The Science Behind Falling in Love

Social Psychology began in the United States by the twentieth century and is considered to be a more modern creation correlated with psychology. Although considered as a branch of psychology its ideas and foundations were laid by Sociology. Social psychology is defined as the scientific study of subjects such as Social thinking, Social influence, and Social relations. Social thinking is our beliefs, judgments, attitudes, and the way we perceive the outside world. Social influence is the pressures that we deal with in society, persuasion, and culture. And lastly, social relations which includes the aspects of helping, attraction and prejudice.

There are very broad aspects and theories in this branch, one being the ABC triad which is an abbreviation for (A) affect like the emotional aspect in a person’s life, (B) behavior like our actions, and (C) cognition which is our thoughts as well as beliefs. Each of these components plays a major role in falling in love. Affect is our emotional aspect like how we perceive ourselves and others and this step effects how we feel about a person like the connection you have with the other person whether were attracted to them or not or find their personality interesting. Behaviors comes into play next like what actions we take once we’ve established our feelings towards the other person whether we refrain ourselves from doing anything or lean in for a spontaneous kiss. Cognition comes into play with our thoughts like “what will this person think if I do this or that” and in my opinion for people that are part of the LGBT community it’s a matter of thinking of what others will think if they are with someone of the same sex, it is a very important step for those who are ready to “come out” and express themselves for who they are and some are not ready for it.

Love has changed in so many ways over time and we’ve come a very long way in accepting that love isn’t the same around the world, with our culture expressing love through media such as movies, music, books, and etc. Love can be demonstrated to be hard, intense, emotional, “feeling high”, lost, and rejection. In cultures such as India, China, and the Gypsy world people are fighting to be rid of arranged marriages and find marriage out of love and desire for the other person. Young adults running away from home whether alone or with someone they love just so they do not to be part of a forced marriage. Some going as far as suicide just so they don’t have to be married to a man that they do no love. In the U.S. love is becoming more and more acceptable especially with the LGBTQ+ community and same sex marriages becoming more accepted and now a days people are genuinely allowed to love who they love whether its same sex or not. People are becoming more brave and stepping out of societal views just so they can be themselves.

Evolutionary theory of love states that love functions allows us to be attracted to another person based on the simple idea to create a family (Crowell, E). Physical attractions are based on innate instinct. Women are more likely to be attracted to a man with more masculine features as certain physical traits such as a square jaw, small eyes, and big nose signify higher levels of testosterone which lead us to see them as an “alpha male”. There is also a head researcher from Georgia Gwinnett College named Dr. Steven Platek that states that means brains are wired to be attracted to women who tend to be curvier (LaMeaux) because statistically they also tend to be most fertile. But now I believe that people are moving towards a connection they have with a person other than finding the need to have children. With birth control, condoms, our economy, or people’s simple desire to not have kids or wait has led to a decrease in children especially in an article stating that millennials are not having babies since they are doing things “later”. People are more attracted to the idea of having a genuine connection with someone regardless or sex and gender.