Why Your Love Strategy on Valentine's Day May Be Wrong

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Valentine's Day is often dismissed as a crass commercialisation of love that allows businesses to cash in on sales of cards, flowers, chocolates, upmarket restaurant bookings, expensive theatre seats, and all sorts of other expenses, which most couples wouldn’t invest in if it wasn’t for the romantic tradition of the day.

From a strictly scientific standpoint, which is clearly not a romantic way of viewing this annual event, all these purchases serve an emotional need to reassure the target of one’s affections that they really are treasured.

However, if you want to intensify feelings of attraction between two people, is this actually the correct strategy?

It may seem blindingly obvious that it must work, not least because of the sheer amount of cash invested in this approach, not to mention the many years of this tradition, and also, let’s not forget, all those rom-com movies and romantic literature, which all reinforce this tactic.

However, there is a branch of academic psychology, known as Emotional Intensity Theory, which contends this is the wrong approach if you really want to vividly intensify feelings of attraction between two people.

This novel psychological perspective even suggests that the opposite policy works better than the chocolates-and-flowers slant so prevalent on Valentine’s Day.

This theory finds, in various experiments, that if you impede the ability of a couple to be together emotionally or physically, or if you bring mild stress to bear on the relationship, you may in fact magnify the magnetism between two people.

For example, in a study entitled, ‘Relationships at risk: How the perceived risk of ending a romantic relationship influences the intensity of romantic affect and relationship commitment’, the researchers found that if they manipulated couples’ sense of the chances of relationship breakup, the intensity of both partners' romantic feelings amplified with increasing levels of risk of relationship breakup.

There was a ‘sweet spot’ where a certain amount of insecurity heightened passion—but too much suggestion that the relationship was going to end led to a fall in romantic intensity.

The issue here is the sense of risk in romantic relationships, including the anticipated fear of being rejected, or disregarded, by a partner.

The authors of the study argue for the idea that we are always engaged in emotional self-protection. So, people regulate the risk of being hurt by their partner by adjusting their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours according to a connectedness-vs.-self-protection motive.

It is perhaps obvious that those who experience extreme conflict, and therefore perhaps fear betrayal or rejection in romantic relationships, tend to also sense poorer relationship quality, and also to feel less attracted to their romantic partner. But no experiment before this one had yet scientifically varied, over different levels of intensity, the magnitude of perceived risk of relationship breakup in order to observe the resulting effects on romantic feelings.

The fascinating finding of this research is that a certain amount of uncertainty about a relationship, as opposed to absolute certainty that you are loved, paradoxically increased attraction. This perhaps explains that well-known phenomenon that at the beginning of any relationship things are more intense. It’s because at that point we aren't certain if we have any future with the person we fancy.

These results are all predicted by Emotional Intensity Theory, which emphasises what happens to our feelings and motivations when we experience opposition to them. These obstacles are referred to by the adherents to the theory as ‘deterrents’. So, for example, if you are very keen to win a tennis game, perhaps because you are a competitive person, your emotional intensity and drive to win climbs significantly if you find that your opponent is a tougher proposition than you had previously anticipated, and so you start losing the game. Yet if you are being annihilated on the court, you will much more rapidly lose your drive to win than if the match is more evenly balanced. However, if you are cruising to a victory against an opponent who is not putting up much opposition, then your emotional intensity, and drive to conquer, become significantly less than if you are having to fight gamely to attain victory.

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Emotional Intensity Theory explains some further paradoxical effects in everyday life: For example, ‘deterrents’ systematically produce contradictory effects on emotions, such as when we sometimes feel increased sadness as a friend tries to comfort us. Maybe we are driven to be sad at that moment, and when that drive encounters opposition, it builds up pressure to really feel worse.

A dramatic implication of this kind of psychological reasoning is that in romantic relationships, any obstacle to feelings of attraction or commitment toward the romantic partner should—by virtue of its barrier-like properties—perhaps paradoxically strengthen such feelings.

One example of this is 'the Romeo and Juliet effect,' referring to Shakespeare’s famous play in which boy meets girl, and they fall passionately for each other, despite the fact both sets of parents are basically at war. Psychologists have since confirmed, using scientific research, that a certain amount of parental disapproval of a romantic relationship, in its early stages, in fact enhances the intensity of desire between the couple at the centre of the disapproval.

In the ‘Relationships at risk' study, experimenters influenced how couples perceived the risk that their relationship might end and found that manipulating the perceived risk of ending a relationship profoundly influenced the strength of romantic feeling and commitment towards the partner. Feeling some heightened risk to relationship breakup made people more attracted to each other, compared to a low risk, but, obviously, too much risk was a turn-off.

So, this study is suggesting there is a ‘sweet spot’ of ideal levels of insecurity that enhance romantic attachment. Too little uncertainty, and things are too staid and boring, yet too much doubt about the future produces terminal levels of connection.

What are the practical implications for Valentine’s Day? Perhaps instead of sending your love the standard gift of flowers, you should send yourself a bunch, but with an attached card explaining they are from an ‘anonymous admirer’, and make sure your lover witnesses you receive the bouquet.

Psychological theory predicts you could then have a much more intense Valentine’s Day.