Evolutionary mismatch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_mismatch

Evolutionary mismatch, also known as mismatch theory or evolutionary trap, is a concept in evolutionary biology that refers to evolved traits that were once advantageous but became maladaptive due to changes in the environment. This can take place in humans and animals and is often attributed to rapid environmental change.

Timeline showing a period of mismatch following an environmental change.

Mismatch theory represents the idea that traits that evolved in an organism in one environment can be disadvantageous in a different environment. This environmental change leading to evolutionary mismatch can be broken down into two major categories: temporal (change of the existing environment over time, e.g. a climate change) or spatial (placing organisms into a new environment, e.g. a population migrating). Since environmental change occurs naturally and constantly, there will certainly be examples of evolutionary mismatch over time. However, because large-scale natural environmental change – like a natural disaster – is often rare, it is less often observed. Another more prevalent kind of environmental change is anthropogenic (human-caused). In recent times, humans have had a large, rapid, and trackable impact on the environment, thus creating scenarios where it is easier to observe evolutionary mismatch.

Because of the mechanism of evolution by natural selection, the environment ("nature") determines ("selects") which traits will persist in a population. Therefore, there will be a gradual weeding out of disadvantageous traits over several generations as the population becomes more adapted to its environment. Any significant change in a population's traits that cannot be attributed to other factors (such as genetic drift and mutation) will be responsive to a change in that population's environment; in other words, natural selection is inherently reactive. Shortly following an environmental change, traits that evolved in the previous environment, whether they were advantageous or neutral, are persistent for several generations in the new environment. Because evolution is gradual and environmental changes often occur very quickly on a geological scale, there is always a period of "catching-up" as the population evolves to become adapted to the environment. It is this temporary period of "disequilibrium" that is referred to as mismatch. Mismatched traits are ultimately addressed in one of several possible ways: the organism may evolve such that the maladaptive trait is no longer expressed, the organism may decline and/or become extinct as a result of the disadvantageous trait, or the environment may change such that the trait is no longer selected against.

History

As evolutionary thought became more prevalent, scientists studied and attempted to explain the existence of disadvantageous traits, known as maladaptations, that are the basis of evolutionary mismatch.

The theory of evolutionary mismatch began under the term evolutionary trap as early as the 1940s. In his 1942 book, evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr described evolutionary traps as the phenomenon that occurs when a genetically uniform population suited for a single set of environmental conditions is susceptible to extinction from sudden environment changes. Since then, key scientists such as Warren J. Gross and Edward O. Wilson have studied and identified numerous examples of evolutionary traps.

The first occurrence of the term "evolutionary mismatch" may have been in a paper by Jack E. Riggs published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology in 1993. In the years to follow, the term evolutionary mismatch has become widely used to describe biological maladaptations in a wide range of disciplines. A coalition of modern scientists and community organizers assembled to found the Evolution Institute in 2008, and in 2011 published a more recent culmination of information on evolutionary mismatch theory in an article by Elisabeth Lloyd, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliott Sober. In 2018 a popular science book appeared by evolutionary psychologists on evolutionary mismatch and the implications for humans

Mismatch in human evolution

The Neolithic Revolution: transitional context

The Neolithic Revolution brought about significant evolutionary changes in humans; namely the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, in which humans foraged for food, to an agricultural lifestyle. This change occurred approximately 10,000–12,000 years ago. Humans began to domesticate both plants and animals, allowing for the maintenance of constant food resources. This transition quickly and dramatically changed the way that humans interact with the environment, with societies taking up practices of farming and animal husbandry. However, human bodies had evolved to be adapted to their previous foraging lifestyle. The slow pace of evolution in comparison with the very fast pace of human advancement allowed for the persistence of these adaptations in an environment where they are no longer necessary. In some human societies that now function in a vastly different way from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, these outdated adaptations now lead to the presence of maladaptive, or mismatched, traits.

