Love from a scientific point of view: what it is, how it arises and what maintains it

'Romeo and Juliet,' 'The Notebook,' or 'I Will Always Love You'... These are the names of films with a central theme: love. That indescribable force that makes butterflies flutter in our stomachs and drives us to do crazy things. That source of inspiration for poets, philosophers, and artists. But what does science say about this strange, universal phenomenon?

As with everything within the field of psychology, in this article we will discuss love as a set of behaviors that occur between a person and their environment, more specifically between a subject and a "loved object."

In the presence of the loved one (or the idea of ​​it), a series of pleasant private sensations arise (thoughts of being together, memories of shared moments, intimate fantasies, ideas of future projects, pleasurable emotions) after the association between said person and other appetitive stimuli, that is, other stimuli that were already pleasant to us previously (affection, intimacy, passion, beauty, pleasure, fun, support, care, etc.), which facilitate approach responses towards this person (according to the 'Functional Analysis of Human Behavior', coord. by UAM prof. María Jesús Froxán, 2020).

In reality, the "butterflies" in the stomach are nothing more than a set of physiological reactions that the nervous system triggers in response to the beloved stimulus: stomach pain, tachycardia, sweating, etc. which, associated with that person in that context, we have agreed to label as "love," but which in other circumstances we would not hesitate to call "anxiety" (for example, in a job interview).

At this point, loved ones exchange countless behaviors reciprocally that function as reinforcers , making it increasingly likely that they will want to be in contact with the other (according to the behaviorist theory of BF Skinner, 1977). If, in addition, this exchange of behaviors includes sex , one of the most powerful unconditioned reinforcers, it is more than likely that it will be associated with words close to the concept of love (Froxán, 2020). One of the most striking aspects in this case is that what reinforces one's loving behavior is the reinforcement of the other's behavior, that is, what generates the feeling of pleasure is that the other feels pleasure with what one does.

This is how the sensitization process begins: the value of the reinforcers associated with the loved one (however simple they may seem) is so powerful, and the emotion they generate is so intense, that other reinforcers in our context may be temporarily reduced, such as going out with friends or practicing a hobby (according to behaviorist Santiago Benjumea, 2013). Have you ever wondered why that friend disappears every time he gets a girlfriend?

In this way, we learn to anticipate the pleasant consequences of spending time with our loved one in their absence, increasing the likelihood of engaging in behaviors that bring us closer to pleasant sensations—that is, we are strongly motivated to be with that person continuously.