The good-looking people are likable. No doubt. They entice us with their physically attractive appearance. We also tend to fall in love with beautiful women and handsome men. They look cool and perfect in everything. A Stereotype of Beauty Our … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2022
The “Mere Exposure Effect” and Love Attraction
PDF Version. Familiarity and similarity are powerful forces in our love attraction that can be influenced by genetic predisposition, imprinting, or by the “mere exposure effect.” They all have the same psychological mechanism of prototypicality. Despite our interest in novelty, … Continue reading
Sexual Imprinting of Attraction and Love
PDF Version. The mechanism of imprinting plays an important role in shaping our sexual attraction and love preferences. I explain what “imprinting” is elsewhere. Early works by Konrad Lorenz (Lorenz, 1935) demonstrated that the early experiences of birds and animals … Continue reading
Imprinting of Love Attachment
PDF Version. We tend to perceive people who look familiar to us as more attractive than those who look unfamiliar. This is the familiarity principle that also guides our mating, sexual preferences, and love. The phenomenon of imprinting is at … Continue reading
Attraction to Familiar Others
PDF Version. Something familiar is frequently attractive to us, despite our interest in novelty. It is a persistent pattern of human perception and behavior, which is called the familiarity principle (Reis & Sprecher, 2009). The principle is rooted in the mere … Continue reading
Genetic Diversity and Genetic Sexual Attraction
PDF Version. Despite the importance of similarity in genetic sexual attraction, genetic diversity is equally important in love. It appears that both similarities and differences between love partners play important roles. Evolutionary Value of Genetic Diversity Genetic sexual attraction plays … Continue reading
Genetic Secrets of Love Attraction
PDF Version. From a biological evolutionary perspective, the genetic similarity must be important for sexual attraction. Intersexual attraction helps sexually dimorphic animals, such as birds and mammals, select a proper mate because they cannot reproduce offspring with anyone. They can … Continue reading
Love Power Is in the Power of Both Fire and Water
PDF Version. The aid of a metaphorical lexicon help us better grasp what love is. Various Western and Eastern languages and cultures have metaphors, metonyms, and related concepts for “fire,” “heat,” and “water” that stand for the core qualities of … Continue reading
Cultures Across the World Regard Love as Fire
PDF Version. A metaphoric lexicon helps us better understand what love is. In many languages, the metaphors, metonyms, and related concepts of “fire” and “heat” represent the strong passion of love (see Karandashev, 2019). The metaphors of “love as fire … Continue reading
Love Is Hot as Fire: European and North American Cultures
PDF Version. Metaphors, metonyms, and related concepts enrich and deepen our understanding and experience of love. Many languages and cultures use various metaphorical expressions of love (Kövecses, 1988; Kövecses, 2003). In many European and North American cultures, love is compared to … Continue reading