Love is a mysterious thing. We already know that falling in love is more of a "chemistry," a hormonal change in the body that defies conscious control. Unlike love, which is about respect, acceptance, partnership. The latter just can be nurtured by long and careful work on the relationship. But love-alas. It just happens.
Over the past few decades, there have been many attempts to study love and infatuation from a psychological point of view.
The next question that interests me is how often love happens in people's lives and why. Moreover, some customers sometimes Express the idea that to fall in love once in a lifetime — it's not normal, because everyone around falls in love every six months, one he does not succeed. Therefore it is necessary to find out what is known in this regard in psychology.
Why do you need love?
First, I want to define what will be discussed below. This love — it's romantic love, she love is attraction, love is passion, she is "pink butterflies in the stomach", etc. painted a very positive feeling.
It happens that love is accompanied by negative feelings, such as jealousy or resentment, but this is not the conversation now.
It is believed that such love has several functions, for example:
* demonstration of loyalty, devotion;
* demonstrating readiness for parenthood;
* demonstration of ownership of some resources (when we give gifts);
• and most importantly-it is a demonstration of your choice, or interest and commitment to a particular partner.
Falling in love does not allow you to be distracted by other potential partners, thereby giving a person time and opportunity to develop a Mature sense of love, which will be useful in the future for the upbringing of offspring not alone.
Love also makes you spend a lot of time and other resources on the object of interest, while the rest of the others will not get anything. This demonstration of" honesty of intentions " in the form of falling in love helps the object of feelings to understand the seriousness of your mood. Since it is impossible to imitate love, then your intentions and interest are real. This is the function of the feeling of love, according to many psychologists.
How many times in your life is it okay to fall in love?
Since love does not happen on a schedule, it is wrong to talk about some "norm" here. There is no norm, there can only be statistics that allow you to compare your life experience with the experience of other people. Over the past couple of years, there have been several studies with a large number of participants (and for such questions just need to be a lot of respondents), and as a result, the average number of times in life people fall in love, was from 2 to 4 times.
Please note that this is the average number, i.e. there are people whose loves were smaller, and there are people who have had more.
In one of these studies, a funny fact was discovered: half of the respondents said that at the moment when they were completely immersed in their feelings, they thought it was love. And then, after a while, they became convinced that it was something else, something not so serious.
Eight out of every ten respondents claimed to have fallen in love between the ages of 20 and 30. Four out of every ten — that in the period from 30 to 40 years. And three out of every ten people fell in love when they were over 40. So, the chances are, and rather big! :) Only here with the same probability (four out of ten cases), it will be, unfortunately, not mutually.
Background and prognosis: who is more likely to fall in love?
In 2010, psychologists Andrew Galperin and Martie Haselton conducted a study of factors that can influence the frequency of falling in love in your life: they made an attempt to find out whether any features or characteristics of a person can play a significant role?
They studied several widely accepted hypotheses, such as" women fall in love more often than men, "or"those who put attractiveness first fall in love more often." Some hypotheses have been confirmed and some have not. For example, here is that it turned out:
* There is no significant difference between those who fall in love more often-men or women.
* Men are more likely to fall in love at first sight or before their object of interest will show reciprocity.
* Men are more likely to experience unrequited love.
Women are less likely to overestimate men's sexual interest in them. That is, women are not so often it seems that someone is showing them a sexual interest. In men-on the contrary. Therefore, they often fall in love in response to a sexual impulse, but it only seems to them. :)
* Physical attractiveness seems to play a significant role primarily for men. In women, there was no relationship between the fact of falling in love and the external attractiveness of the partner.
* The severity of sexual temperament plays a role in women. The higher the temperament-the more love.