Original Article
Love, desire, and the suppression of thoughts of romantic alternatives

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.11.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Across human societies, people form long-term romantic bonds that can last a lifetime. Many theorists have proposed that the emotion love plays a causal role in maintaining these bonds, but no work to date has tested this hypothesis directly. In this study, we predicted that feeling love for a romantic partner would facilitate suppressing thoughts of attractive alternative mates. We used a relived emotion task to induce love or sexual desire for a romantic partner and asked participants to suppress thoughts of an attractive alternative. After suppression, participants in the love condition reported fewer thoughts of the attractive alternative and accurately recalled fewer attractiveness-related details about the alternative than those in the desire condition. Reports of love, but not sexual desire, predicted greater commitment to the current partner during the study. These results suggest that love serves a function distinct from desire and that love can operate as a commitment device.

Section snippets

Love, desire, and the suppression of thoughts of romantic alternatives

“The heart has its reasons, that reason knows not of.” (Blaise Pascal)

Long-term mates, like those in most long-term alliances, face a dilemma. If both partners commit and remain loyal, each benefits from the long-term fitness advantages of the alliance. For example, in traditional societies, cooperative biparental care is linked to greater food resources provided to offspring during critical periods of development (Marlowe, 2003) and increased offspring survivorship (Hurtado & Hill, 1992). When

Participants

One hundred twenty undergraduate students, 72 women and 48 men [mean age=19.85 years; S.D.=2.53, Caucasian (38.2%), Asian (34.2%), Latino (8.3%) African American (2.5%), others (15.8%), from a public university participated for research credit or $7. All participants were in a monogamous heterosexual dating relationship (mean length, 34.5 months; S.D.=32.1).

Materials: photographs

The authors selected photographs of potential alternatives from public Web sites. Those pictured approximated the age range and ethnic

Manipulation check

Participant's ratings of how much love they felt while writing the final two essays were combined. We ran between-subjects analyses of variance (ANOVAs) to check that reports of love were highest in the love condition. Writing about experiences of love for a romantic partner produced higher levels of love (M=6.12, S.D.=2.25) than in the control condition [M=3.66, S.D.=2.21, F(1,78)=24.31, p<.001, η2=.238], and desire condition [M=5.29, S.D.=2.10, F (1,78)=2.96, p<.05, η2=.037] (both one-tailed

Discussion

Is love a commitment device? Love does relate to prorelationship behavior and verbal affirmations of affection (Gonzaga et al., 2001). However, to commit absolutely to an intimate relationship, one must close pathways to alternative relationships. Doing this is costly—an individual would not willingly foreclose on alternative relationships if not truly committed to his or her partner. We tested the hypothesis that love is indeed associated with individual costs paid in the service of the

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Gian C. Gonzaga, eHarmony Labs and Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Martie G. Haselton, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Psychology, and The Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, UCLA. Julie Smurda, Mari Sian Davies, & Joshua C. Poore, Department of Psychology, UCLA. The authors would also like to thank April Bleske, David Buss, Belinda Campos, Rob Kurzban, Debra Lieberman, Elizabeth Pillsworth, and Heather

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  • Cited by (0)

    The current work was produced, in part, at eHarmony Labs, which is associated with eHarmony.com. Although the current work does not directly test any product of eHarmony.com or use data collected by or at eHarmony.com, its publication may positively impact the financial success of eHarmony.com. Thus, the reader should be aware that the first author is employed by eHarmony and has a significant financial interest in the success of eHarmony.com, the parent organization of eHarmony Labs. The University of California, Los Angeles psychology department has not endorsed eHarmony's commercial selection/matching procedures. Portions of study data were presented at the 2002 Meetings of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Los Angeles, California.

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