rch in social psychology dealing with the concept of love has focused over the last fifty years on why we love and what causes love. Researchers have identified causes such as spatial proximity or the mere exposure to others. We react with love to personal qualities such as kindness, intelligence, humor; signs of resources or status ; physical attractiveness (including youth and health indices like WHR); similarity of values and attitudes, in demographic characteristics such as age or in religious background. Sometimes we love someone simply because they love us; because of reciprocal liking, where there is an awareness that the other is in love with us. Barrier effects can cause people to feel more deeply in love when their relationship must remain secret or is thwarted by family or friends. Our readiness to fall in love, our physiological arousal at time of meeting a partner, together with our attributing the arousal to our partner's presence, all contribute to cause love.So many reasons we love, yet what of the consequences. One may even ask whether science has not over emphasized the causes of love, to the detriment of its consequences. Even among those reasons invoked when love alights, few have anything to do with the reality of love itself. If, for example, we surround ourselves with people who resemble us, it is not because they deserve more love than others but simply because they are the people that we most often encounter. If we fall in love with people who themselves appreciate us, it is because we do not like to take the risk of one-sided love. If our love deepens and grows when we feel it is threatened, it is by reactance, to preserve our threatened liberty.
I recently underlined (Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2011: "Love or the black sun of personal relationships") that love merits an analysis of its consequences. To understand the consequences of love is the only way to uncover the real reason for its appearance.
It may involve renewed vitality, as suggested by epidemiological studies that have demonstrated the relationship between social support and health. Love can cause a positive mood. It can maintain an optimistic view of life in the fight against discouragement. It can make us generous, hence the importance of being loved. It can make us courageous, distract us, and perhaps even bring out the genius in us. Love gives meaning to life.
Marcel Proust observed that « l'important dans la vie n'est pas ce qu'on aime... c'est d'aimer » ( What is important in life is not who you love ..., but that you have loved). It may be for this reason that many people, in spite of the trials and tribulations that life brings (separations, divorces, loss of a loved one, conflicts), tend to replace lost love as quickly as possible with new love. Despite the risks, we seem to believe that it is not possible to live without love. And so we forget, like Proust, that who we love is not without importance, if we, one day, come to resemble them having lived under their influence.
