Category Archives: interpersonal communication

A Distinctive Smell Influences Our Emotions and Love

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Smell is the most mysterious of the five senses, with an evocative power that can transfer us to different times, places, emotional states, and even the state of love. The scent of a particular perfume has a distinctive smell that may remind us of a loved one. The aroma of baking bread may bring us back to childhood. A whiff of hospital disinfectant may cause us to feel uneasy. However, the impact of scent on human behavior extends beyond these evocative moments.

This article, as well as others on this blog, will review the intricate relationships between human scent—a distinctive smell—and our feelings, emotions, perceptions, and behaviors.

The Science of Smell: Knowing the Power of a Distinctive Smell

Understanding the science of smell (olfaction) is essential when we explore the role of smell in our perceptions, emotions, and behaviors. The olfactory organs and neurons in the nose interact with molecules in the air when we take a deep breath through the nose. The brain receives data from these neurons and uses it to determine what we are smelling.

The special feature of this sensory processing is that the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotion, memory, and behavior, is directly connected to the olfactory neurons. Because of this direct path, smells can have powerful and immediate effects on our feelings, perceptions, emotions, and behavior.

The “Proustian Phenomenon” of the Effect of Distinctive Smell on Memory

Marcel Proust (1871–1922), the famous French novelist, portrayed a character who vividly recalled long-forgotten childhood memories after consuming a madeleine cake dipped in tea. This ‘Proustian phenomenon’ illustrates how aromas can evoke powerful and vivid memories.

The olfactory bulb, which processes smell, has strong connections to the amygdala and hippocampus, which control emotion and memory, respectively. This unique relationship explains why a specific scent can immediately evoke intense emotional memories.

A Direct Connection Between Smell and Emotion

Scent may have a significant impact on our emotional state in addition to how we remember the past. A certain smell can elicit a variety of emotions, ranging from contentment and relaxation to disgust and anxiety. For example, lavender, which has a calming effect, is frequently used in aromatherapy to ease stress and promote sleep. On the other hand, the smell of spoiled food or rotten eggs may cause disgust and a strong desire to leave the area.

The Subtle Yet Significant Effect of Smell on Social Connections

Smell is a big part of how people connect with each other. Animals use scents called pheromones to signal to one another. The scientific idea of ‘chemical communication’ through these scents is well investigated in various species. Pheromones determine the smells that animals give off to communicate with each other.

Researchers are still investigating the effects of human pheromones on their emotions and behaviors. Some studies show that smells do play a role in how people get attracted to each other and form relationships. Men and women are more likely to hang out with others who have a scent they like.

The Power of Scent Is Subtle in Its Effect on Us

The influence of smell on human emotions, perceptions, and behaviors is profound and intricate. It is still not fully comprehended, yet it is clear that our sense of smell is intricately connected to our emotions, memories, and behaviors. We can anticipate uncovering more fascinating insights into the subtle yet potent role of scent in our life and love.

Other posts on this blog show the role of various sensory experiences, including smell, on human preferences in romantic relationships. Some studies, for example, revealed the most attractive smells for love. Other studies explored the tactile and kinesthetic senses of love.

A Study Shows How Modern Single People Can Be Happy

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Traditional cultural stereotypes have taught us for decades that marriage is the ultimate destiny for young men and women. They should find the right partner (as in love marriages), or someone should find them the right partner (as in arranged marriages) for a marital relationship.

Due to these cultural stereotypes, people told men and women they should marry to be happy. It appeared, however, that fewer and fewer young men and women believed in this myth. Many preferred to stay single rather than marry. Even though they stayed in a relationship, they started to postpone their marriage until later. Sometimes, they never married, preferring to live in a relationship without marital registration.

The overall decline in marriages was an alarming trend in the late twentieth century. In the late 1970s, divorce rates were high, and the number of people remarrying after divorce was decreasing. It became commonplace for couples to cohabit without registering their union. Between 1970 and 1999, the number of unmarried couples living together in the United States increased seven times.

I wrote about these tendencies in another article, What Happened with Marriage in the Late 20th Century and How Marriage Evolved Into Singlehood in recent several decades.

Does it mean that modern single men and women are less happy because they are not married?