Obesity and diabetes

Human bodies are predisposed to maintain homeostasis, especially when storing energy as fat. This trait serves as the main basis for the "thrifty gene hypothesis", the idea that "feast-or-famine conditions during human evolutionary development naturally selected for people whose bodies were efficient in their use of food calories". Hunter-gatherers, who used to live under environmental stress, benefit from this trait; there was an uncertainty of when the next meal would be, and they would spend most of their time performing high levels of physical activity. Therefore, those that consumed many calories would store the extra energy as fat, which they could draw upon in times of hunger.

However, modern humans have evolved to a world of more sedentary lifestyles and convenience foods. People are sitting more throughout their days, whether it be in their cars during rush hour or in their cubicles during their full-time jobs. Less physical activity in general means fewer calories burned throughout the day. Human diets have changed considerably over the 10,000 years since the advent of agriculture, with more processed foods in their diets that lack nutritional value and lead them to consume more sodium, sugar, and fat. These high calorie, nutrient-deficient foods cause people to consume more calories than they burn. Fast food combined with decreased physical activity means that the "thrifty gene" that once benefit human predecessors now works against them, causing their bodies to store more fat and leading to higher levels of obesity in the population.

Obesity is one consequence of mismatched genes. Known as "metabolic syndrome", this condition is also associated with other health concerns, including insulin resistance, where the body no longer responds to insulin secretion, so blood glucose levels are unable to be lowered, which can lead to type 2 diabetes.

Osteoporosis

Another human disorder that can be explained by mismatch theory is the rise in osteoporosis in modern humans. In advanced societies, many people, especially women, are remarkably susceptible to osteoporosis during aging. Fossil evidence has suggested that this was not always the case, with bones from elderly hunter-gatherer women often showing no evidence of osteoporosis. Evolutionary biologists have posited that the increase in osteoporosis in modern Western populations is likely due to our considerably sedentary lifestyles. Women in hunter-gatherer societies were physically active both from a young age and well into their late-adult lives. This constant physical activity likely lead to peak bone mass being considerably higher in hunter-gatherer humans than in modern-day humans. While the pattern of bone mass degradation during aging is purportedly the same for both hunter-gatherers and modern humans, the higher peak bone mass associated with more physical activity may have led hunter-gatherers to be able to develop a propensity to avoid osteoporosis during aging.

Hygiene hypothesis

The hygiene hypothesis, a concept initially theorized by immunologists and epidemiologists, has been proved to have a strong connection with evolutionary mismatch through recent year studies. Hygiene hypothesis states that the profound increase in allergies, autoimmune diseases, and some other chronic inflammatory diseases is related to the reduced exposure of the immune system to antigens. Such reduced exposure is more common in industrialized countries and especially urban areas, where the inflammatory chronic diseases are also more frequently seen. Recent analysis and studies have tied the hygiene hypothesis and evolutionary mismatch together. Some researchers suggest that the overly sterilized urban environment changes or depletes the microbiota composition and diversity. Such environmental conditions favor the development of the inflammatory chronic diseases because human bodies have been selected to adapt to a pathogen-rich environment in the history of evolution. For example, studies have shown that change in our symbiont community can lead to the disorder of immune homeostasis, which can be used to explain why antibiotic use in early childhood can result in higher asthma risk. Because the change or depletion of the microbiome is often associated with hygiene hypothesis, the hypothesis is sometimes also called "biome depletion theory".

Human behavior

Behavioral examples of evolutionary mismatch theory include the abuse of dopaminergic pathways and the reward system. An action or behavior that stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter known for generating a sense of pleasure, will likely be repeated since the brain is programmed to continually seek such pleasure. In hunter-gatherer societies, this reward system was beneficial for survival and reproductive success. But now, when there are fewer challenges to survival and reproducing, certain activities in the present environment (gambling, drug use, eating) exploit this system, leading to addictive behaviors.

