Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure ("I loved that meal") to intense interpersonal attraction ("I love my girlfriend"). This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.
As an abstract concept, love usually refers to a deep, ineffable feeling of tenderly caring for another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual emotional closeness of familial and platonic love to the profound oneness or devotion of religious love. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.
Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love that are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships. Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania.
Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.
Chemical basis
Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst. Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others; romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating; and attachment involves tolerating the spouse long enough to rear a child into infancy.
Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act in a manner similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side effects such as increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.
Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding that promotes relationships lasting for many years and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin to a greater degree than short-term relationships have. In 2005, Italian scientists at Pavia University found that a protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these return to previous levels after one year. Specifically, four neurotrophin levels (NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4) of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups.
Psychological basis
Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. American psychologist Zick Rubin seeks to define love by psychometrics. His work states that three factors constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.
Following developments in electrical theories such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract." Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds. In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities.
Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose work in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another," and simple narcissism. In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.
Love = L + O + V+ E.....................
Originally posted by Bak la va:Love = L + O + V+ E.....................
wrong...
love = l X o X v X e
algebra!
u all hor very bad i post some stuff for u all to read wor
Originally posted by popikachu:wrong...
love = l X o X v X e
algebra!
Wlau...........
Originally posted by Noahtay:u all hor very bad i post some stuff for u all to read wor
pika got read wad
Pika, u go knock doors already?
as if life isn't complicated enough.
love is a sick emotion.
Originally posted by cuddles:love is a sick emotion.
why?
Originally posted by soleachip:why?
erm.. it's only bring all the bad emotions, complicates life further like u mentioned, and ends unhappily all the time.
Why do you think there is a term called "lovesick" ?
Originally posted by charlize:Why do you think there is a term called "lovesick" ?
well said.
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please dont break it
Love was made for me and you
L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than anyone that you adore can
Love is all that I can give to you
Love is more than just a game for two
Two in love can make it
Take my heart and please dont break it
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Love was made for me and you
Originally posted by charlize:
Love is not so complicated.
Love is just feelings. U don't see it. U feel it.
it's a social construct
So complicated?
Count me out, heh
Well.. it depends on how u want to decipher it.
It can be so simple.. like smelling fresh flowers in a large open field.
Or it can be so complicated like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
:)
It's just a matter of perception.
True love hard to find, not saying ever lasting. Yet, lust is everywhere every moment......
Where is the LOVE ??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrEp1OWZX0M
Is it a truth?
Or is it a fear?
Is it a rose to for my valentine?
What is love?
Is it only words?
I'm trying to find?
Or is it the way,that we're feeling now?
What is love?
If love is truth,then let it break my heart.
If love is fear,lead me to the dark.
If love is a game,i'm playing all my cards.
What is love?
A pain or a cure?
A scienece of faith?
A reason to fall to your knees and die?
What is love?
If love is truth,then let it break my heart.
If love is fear,lead me to the dark.
If love is a game,i'm playing all my cards.
What is love?
Only you can save me now.
Only you can heal me now.
Only you can show me now,
what is love.
Or is it a truth?
Or is it a fear?
Is it a rose for my valentine?
What is love?
What is love?
The reason for procreation.