Is it okay to be single? Another reasonable question researchers ask is whether marriage brings us happiness or whether we ourselves bring our happiness to make the relationship happy.

Singlehood in the 21st Century

In the 21st century, the number of people who are single continues to go up. While in 1990, 29% of adults in the U.S. did not have a partner, in 2019, the percentage increased to 38%.

The traditional cultural stereotypes, however, tell us that something is wrong with those single men and women. Many people believe that unmarried men and women are immature, self-centered, insecure, and unhappy. They believe that married people are more mature, kind, stable, and happy.

According to some research, people who are married or in a committed relationship tend to be happier overall than those who are single. But averages don’t tell the full truth because people are individuals.

Single People Differ from Each Other in How Happy They Feel

The findings of a recent study by Lisa Walsh, Victor Kaufman, and their colleagues from the University of California have demonstrated that single people have many individual differences in how they live and feel.

Researchers surveyed 4,835 single adults ranging in age from 18 to 65 who were single at the time of the survey. The results of the survey identified 10 distinct groups of single people, some of whom were happier than others.

The findings showed that 14% of single adults said that they were extremely happy. In fact, they felt just as happy as the happiest couples reported in other studies. Another 40% of singles were moderately satisfied, 36% were somewhat dissatisfied, and only 10% were extremely dissatisfied.

In contrast to popular stereotypes, the majority of singles (54%) were happy and satisfied with their lives. As a result, singles can experience happiness on par with couples, challenging the misguided stigmas often associated with singlehood.

What Makes Single People Happy

By focusing on typological groups of single people, researchers were able to learn more about what makes them happy.

The single people who were the happiest had strong relationships with their friends and family, a high sense of self-worth, and good personality traits. Besides, the happiest singles had a high level of extraversion, which means they were friendly and outgoing, and a low level of neuroticism, which is a tendency toward negative emotional instability.

On the other hand, the singles who were least happy had poor relationships with family and friends, low self-esteem, low extraversion, and high neuroticism.

Who Are Moderately Happy Singles?

We found interesting variations among moderately happy singles between these two extremes. They frequently keep an emotional balance between the good and bad sides of their lives. The happiest singles were those who had wonderful friends and family, but they did not have to have both to be content. Strong friendships but strained family ties characterized one happy group, while the other happy group displayed the opposite trend.

Another happy singles group had high neuroticism, but they overcame this challenge with high extraversion. To put it another way, there are numerous ways for single people to be content. One general stereotype cannot be used to describe all single people. There are several different kinds of single people, each with their own distinctive characteristics.

So, Living Single Is Not Necessarily Bad for You

What are the main conclusions the researchers came to?

We are not doomed to a life of misery if we remain single. In fact, a lot of single people are as content with their lives as their married counterparts. Additionally, there are numerous options for single people to live their own unique version of the good life. Some singles are lucky to have low neurotic traits, while others have a high sense of self. Some singles treasure their friendships. Others find comfort in their families.

So, it appears that the traditional gap between happy couples and unhappy singles is not as straight as previously believed. Currently, that gap may be narrowing as singlehood gains greater acceptance and prominence in modern societies.

We shall acknowledge that happiness doesn’t hinge on romantic or marital relationships. We shall cherish the diverse ways that we can find happiness in life, whether being married, in partnerships, or now.

How Doctors Can Be More Compassionate to Patients

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The lack of time, or “time famine,” is the major problem nowadays that deters us from being compassionate to others in our daily encounters. This problem also does not allow doctors to allot sufficient time to interact with patients compassionately in the manner in which they would like to do so. Many doctors regret that they do not have the time to treat patients with compassion, as they would like to.

The problem is specifically intractable in medicine. Healthcare providers in clinics often feel they cannot sufficiently care for their patients the way they would like.

It’s hard to think of something more serious than telling a patient bad medical news. Can medical educators teach physicians how to show real compassion for patients professionally?

How to Show Compassion Professionally

Let’s consider how the researchers from Johns Hopkins University taught cancer doctors the way to support their patient encounters.

Here is a script that doctors can use in their medical practice. Beginning the appointment, the oncologists say:

“I know this is a tough experience to go through and I want you to know that I am here with you. Some of the things that I say to you today may be difficult to understand, so I want you to feel comfortable stopping me if I say something that is confusing or doesn’t make sense. We are here together, and we will go through this together.”

