What Is Love?
Love is a set of emotions and behaviors characterized by intimacy, passion, and commitment. It involves care, closeness, protectiveness, attraction, affection, and trust. Love can vary in intensity and can change over time. It is associated with a range of positive emotions, including happiness, excitement, life satisfaction, and euphoria, but it can also result in negative emotions such as jealousy and stress.1
When it comes to love, some people would say it is one of the most important human emotions. Yet despite being one of the most studied behaviors, it is still the least understood. For example, researchers debate whether love is a biological or cultural phenomenon.2
Love is most likely influenced by both biology and culture. Although hormones and biology are important, the way we express and experience love is also influenced by our personal conceptions of love.
How Do You Know?
What are some of the signs of love? Researchers have made distinctions between feelings of liking and loving another person.
Zick Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving
According to psychologist Zick Rubin, romantic love is made up of three elements:3
Attachment: Needing to be with another person and desiring physical contact and approval
Caring: Valuing the other person's happiness and needs as much as your own
Intimacy: Sharing private thoughts, feelings, and desires with the other person
Based on this view of romantic love, Rubin developed two questionnaires to measure these variables, known as Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving. Whereas people tend to view people they like as pleasant, love is marked by being devoted, possessive, and confiding in one another.
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