (in case of significant main or interaction effects without the factor Group) or within groups (in case of significant interactions with the factor Group).

Study 2 –Results

Group characteristics.

All participants had an opposite-sex partner. The average time since the break-up was 3.0 months (range = 0.5–13.5). Ten of these break-ups were initiated by the partner, six by the participant, and four break-ups were a joint decision. See Table 4 for the other group characteristics and the statistics related to group differences. The relationship and break-up groups did not differ in how long they had known their partner for, how long ago their love feelings had started, and the duration of their relationships. The break-up groups did tend to report lower relationship quality than the relationship group. The break-up group also felt less attached and tended to feel more infatuated with their partner than the relationship group. Moreover, the break-up group tended to have experienced less positive affect during the past two weeks and had experienced more negative affect in the past two weeks and at the start of the testing session than the relationship group. Finally, the relationship and break-up groups did not differ in their habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Thus, the two groups differed from each other on variables that can be expected to be related to whether someone is in a relationship or has experienced a break-up, but the groups did not differ on variables that should be unrelated to relationship status.

The mean score on the 17 perceived control questions was 4.5 ( SD = 1.4). A one-sample t -test showed that this was significantly lower than 5 (= neutral), t (39) = -2.2, p = .032, which suggests that participants perceive love feelings as uncontrollable. See Table 3 for the mean perceived control over the seven different aspects of love. There was a significant main effect of Love type, F (2,76) = 19.8, ε = 1.0, p < .001. Participants felt more in control of feelings of attachment than of feelings of infatuation or love in general, both p s < .001. In addition, there tended to be a main effect of Self/People, F (1,38) = 3.9, p = .056. Participants tended to feel that they were less able to control their love feelings than people in general are. Finally, there was a main effect of Intensity/Object, F (1,38) = 14.6, p < .001. Participants felt more in control of the intensity than of the object of their love feelings. In none of these analyses, the main effect of Group or interactions with Group were significant, all F s < 2.4, all p s > .13, so perceived control over different aspects of love feelings did not differ between the relationship and break-up groups.

The ERQ reappraisal score correlated positively with perceived control over individual love feelings, r (38) = .32, p = .044, and tended to correlate positively with perceived control over the intensity of love feelings, r (38) = .30, p = .056, and with perceived control over the object of love feelings, r (38) = .29, p = .075, see Fig 2 . These findings suggest that the more participants used the reappraisal strategy to regulate emotions in their daily life, the more they perceived love feelings as controllable.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g002

See Tables 1 and 2 for the regulation strategies reported. Participants mostly used distraction and reappraisal when heartbroken. Distraction was used more to feel better, while reappraisal by focusing on the negative aspects of the beloved/relationship was used more to decrease love feelings. The other strategies, such as reappraisal by thinking about the positive aspects of the situation, other ways of reappraising, avoidance, suppression (“making yourself strong (pretend) for the outside world”), eating/smoking, and expressing emotions were used least often when heartbroken. None of the participants reported the use of reappraisal by thinking about negative future scenarios. Two participants reported that they could not decrease love feelings. The use of the different strategies did not appear to differ between the relationship and break-up groups. Seeking social support was less popular in the current Dutch sample than in the US sample in Study 1.

Participants stressed the importance of communication/honesty and undertaking (new) activities with their beloved during long-term relationships. Communication/honesty was mostly used for maintaining long-term relationships. The break-up group used undertaking (new) activities with the beloved mostly to prevent love feelings from declining, while the relationship group used this strategy both to maintain their relationship and to prevent love feelings from declining. Strategies such as expressing love feelings to the beloved, spending (quality) time with the beloved, and loving unconditionally/making compromises were mentioned by some participants. The latter was used more for maintaining long-term relationships than for preventing love feelings from declining. Both reappraisal strategies (i.e., focusing on positive aspects of the beloved/relationship and thinking about positive future scenarios), trust, and spending time apart from the beloved were mentioned by some participants. Two participants specifically stated that love feelings would not decline if the relationship was good and/or that they would end the relationship if love feelings would decline. Other than the above-mentioned difference in the context of undertaking (new) activities, there were no obvious differences between the relationship and break-up groups. There were no major differences between this Dutch sample and the US sample in Study 1.

To conclude, participants reported to use several behavioral and cognitive strategies in heartbreak and long-term relationship contexts. As in Study 1, some of these strategies were the typical cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies, such as reappraisal, distraction, situation selection, and suppression. As in Study 1, some strategies seemed specific for feeling better during heartbreak (i.e., emotion regulation) or for maintaining long-term relationships, while strategies such as reappraisal by focusing on the negative aspects of the beloved or the relationship and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved were used to down- and up-regulate love feelings, respectively.

See Fig 3 for the infatuation, attachment, valence, and arousal ratings at the end of each block in the regulation task.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g003

View blocks.

The infatuation ratings after the two view blocks showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 27.1, p < .001, and Group, F (1,38) = 5.6, p = .023. Infatuation was higher after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, and higher in the relationship than the break-up group. Attachment ratings also showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 23.9, p < .001, and Group, F (1,38) = 5.6, p = .023. Attachment was higher after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, and higher in the relationship than the break-up group. Thus, partner pictures elicited more feelings of infatuation and attachment than neutral pictures in both groups, which shows that the use of partner pictures was effective in eliciting love feelings [ 38 ].

For valence ratings, the main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 9.9, p = .003, and Group, F (1,38) = 7.7, p = .008 were modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 20.7, p < .001. The relationship group felt more positive after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, whereas the break-up group did not, p = .41. Arousal ratings showed a main effect of Picture, F (1,38) = 26.8, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 7.9, p = .008. The relationship group felt more aroused after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, whereas the break-up group did not, p = .10. Thus, partner pictures elicited positive and arousing feelings in the relationship group but not in break-up group, which confirms that the two groups differed in anticipated ways.

Regulation blocks.

The infatuation ratings after the three blocks with partner pictures showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 39.6, ε = .84, p < .001. Infatuation was lower after down-regulation than after passive viewing or up-regulation, both p s < .001. Attachment ratings also showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 36.7, ε = .91, p < .001. Attachment was highest after up-regulation, intermediate after passive viewing, and lowest after down-regulation, all p s < .013. Valence ratings showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 31.6, ε = .98, p < .001. Participants felt less positive after down-regulation than after passive viewing or up-regulation, both p s < .001. Arousal ratings showed no significant effects involving the factor Regulation, all p s > .26. To summarize, subjective love feelings were modulated in the expected directions by instructed love regulation in both groups. Up-regulation of love increased feelings of attachment, and down-regulation of love decreased feelings of infatuation and attachment. Finally, down-regulation of love decreased the pleasantness of feelings in both groups.

Positive and negative affect

See Fig 4 for positive and negative affect during the regulation task.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g004

Positive affect after the two view blocks showed a main effect of Picture, F (1,38) = 27.2, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 21.7, p < .001. The relationship group experienced more positive affect after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p < .001, while the break-up group did not, p = .71. Negative affect showed main effects of Picture, F (1,38) = 9.6, p = .004, and Group, F (1,38) = 25.7, p < .001, which were modulated by a significant Picture x Group interaction, F (1,38) = 8.7, p = .005. The break-up group experienced more negative affect after passive viewing of partner than neutral pictures, p = .006, while the relationship group did not, p = .69. In short, partner pictures elicited positive affect in the relationship group, but negative affect in the break-up group, again confirming that the groups differed in expected ways.

Positive affect after the three blocks with partner pictures showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 21.3, ε = .94, p < .001, which was modulated by a significant Regulation x Group interaction, F (2,76) = 8.4, ε = .94, p = .001. While the relationship group experienced most positive affect after passive viewing of partner pictures, intermediate positive affect after up-regulation and least positive affect after down-regulation, all p s < .034, positive affect in the break-up group was not affected by instructed love regulation, all p s > .17. Negative affect showed a main effect of Regulation, F (2,76) = 6.4, ε = .74, p = .007, which was modulated by a significant Regulation x Group interaction, F (2,76) = 5.0, ε = .74, p = .017. The relationship group experienced most negative affect after down-regulation, both p s < .008, whereas negative affect in the break-up group was not affected by instructed love regulation, all p s > .67. To summarize, love regulation decreased positive affect in the relationship group, although down-regulation decreased positive affect more than up-regulation. Down-regulation also increased negative affect in the relationship group. Regulation of love feelings did not influence affect in the break-up group.

Event-related potentials

See Fig 5 for the ERP waveforms and Fig 6 for the scalp topographies of the differences between partner and neutral pictures in the view blocks. In all four time windows, there was a significant main effect of Picture (300–400 ms: F (1,34) = 72.6, p < .001, 400–700 ms: F (1,34) = 101.6, p < .001, 700–1000 ms: F (1,34) = 112.3, p < .001 and 1000–3000 ms: F (1,34) = 51.1, p < .001), indicating that the ERP between 300–3000 ms was more positive in response to the partner than neutral pictures. The interactions involving the factors Picture and Group were not significant in any of the time windows, all F s < 1, ns , which indicated that the ERP response to the partner compared to the neutral pictures did not differ between the relationship and break-up groups. Partner and neutral pictures differ in multiple ways: partner pictures were familiar to the participants, elicited emotional feelings, displayed at least one familiar person, and may have displayed the participant him-/herself. Because all of these factors modulate the ERP [ 32 , 42 , 59 – 61 ], it is not surprising that the ERP difference between partner and neutral pictures is so extended in time and topography, and similar between the two groups. Please note that the up- and down-regulation effects of interest discussed below involve comparisons between up- and down-regulation of responses to the partner pictures only.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g005

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g006

See Fig 5 for the ERP waveforms and Fig 7 for the scalp topographies of the differences between regulation and view conditions. In the 300–400 ms time window, there were a main effect of Regulation, F (2,68) = 4.4, ε = .96, p = .018, and a Regulation x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 3.7, ε = .62, p = .020. The ERP was more positive for up-regulation than passive viewing at Cz and Pz, both p s < .004. In the 400–700 ms time window, there was a Regulation x Group x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 4.9, ε = .72, p = .004, but none of the post hoc tests were significant. In the 700–1000 ms, there were Regulation x Caudality, F (4,136) = 5.8, ε = .65, p = .002, and Regulation x Group x Caudality, F (4,136) = 5.2, ε = .65, p = .004, interactions. In the relationship group, the ERP was less positive for up- and down-regulation than passive viewing at Pz, both p s < .002. In the break-up group, none of the post hoc tests were significant. In the 1000–3000 ms time window, there was a Regulation x Group x Caudality interaction, F (4,136) = 2.7, ε = .78, p = .048. In the relationship group, the ERP was less positive for down-regulation than passive viewing at Cz and Pz, both p s < .041, and for up-regulation than passive viewing at Pz, p = .005. In the break-up group, none of the post hoc tests were significant. Inspection of the data revealed that even though the break-up group showed a less positive ERP for down-regulation at Cz (and at Pz to a lesser extent), the variation in ERP amplitudes was larger in the break-up group (down-regulation effect at Cz = -1.7 μV, SD = 4.0) than the relationship group (down-regulation effect at Cz = -1.6 μV, SD = 3.0), which explains why the effect did not reach significance in the break-up group.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g007

To explore any associations between the LPP amplitude and self-reports measures, Pearson correlation coefficients were computed between regulation effects in the LPP amplitude and regulation effects in infatuation ratings, attachment ratings, valence ratings, arousal ratings, positive affect, and negative affect, across groups. Because the regulation effects were largest at electrodes Cz and/or Pz, LPP regulation effects were averaged across these two electrodes. In the 700–1000 ms time window, the up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude was negatively correlated with the up-regulation effect in negative affect, r (34) = -.40, p = .015, see Fig 8 . This correlation was not inflated by the possibly outlying data point (i.e., up-regulation effect in negative affect = 1.5), because the correlation was even greater and more significant after exclusion of this data point, r (33) = -.44, p = .008. As can be seen in Fig 8 , the more participants showed an enhanced LPP in response to up-regulation compared to passive viewing between 700–1000 ms, the more their negative affect decreased as a result of love up-regulation. The other correlations between the up-regulation effects in the LPP amplitude in any of the time windows and the up-regulation effects in self-reports were not significant, -.31 < all r s(34) < .32, all p s > .063. None of the down-regulation effects in the LPP amplitude in any of the time windows were significantly correlated with down-regulation effects in self-reports, -.20 < all r s(34) < .24, all p s > .17.