Then, by the end of the appointment, the doctors say:

“I know this is a tough time for you, and I want to emphasize again that we are in this together. I will be with you each step along the way.”

It appeared that when doctors shared these words with their patients, the patients perceived their doctors as warmer, more caring, and more compassionate care providers. These patients experienced less anxiety than other patients.

The study demonstrated not only how compassion matters but how quickly a doctor can display compassion to a patient, even in forty seconds and in 99 words, which eased a patient’s anxiety.

How Much Time Does It Take to Express Compassion?

Other studies have supported this discovery about how little time doctors need to express compassion.

Stephen Trzeciak and his colleagues conducted the study in the Netherlands that showed that it takes only 38 seconds for doctors to express compassion when they deliver bad news to patients to ease the patient’s anxiety.

The study of Rachel Weiss and her colleagues demonstrated that the longer compassionate statements, the better they reduce patient anxiety.

How to Express Compassion in Daily Social Communication

What about other daily situations involving social connections? Can we spare a few seconds to communicate with someone close to us, with our loved one or friend, or with our neighbor, expressing simple words of compassion?

  • Great job today. I know it’s been tough this past week. I see how hard you are working and I’m proud to be working alongside you.
  • I really admire how you are rolling with the punches. I want you to know you’re not in it alone. I’m here, too, and we’ll figure it out together.
How Helping Others Could Make You Feel Less Rushed by Gabriella Kellerman (2023)

Keep in mind that even the brief moments of your time given compassionately to someone else can make a difference in their life as well as in yours.

Give Compassionate Love to Each Other!

We need to rely on each other. We must care about each other. We need compassion for each other to feel good, be good, live well, and do what we are doing well. We need compassionate love for each other to do well in our personal lives.

The modern way of life, with its daily rush and lack of time, presents increasing barriers to personal connections. Nevertheless, we can pursue compassionate social behavior and feel that we have time to spare for it.

How to Reduce “Time Famine” by Connecting with Others

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Nowadays, the “time famine” is one of the greatest obstacles to social connection and expressions of love. We believe we are suffering from a “time famine.” We always have too much to do, never enough time to complete it, and never enough time to love and connect with others.

The perennial struggle for work-life balance frequently boils down to a single issue:

“I simply do not have enough time to excel at both work and home.”

70% of Americans either eat lunch at their desks or skip lunch altogether. Our perception of time constraints prevents us from connecting with others and showing our compassion to them.

Time is the resource that is most precious today. Our minds treat time as a factor determining how to spend time by expressing our love, helping others, and how generous we are willing to be.

However, it’s often not an objective lack of time but rather our subjective perception of a “time famine” that drives this mindset. Unfortunately, we have a natural tendency to overestimate the amount of time we need to help. And therefore, we prefer not to help at all. Therefore, our ability to connect rapidly with others must address and overcome this faulty perception.

How to Overcome a Time Famine

It is normal to be in a hurry, and it is not necessarily bad. Actually, a never-ending “time famine” diminishes our quality of life and causes us to miss paying attention to others who are around us and who need our love and help. important opportunities. 

How can we disrupt this mental script and make compassionate connections with others?

We cannot add more hours to the day, but we can create the mindset that we have time. At least we have it to make interpersonal connections and help others.

American researchers Cassie Mogilner, Zoë Chance, and Michael Norton investigated strategies to reduce the sense of time famine. These strategies are as follows:

  • Giving people time back in their day that had previously been committed to a task
  • Asking people to spend that same amount of time on a task helping others
  • Asking people to waste the time
  • Asking people to spend that time on themselves

“Time Affluence” Instead of “Time Famine”

The authors proposed the term “time affluence” for the mindset when people have the feeling of having time to spare.

“Results of four experiments reveal a counterintuitive solution to the common problem of feeling that one does not have enough time: Give some of it away.”

Mogilner, Chance, & Norton, 2012, p.1233

This study shows that people can increase their subjective sense of time affluence: “Giving Time Gives You Time.” When we do something to help others, even for just 15 or 30 minutes, we feel that we have added time to our day rather than lost time. In comparison, when we help ourselves, we do not feel this way.

