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

Refuting Six Misconceptions about Romantic Love

Scientific research on romantic love has been relatively sparse but is becoming more prevalent, as it should. Unfortunately, several misconceptions about romantic love are becoming entrenched in the popular media and/or the scientific community, which hampers progress. Therefore, I refute six misconceptions about romantic love in this article. I explain why (1) romantic love is not necessarily dyadic, social, or interpersonal, (2) love is not an emotion, (3) romantic love does not just have positive effects, (4) romantic love is not uncontrollable, (5) there is no dedicated love brain region, neurotransmitter, or hormone, and (6) pharmacological manipulation of romantic love is not near. To increase progress in our scientific understanding of romantic love, I recommend that we study the intrapersonal aspects of romantic love including the intensity of love, that we focus our research questions and designs using a component process model of romantic love, and that we distinguish hypotheses and suggestions from empirical findings when citing previous work.

Toward consistent reporting of sample characteristics in studies investigating the biological mechanisms of romantic love

In this non-systematic review, we consider the sample reporting practices of 42 studies up to and including 2021 investigating the biological mechanisms of romantic love (i.e., 31 neuroimaging studies, nine endocrinological studies, one genetics study, and one combined neuroimaging and genetics study). We searched scientific databases using key terms and drew on our and other authors' knowledge to identify studies that investigated the mechanisms associated with romantic love using neuroimaging, endocrinological, and genetic methods. Only studies with a group or entire sample experiencing romantic love were included. The aim was to collate all relevant studies and determine the comparability of studies and ability to assess the generalizability of findings. We summarize how these studies report sex/gender, age, romantic love, relationship duration/time in love, and sample descriptors. We then outline the case for promoting comparability and the ability to determine generalizability in future studies. The findings indicate a limited ability to compare studies' samples or make an assessment of the generalizability of findings. Existing studies are not representative of the general population in a particular country or globally. We conclude by presenting ideas about how best to report sex, age, romantic love characteristics, relationship status, time in love, relationship duration, relationship satisfaction, type of unrequited love, sexual activity, cultural characteristics, socio-economic status, student status, and method-relevant descriptors. If our ideas are adopted, in part or in whole, we expect the comparability of studies to increase. Adopting our ideas will also make it easier to make an assessment of the generalizability of findings.

A Preliminary Study on Up-regulation of Sexual Desire for a Long-term Partner

BACKGROUND

Declining sexual desire over the course of a relationship may cause distress. Because sexual desire partly depends on who the (imagined) sexual partner is, this study focuses on increasing sexual desire for the long-term partner specifically.

AIM

This study examined 3 regulation strategies: (i) positive reappraisal of the partner, (ii) reappraisal of sexual desire decline, and (iii) sexual imagery about the partner. We tested whether these 3 strategies increased (i) sexual desire for the partner, (ii) motivated attention for the partner, as indicated by the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude, and (iii) infatuation, attachment, and relationship satisfaction.

METHODS

Twenty-five young adults (6 men) who were in a long-term relationship performed the regulation strategies and no regulation before passively viewing a picture of their partner.

OUTCOMES

The LPP amplitude was measured during the partner picture. After each strategy, participants rated their sexual desire, infatuation, attachment, and relationship satisfaction.

RESULTS

Participants felt more sexual desire for and more infatuated with their partner after sexual imagery about the partner than after no regulation. Participants also felt more attached to their partner after positive reappraisal of the partner than after no regulation. There was no evidence that any of the strategies influenced relationship satisfaction or motivated attention.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

Sexual imagery about the partner is a simple strategy that people can use without involving the partner to increase sexual desire for (and infatuation with) their long-term partner.

STRENGTHS & LIMITATIONS

One of the strengths of the current study is the experimental manipulation of strategy use within participants, which allows for conclusions of causality. The main limitation is the small, inclusive convenience sample. This study had good power to detect medium effects but was underpowered to detect small effects. Participants were mostly young adult women in relatively short long-term relationships. Gender differences in the effectiveness of the 3 strategies were not hypothesized or tested.

