This article will cover the following points: 

• Love as an emotion
• Love as a syndrome
• Love as a desire 

Psychologists and philosophers have categorised romantic love in an innumerable number of ways: an emotion, a desire, a motivation, a commitment, a reaction and even a syndrome. Yet, none of the proposed theories seem to exhaust the phenomenon of love, or at least lead researchers to agree on one definition. More outdated research tends to describe romantic love in terms of emotions, while more recent authors sway from this view and look for new possibilities. 

Love as an emotion?

Psychologists Shaver, Morgan and Wu (1996) consider romantic love to be a basic emotion like anger, fear or happiness, despite the large criticism suggesting this is too simplistic [1]. They discuss how love is one of the top listed words in studies that ask participants to list emotions. Love is, in fact, mentioned about 60% of the time, indicating a majority categorising love as an emotion. Essentially, because love is repeatedly expressed in every material and abstract element of human life, they believe it is only common sense for it to be labeled as a basic emotion. Additionally, the authors outline four main criteria commonly used to classify basic emotions, that justify that love is one of them. 

1.    Distinctive universal signals - love can be communicated through body language, for example speaking in a soft voice, making eye contact or a having a giddy smile[1].

2.    Distinctive feeling state - although it is hard to define, the sensation of love is very specific and cannot be divided into separate feelings, and thus people feel love independent of other emotions[1].

3.    Distinctive physiology - neuro-scientific observations suggest a uniqueness in the neural circuits activated in response to components of love, such as separation and attachment[1].

4.    Presence in other mammals - from an evolutionary perspective, because love appears to be present among other mammals, its function is to fulfil a biological need (for example providing attachment, security as well as a means to reproduction)[1].

Although these aspects seem reasonable, they have very scarce scientific proof. More recent investigations from 2017 have debunked these points and refuted the idea of romantic love as an emotion at all! Researchers such as Pismenny’s and Prinz’ [2] have extensively criticised the previous criteria. If it is true that love has distinctive signals then why is “the look of love” often mistaken for that of awe or admiration? Also, if an emotion must have universal signals to be considered as such, how come emotions like nostalgia, which are present in many cultures, don’t have a specific universal sign? Thus, this criteria is not valid to consider love as an emotion[2]. Furthermore, contrary to the fact that it presents a distinctive feeling, love can be divided into separate emotions like attraction, attachment and lust. These three can even exist separately: for example, many people report being in love without having a strong sexual desire towards their partner. Another problem, in relation to the neural pathways, is that these are studied mainly among infants in parent-child love, and thus are not reliable to draw conclusions about romantic love. Because love appears to involve different components (cognitive, behavioural, evaluative) it seems impossible to have one single specific neural circuit. Lastly, evidence from observational studies suggests that non-human mammals do not engage in long-term bonding or sexual exclusivity and have stronger relationships with family members, which do not account for romantic love [2]. 

Clearly against the notion of love as an emotion, Pismenny and Prinz [2] propose a very unusual theory of romantic love, explained in the following paragraph.

Love as a syndrome? 

The idea of romantic love as a syndrome was first postulated by psychologist Averill [3]. According to this view, love is a intricate pattern of behavioural, cognitive, physiological and emotional responses, heavily shaped by culture and context [2]. Like a syndrome, love can be disjunctive, meaning that different people in love (which is the “diagnosis”) can manifest different symptoms. These are all the behaviours we have when we fall in love, during love and after. Some examples include idealising the loved one, making sacrifices or performing extreme behaviours (loss of sleep or appetite, stalking, etc…). Also, love comes with a large emotional baggage. As previously mentioned, many emotions blend together when we are in love, such as feeling on top of the world, but powerless and weak at the same time.

It is evident how this theory highlights the individual differences that arise when it comes to romantic love, where the latter is not a fixed script, but rather something that overtakes us in every sense.. However, attributing clinical characteristics to love can be risky: it can impact people’s perception of emotions, potentially lowering awareness and formulating “excuses” for certain extreme behaviours. Interestingly, society tends to associate love to illness by using expressions like “madly in love” or “love-sick”. Subtly, this may shape our view of love, hence we can understand why labelling it as a syndrome would too. 

Love as a desire?

One final view by Nozick describes love as the desire to form a “we” [4]. This is very similar to Averill’s concept of symptoms, where a person is strongly willing to commit to another.  In this idea of a we, lovers become part of a new entity resulting from the fusion of certain aspects of the individual identities, such as goals and desires, and that this is unique to romantic love. For this reason, it is also known as joint identity, in which the lovers’ well-beings are tied up to each other,  affecting the individual identities. Thus, the third identity alters who we are and destroys a part of ourselves once it ceases to exist: the part that desires. In fact, Nozick thinks that much of the pain people go through during break-ups originates from a lack of desire and a feeling of emptiness, rather than truly missing the other person [4]. This is similar to Barthes' idea of “annulment” in love, which he outlines in his book A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments

“And if a day comes when I must bring myself to renounce the other, the violent mourning which then grips me is the mourning of the Image-repertoire itself: it was a beloved structure, and I weep for the loss of love, not of him or her.” - Roland Barthes

Another way to help you better grasp Nozick’s perspective, it to think about it this way. Once a tree becomes part of a forest, it will undergo many changes: the amount of light and water it will absorb, how its roots will grow in the ground, which animals will dwell on it and so forth. This results from the fact that a tree is not only an individual but is also part of another identity: that of the forest. If the we ceases to exist, certain changes will become permanent, such as the segment of roots that grew during the period of the joint identity. Similarly, other parts will return as they were before, and others will be damaged due to a sudden imbalance. 

All in all, love takes many different forms and definitions for it to be something so common. Some associate it to something incredible and magical, while others to a terrible spell. But ultimately, it seems one of the most meaningful aspects of life, and thus we will probably never stop investigating it. 

But enough with the research stuff now… What is love to you? How have you defined it so far? Do you experience it as what you describe to be an emotion, a combination of feelings, a syndrome or a desire? Where in your body do you feel it? 

Let us know in the comments below or share your thoughts on the Think on Ink space, it’s anonymous! 

Finally, here are some additional resources for the hopeless romantics😌

• Ted Talk: A better way to talk about love, Mandy Len Catron https://www.ted.com/talks/mandy_len_catron_a_better_way_to_talk_about_love/footnotes
• Ted Talk: The brain in love, Helen Fisher https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_the_brain_in_love
• Ted Talk: Why do we love? A philosophical inquiry, Skye Cleary https://www.ted.com/talks/skye_c_cleary_why_do_we_love_a_philosophical_inquiry
• Book: A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes (1977)

References

1.     Shaver, P. R., Morgan, H. J., & Wu, S. (1996). Is love a “basic” emotion?. Personal Relationships, 3(1), 81-96.doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.1996.tb00105.x

2.     Pismenny, A., & Prinz, J. (2017). Is Love an Emotion?. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love.doi:10.4324/9780429493485.

3.     Averill, J. R. (1985). The social construction of emotion: With special reference to love. In The social construction of the person (pp. 89-109). Springer, New York, NY. doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-5076-0_5

4.     Nozick, R. (1990). Examined life: Philosophical meditations. New York: Simon and Schuster.