How can we adopt this mindset?

It makes sense to challenge yourself and give yourself time to connect with others when you feel time pressure. Please reflect on this experience by noticing the increased sense of time affluence. Fight the “hurry worry.” It is precisely when we feel the least capable of assisting others that we can do the most good by helping others.

Even compassionate “small love” can be valuable to others!

Our Posture Shapes Interpersonal Feelings

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We are wondering how our body posture expresses and affects our feelings towards other people. Many studies show that our body language, facial expressions, and posture say more about how we feel than what we say (Karandashev, 2021).

Both what we say and how we act show how we feel about each other and how much we love them. What we show with our faces and bodies is just as important as what we say. Even if we say, “I love you,” our body language can say something different. Sometimes the way we stand says more about us than what we say. Studies show that our body language, facial expressions, and posture say more about how we feel than what we say.

What a New Study Revealed

Recent research by Patty Van Cappellen at Duke University suggests that others can read our emotions from our body language. It might come as a surprise, but our body posture also conveys our emotions in addition to the way our faces do.

Researchers found that open postures with the arms held high showed positive feelings like warmth and extraversion. When people stood with their arms outstretched, it was a sign of power and anger. This backs up the idea that people use body language to figure out how other people feel.

Our Posture Affects Our Feelings

These findings raise an intriguing question: Do postures only communicate our feelings, or can adopting a specific posture change how we feel?

Van Cappellen and her colleagues conducted another study to find out whether expansive and upward posture facilitates the experience of positive affect.

Participants in the study were asked to adopt one of three poses:

  • hands raised and head lifted;
  • hands folded in front, head looking down; or
  • arms at sides and looking straight ahead.

During the study, participants wore sensors to measure their nervous system and cardiac function. Researchers told them that the experiment was about the physiological and emotional reactions people had to music. They listened to emotionally ambiguous music (by Enya) while holding their pose for two minutes to ensure that they didn’t know that the researchers were interested in posture.

The participants were then asked to describe their feelings after listening to the music, and their feelings were compared to the physiological markers being monitored. The findings demonstrated that participants in a posture with raised arms and heads tilted upward had a more positive overall feeling than participants in other poses.

What the Study Found

“This study shows that assuming particular postures can create or construct an emotion experience. A typical joy posture elicits more positive emotions than other postures.”

as Van Cappellen said.

It’s unclear why this effect is happening. In any case, this research suggests that our body posture aids in expressing our emotions and may also aid us in experiencing certain emotions. This could have a significant effect. It is obviously useful to know how we and others feel in a given situation.

“Emotion expression is what enables social relationships, and we’re showing that you could potentially rewire yourself using different postures. It’s critical that we get more information about what these postures look like and what they express. Otherwise, we can get this wrong.”

as Van Cappellen concluded.

How Body Posture Shows Interpersonal Emotions

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Both our verbal and nonverbal communication express our interpersonal emotions and love. What our facial and bodily expressions say is not less important than what we say. We can say, “I love you,” yet our posture can tell something else. Sometimes our postures show more than what we say. Studies reveal that our facial expression, body movement, and posture show our emotions more than what we say in words.

How Our Bodies and Posture Show Emotions

People frequently tell us that our emotions are “written all over our faces.” That’s because our facial expressions are a primary means of communicating emotions. All these nonverbal expressions show our emotions, whether we are happy by smiling and crinkling our eyes or angry by furrowing our brows and tensing our lips (Karandashev, 2021).

According to recent studies that Patty Van Cappellen conducted at Duke University, our body language can communicate our emotions to others. This may sound surprising, but not only our faces express our emotions, but our body posture does this too.

What the Study of Posture Shows

Van Cappellen and her colleagues investigated the role of body posture in emotional expression in a novel way. They asked a group of people to pose miniature, faceless mannequins in positions that represented four different emotions to them: dominance, joy, hope, and awe.

Some of these emotions are linked to “expansive” postures—where people take up more space by standing erect, opening up their torso, or extending their limbs away from their body. Additionally, the researchers were interested in what ideas people would come up with on their own without assistance from actors or others.