CONCLUSION

Sexual imagery about the partner increases sexual desire for (and infatuation with) the partner. Langeslag SJE, Davis LL. A Preliminary Study on Up-regulation of Sexual Desire for a Long-term Partner. J Sex Med 2022;19:872-878.

Electrophysiological Correlates of Romantic Love: A Review of EEG and ERP Studies with Beloved-Related Stimuli

Science is starting to unravel the neural basis of romantic love. The goal of this literature review was to identify and interpret the electrophysiological correlates of romantic love. Electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potential (ERP) studies with a design that elicits romantic love feelings were included. The methods of previous EEG studies are too heterogeneous to draw conclusions. Multiple ERP studies, however, have shown that beloved stimuli elicit an enhanced late positive potential (LPP/P3/P300), which is not due to familiarity, positive valence, or objective beauty. This effect occurs in Western and Eastern cultures and for pictorial and verbal information, and results from bottom-up rather than top-down factors. Studies have also shown that beloved stimuli elicit an early posterior negativity (EPN), which also does not seem to be due to familiarity or positive valence. Data on earlier ERP components (P1, N1, P2, N170/VPP, N2) is scarce and mixed. Of course, the enhanced LPP and EPN are not specific to romantic love. Instead, they suggest that the beloved captures early attention, within 200–300 ms after stimulus onset that is relatively resource-independent, and subsequently receives sustained motivated attention. Future research would benefit from employing cognitive tasks and testing participants who are in love regardless of relationship status.

Increasing Love Feelings, Marital Satisfaction, and Motivated Attention to the Spouse

Abstract. Love typically decreases over time, sometimes leading to divorces. We tested whether positively reappraising the spouse and/or up-regulating positive emotions unrelated to the spouse increases infatuation with and attachment to the spouse, marital satisfaction, and motivated attention to the spouse as measured by the late positive potential (LPP). Married individuals completed a regulation task in which they viewed spouse, pleasant, and neutral pictures without regulation prompt as well as spouse and pleasant pictures that were preceded by regulation prompts. Event-related potentials were recorded, and self-reported infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction were assessed. Viewing spouse pictures increased infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction compared to viewing pleasant or neutral pictures in the no regulation condition. Thinking about positive aspects of the spouse and increasing positive emotions unrelated to the spouse did not increase infatuation, attachment, and marital satisfaction any further. Motivated attention, measured by the LPP amplitude, was greatest to spouse pictures, intermediate to pleasant pictures, and minimal to neutral pictures. Although the typical up-regulation effect on the LPP amplitude was observed for pleasant pictures, positively reappraising the spouse did not increase the LPP amplitude and hence motivated attention to the spouse any further. This study indicates that looking at spouse pictures increases love and marital satisfaction, which is not due to increased positive emotions unrelated to the spouse. Looking at spouse pictures is an easy strategy that could be used to stabilize marriages in which the main problem is the decline of love feelings over time.

Emotions relating to romantic love-further disruptors of adolescent sleep

OBJECTIVE

Early-stage romantic involvement may resemble hypomania in its manifestation on behavioral, physiological, and psychological levels. Previous research suggests that self-reported sleep duration may diminish as a result of falling in love during adolescence. We investigated how feelings of infatuation are related to subjective and objective measures of sleep duration, quality, and timing.

METHODS

1374 adolescents (66% girls; mean age: 16.9, SD=0.6 years) selected from the population register responded to online questionnaires regarding romantic love, mental well-being, and sleep behavior. A subsample (n=309) underwent a week-long actigraphy measurement (GENEActiv Original). We compared the sleep duration, quality, and timing of those who reported being in the early stages of love to those who were not.