A negative up-regulation effect in negative affect means a reduction in negative affect due to love up-regulation. A positive up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude means that the LPP was enhanced for love up-regulation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.g008

To summarize, up-regulation elicited a more positive ERP than passive viewing at midline centro-parietal electrodes between 300–400 ms. In addition, up- and down-regulation elicited a less positive ERP than passive viewing mostly at midline parietal electrodes between 700–3000 ms in the relationship group. The more love up-regulation enhanced the LPP amplitude between 700–1000 ms, the greater the decrease in negative affect by love up-regulation.

Because love feelings may be more or less intense than desired, it would be helpful if people could up- and down-regulate feelings of romantic love at will. In two studies, we examined preconceptions about, strategies for, and the feasibility of love regulation.

As expected, participants had the preconception that love is somewhat uncontrollable, as indicated by their scores on the series of questions assessing the perceived controllability of love feelings. Moreover, a few participants reported that they are unable to decrease love feelings when heartbroken. Some participants even stated that love feelings should not be up-regulated to maintain long-term relationships, because declining love feelings would indicate that the relationship is not meant to be. Research, however, has shown that infatuation (i.e., passionate love) and attachment (i.e., companionate love) typically do decline over time [ 14 , 16 ], so having this opinion might limit one’s chances of having long-lasting relationships. However, the mean score on the perceived control questions approached the midpoint of the scale, indicating that participants did not entirely reject the idea of controllable love. In addition, participants perceived some aspects of love to be more controllable than other aspects. Participants perceived feelings of attachment as more controllable than feelings of infatuation and they felt more in control of the intensity of love feelings than of who they are in love with. Finally, the more participants use the reappraisal strategy to regulate emotions in their daily life, the more they perceived love feelings as controllable, which provides a hint that reappraisal may be an effective love regulation strategy. Nevertheless, the questions about perceived control over love feelings have a couple of limitations. First, the two studies were conducted in different countries, in different languages, and with relatively small samples with different gender ratios. Second, in order to not be too statistically conservative in this explorative study, we did not correct for the number of statistical tests employed. Please note that the tests we performed are not independent, which reduces the chance of type I errors [ 62 ]. In addition, we used two-sided tests even when we had an a priori directional hypothesis. This was done to not increase the chance of Type I errors and to not exclude the possibility of observing any effects that were contrary to the hypothesis, again, because of the exploratory nature of the study. Finally, to the extent that the measures in Studies 1 and 2 overlapped, we base the conclusions above only on findings that replicated in both studies. This greatly reduces the chance that our conclusions are based on country-, language-, or gender-specific effects, or on spurious findings. It would be interesting to test whether perceived control over love feelings varies between regulation directions (i.e., whether people think it is easier to down-regulate love than to up-regulate love, or vice versa) in future studies.

We asked participants what they typically do or think when they are heartbroken and when maintaining long-term relationships. Participants reported the use of prototypical emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal, distraction, and situation selection. Only one participant mentioned using suppression. Research has shown that expression suppression does not actually alter the intensity of feelings and that it has negative effects on cognitive and social functioning [ 21 ], so it might not be an adaptive strategy for regulating love feelings.

Importantly, responses to the questions suggested that there was a dissociation in the use of certain strategies for regulating actual love feelings (i.e., love regulation) versus feeling better during heartbreak (i.e., emotion regulation) or maintaining long-term relationships. In the context of heartbreak, reappraisal was often used, especially to decrease love feelings rather than to feel better. In contrast, distraction was used during heartbreak more to feel better than to decrease love feelings. It has been shown that people prefer to use distraction over reappraisal in situations in which emotions are very intense [ 63 ], which is often the case during heartbreak. Reappraisal may be more advantageous in the long run though, because decreasing love feelings might help people to move on after a break-up.

Some participants reported avoiding beloved-related cues, such as pictures or conversations, when heartbroken, which is a situation selection strategy [ 21 ]. It has been proposed that romantic love shows parallels to drug addiction [ 2 , 64 ]. Beloved-related cues elicit love feelings [ 38 ], just like drug-related cues increase drug craving [ 65 ], so avoiding beloved-related cues may reduce ‘craving’ for the beloved in the short term. However, one type of treatment for substance dependence and other mental disorders is exposure therapy, which is based on the mechanism of extinction [ 66 ]. Because avoidance of beloved-related cues might prevent extinction of the love feelings, it may not be a suitable strategy for down-regulating love feelings in the longer term.

In the context of long-term relationships, participants often mentioned the importance of communication/honesty and of undertaking (new) activities with their beloved. While communication/honesty was used more to maintain long-term relationships than to prevent love from declining, undertaking (new) activities with the beloved was mostly used to prevent love from declining. Previous work suggests that doing exciting things with the beloved may indeed be a successful strategy for love up-regulation [ 67 , 68 ]. Correspondingly, research on long-term romantic love has shown that married couples who engaged in novel and challenging activities together reported increases in love, closeness, and relationship quality [ 69 , 70 ]. Thus, undertaking novel and exciting activities with the beloved, which is a situation selection strategy [ 21 ], may be an effective behavioral strategy for up-regulating love feelings. Surprisingly, reappraisal was mentioned only infrequently in the context of maintaining long-term relationships. Given that reappraisal is an effective and healthy emotion regulation strategy [ 21 , 22 ], it may be an adaptive strategy to prevent love feelings from declining in long-term relationships.

The four open questions about the use of behavioral and cognitive strategies in the contexts of heartbreak and long-term relationships have some limitations. First, these data were analyzed qualitatively rather than quantitatively. Second, the other questionnaires and tasks used in both studies restricted the samples to participants who were in love (Study 1), who were in a romantic relationship, or who had recently experienced a romantic break-up (Study 2). Therefore, participants will have answered questions that did not match their current status (e.g., answering questions about heartbreak while in a happy relationship) or prior experience (i.e., some participants may have never been heartbroken or in a long-term relationship, in which case they replied what they think they would do in those circumstances). It is important to note that these four strategy questions were used more to explore what types of strategies people employ in their love life to aid the design of future studies on love regulation rather than to provide a stringent test of a priori hypotheses. Nevertheless, the current findings await confirmation in future studies with quantitative analyses and matching of questions with prior experience and/or current status.

In the four open strategy questions, we did not ask participants about the effectiveness of the strategies they listed. In Study 2, in contrast, we did assess the effectiveness of explicit love up- and down-regulation using the cognitive reappraisal strategy. We measured regulation success by asking participants how much infatuation and attachment they experienced after each regulation condition, because self-report is the only way to assess phenomenological experience [ 39 ]. When instructed to up-regulate love feelings by thinking about positive aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining positive future scenarios, participants reported increased levels of attachment. Although love up-regulation numerically increased feelings of infatuation, this effect was not statistically significant. Thus, love up-regulation using reappraisal may be more successful for up-regulating attachment than infatuation. Future research could test whether other strategies may be more effective for up-regulating infatuations levels. Because long-term relationships are threatened by diminishing levels of infatuation and attachment over time [ 14 , 16 ], up-regulation of love feelings might help to stabilize long-term relationships. Although it has been shown before that people idealize their beloved [ 32 , 33 ] and that partner idealization is associated with greater relationship satisfaction [ 34 ], the current study is unique in showing that people are capable of up-regulating their love feelings deliberately and intentionally.

When instructed to down-regulate love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining negative future scenarios, participants reported decreased levels of infatuation and attachment, as expected. This has important implications for people whose love feelings are stronger than desired. For example, this finding suggests that after the dissolution of a long-term relationship, when levels of attachments are presumably higher than levels of infatuation [ 14 ], love regulation using reappraisal may be used to cope with the break-up by decreasing feelings of attachment. In addition, the current findings suggest that love down-regulation using reappraisal may be used to decrease feelings of infatuation, for example when early stage love feelings are unreciprocated or when someone develops a crush on someone else than their partner. Although previous studies have shown that people can implicitly derogate the attractiveness of people other than the current partner [ 71 , 72 ], the current investigation is unique because it reveals that people can deliberately down-regulate their love feelings for their (ex-)partner.

Because self-reports are the only way to assess subjective feelings [ 39 ], they are often used in behavioral and neuroimaging studies on emotion regulation as a way to assess regulation success (e.g., [ 49 , 57 , 73 , 74 ]). However, self-reports do suffer from desirability biases and demand characteristics [ 40 , 41 ]. Participants were not informed of the exact research purpose or hypothesis before testing, but they were instructed to increase or decrease their love feelings using cognitive reappraisal. So when they were asked to rate infatuation and attachment levels at the end of each block, their responses may have been biased by their perception of the study’s hypothesis. Still, the instructions mentioned ‘love feelings’ whereas the ratings mentioned ‘infatuation’ and ‘attachment’, which may have made our expectations a little less obvious. Also, even though we did not have different expectations about the feasibility of increasing and decreasing love, and participants had no reason to assume we had, the up-regulation effects in self-reported infatuation and attachment were numerically smaller (0.1 to 0.3 points on a 1–5 scale) than the down-regulation effects (0.5 to 1.0 points on a 1–5 scale), which makes it less likely that participants responded according to a perceived hypothesis rather than according to their feelings. Nevertheless, the current results await replication in studies in which the hypothesis would be more obscure to participants. This could for example be established by instructing participants to think about positive/negative aspects or future scenarios without mentioning that this is supposed to change the intensity of their love feelings. Also, note that the self-reports regarding valence, arousal, positive affect, and negative affect discussed next are less susceptible to demand characteristics since participants were not instructed to change how positive, negative, or aroused they felt.

