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This page is a proposed insert to the "Psychology of Love" section of the article entitled "Romance (Love)."

The purpose of creating this page is to facilitate peer review and discussion prior to publishing the section within Wikipedia.

The purpose of creating this new section of the "Romance (Love)" article is to upgrade and expand Wikipedia's information related to the psychology of love.

Note that I have incorporated the material that already exists in Wikipedia into this new section, with only minor changes to make it accurately reflect the sources.

I will post this to the article in a few days but would appreciate any comments. Please direct the comments to my talk page.

Thanks!

4Xanadu (talk) 08:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LOVE

Anthropologist Helen Fisher, Ph.D., in her book “Why We Love,” uses brain scans to show that that love is a chemical reaction in the brain. Norepinephrine and dopamine, among other chemicals, are responsible for excitement and bliss in humans as well as non-human animals. She concludes that these reactions have a genetic basis, and therefore love is a natural drive as powerful as hunger.

Anthropologist John Townsend, in his book “What Women Want, What Men Want,” takes the genetic basis of love one step further by identifying how the sexes are different in their predispositions. His compilation of various research projects concludes that men are wired to want youth and beauty, whereas women are wired to want status and security. These differences are part of an evolutionary reproductive strategy where the males seek many healthy women of childbearing age in whom to plant their seed, whereas women seek men who are willing and able to take care of them and their children.

Other researchers have focused on opposing forces in human love. Psychologist Karen Horney, M.D., in her article “The Problem of the Monogamous Ideal” indicates that the overestimation of love leads to disillusionment; the desire to possess the partner results in the partner wanting to escape; and the taboos against sex result in unfulfillment. Disillusionment plus the desire to escape plus unfulfillment result in a secret hostility, which causes the other partner to feel alienated. Secret hostility in one and secret alienation in the other cause the partners to secretly hate each other. This secret hate often leads one or the other or both to seek love objects outside the marriage or relationship.

Psychologist Harold Bessell, Ph.D, in his book “The Love Test” reconciles the opposing forces noted by the above researchers and shows that there are two factors that determine the quality of a relationship. People are drawn together by a force which he calls “romantic attraction,” which is a combination of genetic and cultural factors. This force may be weak or strong, and may be felt to different degrees by each of the two love partners. The other factor is “emotional maturity,” which is the degree to which a person is capable of providing good treatment in a love relationship. Thus an immature person is more likely to overestimate love, become disillusioned, and have an affair, whereas a mature person is more likely to see the relationship in realistic terms, and act to work out problems (and understand fantasies) before things get to the level of “hate” or “rage.”

Research by the University of Pavia suggests that romantic love lasts for about a year, and then it is replaced by a more stable form of love called companionate love. In companionate love, changes occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established and romantic feelings seem to end. However research by the Stony Brook University in New York suggests that some couples keep romantic feelings alive for much longer.

4Xanadu (talk) 09:21, 12 July 2009 (UTC)