In the study, research assistants were unaware of the experiment’s purpose. The principal investigators asked them to examine photos of the mannequins that participants had created. They assessed their head positions, arm positions, and degrees of expansiveness, measured both horizontally and vertically. The researchers then compared these positions to the alleged feelings they expressed.

Van Cappellen discovered that people interpreted an expansive posture as denoting dominance. This finding was consistent with earlier studies. However, the researchers revealed that even more than dominance, expansive postures represented joy and awe.

As Van Cappellen noted,

“We’re looking at how people express their positive emotions in their full body, and it’s clear that how much space your body takes up is present in other emotions or effective states beyond dominance. We’re finding that positive emotions are also marked by expansiveness—especially joy, which is even more expansive than dominance.”

The Study Revealed that Posture Shows More than We Might Think

Moreover, researchers also observed differences in arm and head positions. For example, arms raised above the head and the head tilted upward represented joyful postures. Awe postures were represented by hands touching the face or hovering near the head. Dominant postures, on the other hand, displayed arms akimbo (hands on hips, elbows out) with the head forward.

This means that emotions are not only communicated in the face but rather fully embodied. The author noted that “the expression and production of emotions is a full-body experience,” and they found signature arm positions for each emotion.

Van Cappellen was also curious as to whether observers of the mannequins would be able to discern the emotions that the various postures represented. The authors used photographs of mannequins that were posed in various ways. The expansiveness remained constant while the arm and head positions varied. Then Van Cappellen asked participants to rate the mannequins based on how well they conveyed a variety of emotional traits, such as extraversion, dominance, energy, warmth, competence, and overall positive and negative feelings.

Participants discovered that expansive postures with arms held high represented positive emotions such as extraversion and warmth. The body position of arms akimbo represented dominance and negative emotion. This supports the notion that people rely on body language to interpret the emotions of others.

As Van Cappellen concludes,

“We’re constantly trying to know what another person is feeling and trying to infer what they’re going to do—and that comes [in part] from their body posture.”

People of the “Dark Triad” Tend to Be Manipulative in Relationships

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Many studies have shown what personality traits are attractive for a romantic relationship. However, love studies have paid much less attention to exploring personality traits that negatively affect relationships. According to recent studies, people with Dark Triad traits are more likely to act manipulatively when breaking up with a partner.

What Are the “Dark Triad” Traits?

The concept of the “Dark Triad” includes a set of three groups of personality traits. These are narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These traits characterize individuals with a lack of sympathy, a deficiency of emotional experience, and a behavioral tendency toward exploitation in a relationship.

How Individuals with the “Dark Triad” Behave in a Relationship

Studies have shown that these personality traits significantly affect how men and women form and maintain friendships and romantic relationships.

A recent study published in the journal “Personality and Individual Differences” investigated how people with “Dark Triad” personality traits behave when breaking up with their partners. The study showed that individuals with the Dark Triad traits behave manipulatively during the breakup of their relationships. According to this research, people with Dark Triad traits are more likely to use manipulation to end a relationship. They tend to be less kind and compassionate when a relationship ends.

The “Dark Triad” and the Breakdown of Relationships

Relationship dissolution is a common and upsetting occurrence in life. This is why the new study by Gayle Brewer and colleagues set out to understand how the “Dark Triad” personality traits of men and women affect relationships.

According to this recent study, individuals who have the “Dark Triad” traits tend to experience lower relationship satisfaction and are more prone to breakdown. They feel less loyalty to a partner and therefore may be more willing to end romantic relationships.

The Two Studies of the “Dark Triad” Showed

In these two studies, researchers examined how partners’ “Dark Triad” personality traits affect the way they end friendships and romantic relationships, exploring break-up strategies.

According to the findings of the first study, individuals with the personality traits of Machiavellianism and psychopathy tend to use manipulation, escalation, and distant communication when they approach the stage of ending a romantic relationship. In contrast to this, individuals with personality traits of narcissism tend to engage in open confrontation. As for the ending of friendship, individuals with high psychopathic traits tend to use distant communication during friendship dissolution.

The findings of the study suggest that people with the “Dark Triad” personality traits tend to use manipulative tactics during the breakup of a romantic relationship. They rarely experience and behave with empathy or kindness during their breakup.

Individuals with both Machiavellianism and psychopathy personality traits often employ aggressive confrontation, cost-escalation, and manipulation.