RESULTS

11% of all participants reported being in the early stages of romantic love. Those girls and boys who were in love had higher scores of depression and anxiety than others. Girls who were in love reported poorer sleep quality, later sleep timing, and shorter sleep duration both on weekdays (mean difference: 32 minutes, p≤0.001) and at weekends (15 minutes, p=0.037) than those who were not in love. Actigraphy measurements were similar (sleep duration mean difference: 27 minutes, p=0.04).

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that romantic love is one further cause for short or poor quality sleep in girls and may relate to symptoms of depression and anxiety in both sexes. However, feelings of infatuation contain important developmental lessons.

Partners' Daily Love and Desire as Predictors of Engagement in and Enjoyment of Sexual Activity

Romantic love and sexual desire have often been seen as two distinct constructs and studied separately. However, in most romantic relationships love, desire, and sex are intertwined. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether daily feelings of love and desire influence engagement in and enjoyment of sexual activity. Ninety mixed-sex couples (N = 180) completed a 30-day daily diary. The results were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling and showed that both love and desire significantly predicted engagement in and enjoyment of sexual activity with desire being a stronger predictor. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

Love is a physiological motivation (like hunger, thirst, sleep or sex)

The multitude of terms associated with love has given rise to a false perception of love. In this paper, only maternal and romantic love are considered. Love is usually regarded as a feeling, motivation, addiction, passion, and, above all, an emotion. This confusion has consequences in the lives of human beings, leading not only to divorces, suicides, femicides but possibly also to a number of mental illnesses and suffering. Therefore, it is crucial to first clarify what is meant by emotion, motivation and love. This work aims to finally place love within the category of physiological motivations, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, or sex, on the basis that love is also essential for human survival, especially in childhood. Love is presented from an evolutionary perspective. Some other similarities between love and other physiological motivations are pointed out, such as its importance for appropriate human development, both its ontogeny and its permanence, and the long-lasting consequences of abuse and neglect. There are summarized reasons that account for this, such as the fact that physiological motivations are essential for survival and that love is an essential motivation for the survival of human offspring. Other reasons are that minimum changes in the quantity and quality of love alters development, that there can be a variety of neurophysiological and behavioural states within a motivation, and that motivations (also love) appear and change throughout development. Also, motivations and love sometimes may lead to an addictive behaviour. Finally, it is recognized that once physiological motivations (and love) appear, they become permanent. In a third section, some potential social, cultural, clinical and scientific consequences of the proposed consideration of love as a motivation are discussed. Accordingly, love's recognition as a motivation in the clinical field would imply a better understanding of its disorders and its inclusion in classifications manuals such as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), or in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Considering love as a motivation rather than an emotion could also impact the results of scientific research (an example is included). A comprehensive understanding of these questions could potentially allow for a new therapeutic approach in the treatment of mental illness, while offering an all-inclusive evolutionary explanation of cultural phenomena such as the origin and diffusion of both language and art. Love should be understood as a physiological motivation, like hunger, sleep or sex, and not as an emotion as it is commonly considered.

Perceived ability to regulate love

Research has shown that romantic love can be regulated. We investigated perceptions about love regulation, because these perceptions may impact mental health and influence love regulation application. Two-hundred eighty-six participants completed a series of items online via Qualtrics that assessed perceived ability to up- and down-regulate, exaggerate and suppress the expression of, and start and stop different love types. We also tested individual differences in perceived love regulation ability. Participants thought that they could up- but not down-regulate love in general and that they could up-regulate love in general more than down-regulate it. Participants thought that they could up-regulate infatuation less than attachment and sexual desire. Participants also thought that they could exaggerate and suppress expressions of infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire, but that they could not start and stop infatuation and attachment, or start sexual desire. The more participants habitually used cognitive reappraisal, the more they thought that they could up- and down-regulate infatuation and attachment and up-regulate sexual desire. The more participants were infatuated with their beloved, the more they thought that they could up- but not down-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire. Finally, participants thought that they could up- and down-regulate happiness more than infatuation These findings are a first step toward the development of psychoeducation techniques to correct inaccurate love regulation perceptions, which may improve mental health and love regulation in daily life.