Because it is important to dissociate the concept of love regulation from the well-established concept of emotion regulation, we asked participants how negative or positive they felt after each regulation condition. Participants who were in a romantic relationship with their beloved experienced more unpleasant feelings, less positive affect, and more negative affect following love down-regulation. This was expected, as down-regulation of love feelings for a current long-term partner is usually undesirable. However, also participants who had recently experienced a break-up unexpectedly experienced more unpleasant feelings after love down-regulation. It may be that love down-regulation by focusing on negative aspects of the partner or the relationship or imagining negative future scenarios makes people feel bad because it involves negative thoughts. Although the current study did not study the long-term effects of love down-regulation using reappraisal, it has recently been shown that thinking negative thoughts about the relationship has adaptive features when recovering from a romantic break-up [ 75 ]. So, it is important to investigate both the short- and the long-term effects of love regulation, as those may be dissociated.

Love up-regulation resulted in decreased positive affect in participants who were in a relationship, which was unexpected. This may have occurred because of the effort it takes to apply cognitive reappraisal [ 18 ]. It could be that people who are in a happy relationship (as indicated by self-reported relationship quality) may prefer to just look at their partner, rather than to have to come up with positive aspects of the partner or the relationship, or positive future scenarios on demand. We did not test the long-term effects of love regulation, but it might be that even though it may be cumbersome at this moment to use reappraisal to up-regulate love feelings, it may have beneficial long-term effects in the context of romantic relationships. Future studies are needed to replicate this unexpected effect, to determine why it occurs, to explore if and how it can be reduced, and to test if it is perhaps accompanied by an advantageous long-term effect. Even though love up-regulation resulting in decreased positive affect in participants who were in a relationship is in contrast to the hypothesis, it does show that participants were not just regulating their emotions. In that case, love up-regulation would have resulted in more positive feelings in both groups. This suggests that it is important to distinguish between the effects of love regulation on love feelings and on affect, as a desired effect in love feelings might not result in better affect in the short run.

Love regulation did not change subjective arousal (cf. [ 76 ]. It could be that the five-point rating scale we used was too coarse to detect any changes in arousal due to love regulation. It may be better to use a finer scale in future studies. Alternatively or additionally, recent work has shown that reappraising anxiety as excitement (i.e., changing the valence from negative to positive) improved performance in anxiety-provoking tasks compared to trying to calm down (i.e., reducing arousal) [ 77 ], so it may be more beneficial to change valence rather than arousal when regulating love feelings. More research is needed to test this suggestion.

Unlike the self-reported infatuation and attachment levels, the LPP amplitude is not a direct measure of love intensity. The advantage of the LPP amplitude over self-reported feelings is that it is not susceptible to social desirability biases and demand characteristics. Because the LPP amplitude is typically enhanced in response to both positive and negative stimuli, the LPP does not reflect whether a stimulus elicits positive or negative feelings. Instead, the LPP amplitude has been used as an objective measure of regulation success [ 19 ] because it reflects the affective and motivational significance of a stimulus and the resulting motivated attention instead [ 42 ]. So, the LPP amplitude in response to a picture of the partner indicates how emotionally or motivationally significant the partner is and how much attention is being paid to him/her. The instruction to up-regulate love feelings resulted in a more positive ERP between 300–400 ms (cf. [ 27 ]. The latency and the midline centroparietal topography of this regulation effect confirms that regulation instructions modulated the LPP component [ 42 ]. The enhanced LPP indicates that love up-regulation enhances the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the (ex-)partner. Because stronger love feelings would result in enhanced significance of the partner, the enhanced LPP with love up-regulation corroborates the self-report finding that people are able to up-regulate their love feelings deliberately.

Love down-regulation decreased the LPP amplitude between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship, which indicates that love down-regulation reduced the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to the partner. Because weaker love feelings would result in reduced significance of the partner, the reduced LPP with love down-regulation corroborates the self-report finding that people are able to down-regulate their love feelings deliberately. It is important to note that the ERP reflects brain activation elicited by events, which are the presentations of partner and neutral pictures in this case. A reduced LPP amplitude by down-regulation is therefore not at odds with the increased self-reported negative affect at the end of the down-regulation block. That is, a reduced affective and motivational significance of, and motivated attention to the partner pictures (as reflected by the LPP amplitude) may very well be accompanied by an increase in general negative affect that is not linked to the 3-sec presentation of a picture and will therefore not be reflected in the ERP (e.g., because the baseline correction removed the effect). It is interesting that the down-regulation effect occurred a few hundred milliseconds later than the up-regulation effect (cf. [ 78 ]), which suggests that love down-regulation takes more time to take effect than love up-regulation. The down-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude did not reach significance in participants that had experienced a break-up, which is ironic because love down-regulation might benefit them more than people who are in a happy relationship. Greater interindividual variation is the likely cause of the down-regulation effect not being significant in the break-up group. This variation may have been due to the break-up group being rather heterogeneous in terms of time since break-up, intensity of love feelings for the ex-partner, and levels of positive and negative affect, since factors like these may affect love down-regulation success.

In contrast to the hypotheses, and to the notion that the LPP amplitude is modulated by regulation instruction according to the regulatory goal [ 19 ], the LPP amplitude was numerically, but not significantly, enhanced for down-regulation between 300–400 ms in both groups, and significantly reduced for up-regulation between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship. Interpreting the LPP amplitude as reflecting the affective and motivational significance of, and the resulting motivated attention to a stimulus [ 42 ], the significantly reduced LPP amplitude for up-regulation between 700–3000 ms in participants who were in a romantic relationship suggests that, even though up-regulation initially (i.e., between 300–400 ms) increases the significance of, and attention to a current partner, it reduces it eventually (i.e., after 700 ms). Interestingly, the up-regulation effect in the LPP amplitude between 700–1000 ms showed significant individual differences. Even though the LPP was reduced by love up-regulation at the group level, participants who actually showed a more enhanced LPP amplitude as a result of love up-regulation in this time window also showed a greater decrease in negative affect as a result of love up-regulation. Because correlation does not imply causation, this effect could be interpreted in several ways. It might be that love up-regulation only leads to a reduction in negative affect when it is successful (as indicated by an enhanced LPP). Future research will need to replicate this effect and clarify its interpretation.

The unexpected LPP findings challenge the interpretation of the regulation effects in the LPP amplitude. It is important to note that the observed pattern resembles some previous emotion regulation studies that have revealed numerically or significantly enhanced LPP amplitudes for down-regulation [ 27 , 48 , 57 , 76 ] and numerically reduced LPP amplitudes for up-regulation [ 46 ] as well. There are several potential factors that could have caused these unexpected effects in the current and previous studies, such floor and ceiling effects [ 27 , 46 , 48 ], presentation of regulation instructions in a blocked rather than an intermixed fashion [ 47 , 78 ], letting participants choose between different regulation strategies [ 57 ], or switching between up- and down-regulation. More research is needed to systematically test these and other factors to better understand the effects of regulation task characteristics on the LPP amplitude. For example, the first author is currently working on studies testing whether floor and ceiling effects cause the unexpected effects of emotion regulation instructions on the LPP. In addition, future studies could directly compare the effects of presentation of regulation instructions in a blocked versus an intermixed fashion, and the effects of letting participants choose between different regulation strategies versus instructing them to use one particular strategy. In addition, it would be informative to compare the effects of having participants perform both up- and down-regulation in a testing session versus only one of the two. Studies like those will provide more information about what exactly the LPP amplitude reflects in regulation tasks. Depending on the conclusions of those studies, the LPP amplitude may or may not have limited usability as a measure of regulation success. Alternative measures that could have merit as an objective measure of love regulation success in future studies are behavioral measures, skin conductance, heartbeat-related measures [ 79 ], facial electromyography [ 80 ], and activation of brain regions that have been associated with love [ 81 ].

To conclude, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study concerning explicit regulation of love feelings. We argue that love regulation targets actual love feelings and we recognize that that in turn may affect emotions and relationship characteristics. The results showed that people have the preconception that love is somewhat uncontrollable. Nevertheless, they use various behavioral and cognitive strategies to cope with romantic break-ups and to maintain long-term relationships. In the context of heartbreak, distraction was used to feel better after a break-up (i.e., emotion regulation), while reappraisal was used to down-regulate love feelings. In the context of long-term relationships, communication/honesty was important for maintaining long-term relationships, while undertaking (new) activities with the beloved was used to prevent love feelings from declining (i.e., love up-regulation). These preconceptions of, and strategies for love regulation were replicated in two independent samples. Importantly, people were able to up-regulate their love feelings by thinking about the positive aspects of their partner and/or relationship and imagining positive future scenarios. People were also able to down-regulate their love feelings by thinking about negative aspects of their partner and/or relationship and imagining negative future scenarios.

This study, being the first of its kind, provides many suggestions for future research. In this study, we only tested the short-term effects of love regulation. For daily life applicability, it would of course be important that the effects of love regulation are long-lived and/or that people are able to perform love regulation habitually to obtain a sustained effect. Therefore, future studies should examine the long-term effects of love regulation, including its effects on well-being and relationship stability and satisfaction, as well as ways in which love regulation can become habitual. It would also be interesting to examine the effectiveness of behavioral and cognitive strategies other than reappraisal for regulating love feelings, including distraction, avoidance, and undertaking (new) activities with the beloved. In addition, it is important dissociate the effects of love regulation on love feelings and on affect, as a desirable effect on love feelings may be accompanied by an undesirable effect on affect, or vice versa. Love up- and down-regulation have numerous applications, ranging from stabilizing long-term relationships including marriages, reducing heartbreak after romantic break-ups, ameliorating unwanted crushes and forbidden loves, and perhaps even coping with the death of a beloved. In short, love regulation may increase the positive effects and decrease the negative effects of love on individuals and on society and therefore deserves much attention from the scientific community.

Supporting Information

S1 appendix. questions about perceived control over love feelings..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.s001

S1 Text. Neutral IAPS pictures.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161087.s002

Acknowledgments

We thank Annemieke van Arum, Mandy van Dijk, Liesbeth Janssen, and Ginger Sassen for help with the data collection.

Author Contributions

• Conceptualization: SJEL JWvS.
• Formal analysis: SJEL.
• Investigation: JWvS.
• Methodology: SJEL JWvS.
• Resources: JWvS.
• Software: SJEL.
• Supervision: JWvS.
• Visualization: SJEL.
• Writing - original draft: SJEL.
• Writing - review & editing: SJEL JWvS.
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Psychological Research on Love and Its Influence in Adult Human Relationships

Now, here is this topic about love. The subject without any movie, novel, poem and song cannot exist. The topic of love has fascinated scientists, philosophers, historians, poets, playwrights, novelists, and songwriters, as well as all other human beings.

I decided to look at this subject from a scientific point of view. It was very interesting to search and to write this article, and I hope that it will be interesting to you to read it. It is ironic, that as I am writing this article on Saturday in the empty Riordan Clinic, while drinking tea and eating chocolate that I found a love poem from “Romeo and Juliet” inside the wrapping.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON LOVE Whereas psychological science was slow to develop an active interest in love, the past few decades have seen considerable growth in research on the subject. The excellent review of the central and well-established findings from psychologically informed research on love and its influence in adult human relationships is presented in this article:

“Love. What Is It, Why Does It Matter, and How Does It Operate?” H Reis and A Aron. The brief summary of the ideas from this article is presented below.