Interpersonal Attraction over Minimal Similarities

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It is widely known in psychology that similarities attract individuals in interpersonal relationships and love. We feel attracted to others with whom we share similar personality traits, interests, values, and other personal attributes. even minimal similarities, if they are essential, can lead to interpersonal attraction.

People Tend to Be Prone to Overgeneralization

However, this interpersonal attraction due to similarities may stem not from real similarities but rather from our overgeneralized beliefs that such observed personal similarities indicate our deeper and more fundamental similarities with another person.

Charles Chu, an assistant professor at Boston University, recently conducted a study showing how our perceptions of similarities prompt our false beliefs about having deeper similarities with the person.

As the author said,

“Our attraction to people who share our attributes is aided by the belief that those shared attributes are driven by something deep within us: one’s essence.”

More concretely, Charles Chu continues:

“To put it concretely, we like someone who agrees with us on a political issue, shares our music preferences, or simply laughs at the same thing as us not purely because of those similarities, but because those similarities suggest something more—this person is, in essence, like me, and as such, they share my views of the world at large.”

What Is “Psychological Essentialism”?

According to the author, “psychological essentialism,” specifically applied to people’s ideas about the self and individual identity, is what motivates this way of thinking. People have a tendency to “essentialize” many things in their perceptions of others. This seems to be a psychological phenomenon present across all human cultures.

Charles Chu defines “psychological essentialism” this way:

“To essentialize something is to define it by a set of deeply rooted and unchanging properties, or an essence.”

“For example, the category of ‘wolf’ is defined by a wolf essence, residing in all wolves, from which stems attributes such as their pointy noses, sharp teeth and fluffy tails as well as their pack nature and aggressiveness. It is unchanging in that a wolf raised by sheep is still a wolf and will eventually develop wolf-like attributes.”

Charles Chu explains that researchers have recently started to concentrate on the category of the self in terms of “psychological essentialism.” They found that we tend to essentialize the self in the same way that we essentialize other categories in our perception.

“To essentialize me is to define who I am by a set of entrenched and unchanging properties, and we all, especially in Western societies, do this to some extent. A self-essentialist then would believe that what others can see about us and the way we behave are caused by such an unchanging essence,”

Charles Chu said.

New Experiments on Self-Essentialism and Interpersonal Attraction

Researchers conduct studies to better understand how self-essentialism drives interpersonal attraction. Let us review a series of four experiments recently reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

First Experiment

In the first experiment, researchers asked participants their opinions on one of five randomly selected social issues: gun ownership, the death penalty, abortion, physician-assisted suicide, or animal testing. The other half of the participants read about someone who disagreed with their position, while the other half read about someone who shared their position. Then all participants answered questions about their general beliefs about self-essentialism. They also rated their level of interpersonal attraction to the fictitious person and how much they thought they shared a general worldview with that person.

The participants who were high in self-essentialism more frequently reported that they had a similar general perception of reality as the fictitious person who agreed with them. The participants also express attraction to them.

Second Experiment

In the second experiment, similar to the first one, researchers found the same results, further supporting their theory of self-essentialism. This time, researchers asked about another shared attribute: the participants’ propensity to overestimate or underestimate the number of colored dots on a series of computer slides.

In this case, the belief in an “essential self” made participants think that a single aspect of similarity implied that both the participant and another person see the world similarly. This, in turn, led to a higher attraction to that person.

Third Experiment

In a third experiment, researchers showed participants eight pairs of paintings and asked them to select their favorite from each pair. Some participants were fans of the Swiss-German artist Paul Klee, while others were fans of the Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Then researchers informed half of each fan group that their artistic preference was intrinsic to their identity. Researchers informed the other half of participants that there was no correlation between their artistic preference and their identity.

Researchers then exposed the participants to two fictitious individuals. One of them shared their artistic preference, and the other did not.

Researchers found in this experiment that those whom they told that artistic preference was related to their essence were significantly more likely to express attraction to a hypothetical person with the same artistic preferences.

Fourth Experiment

In the fourth experiment, researchers classified participants as fans of one of the two artists. Then they gave them information about whether or not using one’s own essence was useful in perceiving other people.

