Love: The Psychology Of Attraction

In Atomic Attraction Christopher Canwell takes us on a journey through the dark waters of attraction. What turns women on? What makes them choose one man over another? And how can you become truly desirable and attractive? This book answers these questions by combining the latest scientific research with real-life case studies to show you, the listener, how to ignite the fires of attraction and captivate those around you.

Love: The Psychology of Attraction

Just as Masters and Johnson were pioneers in the study of human sexuality, so Dr. John Gottman has revolutionized the study of marriage. As a professor of psychology at the University of Washington and the founder and director of the Seattle Marital and Family Institute, he has studied the habits of married couples in unprecedented detail over the course of many years. His findings, and his heavily attended workshops, have already turned around thousands of faltering marriages.

According to a team of scientists led by Dr. Helen Fisher at Rutgers, romantic love can be broken down into three categories: lust, attraction, and attachment. Each category is characterized by its own set of hormones stemming from the brain (Table 1).

Last but not least, attachment is the predominant factor in long-term relationships. While lust and attraction are pretty much exclusive to romantic entanglements, attachment mediates friendships, parent-infant bonding, social cordiality, and many other intimacies as well. The two primary hormones here appear to be oxytocin and vasopressin (Figure 1).

I loved the article but I would love if an explanation was given on how the brain is involved to regulate the three parts of love , attraction, lust, and attachment, I mean what is the controlling chemical for the free will?

Love can be described as a strong and passionate feeling of attraction and attraction towards another person or things. This emotion can also be described as an intense desire to be close to someone or something in particular.

A common first-date tactic is to get your partner confused/mixed-up between thrilling arousal and liking/sexual attraction. People do this by taking dates to gigs, horror movies, adventure sports, etc. Here, people may think the source of arousal is attraction when, in fact, it is an activity like watching a horror movie. This is called the misattribution of arousal. Social interactions that involve non-sexual arousing emotions like fear, thrill, horror, adrenaline rush, and anxiety can facilitate a sense of liking or sexual arousal.

A study that examined resilients (can control motivation, impulses, and adjust to the environment), undercontrollers (low impulse & motivation control, poor adjustment), and overcontrollers (high impulse & motivation control, poor adjustment) saw that resilient adolescents had good quality friendships and romantic relationships. The core themes for interpersonal chemistry are reciprocal candor (honest openness), mutual enjoyment, attraction, similarities, personableness (positive impression, affable), love, instant connection, and indescribable factors. Similarities are, typically, more characteristic of friendships than romantic chemistry.

The psychology of attraction, while it might appear to have no specific rhyme or reason, uses many variables to influence attachments, negative and positive experiences that impact the attractiveness of another person unconsciously.

Laws of attraction psychology dictate that a simple look from a distance can be enough to generate a reaction between two people, or an unlikely match can develop as an attraction to personality and grow from that point as time passes.

Women are drawn to men since their MHC (major histocompatibility complex) is unique from theirs. The nervous system is controlled by these molecules. On the other hand, men have an attraction to women with a scent that implies they carry more of this composition.

Gross or not, people who remind us of our parents are another point of attraction in the rules of attraction psychology. Plus, children of older parents often find mates senior in age more attractive.

Kendra Cherry, MS, is the author of the "Everything Psychology Book (2nd Edition)" and has written thousands of articles on diverse psychology topics. Kendra holds a Master of Science degree in education from Boise State University with a primary research interest in educational psychology and a Bachelor of Science in psychology from Idaho State University with additional coursework in substance use and case management.

Here are some more facts about attraction. Additional research has taken a look at the features that people find to be attractive in others. One study found that both men and women find the following to be attractive:

This association between parental and partner features was stronger for the opposite-sex parent, meaning women preferred men who looked similar to their fathers, and men preferred women who looked similar to their mothers. People who remind us of our parents may trigger feelings of warmth and familiarity, increasing our attraction to them.

In some cases, knowing these facts about love and attraction can give you new tools to help you make your relationship all that you want it to be. However, some couples may find themselves facing issues that require professional intervention.

Jenni Jacobsen is a freelance copywriter with a Ph.D. in psychology and a master's degree in social work. She is licensed as a social worker through the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapy Board. Jenni is a psychiatric crisis clinician, and she also teaches counseling and human behavior courses at the college level. Jenni aims to produce content that reduces the stigma surrounding seeking help for mental and emotional health problems.

Researchers have proposed that romantic love includes two kinds oflove: passionate love and compassionate love. These two kinds of love mayoccur together, but they do not always go hand in hand in a relationship:

There are both similarities and differences among cultures in romanticattraction. Researchers have found that people in many different culturesplace a high value on mutual attraction between partners and the kindness,intelligence, emotional stability, dependability, and good health ofpartners.

Why do some people hit it off immediately? Or decide that the friend of a friend was not likable? Using scientific methods, psychologists have investigated factors influencing attraction and have identified a number of variables, such as similarity, proximity (physical or functional), familiarity, and reciprocity, that influence with whom we develop relationships.

One of the reasons why proximity matters to attraction is that it breeds familiarity; people are more attracted to that which is familiar. Just being around someone or being repeatedly exposed to them increases the likelihood that we will be attracted to them. We also tend to feel safe with familiar people, as it is likely we know what to expect from them. Dr. Robert Zajonc (1968) labeled this phenomenon the mere-exposure effect. More specifically, he argued that the more often we are exposed to a stimulus (e.g., sound, person) the more likely we are to view that stimulus positively. Moreland and Beach (1992) demonstrated this by exposing a college class to four women (similar in appearance and age) who attended different numbers of classes, revealing that the more classes a woman attended, the more familiar, similar, and attractive she was considered by the other students.

There is a certain comfort in knowing what to expect from others; consequently research suggests that we like what is familiar. While this is often on a subconscious level, research has found this to be one of the most basic principles of attraction (Zajonc, 1980). For example, a young man growing up with an overbearing mother may be attracted to other overbearing women not because he likes being dominated but rather because it is what he considers normal (i.e., familiar).

Another key component in attraction is reciprocity; this principle is based on the notion that we are more likely to like someone if they feel the same way toward us. In other words, it is hard to be friends with someone who is not friendly in return. Another way to think of it is that relationships are built on give and take; if one side is not reciprocating, then the relationship is doomed. Basically, we feel obliged to give what we get and to maintain equity in relationships. Researchers have found that this is true across cultures (Gouldner, 1960).

Friendships often take root in the workplace, due to the fact that people are spending as much, or more, time at work than they are with their family and friends (Kaufman & Hotchkiss, 2003). Often, it is through these relationships that people receive mentoring and obtain social support and resources, but they can also experience conflicts and the potential for misinterpretation when sexual attraction is an issue. Indeed, Elsesser and Peplau (2006) found that many workers reported that friendships grew out of collaborative work projects, and these friendships made their days more pleasant. 041b061a72