9. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Dr. Peter Salovey)

Main ideas, concepts, and lessons

1) Love defined as a 3-part construct (Sternberg’s theory)

Professor Peter Salovey notes that much research on “love” is really research on attraction, but he begins by defining love using Robert Sternberg’s model.

Love requires three components:

1. Intimacy – closeness/bonding; operationally, sharing secrets or information not widely shared.
2. Passion – romantic/sexual drive; physical attraction/sex.
3. Commitment (decision commitment) – choosing to label the relationship as “love” and being willing to maintain it for a period of time.

In Sternberg’s framework:

• Intimacy + passion + commitment = love (“consummate love”)
• Having 0, 1, or 2 components yields different partial relationship forms.

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2) Relationship “types” from different combinations of the 3 components

Salovey lists the named combinations (attributed to Sternberg):

• 0 of 3 (no intimacy, no passion, no commitment): Non-love
• Only intimacy (1 of 3): Liking
  • Close bonding and shared info, but no sexual attraction and no commitment to a long-term relationship.
• Only passion (1 of 3): Infatuation
  • Strong attraction/sexual arousal without intimacy or commitment (often “love at first sight”).
• Only commitment (1 of 3): Empty love
  • Commitment to maintain the relationship, but no intimacy and no passion (e.g., staying together for kids, appearance, or financial reasons).
  • Salovey notes a research confound: if divorce is socially costly, such relationships may appear to “survive” for reasons unrelated to satisfaction.
• Intimacy + passion (2 of 3): Romantic love
  • Bonding + attraction, but no commitment (e.g., Romeo-and-Juliet style; “not willing to use the ‘L’ word”).
• Intimacy + commitment (2 of 3): Companionate love
  • Friendship/best-friend closeness and loyalty, without sexual attraction.
• Passion + commitment (2 of 3): Fatuous love
  • “Whirlwind” sexual attraction plus rapid commitment, without intimacy (Salovey compares to Hollywood/shotgun-wedding dynamics).
• Intimacy + passion + commitment (3 of 3): Consummate love
  • “Complete love” by Sternberg’s definition.

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3) Important caveats about the evidence base

Salovey flags several limitations in the research tradition:

• Androcentric/heterosexual: much study involves men as participants and women as targets.
• Some classic experiments (1950s–1970s) used methods considered unethical by modern standards, so students can’t replicate the same experiences today.
• Findings may not generalize well to other dyadic relationship types beyond the common experimental setups.

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4) Social psychology of love = largely social psychology of attraction

Salovey frames “what makes people attracted” as seven variables, focusing in particular on four “more interesting” mechanisms (alongside the “big three”).

The big three (effects when “all else is equal”)

1. Proximity (spatial closeness)

   • People nearer to each other meet more often and are more likely to form relationships.
   • Examples referenced:
     • City-neighborhood distance in NYC correlating with relationship likelihood
     • Campus distance (measured in feet between dorm/room doors) predicting romance likelihood

2. Similarity

   • “Birds of a feather flock together”: similarity predicts attraction better than “opposites attract.”
   • Includes more than obvious traits (e.g., age/height); also includes attitudes (e.g., views on capital punishment, sports preferences).

3. Familiarity

   • People often become attracted to those they repeatedly encounter rather than true strangers they’ve never seen.
   • He also cites a demonstration-style effect: people tend to prefer previously exposed stimuli even when they can’t explain why.

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5) The more interesting four: mechanisms and experiments behind attraction

Salovey highlights four attraction-relevant “levers”:

A) Competence and the Pratfall Effect

People are drawn to others who seem competent, but extreme competence can be threatening.

Key twist: attraction increases when a competent person occasionally blunders.

• Elliot Aronson’s pratfall studies:

  • Participants rate a “nearly perfect” person vs a “mediocre” person.
  • Without blunder: competent person rated more attractive.
  • With blunder: competent person rated even more attractive; mediocre person rated worse.

• Salovey anecdote:

  • He spilled coffee during a meeting with Judy Rodin at Yale and connected it to the pratfall effect.
  • Rodin reportedly said the effect works only if the listener sees the other person as competent first.

B) Physical attractiveness predicts short-term relationship continuation

Students may claim looks don’t matter, but evidence suggests otherwise.

• Blind date evidence:
  • Predicting whether couples go on a second date: looks predict second dates more than warmth, intelligence, compassion, or humor.
• Additional experimental support:
  • Random pairing (University of Minnesota): randomly matched partners; those rating a partner as attractive were more likely to continue the relationship.
  • Frizzy Wig experiment (Aronson):
    • Attractive vs less attractive appearance manipulated (e.g., frumpy presentation/frizzy wig).
    • When the attractive confederate gave unfavorable feedback, participants were more upset and more motivated to interact again.