On the other hand, four major intellectual developments of the 19th and 20th centuries provided key insights that helped shape the agenda for current research and theory of love.

The first major intellectual development was the work of Charles Darwin, who proposed that reproductive success was the central process underlying the evolution of species. Evolutionary theorizing has led directly to such currently popular concepts as mate preference, sexual mating strategies, and attachment, as well as to the adoption of a comparative approach across species.

A second development was the work of Sigmund Freud. Contemporary research and theory on love features many psychodynamic principles that were first introduced by Freud, such as the importance of early childhood experiences, the powerful impact of motives operating outside of awareness, the role of defenses in shaping the behavioral expression of motives, and the role of sexuality as a force in human behavior

A third historically significant development was the work of Margaret Mead. Mead’s vivid descriptions of cultural variations in the expression of love and sexuality led researchers to consider the influence of socialization and to recognize cultural variation in many aspects of love.

At the same time, social psychologists were beginning work that would show that adult love could be studied experimentally and in the laboratory.

Any history of psychological research on love would be incomplete without reference to “l’affaire Proxmire”. In March 1975, William Proxmire, a powerful U.S. Senator, gave the first of a series of so-called Golden Fleece Awards to Ellen Berscheid and Elaine Hatfield, the two most prominent love researchers of the time. They had recently received a federal grant for their work. To some, their work was a gross misuse of federal tax-payer dollars and a topic “better left to poets.” For the ensuing years, that ill-informed and ignoble proclamation cast a pall not only on Berscheid and Hatfield but on any scientist interested in studying love. To this day, politics occasionally obstructs funding for research on love.

Despite the political barrier to love research in the U.S., other countries, particularly Canada, have taken a more enlightened view, as have at least two private foundations.

Considerable evidence supports a basic distinction, first offered in 1978, between passionate love (“a state of intense longing for union with another”) and other types of romantic love, labeled companionate love (“the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined”). The evidence for this distinction comes from a variety of research methods, including psychometric techniques (e.g., factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, and prototype analysis), examinations of the behavioral and relationship consequences of different forms of romantic love, and biological studies, which are discussed in this article.

Most work has focused on identifying and measuring passionate love and several aspects of romantic love, which include two components: intimacy and commitment. Some scholars see companionate love as a combination of intimacy and commitment whereas others see intimacy as the central component, with commitment as a peripheral factor (but important in its own right, such as for predicting relationship longevity). In some studies, trust and caring were considered highly prototypical of love, whereas uncertainty and “butterflies in the stomach” were more peripheral.

Passionate and companionate love solves different adaptational problems. Passionate love may be said to solve the attraction problem—that is, for individuals to enter into a potentially long-term mating relationship, they must first identify and select suitable candidates, attract the other’s interest, engage in relationship-building behavior, and then go about reorganizing existing activities and relationships so as to include the other. All of this is effortful, time-consuming, and disruptive. Consequently, passionate love is associated with many changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior. For the most part, these changes are consistent with the idea of disrupting existing activities, routines, and social networks to orient the individual’s attention and goal-directed behavior toward a specific new partner.

Considerably less effort has been devoted toward understanding the evolutionary significance of the intimacy and commitment aspects of love. However, much evidence indicates that love in long-term relationships is associated with intimacy, trust, caring, and attachment, all factors that contribute to the maintenance of relationships over time.

More generally, the term companionate love may be characterized by a communal relationship: a relationship built on mutual expectations that one’s self and a partner will be responsive to each other’s needs.

It was speculated that companionate love, or at least the various processes associated with it, is responsible for the noted association between social relatedness and health and well-being. In a recent series of papers, it was claimed that marriage is linked to health benefits.

Having noted the positive functions of love, it is also important to consider the dark side. That is, problems in love and love relationships are a significant source of suicides, homicides, and both major and minor emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Love matters not only because it can make our lives better, but also because it is a major source of misery and pain that can make life much worse.

One particularly timely prediction is that psychological theories of love are likely to become more biologically informed, in the sense that the psychological and behavioral phenomena associated with love will have clear, comprehensible, and distinguishable neural and hormonal substrates. This will be useful not so much for the intrinsic purpose of identifying the brain and body regions in which love occurs, but rather because the identification of neural and hormonal circuits corresponding to particular experiences and behaviors will allow researchers to sort the various phenomena associated with love into their natural categories.

It is also believed that research will address how culture shapes the experience and expression of love. Although both passionate and companionate love appears to be universal, it is apparent that their manifestations may be moderated by culture-specific norms and rules.

Passionate and companionate love have profoundly different implications for marriage around the world, considered essential in some cultures but contra-indicated or rendered largely irrelevant in others. For example, among U.S. college students in the 1960s, only 24% of women and 65% of men considered love to be the basis of marriage, but in the 1980s this view was endorsed by more than 80% of both women and men.

Finally, the authors believe that the future will see a better understanding of what may be the quintessential question about love: how this very individualistic feeling is shaped by experiences in interaction with particular others.

Why Love Has Wings and Sex Has Not: How Reminders of Love and Sex Influence Creative and Analytic Thinking (J.A. Forster). This article examines cognitive links between romantic love and creativity and between sexual desire and analytic thought based on construal level theory. It suggests that when in love, people typically focus on a long-term perspective, which should enhance holistic thinking and thereby creative thought, whereas when experiencing sexual encounters, they focus on the present and on concrete details enhancing analytic thinking. Because people automatically activate these processing styles when in love or when they experience sex, subtle or even unconscious reminders of love versus sex should suffice to change processing modes. Two studies explicitly or subtly reminded participants of situations of love or sex and found support for this hypothesis.

Passion, Intimacy, and Time: Passionate Love as a Function of Change in Intimacy (R.F. Baumeister, E. Bratslavsky) To build on existing theories about love, the authors propose that passion is a function of change in intimacy (i.e., the first derivative of intimacy overtime). Hence, passion will be low when intimacy is stable (either high or low), but rising intimacy will create a strong sense of passion. This view is able to account for a broad range of evidence, including frequency of sex in long-term relationships, intimate and sexual behavior of extraverts, gender differences in intimate behavior, gain and loss effects of communicated attraction, and patterns of distress in romantic breakups.

TO LOVE, OR NOT TO LOVE. Love Stories of Later Life: A Narrative Approach to Understanding Romance (Amanda Smith Barusch. Oxford University Press, 2008.) This book is a qualitative study employing in-depth interviews and an open-ended survey distributed on the Internet. Barusch (a professor of social work) focused her study on four research questions. They include, but are not limited to 1. How do older adults describe and experience romantic love? 2. How do gender, culture, and age influence the lived experience of romantic love? 3. Is it possible to fall in love at advanced ages? If so, how do adults describe this experience? Do their descriptions differ from those offered by younger people? 4. How do older adults interpret their lived experiences of romance?

Barusch writes with two different ‘voices’ for two different audiences. First, she writes for academic gerontologists who have an interest in the study of late relationships. Second, she writes for elders who want to gain insight into romantic and sexual relationships in later life. She hopes that this audience will gain strength and insight by reading her book. The book is delightful, hopeful and inspiring.

It is rare for an author to successfully address two such diverse audiences. We encourage you to read this fine work.

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Six Misconceptions We Have About Romantic Love

Love is everywhere you look. People talk about love in pop songs, on TV, across social media, over dinner, at work, and in school hallways. There is also growing scientific interest in romantic love, as is evident from the increased number of publications on this topic, the organization of conferences—and the Greater Good Science Center’s new project on the science of love, which launches this month.

Why? First, romantic love pertains to virtually everyone. More than 80% of American adolescents reported to have been involved in at least one romantic relationship by the age of 18, according to one 2003 study , and love has been observed in almost all cultures that have been studied . Second, when people fall in love, it greatly affects their lives . People are sometimes even willing to change their friends, job, country, or religion to be with their beloved.

But do we really understand love? Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions about romantic love permeating popular media, the scientific community, or both. Some of these stem from the assumptions we make about romantic love. Others arise from hypotheses or interpretations put forth in scientific articles being cited in other articles as empirical evidence. Collectively, these misconceptions hamper the progress of the scientific understanding of romantic love—and they can lead any of us astray when we think about love in our own lives. Here are six misconceptions about romantic love that are not supported by the research to date.

1. Romantic love is not necessarily dyadic or even interpersonal

The first misconception is that romantic love is something that must exist between two people. For example, an anonymous reviewer of one of my manuscripts commented, “It’s odd that ~1/6 of the sample who were purportedly ‘in love’ were not in a relationship with the target of their love.”

Contrary to what the reviewer seemed to think, it does not take two to love. While romantic love has obvious interpersonal aspects (i.e., people are in love with another person and romantic relationships involve more than one person by definition), romantic love is not  necessarily  dyadic or interpersonal. For example, people can develop love feelings for someone before they become involved in a romantic relationship—and they can still experience love feelings after a relationship has ended. People can be in love with someone who doesn’t love them back. People can love someone they have never been and will never be in a romantic relationship with. People can experience love feelings for someone they have never even interacted with. Examples of this are love at first sight and parasocial attachment to celebrities or fictional characters in movies, TV shows, video games, and books.

So, romantic love is not always a social process and does happen outside of relationships. The misconception that romantic love only happens within relationships has led some people to confuse relationship satisfaction and love feelings. But people can be satisfied with a relationship if it fulfills some need (such as money, housekeeping, sex, protection, child care, status, personal growth), even if they don’t love their partner. And in abusive relationships, it is possible that the victim loves their abuser while being unsatisfied with the relationship. So, relationship satisfaction is not the same as how in love someone is.

2. Love is not an emotion

Many of us believe love is an emotion, like fear, anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, and joy.

Although scientists do not agree on how many and which types of love exist, they do agree that there are multiple types of love—and that’s actually one reason to assume that love  as a whole  is not an emotion. For example, researchers have distinguished between infatuation (aka passionate love) and attachment (aka companionate love). Infatuation is the early stage of love that is associated with euphoria, nervousness, and butterflies in the stomach. Attachment, on the other hand, takes time to develop and is a calming, comforting feeling.

There are also reasons to assume that the different types of love themselves are not emotions either. First, love elicits various emotions depending on the situation. Loving someone who loves you back can make you experience the emotion joy, while loving someone who does not love you back can make you experience the emotion sadness.

There’s another reason why the different types of love are not really emotions: My own neuroscience research finds that distraction after a romantic breakup decreased negative feelings but not the intensity of love, and that negative reappraisal of an ex-partner (e.g., “They weren’t so great”) decreased love intensity yet increased negative feelings.

Those observations suggest that love regulation and emotion regulation are distinct. In other words, love regulation targets love feelings (such as infatuation and attachment), whereas emotion regulation targets emotions (such as fear, anger, sadness, surprise, disgust, and joy).

