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 initial perception […]
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, we are more likely […]
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 could affect their mating […]
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 the root of this […]
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 exposure effect. We consider […]
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 an important role in […]
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 do this only with […]
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 love (see Karandashev, 2019). […]
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 are among the most […]
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 fire, a hot and […]