C) Gain vs loss in how regard changes over time

General psychology: people are sensitive to change more than steady states.

In attraction:

• Gain effect: people are more attracted when the other person’s regard is increasing over time.
• Loss effect: people are especially hurt when regard declines after being positive—“only the one you love can hurt you” (in spirit).
• Salovey emphasizes the importance of the rate of change (the “derivative”), not just overall positivity.

D) Misattribution of arousal → thinking it is love (Schachter & Singer)

Core idea: people feel physiological arousal, but misattribute its source.

Salovey’s message:

If you feel aroused and attribute it to romance rather than the true source, you may “think it’s love.”

Examples:

• Decaf vs caffeine thought experiment:
  • A character orders decaf but gets caffeinated espresso.
  • During intense physiological activation, the person interprets the sensations as “almost like being in love.”
• Rickety Bridge field study:
  • Men cross either a dangerous, shaky narrow bridge or a stable wide bridge.
  • An attractive woman intercepts them; later they write calls/requests.
  • Men on the rickety bridge generated more “sexy” stories and more follow-up.
  • Salovey critiques the original design for lacking random assignment (possible personality/selection differences between who chooses risky vs stable bridges).
• Lab-style misattribution approaches (as described):
  • Participants anticipate a painful shock → later find the confederate more attractive even though arousal has an obvious cause.
  • Participants run on a treadmill before interacting → later find the confederate more attractive.
  • More controversial historical experiment:
    • Men watch centerfold slides while headphones amplify their “heartbeat.”
    • The heartbeat tape is manipulated independently of the slides (sped up/cooled down).
    • Misattribution leads them to prefer the slide coinciding with heartbeat changes.

Serious implication emphasized:

• In domestic violence contexts, misattributing fear/anger/arousal as “love” may help explain why some people remain in abusive situations.

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Detailed list of instructional/methodological elements mentioned (experiments/approaches)

Although the talk is not a step-by-step “how-to” guide, it does describe methodological strategies and experimental designs:

• Use Sternberg’s 3-component framework to classify relationships

  • For each relationship, check whether it includes:
    • Intimacy (secret-sharing/bonding)
    • Passion (sexual attraction/arousal)
    • Commitment (willingness to maintain + labeling as “love”)
  • Tally totals (0–3) to map relationship type:
    • 0: Non-love
    • 1: Liking / Infatuation / Empty love (depending on which component)
    • 2: Romantic love / Companionate love / Fatuous love (depending on which two)
    • 3: Consummate love

• Research strategy: examine attraction mechanisms even when the topic is “love”

  • Study predictors of:
    • who becomes intimate,
    • who finds others physically desirable,
    • and who forms/maintains commitment.

• Critique of weak designs: avoid non-random assignment

  • Example: Rickety bridge criticism for selection effects.
  • Lesson: when testing misattribution, ensure random assignment to stable vs arousing conditions.

• Lab misattribution template (general structure)

  • Measure baseline/current attraction toward an experimenter/confederate.
  • Manipulate physiological arousal source (shock anticipation, exercise, heartbeat cues).
  • Keep confederate attractiveness constant while arousal changes.
  • Compare attraction ratings across conditions:
    • expect higher attraction when arousal is misattributed.

• Bridge-to-lab translation

  • If field observations suggest arousal interpretation drives attraction, test it in the lab with controlled arousal induction + random assignment.

• Cueing may not eliminate misattribution

  • Even if participants are told about shock or arousal causes, effects may persist unless the arousal’s source is made highly salient.

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Speakers / sources featured

Speakers

• Professor Paul Bloom (introducing the lecture)
• Dean Dr. Peter Salovey (guest lecturer)

Sources / referenced researchers, theories, and works

• Robert Sternberg (three-component theory: intimacy, passion, commitment)
• Elliot Aronson (Pratfall Effect; also described work including the Frizzy Wig experiment)
• Schachter & Singer (emotion theory: misattribution of arousal)
• Judy Rodin (referenced via Salovey’s anecdote)
• Meat Loaf (referenced lyric: “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”)
• Ricky Skaggs (referenced lyric: “Nothing can hurt you like the person you love”)
• Playboy (referenced in a historical lab experiment description)
• Milgram, Asch, Robbers Cave (referenced as other famous social psychology experiments)
• New Blue (fictionalized context used in a thought experiment)
• South Pacific (referenced via “some enchanted evening…”)
• Starbucks (referenced in the thought experiment context)
• University of British Columbia (rickety bridge study context)
• University of Minnesota (random pairing/attractiveness pairing context)