Finally, love can be very long-lasting, whereas emotions are usually quite fleeting. Research has shown that emotions typically last for a half hour up to several days. The longest-lasting emotion was sadness, which can last two to five days. In contrast, it is not uncommon for infatuation to last for weeks or months and for attachment to last for years or decades.

Rather than an emotion, scientists have called love an attitude, a script, or a motivation or drive—like craving, lust, hunger, and thirst.

3. Romantic love does not just have positive effects

The third misconception is that romantic love has mainly positive effects.

Of course, love has many positive effects on people and society. Infatuation, for example, elicits positive emotions such as euphoria, and romantic relationships increase happiness and life satisfaction. But it is often overlooked that love has many negative effects on people and society, as well.

First, love can elicit several negative emotions. Infatuation is stressful, love can be accompanied by jealousy, the death of a romantic partner may elicit intense grief, and unreciprocated love and romantic breakups trigger sadness and shame.

Second, love can reduce general well-being. Romantic breakups are a main risk factor for depression in adolescents. And dysfunctional romantic relationships and romantic breakups are associated with decreased happiness and life satisfaction.

Third, people who are in love may be distracted from their duties (such as work or homework) because they think about their beloved all the time. Even though this may not bother the infatuated person, it may result in a loss of productivity or at least frustration in the people around the lover.

Fourth, love plays a role in several mental disorders (such as sexual dysfunctions, paraphilic disorders, and erotomanic and jealous delusional disorders), as well as in suicidal behavior. Finally, love is associated with criminal behavior such as stalking, domestic violence, and homicide.

It may be clear that love has both positive and negative effects, the latter of which cause substantial individual, social, and economic burden. I hope that scientific research on romantic love can both increase the positive effects of love and decrease its negative effects on people and society.

4. There is no love brain region, love neurotransmitter, or love hormone

It’s important to know that each brain region, neurotransmitter, and hormone has multiple functions—and also that each function requires multiple brain regions, neurotransmitters, and hormones. Love affects behavior, feelings, thoughts, and bodily responses in many different ways. And each of these “symptoms” of romantic love depends on different brain regions, and multiple neurotransmitters and hormones.

Take, for example, the fact that people have better memory for information that has to do with their beloved, which is related to how arousing this information is. We know that better memory for exciting information depends on two brain regions called the amygdala and the hippocampus, the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, and the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Therefore, it can be expected that those parts of our nervous systems are involved in the better memory for information related to the beloved.

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Or consider this: We get clammy hands when we are infatuated. Researchers know that this sweating is part of the flight-or-fight response and involves release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the sympathetic nervous system, which in turn is controlled by the hypothalamus in the brain. Therefore, that brain region and neurotransmitter likely play a role in getting clammy hands when infatuated.

Even though scientists typically understand that there is no dedicated love component in our nervous systems, they could improve the focus of their research questions and designs by understanding romantic love as an emergent process that consists of numerous moving parts, each with its own neurobiological basis. But why should everyone else care? Because, perhaps, if you share this understanding of love feelings as complex neurological processes, you might better understand why love can feel so complicated to you!


5. A love drug won’t be developed anytime soon

There is a misconception that we will soon be able to the develop a love drug, which is something that people have pursued for ages, for example through sorcery. Even nowadays, people across the world wishfully use aphrodisiacs and love philters. Although evidence-based pharmacological manipulation of love feelings may be possible at some point, several issues prevent the development of an effective and safe “love pill” in the short term.

We are only just starting to learn which neurotransmitters and hormones might play a role in the different types of love. For example, several neuroimaging studies have shown that certain brain regions (such as the caudate, putamen, ventral tegmental area, insula, cingulate cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus) are more active when people view pictures of their beloved than when they view pictures of other people. Some of those brain regions (especially the caudate, putamen, and ventral tegmental area) contain a lot of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The activation of these dopaminergic brain regions in response to the beloved has been taken to mean that romantic love is associated with high levels of dopamine. However, it is important to note that the method used in those neuroimaging studies (functional magnetic resonance imaging) only shows what areas of the brain receive extra oxygen through blood. But this method cannot show whether dopamine is released.

As far as I know, there is only one study that has actually measured dopamine levels when people view pictures of their beloved (compared to when they view pictures of friends), using a method called positron emission tomography. That study shows more dopamine release when people view the beloved (as opposed to the friend) in two brain regions that are called the medial orbitofrontal cortex and the prefrontal cortex. This study surprisingly did not find more dopamine release when people viewed the beloved than the friend in the more typical dopaminergic regions that received more oxygen through blood in previous studies. So, more research is needed on whether and where dopamine is released when people see their beloved.

As another example, it has been suggested that romantic love is associated with low levels of serotonin because of its resemblance with obsessive-compulsive disorder. But in one study, women who were in love had higher serotonin levels in their blood than women who were not in love. And obsessive thinking about the beloved in these women was associated with higher, rather than lower, serotonin levels in their blood. So we cannot conclude at this time that romantic love is associated with low serotonin levels.

Crucially, to develop a “love pill” we would have to prove that changing the level of some neurotransmitter or hormone actually changes the intensity of love. But most studies so far have only compared people who are in love when they view pictures of their beloved with when they view other pictures. It would be informative, but more difficult, to compare people who are in love with people who are not in love. Or, even better, to compare people before and after they fall in love.

It would also be challenging to design a drug that changes love feelings for one person specifically, which would be desirable in at least some situations. For example, someone who is married might want to decrease their love feelings for a crush without changing (or while increasing) their love for their spouse. And because the neurotransmitters and hormones involved in love have many different functions, any love drug that affects the levels of these neurotransmitters or hormones may have side effects that could be adverse. So, unfortunately, it will be a while until you can use a love drug to change how in love you are, if ever.

6. Romantic love is not uncontrollable

However, there are many situations in which it might be beneficial to change how in love you are—and my research says that you can. The solution is not drugs, but rather intentional thinking.

In some situations, love feelings may be stronger than desired, such as when people are still in love with an ex-partner, when the love is forbidden, and when people are in love with someone who treats them poorly. In situations like those, people may want to decrease how in love they are, which can help them cope with heartbreak. It can also help people to stop pursuing an inappropriate partner or to put an end to a dysfunctional (e.g., abusive) relationship.

At other times, love feelings may be weaker than desired, such as when they decline over time in long-term relationships. In situations like that one, you may want to increase how in love you are, which could help you maintain long-term relationships.

Nevertheless, many people think that love regulation is difficult or even impossible. But my research suggests that people can become more or less in love by doing or thinking certain things. One study shows that something as simple as looking at pictures of the beloved increases infatuation and attachment. Another study finds that thinking about positive aspects of the beloved (“they are so smart,” “he is such a good cook”), the relationship (“we agree on how to spend our money”), and the future (“we’ll live happily ever after”) increases attachment. And yet another of my studies suggests that fantasizing about having sex with your beloved (such as imagining something you would like your partner to do to you during sex) increases sexual desire and infatuation. These are strategies that you can use to strengthen your love feelings for someone.

In another experiment, thinking about the negative aspects of the beloved (“she never puts the cap on the toothpaste”), the relationship (“we fight a lot”), and the future (“we won’t stay together forever”) decreased infatuation and attachment. These are strategies that you can use to weaken your love feelings for someone.

So, in contrast to what you may think, it is beneficial and possible to change how in love you are. Give it a try when you find yourself more or less in love than you’d like to be!

This article is a shortened and revised version of “ Refuting Six Misconceptions About Romantic Love ,” published in May 2024 by the journal Behavioral Sciences .

About the Author

Sandra Langeslag

Sandra Langeslag, Ph.D. , is an associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She is the director of the Neurocognition of Emotion and Motivation (NEM) Lab. Her research focuses mainly on the interaction between romantic love and cognition.

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Every Wedding Anniversary Gift Theme by Year

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We all know that weddings, and the anniversaries that follow, come with tons of traditions. Sometimes, we know the meanings behind the traditions: Brides wear white to represent purity (and carry something blue as a symbol of fidelity), wedding rings are worn on the left hand because the left side has a direct line to the heart or and tossing rice symbolizes fertility and prosperity.

The idea of giving specific gifts for certain anniversaries gained steam in Victorian England, when couples were newly marrying for love. "When the love match was first invented it was very destabilizing and traditional conservatives were horrified by the idea," Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History , told Time . "What in the world will we do to get people married and keep them married if love is the main reason? And so there began to be this emphasis on building a love and commitment."

Of course, the Victorians didn't have final say over the list of traditional gifts. Emily Post is credited with solidifying a list for major milestone anniversaries in her 1922 Etiquette: in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home . But even then, she only included eight suggestions for presents. Later, in 1937, the American National Retail Jewelers Association came out with a "modern" list , that called for more practical and less symbolic gifts. Gemstones, colors and flowers round out the anniversary-gift traditions.

For those just starting off on their newlywed journey, these are the traditional anniversary gifts by year. Start planning now, because your diamond anniversary will be here sooner than you think!

Traditional Wedding Anniversary Gifts by Year

Like all wedding-related traditions, there are tons of different ways to celebrate your wedding anniversaries. Different lists might have different items for certain years, depending on what country's list you're looking at (the United States and United Kingdom sometimes diverge). And even within each country, there may be variations or options for certain years. This list will help you keep track of the most-often-used traditional anniversary gifts by year, as well as the modern gifts, the gemstones, the flowers and the colors for each year. We'll even give you a gift idea for each year to get you started off.

1st Anniversary: Paper

When you first get married, your life is a blank slate — hence the traditional first anniversary gift of paper . Those plain white sheets symbolize the blank pages on which you'll write the story of your lives together. According to the list of modern gifts, the first anniversary gift is clocks , for a similar reason: you two have all the time in the world.The traditional color of a first anniversary is yellow or gold , and the "gemstone" is gold , too (even though that's obviously a metal, not a gemstone). And, for that first-year bouquet, the traditional first anniversary flower is the simple carnation .

RELATED: The Best 1-Year Anniversary Gifts

2nd Anniversary: Cotton

As the anniversaries go on, the materials get sturdier. Cotton is used for second anniversaries because it's both soft and strong, just like your union. (The modern take is china , for the same reason — tough but fragile.) Also, the way that cotton is woven together represents the way that your lives are now forever intertwined.

The color for the second anniversary is red , and so too are the flower and gemstone. The flower is the cosmos , and the gem is the garnet — both come in a variety of colors, but look gorgeous in deep red hues.

RELATED: The Best 2-Year Anniversary Gifts

3rd Anniversary: Leather

Leather : It's stronger than cotton, but still really flexible. By this point, three years into your marriage, you've probably been through a few ups and downs that have tested your strength, and come out the other side even heartier.

The modern third anniversary gift is crystal or glass , which is similar to china in that it can last forever, but is still very breakable. The color is white , so the corresponding gemstone is pearl . The flower, on the other hand, is the brilliant yellow sunflower .

RELATED: The Best 3-Year Anniversary Gifts

4th Anniversary: Fruit or Flowers

Why is the fourth anniversary fruit or flowers ? Aren't they more delicate than leather? The answer is that, after four years, your relationship has really blossomed, so fruit and flowers are only fitting.

