Emoji Love and Other Emotions in the Virtual World

In modern culture, it seems easy to guess what “heart” and especially “red heart” mean. Guess what? Love! So, the corresponding symbols are common in modern virtual world. The emoji ❤️ adopted the same meaning social media messages. The red heart … Continue reading

The Irresistible Attraction of Hugging in Love

Physical attraction and physical interaction of different kinds seem naturally involved in love relationships. Kissing, cuddling, and hugging are commonly associated with loving behavior. Why so? Is it culturally universal? Let us see why, for many loving and loved people, … Continue reading

The Measurement Pitfalls of Research Designs in Cultural Studies of Religions

Cross-cultural comparability and generalizability are the problems that come up in religious studies and need to be solved for scientific progress (Karandashev, 2021a; Karandashev et al., 2022; Fischer, 2022). When studying behavioral and social phenomena in various populations and religious … Continue reading

Unexpected Conceptual Challenges in Cultural Studies of Religions

Cultural studies of religions encounter the problems of cross-cultural comparability and generalizability, which need to be resolved for further scientific progress in this field (Karandashev, 2021a; Karandashev et al., 2022; Fischer, 2022). Culture matters when we study behavioral and social … Continue reading

An Invisible Swedish Romance

How romantic are Swedish people? What does love look like in the cold climate of this Nordic culture? There are two possible planes of reality to consider in this regard: ideal and real (Karandashev, 2022a). The first one concerns how … Continue reading

Love Is a Social Connection, even Between Zebrafish

Social connections and pair-bonding between conspecifics are widespread forms of love among humans, primates, mammals, dogs, and birds. What about fish? Here we’ll talk about the simple form of how zebrafish love their conspecifics. Is Love Simply a Connection? Some … Continue reading

Researchers Found More Hormones of Love

Romantic love has an adaptive function in human evolution. It increases reproductive success in sexual relations between men and women through the hormone of love. The evolution of animal and human bonding results in the evolution of love hormones. When … Continue reading

How “Romantic Love” Conquered Literary Fiction

The article reviews the findings of recent studies on how the idea of romantic love appears in literary fiction in many cultures across the world. What the Early Scholars of Love Believed Researchers of literary history once believed romantic love … Continue reading

Who Invented “Romantic Love”?

A great variety of feelings, emotions, motivations, dispositions, traits, and values represent people’s experiences of love. Romantic love includes certain cultural ideas, beliefs, storylines, narrative schemes, and emotions. There are two realms in which romantic love exists: the realm of … Continue reading

Modern and Traditional Models of Relationships in Spain

Interest in love studies has been on the rise among Spanish researchers in recent decades. Scholars explored the general processes of love relationships and culturally specific aspects of Spanish cultural models of love (Karandashev, 2019, 2022). Let us look at … Continue reading