In this experiment, researchers told one-third of the participants that essentialist thinking may result in inaccurate perceptions of others. Researchers told another third of the participants that essentialist thinking may result in accurate perceptions of others. They didn’t provide any information to the remaining third of participants.

Here are the striking results of the study: Participants, who were informed that essentialist thinking could result in accurate assessments of other people, believed that they shared a similar taste in art with them. They also felt attracted to these fictitious people.

What the Study Concluded about Interpersonal Attraction

The most surprising finding of the study was that something as simple as a shared appreciation of an artist could make people believe that other people would have similar worldviews. However, the author advised that self-essentialist thinking might not always be beneficial. Regarding this finding, Charles Chu noted that,

“I think any time when we’re making quick judgments or first impressions with very little information, we are likely to be affected by self-essentialist reasoning.”

“People are so much more complex than we often give them credit for, and we should be wary of the unwarranted assumptions we make based on this type of thinking.”

Thus, one can see that Self-Essentialist Reasoning Underlies the Similarity-Attraction Effect in interpersonal perception and attraction.

Gratitude and Love in Cultural Perspective

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The grateful attitude and emotions toward other people and life are referred to as gratitude. When we express gratitude for what other people and life have given us, we experience several situational emotions. When we are grateful, thankful, and appreciative to someone for something, we can feel a variety of positive emotions. Gratitude and love commonly go hand in hand and are closely related to each other.

Gratitude and Love in Our Life

As I showed in another article, gratitude and love frequently go together. Not only does the experience of gratitude entail the emotion of love, but love also implies the expression of gratitude.

Love frequently involves expressions of gratitude and appreciation. Love, gratitude, and appreciation are deeply relational feelings that encompass a wide range of dispositions, moods, and situational emotions and feelings. Participants use a variety of methods to express their feelings of love, including loving others, loving oneself, receiving love, and feeling thankful for love.

A Chinese Cultural Perspective on Gratitude and Love

The indigenous Chinese concept of “enqing” means grateful love (Chen & Li, 2007). This type of love includes the feelings of responsibilities and obligations associated with a spouse’s feelings of appreciation, gratitude, and indebtedness for what the partner does for the marriage. The origins of “enqing” are in Chinese relationship orientation and the traditional Confucian value of duty in marriage.

While Western marital intimacy is characterized by feelings of togetherness and compatibility, Chinese marital intimacy is characterized by feelings of admiration and gratitude.

The Chinese Concept of “Enqing”

People in traditional Chinese society typically place little emphasis on marital intimacy. Instead, “enqing”—the expression of gratitude and admiration—may bind Chinese couples closely together.

Many researchers have identified “enqing” as the primary element of Chinese marital affection and love (e.g., Li & Chen, 2002; Tang, 1991; see for a review, Karandashev, 2019). In traditional Chinese marriage, “enqing” plays a central role in marital affection and love. The four pillars of Chinese couples’ love are:

(a) feelings of gratitude,

(b) admiration,

(c) togetherness, and

(d) compatibility

(Chen & Li, 2007).

How Gratitude and Love Develop in Chinese Marriage

Why and how does this kind of grateful love between married people grow?

In traditional Chinese culture, parents frequently arrange marriages. Under these conditions, many people got married without knowing each other well. Moreover, even after they get married, Chinese cultural norms do not consider the intimate relationship between the couple as important. The “enqing“, or expression of gratitude and admiration, develops from conjugal love and role fulfillment. That is what keeps Chinese couples together and close.

People experience intimacy more frequently in modern Taiwanese (Chinese) marriages than ever before. However, the presence of “enqing” remains. Modern Western ideas about love have an effect on Chinese marriages. Nevertheless, the traditional Chinese idea of “enqing” has not gone away (Li & Chen, 2002).

How the Expression of Gratitude Differs in Chinese and American Cultures

A series of cross-cultural studies examined the impact of verbal and nonverbal expressions of appreciation on the quality of romantic relationships in “high-context, collectivistic cultures and low-context, individualistic cultures” (Bello et al., 2010, p. 294).

The authors discovered that in cultures such as the United States and China, appreciation takes different forms and plays different roles in relationships. Participants from both countries listed specific ways they express gratitude in a romantic relationship.

