Attraction, Sex, Love, and Relationships in Psychology

Introduction

Attraction, love, sex, and relationships are fundamental to the human condition. Each individual is separate and distinct from every other, yet there are numerous aspects of human experience that people universally share — attraction, love, sex, and relationships are prime examples. Research has demonstrated that sexual attraction and the desire for close relationships form and manifest very early in human development, often before children have reached school age. With reference to several psychological and academic resources, this paper aims to explain some of the key components of sex, love, attraction, and relationships.

While attraction, love, sex, and relationships remain quite a substantial mystery to many people, researchers in areas such as psychology are making headway toward a comprehensive understanding of these emotions and experiences in a more scientific manner. To approach emotions — which can be erratic and irrational — from a scientific perspective may seem ambitious, but doing so provides insight into how these issues manifest in ourselves, what they reveal about human nature, and how humanity might navigate such intense and fundamental experiences in better ways. This paper aims to clearly distinguish among each of these terms while also providing a contextual framework within which the reader may consider and evaluate the ideas presented.

The Role of Proximity in Attraction

Love, sex, and relationships of any length begin with attraction, and attraction has a great deal to do with proximity. There is an American song from the 1970s with a chorus that reads, "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." It suggests that though "absence makes the heart grow fonder," the body is often much weaker than the mind and the will of a person. A person may carry love and romantic feelings for someone across a great distance, but in order for relationships to begin — in order for attraction to manifest into another activity or experience such as sexual intercourse or romantic love — the objects of desire must be in relative proximity to one another. With the advent of digital technology and its widespread integration into daily life in the 21st century, this assumption warrants some modification. Video chat, Skype, and other forms of audiovisual communication via the Internet now allow lovers across great distances to see and communicate with each other regularly.

Nevertheless, human beings generally require physical proximity for attraction to fully develop. A counterexample might be a fan who has never met his or her favorite film actor yet feels genuine attraction for that person. One could argue, however, that devoted fans often find ways to place themselves in physical proximity to the celebrity they desire. When the fan does get closer to the film star or rock star, the attraction tends to increase exponentially. Consider the reaction of fans of an artist like Justin Bieber. Many young people are attracted to this singer simply from music videos and print media images. Yet when those same fans attend a live concert, they often become overwhelmed — a phenomenon well documented in footage of concerts by artists such as Michael Jackson and the Beatles. Proximity frequently prompts the display of emotion, and such displays become more readily apparent with increased closeness: "…the expressive display of emotion rapidly communicates information about the internal state of the sender, objects and events in the environment, and the status of the relationship between the sender and the receiver." (Gonzaga et al., 2006, p. 164)

Hormones, Pheromones, and the Biology of Attraction

Attraction — which often leads to sex and sometimes to love and close relationships — also has distinct physical dimensions, including the roles of hormones and pheromones. The brain and other glands throughout the body release hormones into the bloodstream and pheromones into the air when a person is in proximity to someone to whom they are attracted:

"In humans, the attraction system (standardly called romantic love, obsessive love, passionate love, being in love, infatuation, or limerence) is also characterized by feelings of exhilaration, 'intrusive thinking' about the love object, and a craving for emotional union with this partner or potential partner. There is some evidence that this affective state is primarily associated with elevated levels of central dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) and decreased levels of central serotonin (5-HT)." (Fisher et al., 2002, p. 413)

Attraction is also physical insofar as people are drawn to others through the stimulation of their sensory organs. Research findings in studies of humans suggest that:

"…certain behaviors such as foreplay (kissing, hugging, caressing), sexual intercourse, and sexual orgasm tend to result in the secretion of oxytocin and various opioids into the bloodstream (e.g., Carmichael et al., 1987; Filipe et al., 2003). The increased concentration of oxytocin and opioids, in humans as in other animals, leads to positive feelings, which encourage humans to engage in further sexual activity. In the long run, the resulting positive feelings become associated with a particular partner and relationship, conditioning people to stay with that partner." (Gillath et al., 2008, p. 1057)

People are attracted to others based on how they look, how they smell, how they feel, and — after some form of romantic or physical contact — how they taste. People are attracted to others based on the feelings that arise when thinking about that person, being in their presence, and while and after engaging in sexual activity with them. This is yet another way in which physical proximity contributes to attraction, sex, love, and close relationships.

Conclusion

The key components of sex, love, attraction, and close relationships are numerous and varied, yet some are well established. Elements such as proximity, commonality, difference, and emotional connection are central to these experiences. Even so, these phenomena will always retain an element of mystery, as it is not possible to reduce every aspect of humanity to a scientific formula. Furthermore, to completely reduce sex, love, attraction, and relationships to science would diminish and extinguish their beauty, mystery, and singular place in the human experience. Though knowledge in this area is valuable, there are some things perhaps better felt than explained.

References

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

Fisher, H. E., Aron, A. A., Masher, D., Li, H., & Brown, L. L. (2002). Defining the brain systems of lust, romantic attraction, and attachment. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 31(5), 413–419.

Gillath, O., Mikulincer, M., Birnbaum, G. E., & Shaver, P. R. (2008). When sex primes love: Subliminal sexual priming motivates relationship goal pursuit. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1057–1070.

Gonzaga, G. C., Turner, R. A., Keltner, D., Campos, B., & Litmus, M. (2006). Romantic love and sexual desire in close relationships. Emotion, 6(2), 163–179.

Ryan, C., & Jetha, C. (2010). Sex at dawn: The prehistoric origins of modern sexuality. Harper Collins.