The modern anniversary list says four years means you're due for an upgrade in appliances , which, if you're in the market, the Good Housekeeping Institute Appliance Lab can help you find the perfect gift.

And while the theme of the year means any bouquet of flowers would be appropriate, the traditional fourth anniversary flower is the geranium . The color is blue/green , echoing the color of the blue topaz gemstone.

RELATED: The Best 4-Year Anniversary Gifts

5th Anniversary: Wood

Five years in, you're solid. Solid like wood , the traditional fifth anniversary gift. And, like trees, you're still growing, too. The modern fifth anniversary gift is silverware , in preparation of all the family meals you've shared and will continue to share. (Life is too short to put up with old forks.)

Usually the colors of the gemstone and the flower line up, but this year they're disparate: The flower is the daisy , and the gemstone is a brilliant sapphire . Traditional colors are blue and pink .

RELATED: The Best 5-Year Anniversary Gifts

6th Anniversary: Candy or Iron

You are sweet. You are tough. So, for your sixth anniversary, you can go in either direction: candy or iron . (We'll take the candy every time, but that's just us.) Or you could take a third route, since the modern guide is catching up to the traditional one: The modern gift this year is wood .

Colors also give you a range of choice, as purple, white and turquoise are all appropriate. The sixth anniversary flower is the calla lily , popular in wedding bouquets, and the gemstone is the amethyst , which is said to protect the wearer from impurities.

RELATED: The Best 6-Year Anniversary Gifts

7th Anniversary: Wool or Copper

The seventh anniversary is all about cozying up. Wool is known for its warmth, and copper conducts heat, and the two elements represent the snuggly comfort of your marriage. The modern gift is a desk set , so you can send your warm wishes to your loved ones from afar.

The rest of the anniversary may seem black-and-white: The color is off-white or yellow , and the gemstone is onyx . The flower is freesia , which represents faithfulness (no seven-year itches here).

RELATED: The Best 7-Year Anniversary Gifts

8th Anniversary: Bronze

The same way your marriage is a union of individuals, bronze is a union of copper and tin — and a strong one, too — making it the perfect eighth anniversary gift. Then again, the modern gift list takes on a much more refined tone, making the eighth year one for linens or lace .

The traditional color is also bronze , and the flower is the clematis . The gemstone is tourmaline , which is versatile because it comes in a range of colors.

RELATED: The Best 8-Year Anniversary Gifts

9th Anniversary: Pottery or Willow

You, and your marriage, has transformed over time. Both willow ( wicker ) and pottery , the traditional ninth anniversary gifts, are materials that have also undergone a transformation due to the elements and emerged more beautiful. The same goes for the modern gift: leather .

Fittingly, the color of the ninth anniversary goes well with pottery: terracotta . Lapis lazuli is the gemstone, and the flower is poppy .

RELATED: The Best 9-Year Anniversary Gifts

10th Anniversary: Tin or Aluminum

The traditional 10-year anniversary gift is tin or aluminum , again as a symbol of strength. To be honest, that's a bit of a letdown after a decade of marriage. The modern gift list and the gemstone are in agreement on a present that's a little more deserving of the occasion: diamonds . Time for another ring to stack against that wedding band?

The traditional colors are silver and blue , and the flower is the sunny, happy daffodil .

RELATED: The Best 10-Year Anniversary Gifts

11th Anniversary: Steel

Many of the materials in the traditional anniversary gifts have been metal, and as they've progressed, the metals have gotten stronger, symbolizing the growing strength of your bond. The eleventh anniversary brings us to steel , the second-toughest metal in the world. The first is tungsten, which sadly does not make the anniversary list, though you can buy tungsten rings — fitting, since the modern gift for the year is fashion jewelry .

If you want to incorporate the eleventh-anniversary gemstone into that fashion jewelry, you'd buy something with turquoise in it. (The color is turquoise , too.) The flower is either the morning glory, or the tulip .

RELATED: The Best 11-Year Anniversary Gifts

12th Anniversary: Silk and Linen

The twelfth anniversary gifts represent aspects of your relationship other than its strong bond: Linen stands for purity, while silk represents elegance. The modern gift is pearls , which symbolize wisdom. In either case, you're coming up in the world.

Pearl is also the gemstone, though it can also be jade , and the colors are therefore oyster white or jade green . The flower is a peony , which has big, round blooms reminiscent of a pearl.

RELATED: The Best 12-Year Anniversary Gifts

13th Anniversary: Lace

Who says 13 is unlucky? Not when you get lace as a 13th anniversary gift, with the delicate, intricate pattern representing how your lives have become inextricably intertwined. The modern gift — textiles — works off the same idea. You're one woven fabric now.

Even luckier, the 13th gemstone is the bright citrine , and the flower is the chrysanthemum , which often symbolizes royalty. The color is an antique white , just like lace.

14th Anniversary: Ivory

The fourteenth anniversary is traditionally the ivory anniversary, and to that, we say no thank you. You can use the tradition as inspiration to get an ivory-colored gift — the color of the year is ivory , too — or go with the modern gift: gold jewelry .

The perfect stone to go in that gold jewelry? Opal , the gemstone for the year, which is perfect for gift-giving because legend says it's unlucky to buy an opal for yourself. The traditional flowers of the year are orchids and dahlias .

RELATED: The Best Bath Towels, According to Textile Experts

15th Anniversary: Crystal

What better way to toast your 15th anniversary than with some brand-new crystal to hold your libations? Or you can go with the modern interpretation: watches . Or get a watch with a crystal face, and kill two birds with one stone.

The 15th anniversary gem and color go hand in hand: the gemstone is ruby , and the color is red . The flower is roses , so feel free to get a big bouquet of red ones to celebrate such a milestone year.

RELATED: The Best 15-Year Anniversary Gifts

16th Anniversary: Wax

After 16 years, you still have that spark, and you know how to make each other melt. Sounds like this is the perfect year for a wax anniversary gift. The modern equivalent is silver serving pieces , also called holloware. Do both, and you'll have a beautifully presented table where you can have you anniversary dinner.

The color is a beautiful emerald green , which coordinates with the peridot gemstone. The flower, on the other hand, is the bright purple and blue statice .

17th Anniversary: Furniture

The 17th anniversary is furniture, a perfect time to look around, take stock and see what parts of your domicile need new home ideas and a design refresh. It just makes sense that both the traditional and the modern gift, then, would be furniture . Get something sturdy, to match the solidity of your bond. Maybe get something yellow , the color of the year.

The 17th anniversary gemstone is carnelian , which comes in a fiery red color that symbolizes bold energy and warmth. And to match it, the flower circles back to the red carnation .

18th Anniversary: Porcelain

Your love will last forever. So too will this durable porcelain , which is both the traditional and modern gift of the year. Porcelain is also made of clay that has been tested by fire and made stronger, just as your relationship has undergone some trials of its own.

When it comes to flowers, though, it's anyone's choice: There is no traditional flower associated with the 18th anniversary. The color, though, is blue , and the gemstone is the sparkling cat's eye .

RELATED: The Best Dinnerware Sets of 2021

19th Anniversary: Bronze

Bronze is the material so nice, it's on the list twice! It was the eighth anniversary gift, and it's back for the 19th, for both the traditional and modern lists. And there's no better way to show how enduring something is than circling back to it after more than 10 years and seeing how you view it differently. Bronze is also the color of the year.

The flower is a repeat, too: Chrysanthemums are the flower of the 19th year, especially ones that come in a bronze color. But the gemstone goes in a different direction, with the cool, blue aquamarine being the stone of choice for this year.

Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; she previously wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother . She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found dominating the audio round at her local bar trivia night or tweeting about movies.

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Well-Being and Romantic Relationships: A Systematic Review in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

Adolescence and emerging adulthood are both stages in which romantic relationships play a key role in development and can be a source of both well-being and negative outcomes. However, the limited number of studies prior to adulthood, along with the multiplicity of variables involved in the romantic context and the considerable ambiguity surrounding the construct of well-being, make it difficult to reach conclusions about the relationship between the two phenomena. This systematic review synthesizes the results produced into this topic over the last three decades. A total of 112 studies were included, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) guidelines. On the one hand, these works revealed the terminological heterogeneity in research on well-being and the way the absence of symptoms of illness are commonly used to measure it, while on the other hand, they also showed that romantic relationships can be an important source of well-being for both adolescents and emerging adults. The findings underline the importance of providing a better definition of well-being, as well as to attribute greater value to the significance of romantic relationships. Devoting greater empirical, educational, and community efforts to romantic development in the stages leading up to adulthood are considered necessary actions in promoting the well-being of young people.

1. Introduction

Since World War II, most conceptualizations of health have been focused on the absence of illness and disability [ 1 ]. Psychology was concentrated on repairing damage within a disease model of human functioning [ 2 ], paying almost exclusive attention to pathology and neglecting the study of the positive features that make life worth living [ 2 ]. It is currently known that the absence of pathology does not necessarily correlate with positive dimensions of health and well-being [ 3 , 4 ], and psychologists have begun to admit well-being as a relevant aim of study, as well as the factors that contribute to its encouragement [ 5 ]. Positive psychology was recently established as a new perspective specifically addressing the study of well-being, quality of life, strengths, and resources [ 2 , 6 ]. Within this framework, diverse approaches have emerged. In a general sense, well-being can be understood as optimal psychological functioning and experience [ 7 ]. More specifically, some theorists have defined it as a state characterized by a high degree of satisfaction with life and the experience of high levels of positive affect [ 8 ], while others have focused on the notion of a process of fulfilling human potentials, capacities, and virtues [ 7 ]. Despite this systematization of the theory, the diversity of terminology found in the different studies has led to a certain degree of controversy. Although, admittedly, this situation has contributed to a productive scientific debate, it has also led to considerable ambiguity and theoretical and methodological confusion. On the other hand, these approaches represent mainly personal evaluations of what well-being means, and they deal only fleetingly with the social dimension of the individuals involved. In this sense, it has been previously established that the desire for interpersonal attachment (the need to belong) is a fundamental human motivation [ 9 ], especially when it refers to romantic relationships. So important is relatedness that some theorists have defined it as a basic human need, essential for well-being [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. For example, in their 2002 study, Diener and Seligman examined extremely happy people to determine necessary conditions for entering this group [ 13 ]. They found that good and strong personal relationships were ubiquitous in these people. Nevertheless, the topic of relationships is complex and close relationships are multifaceted, justifying with this a study of specificity, in terms of the aspects of relationships that can promote well-being [ 7 ].

