5 Surprising Research Findings about Love

Sharon Moore February 18, 2014

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L-O-V-E – type it on Google and you will get 1,860,000,000 overwhelming results. Love is one of the most talked about topics on and off the web. Everybody has something to say about love. Everyone has their own definition of it. Still, it is one of the least understood concepts. At times it gives us the greatest joy, other times it is the source of our greatest sorrow. There are also moments when love makes us think and behave in irrational ways.

But neuroscientists are beginning to paint the real picture of love. Thanks to brain scanning technologies, these people are able to peek into the brains of people who are truly, deeply in love. Let’s know more about their interesting findings.

There are two kinds of love.

New research by Yale University talks about two types of love – romantic and selfless. According to them, these two have startling neurological differences. Romantic love is the kind of love that leaves you wanting more – wanting the next date, the next message, the next tweet, etc. Selfless love, on the other hand, is boundless. "All you need to do is drop into it... It doesn’t have that same driving quality to it, where you’re strung out on it. It’s wide open, it’s delicious." Judson Brewer, director of research at the Centre for Mindfulness and an associate professor at UMass Medical School, told the Huffington Post.

Romantic love can be as addictive as cocaine.

This is probably why many people associate chocolates with love. Another striking difference between selfless and romantic love is that the latter can cause wanting and craving in the brain, like cocaine does. In one small study, researchers looked at the brain scan images of 10 women and 7 men who claimed to be ‘deeply in love’, whilst they looked at photographs of their beloved, and photos of a similar-looking person. Researchers found that the brains of the participants reacted to photos of their sweethearts, producing emotional responses in the same parts of the brain normally involved with motivation and reward – the same regions activated by drugs. In other words, you tend to crave for the person you’re in love with like a drug.

Romantic love is a primitive response.

Experts agree that romantic love is one of the most powerful emotions a person can have. Studies suggest that humans are hardwired to choose a mate. Not only that, we are also motivated to ‘win’ a mate – too motivated that some would go to the extremes to get the other person’s attention and affection.

It takes longer for women to say the magic words.

When men fall in love, it only takes them an average of 88 days to tell the woman the magic words “I love you”. But for women, it takes 134 days, according to a study by the YouGov for eHarmony published last year. What’s more, contrary to popular belief, men commit quicker than women, and a high percentage (77%) of them remember important dates. This supports the idea that the male and female brains respond differently to love. In women, love tend to activate brain regions involved in reward, emotion and attention, whereas in men, love activates areas involved in visual processing areas, including the area associated with sexual arousal.

Intense romantic love can last for a lifetime.

A 2011 study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience investigated the brain regions activated in individuals in long-term romantic partnerships, as compared to individuals who had recently fallen in love. The surprising findings suggest similar brain activity in both groups. In a study reported in Psychology Today, it was also found that people just starting out in romantic relationships can absolutely be sustained. "For most people, the standard pattern is a gradual decline of passionate love, but a growth in bonding,” said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. According to him, that bonding allows for the partners to stay together long enough to have and raise children.

Love moves in mysterious ways, so goes a popular song. But no matter how mysterious it seems, love is something that makes us happy and makes our life more meaningful. Hope these key findings give you additional guidance in your search for one true, lasting love.