The results show that Chinese participants prefer nonverbal expressions of appreciation over verbal ones, while American participants favor both verbal and nonverbal ones.

Overall, data showed that Americans use significantly more frequent expressions of gratitude in love than Chinese people. This is mostly due to the extensive use of verbal expressions in the United States. Chinese people, on the other hand, use more indirect ways to express gratitude in love than Americans see for a review, Karandashev, 2019).

Emotions Associated With Gratitude

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We can characterize gratitude as the grateful attitudes toward other people and life. Gratitude also involves several situational emotions when we experience gratitude for what other people and life give to us. We can experience several positive emotions when we are grateful, thankful, and appreciative to someone for something.

What Is the Lived Experience of Gratitude?

Researchers from Sofia University in California, USA, Patty Hlava and John Elfers conducted a qualitative study to investigate the ways in which individuals experience gratitude throughout their lives. The authors also investigated the advantages of practicing and expressing gratitude, both for relationships with others and personal emotions. What does it mean for people to be grateful for their lives, and how do they feel gratitude in their somatic feelings? How does gratitude benefit our relationships, and how does it change our relationships with others?

How Emotional Is the Lived Experience of Gratitude?

In this qualitative study, the authors explored the individual narratives of the lived emotional experience of gratitude. Some descriptions identified the feelings elicited by a specific event. The other descriptions identified the generalized descriptions that people reminisce over in a wide range of examples (Hlava & Elfers, 2014).

The Gratitude Emotions of Acceptance, Comfort, and Security

Many participants in their narratives expressed emotions of acceptance of themselves and of the world associated with a sense of rightness or completeness. They also described feelings of comfort and security.

I can just be in the world and not in conflict with it. (Jennifer)

Yeah, I felt real grounded, and centered, and refreshed. (Mimi)

There is this thread of deep contentment that runs like an underground river through everything. (Albert)

I’m grateful because there’s that unconditional love and that safety and security, which makes me feel strong and powerful. (Melanie)

(Hlava & Elfers, 2014, p. 447).

The Gratitude Emotions of Being Blessed

Participants described the feelings of being fortunate, lucky, and blessed as a common theme. It was a sense of personal worth and the value of the self in relation to others. This experience of gratitude, however, was not associated with feelings of guilt or indebtedness for the benefit.

Some participants recognized their responsibility to give back in response to the gift. They feel a desire to act on that responsibility.

A sense of being blessed and of savoring every little moment. (Sue)

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to be worthy of their faith in me. (Louise)

I just remember feeling so overwhelmed with feeling blessed and feeling just joyful, feeling just fortunate. (Betty) I get really excited, and I literally feel giddy. Then I feel lucky, and then I feel humbled. Then I feel like I should share it. (Melanie)

(Hlava & Elfers, 2014, p. 447).

The Gratitude Emotions of Joy

Participants described the positive emotion-experience of gratitude in terms of the pleasant sensations of euphoria, joy, and happiness.

A wonderful state of euphoria; pleasurable sensations, both mental and physical; happiness of memories. (Doris)

I was smiling, on top of my feeling a sense of joy in my face, and then a welling up in my eyes. (Betty)

I feel lighter and definitely happier. Gratitude is like sunshine. (Sarita) Then I was just really happy. I thought I was like Disneyland happy. (Link)

(Hlava & Elfers, 2014, p. 447).

The Gratitude Emotions of Love

The experience of love frequently expresses gratitude. Both love and gratitude are highly relational emotions, and both embody a broad affective range of feelings and contexts. Participants expressed the sentiments of love in a variety of ways, such as by loving another, loving oneself, being loved, and feeling grateful for being loved. The sentiments of love were also felt as being accepted, supported, protected, and understood.

Overwhelming love, I would say. In love with them, and feeling loved by them. (Betty)

I feel love. (pause) It’s kind of funny; because I think love and gratitude are almost like twins. You don’t have to love someone you’re grateful to, but it certainly seems to enhance gratitude and a lot of times if I’m grateful, really, I’m feeling loved. (Nancy)

How grateful I was to have been involved and been a part of such a wonderful and loving family. I really was overcome with just a feeling of gratefulness and almost to the point where it brought me to tears. (Lou)

(Hlava & Elfers, 2014, p. 448).