1.1. Romantic Relationships and Well-Being in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

From an evolutionary point of view, adolescence and emerging adulthood (the periods which span the second and third decades of life [ 14 , 15 ]) have been described as being vitally important in terms of the development of romantic relationships [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Defined as “mutually acknowledged ongoing voluntary interactions” [ 18 , 19 ], these relationships, unlike others such as friendships, are characterized by a particular intensity, specific expressions of affection, and initiation in erotic sexual encounters [ 19 ]. Previous studies have shown that these experiences are frequent during adolescence and tend to consolidate over time [ 20 , 21 ], representing an important context for learning and training for future intimate relationships [ 14 ]. By middle adolescence, most boys and girls have been involved in at least one romantic relationship [ 21 ], providing them with a scenario characterized by greater intimacy, support, and importance as their age advances [ 22 , 23 ]. As adolescents approach emerging adulthood, the time they devote to their romantic partners increases [ 24 , 25 ], and they use these relationships to look for company, emotional security, intimacy, and the feeling of love they provide, until they reach a stage when they are ready to take decisions over questions of long-term commitment, such as cohabitation and marriage [ 26 , 27 ]. According to the developmental task theory, during adolescence, romantic involvement is an emerging developmental task, which will eventually become a salient developmental task in adulthood [ 28 ].

Romantic relationships and experiences are important sources of emotional bonding and contribute to the development of a positive self-concept and greater social integration [ 29 , 30 ]. The successful establishment and maintenance of romantic relationships can have important repercussions in later stages of life [ 15 ], and has been described to contribute to people’s mental and physical health and, therefore, to their well-being [ 31 ]. From this perspective, romantic relationships, when sustained over time, constitute a transformation of the attachment bond. The quality of the relationship, the history of the shared experiences, the sense of attachment, and the beliefs which arise from the whole experience have all been recognized as modulating the well-being of the partners [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ]. Despite the fact that the wide range of aspects mentioned in the research makes it difficult to establish how direct an effect these relationships have on well-being, there is a broad consensus in the literature that love is one of the strengths most closely linked to personal happiness [ 41 , 42 ], and is associated with higher rates of self-esteem, safety, satisfaction with life, positive affect, and achievement of personal and relational goals [ 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]. However, romantic relationships have also been associated with negative outcomes, especially during adolescence. Thus, studies have suggested that romantic involvement may be related to the presence of different forms of violence [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], experiencing internalizing symptoms such as depression or anxiety (e.g., [ 37 , 51 , 52 ]), poorer psychosocial functioning [ 53 ], or delinquency [ 54 ].

1.2. The Present Study

Following these considerations, the empirical evidence suggests the important role that romantic relationships can play in people’s well-being, however, the number of studies focusing on stages prior to adulthood remain relatively limited, consequently not providing clarifying results. Moreover, the wide range of intervening variables in the romantic context and the relative ambiguity of the concept of well-being make it difficult to draw conclusions. Therefore, a work of synthesis is required to gather together the accumulated empirical knowledge and facilitate an understanding of the findings made so far in relation to the association between well-being and romantic relationships in adolescence and emerging adulthood. To do this, the general aim of this study was to carry out an exhaustive review of the existing literature in order to delve deeper into this topic. In particular, a specific aim was established: To identify the variables of romantic relationships that studies have associated with the well-being of young people.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. literature search and quality assurance.

A structured search was carried out between July and September 2017 in the following databases of high-quality standards, which include peer-reviewed studies: Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO and Scielo. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P) Declaration was applied [ 55 ], following its protocol for the planning, preparation, and publication of systematic reviews and meta-analyses [ 56 ]. The search terms used included keywords in Spanish and English which were considered to be indicators of well-being (bienestar*, well-being*, wellbeing*, “wellbeing”, felicidad*, happiness*, “fortalezas psicológicas”, “psychological strengths”, florecimiento*, flourishing*, “desarrollo positivo”, “positive development”) and keywords linked to romantic relationships (dating*, “relaciones sentimentales”, “sentimental relationships”, “relaciones románticas”, “romantic relationships”, cortejo*, courtship*, “relaciones íntimas”, “intimate relationships”). In order to achieve a comprehensive overview of the state of research in this field, the search did not include any specific terms (e.g., psychological well-being, subjective well-being, hedonia, eudaimonia, hooking up, friends with benefits, etc.).

2.2. Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria

The inclusion criteria were established following the PICOS (acronym for Participants, Interventions, Comparisons, Outcomes and Study design) format [ 57 ]:

• Type of participants: Adolescents and emerging adults of both sexes, ranging in age from 13 to 29 years old, or those whose average age is included in that range, with no known mental disorders, and those of any origin or nationality.
• Type of studies: Empirical studies written in English or Spanish and published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Type of outcome measurements: In a first stage, studies were included which made explicit reference to the search descriptors in the title, summary, and/or keywords. In a second stage, studies were included with specific analyses of the link between romantic relationships and any of the previous indicators.
• Type of designs: Quantitative and qualitative.

Additional exclusion criteria included theoretical studies, doctoral theses, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, book chapters, reports from conferences or symposia, letters to the editor, minutes of meetings or informative notes, and studies in which the authors did not provide information about the participants’ age.

2.3. Data Coding and Extraction

Three matrices of documentary records were created specifically for this work. In the first, quantitative data on the search results were collected for each database consulted and each of the descriptors used. In the second, information was gathered from each selected or unselected study (e.g., title, author/s, year of publication, sample size, age of participants, study objectives, methodology, or reason for exclusion, where appropriate). The third recorded the well-being measures and the specific variables of the romantic context analyzed by the studies. The selection of studies was performed in different stages [ 58 ] ( Figure 1 ). The identification stage was limited to articles published in English and Spanish between 1990 and 2017 (inclusive). This first phase yielded a total of 3229 studies. In the screening stage, the duplicates were discarded, which left a total of 2866 studies. Next, two reviewers selected the studies whose title, summary, or keywords contained any of the search descriptors used, which produced a total of 461 eligible studies and a total of 2405 rejected studies. In the eligibility stage, all the reviewers independently assessed the full text of the potential studies to be included, initially reaching a level of agreement of over 90% and resolving any discrepancies through a process of discussion and consensus. In the included stage, the three reviewers jointly agreed on the full sample of studies, resulting in a total of 112 studies. The software packages Mendeley version 1.17.12 (Elsevier Inc., New York, NY, USA) and SPSS version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) were used to carry out the process of coding and obtaining the results.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) flow diagram.

3.1. Characteristics of the Included Studies

This work has reviewed nearly three decades of research (1990–2017) on well-being and romantic relationships during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Of the 112 studies included (see Table 1 ), 9% were published in the 1990s, 27% in the first decade of this century, and 64% were published since 2010. The total number of participants was 278,871, with the amount of participants ranging from 30 in some studies [ 59 , 60 ] to 81,247 participants in another [ 47 ]. The general age range was from 12 to 70 years, with the average age never surpassing 29 years in any of the studies. Overall, 83% of the studies (n = 93) were directed at emerging adulthood, while 17% (n = 19) focused on adolescence. Regarding the well-being measures observed, the studies analyzed used as many as 142 different variables, of which the most commonly employed were life satisfaction (35.3%), depression (25%), affect (positive and negative, 22.8%), self-esteem (17.6%), relationship satisfaction (15.4%), anxiety (11%), happiness (8.1%) and stress (5.9%).

Characteristics and main findings of the included studies.

Note: NR = information not reported.

3.2. Variables of Romantic Relationships Related to Well-Being in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

Achieving the specific aim of this study involved reviewing the variables of romantic relationships which have been associated with well-being during adolescence and emerging adulthood. These variables were sorted into two categories: First, the label “relational variables”, where studies analyzing characteristics of romantic relationships and the processes that take place within them were grouped. Secondly, the label “personal variables”, which gathered the studies that examined individual variables involved in establishing, forming, and/or developing romantic relationships (see Table 2 ).

Categories, specific romantic variables, and measurement constructs of the included studies.

A total of 87 studies analyzed the association between romantic relationships and well-being based on relational variables. Relationship status, relationship quality, and relationship history and experiences were the variables most commonly focused on in the studies. In general, particularly during emerging adulthood, participants involved in a romantic relationship showed higher levels of well-being than those who were single. More specifically, it was suggested that staying single, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and remaining so in order to avoid the negative consequences of relationships (avoidance goals) was not associated with well-being, with the best predictor being satisfaction with that status. Particular aspects of relationship status, such as the stability of the relationship or the experience of splitting up, have been widely studied. Studies that equated commitment to romantic status suggested that a higher level of commitment or stability in the relationship (marriage vs. cohabitants, non-marital relationships, casual relationships, etc.) leads to a greater well-being. In this regard, a specific case analyzed was hook-up experiences. These expressions of sexuality, outside the context of a committed relationship, were only negatively associated with well-being in one study. Similarly, the experiences of separation or divorce have been identified with increased well-being if these events were evaluated positively, if the quality of the relationship was poor, or if a new relationship started shortly after the separation.

Along similar lines, the studies also evaluated the role of well-being in relationship quality, with relationship satisfaction, commitment and intimacy being the most common indicators. Throughout the periods of adolescence and emerging adulthood, high levels of quality in the relationship were positively associated with well-being, while, similarly, low levels of quality were linked to negative effects. In cases of transgression, the quality of the relationship was also identified as a mediator between forgiveness and the well-being of the transgressor. Close to the findings regarding relationship quality are those associated with relationship history and experiences. The studies in this line showed that reporting and remembering a large number of positive experiences, such as shared laughter, being at a formal or positive relational turning point, or expressing gratitude towards the partner, were all positively associated with well-being, while negative experiences, such as arguments, transgressions, power imbalance, or violence, were associated with a decrease in well-being levels.

When considered independently and not as indicators of the relationship quality, rates of commitment and intimacy between partners have also been identified as variables which can influence well-being: High levels of commitment to the relationship and intimacy between romantic partners were positively associated, where low levels of commitment showed an inverse relationship. Likewise, romantic attachment can also have important implications. The studies indicate that a secure romantic attachment would be most beneficial, while avoidant and anxious attachment have been suggested as reliable predictors of low levels of well-being.

Communication and conflict resolution between partners have both been identified as variables with a significant effect on well-being. On one hand, the disclosure of sexual problems and receiving positive body feedback from the partner were both positively associated with well-being, while on the other hand, showing high levels of positive affect in conflict situations was found to be a good predictor of relationship stability and satisfaction. Likewise, self-compassion and dyadic empathy (empathy specifically expressed towards the romantic partner) were variables found to have a positive effect, where more self-compassionate individuals were more likely to resolve interpersonal conflicts by balancing their needs to their partner’s needs, feeling more authentic and less emotionally turmoiled. Similarly, high levels of empathy in couples in the transition to parenthood led to improved levels of well-being in the partners.

Variables concerning need fulfillment and achieving relational and personal goals have also been identified as related to well-being. A partner’s support to personal needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Self-Determination Theory [ 8 ]), or the maintenance of relational behaviors driven by self-determined motives, were positively associated with well-being. Similar results were found in relation to the effects of the achievement of the ideal self and the congruence of the goals between partners. According to the studies, romantic partners can significantly influence what we become, having important implications for well-being, as well as the pursuit and involvement in activities aimed to achieve shared goals.

In the studies conducted during adolescence, violence occurring within the relationship (dating violence) in either form, both as a victim and as a perpetrator, has emerged as a highly significant negative variable for well-being, being associated to symptoms of anxiety, depression, stress, and low levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction, among other symptoms. Other relational variables associated with well-being during adolescence were the maintenance of same-sex relationships and interracial relationships, as well as sexuality. The negative impact caused by expected rejection due to sexual orientation was buffered by involvement in same-sex relationships, as well as improved self-esteem and decreased levels of internalized homophobia. Conversely, interracial daters were found to be more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, as well as to perceive less support from parents and family, compared to same-race daters and non-daters. In relation to sexuality, results showed that the influence of sexual activity in depression was differentially associated with romantic status, where sexual relations associated with greater depressive symptoms corresponded to those that occurred outside the context of a romantic relationship. On the other hand, longitudinal data associated high sexual health with higher levels of well-being in adolescent girls, using indicators such as physical, mental/emotional, and social health.

To a lesser extent, the studies reviewed addressed aspects related to relationship dynamics and their association with well-being. Research into emotional interdependence (i.e., partners’ emotions being linked to each other across time), shared relationship efficacy (i.e., partners’ shared expectations about the joint ability to maintain satisfactorily the relationship), partner-specific perfectionism concerns, or the effect of relationships at the neurological level has rarely been contrasted with other studies. Despite this, the first two aspects were established as characteristics of healthy relationships with a positive influence on well-being, however, concerns about perfectionistic demands of the partner (perceived partner’s expectations about one’s own mistakes, self-criticism, and socially prescribed perfection) generated and evoked socially negative behaviors, which in turn had a deleterious effect on negative affect and life satisfaction.

Regarding the personal variables, a total of 25 works studied their relationship with well-being. Here, the variable which received the most attention was the belief system. It has been shown that, during adolescence, the imbalance between romantic expectations and reality (romantic relationship inauthenticity) is associated with a greater risk of depression and suicidal behavior, while the Sense of Coherence (SOC), a dispositional orientation or a coping resource which reflects a person’s capacity to respond to stressful situations and life events, is linked with greater life satisfaction. In emerging adulthood, relationship expectations and beliefs were also suggested as factors influencing well-being. The congruence between previous expectations and reality, or between the ideal and the real romantic relationship, has been identified as a good indicator of well-being. There is no general consensus over the results for other kinds of beliefs, such as positive illusions (idealizing the partner), marriage myths, or benevolent sexism, although a number of studies have addressed them. The tendency is that the first two seem to be beneficial for well-being, while the latter showed a negative association.

In addition, certain types of behaviors, which may be induced by beliefs, also seem to impact well-being. On the one hand, behaviors which diminished satisfaction with the relationship, such as sexual compliance (voluntary maintenance of unwanted sex with a partner), have been negatively associated with well-being. On the other hand, behaviors linked to self-knowledge or positive management of the relationship, such as making attributions and reasoning about the mental state of others (i.e., theory of mind), self-control, authenticity (acting in a way which is congruent with one’s own values, beliefs, and needs), or the use of effective coping strategies in stressful events, were positively associated with well-being. In this sense, focusing on the problem or perceiving the situation as controllable had positive effects on well-being in cases of abuse or violence within the relationship. In less serious cases, maintaining an implicitly positive attitude towards the partner and mindfulness obtained similar results.

Regarding cognitive, emotional, and behavioral motivation, self-forgiveness or approach and avoidance motives were revealed as indicators of well-being. According to the analyzed studies, forgiving the partner or forgiving oneself, regarding harmful relationships events, was positively related to well-being. Moreover, engaging sexually with the partner increased well-being, but only when these motives were based on approximation towards positive consequences (e.g., happiness of the partner or promoting the intimacy of the relationship) and not on the avoidance of negative consequences. Similar results were found in relation to sacrifice. Self-sacrificing aimed at achieving beneficial goals, that is, pro-social behavior which gives priority to benefits to the relationship over personal benefit, has also been positively related to well-being. Conversely, emotional suppression, limiting one’s partner’s attention towards attractive alternatives, or the pursuit of traditionally masculine roles (e.g., success, competition, or power) negatively affected the partner. Finally, the level of romantic competence and other skills that promote the establishment and successful maintenance of relationships, such as perceived self-efficacy, or the ability to control relational anxiety, have been strongly linked to positive results, as well as a greater ability to make better decisions and feel more confident and satisfied with the relationship.

4. Discussion

The main aim of this study has been to carry out a systematic review of the scientific literature on the association between romantic relationships and well-being during adolescence and emerging adulthood, focusing on identifying the specific variables associated with well-being in the romantic context.

In the first place, it is important to stress that well-being has been historically been measured in many different ways. The great number of variables observed have produced a potential problem of construct validity. It seems clear that the multiple conceptual and operational definitions used in the empirical studies on well-being hinder rather than help when it comes to defining this construct [ 151 , 152 ]. It is therefore important to continue trying to bring clarity to a field which is still in evolution, with previous works and new approaches still trying to be integrated [ 6 ]. Although this has its positive side, it also highlights a greater need for improving the theoretical approaches, making them more global in terms of personality and also more precise in terms of the relationship between personality traits and relational styles in romantic processes. Another aspect which may contribute to the lack of clarity in the concept of well-being is the continued use of symptoms of mental illness as an indicator. While it is true that not all of the studies reviewed used this clinical approach, but rather adopted models from positive psychology (e.g., [ 22 , 33 , 44 , 85 , 97 , 98 ]), there is still a prevalent tendency to conceptualize well-being in terms of the absence of disease or clinical symptoms, rather than providing a positive approximation to the concept. This is quite surprising, especially considering that it has previously been established that health and mental illness work in a relatively independent manner [ 153 ], and that the factors which make either reduce do not necessarily cause the other to increase [ 154 ]. The concept of mental health proposed by positive psychology is therefore of particular relevance here, although the definition used (the existence of a high level of well-being and the absence of mental illness) [ 153 , 155 ] suggests the need to develop a methodologically diverse theory which would include the full spectrum of well-being [ 151 ] and to adopt a theoretical approach according to the concepts measured, which, as of yet, none is present in the reviewed works.

In the second place, it is clear that the scientific literature stresses the importance of romantic relationships during adolescence and emerging adulthood [ 18 , 156 , 157 ], however, the small number of studies which have focused specifically on these stages show that there is a need to provide a specific psycho-evolutionary focus. Based on the works reviewed, it can be stated that romantic relationships are significantly associated with well-being in adolescents, although a number of different personal and relational variables can be understood as risk factors. A low SOC, a lack of authenticity, or the presence of violence in relationships [ 37 , 48 , 49 , 59 , 78 , 83 , 108 , 122 , 142 ], are harmful to adolescents, all of which can be explained from different perspectives. On the one hand, according to the normative trajectory model [ 158 ], early romantic experiences can compromise the well-being of adolescents when dealing with non-normative development events. On the other hand, the stress and coping model [ 159 ] postulates that romantic relationships are intrinsically challenging, requiring skills and resources that adolescents may not have. Following studies like those of [ 160 ] and [ 161 ], it is also plausible to pose the counter-argument that high levels of well-being could act as a protective factor, promoting healthy behaviors. Research with adult populations has already established this association and suggests that people with high levels of life satisfaction are more involved in intimate activities and relationships and have better relationships [ 13 , 85 , 162 ]. The association between well-being and romantic experiences during adolescence seems, therefore, to operate under a bidirectional pattern of influence, revealing with this the existence of a more complex relationship between both processes. Besides this, it is also especially important to remember that the romantic development of adolescents does not take place in a social vacuum, so it is vitally important for the well-being of adolescents to have social contexts which provide support and emotional understanding as they face the demands and challenges that this new evolutionary task lays on them [ 163 ].

Just like in adolescence, involvement in romantic relationships can be a significant source of well-being in emerging adulthood. The research reviewed suggests that young adults who have romantic relationships are happier, feel more satisfied with their lives, have fewer problems with mental and physical illness, show greater positive affect, and have better levels of self-esteem than single people. However, as noted above, the phenomenon of romantic relationships is complex and multifaceted and is associated with both relational and personal factors, and not only with their presence or absence. The relationship quality, the satisfaction of the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness and a secure attachment with the partner have been indicated as strong indicators of well-being [ 7 , 164 ]. In addition, variables such as high levels of commitment, intimacy, communication, providing support to achieve personal and relational goals, good conflict management, approach motives (in contrast to avoidance), authenticity, or having strategies for coping with stressful situations, are also associated with good results, as confirmed by other studies [ 165 , 166 ]. Finally, personal skills and having the competence to maintain healthy and satisfying relationships are important factors which, according to some studies, can reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, increase satisfaction with the relationship, the development of a secure attachment, and foster better decision-making. For this reason, romantic relationships based on principles of mental and emotional health and romantic competence [ 23 , 167 ] are considered to be among the prime sources of well-being during emerging adulthood.

5. Conclusions

Based on these results, one of the main conclusions from this study is the invaluable role which romantic relationships play in well-being during adolescence and emerging adulthood. As a result, this work supports their consideration as developmental assets [ 14 ]. However, the numerous benefits which are associated with them call for certain parameters to be agreed on. A relationship which is beneficial for well-being would, in general terms, have high-quality levels, through which the partners can develop their potential, achieve personal and shared goals, and maintain a secure attachment. To achieve this, people must achieve certain cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills. It is proposed that these principles be integrated into a more parsimonious analysis, which could aid our understanding of positive romantic relationships. From this viewpoint, this study proposes romantic well-being as a new term of analysis and suggests that in future research it can be understood and evaluated as a specific category. One of the main strengths of this work, therefore, is the initial approach of a new theoretical model, termed the multidimensional model of romantic well-being, whose dimensions correspond to the particular factors which, according to the research, play an especially important role in achieving positive results, namely relationship quality, need fulfillment, the achievement of personal and relational goals, romantic attachment, and the development of individual skills.

Regarding the empirical approach to well-being, the main conclusion here is that it is necessary to understand the concept of well-being in of itself, without continually referring to a disease or symptom. This distorts the construct and prevents from relating it to dimensions which are also complex and rather diverse, such as those involved in the psycho-evolutionary task of adolescents maintaining a romantic relationship. Therefore, further research is required to establish a common, shared, and reliable theoretical and methodological framework for well-being, also allowing the ability to address the scientific study of romantic relationships in stages prior to adulthood, especially during adolescence. It is essential to adopt educational, clinical, and community models which focus on the need to promote positive, healthy, and satisfactory relationships, as well as raising awareness of this need among all professionals responsible for people’s health.

Author Contributions

This study has been developed with the contribution of all its authors. Conceptualization, C.V. and R.O.-R.; Methodology, M.G.-L. and C.V.; Formal analysis, M.G.-L; Writing—original draft preparation, M.G.-L.; Writing—review and editing, M.G.-L., C.V. and R.O.-R; Supervision, C.V. and R.O.-R.

This research was funded by Plan Nacional, España, into the frame of the national project “Competencia Socio-Moral y Ecología del Grupo de Iguales en la Violencia entre Escolares: un Estudio Longitudinal y Transaccional” [PSI2016-74871-R].

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.