Anxiety

The mismatch theory is when the brain has not evolved in the current environment, therefore keeping old traits that would be counterintuitive to human survival. An immediate return environment is when decisions made in the present create immediate results. Prehistoric human brains have evolved to assimilate to this particular environment; creating reactions such as anxiety to solve short-term problems. For example, the fear of a predator stalking a human, causes the human to run away consequently immediately ensuring the safety of the human as the distance increases from the predator. However, humans currently live in a different environment called the delayed reaction environment. In this environment, current decisions do not create immediate results. The advancement of society has reduced the threat of external factors such as predators, lack of food,shelter, etc. therefore human problems that once circulated around current survival have changed into how the present will affect the quality of future survival. In summation, traits like anxiety have become outdated as the advancement of society has allowed humans to no longer be under constant threat and instead worry about the future. 

Work stress

Examples of evolutionary mismatch also occur in the modern workplace. Unlike our hunter-gatherer ancestors who lived in small egalitarian societies, the modern work place is large, complex, and hierarchical. Humans spend significant amounts of time interacting with strangers in conditions that are very different from those of our ancestral past. Hunter-gatherers do not separate work from their private lives, they have no bosses to be accountable to, or no deadlines to adhere to. Our stress system reacts to immediate threats and opportunities. The modern workplace exploits evolved psychological mechanisms that are aimed at immediate survival or longer-term reproduction. These basic instincts misfire in the modern workplace, causing conflicts at work, burnout, job alienation and poor management practices.

Gambling

There are two aspects of gambling that make it an addictive activity: chance and risk. Chance gives gambling its novelty. Back when humans had to forage and hunt for food, novelty-seeking was advantageous for them, particularly for their diet. However, with the development of casinos, this trait of pursuing novelties has become disadvantageous. Risk assessment, the other behavioral trait applicable to gambling, was also beneficial to hunter-gatherers in the face of danger. However, the types of risks hunter-gatherers had to assess are significantly different and more life-threatening than the risks people now face. The attraction to gambling stems from the attraction to risk and reward related activity.

Drug addiction

Herbivores have created selective pressure for plants to possess specific molecules that deter plant consumption, such as nicotine, morphine, and cocaine. Plant-based drugs, however, have reinforcing and rewarding effects on the human neurological system, suggesting a "paradox of drug reward" in humans. Human behavioral evolutionary mismatch explains the contradiction between plant evolution and human drug use. In the last 10,000 years, humans found the dopaminergic system, or reward system, particularly useful in optimizing Darwinian fitness. While drug use has been a common characteristic of past human populations, drug use involving potent substances and diverse intake methods is a relatively contemporary feature of society. Human ancestors lived in an environment that lacked drug use of this nature, so the reward system was primarily used in maximizing survival and reproductive success. In contrast, present-day humans live in a world where the current nature of drugs render the reward system maladaptive. This class of drugs falsely triggers a fitness benefit in the reward system, leaving people susceptible to drug addiction. The modern-day dopaminergic system presents vulnerabilities to the difference in accessibility and social perception of drugs.

Eating

In the era of foraging for food, hunter-gatherers rarely knew where their next meal would come from. This food scarcity rewarded consumption of high energy meals in order to save excess energy as fat. Now that food is readily available, the neurological system that once helped people recognize the survival advantages of essential eating has now become disadvantageous as it promotes overeating. This has become especially dangerous after the rise of processed foods, as the popularity of foods that have unnaturally high levels of sugar and fat has significantly increased.

Non-human examples

Evolutionary mismatch can occur any time an organism is exposed to an environment that does not resemble the typical environment the organism adapted in. Due to human influences, such as global warming and habitat destruction, the environment is changing very rapidly for many organisms, leading to numerous cases of evolutionary mismatch.

Examples with human influence

Sea turtles and light pollution

See also: Threats to sea turtles

Female sea turtles create nests to lay their eggs by digging a pit on the beach, typically between the high tide line and dune, using their rear flippers. Consequently, within the first seven days of hatching, hatchling sea turtles must make the journey from the nest back into the ocean. This trip occurs predominantly at night in order to avoid predators and overheating.

Hatchling sea turtles must make their way back into the ocean.

In order to orient themselves towards the ocean, the hatchlings depend on their eyes to turn towards the brightest direction. This is because the open horizon of the ocean, illuminated by celestial light, tends to be much brighter in a natural undeveloped beach than the dunes and vegetation. Studies propose two mechanisms of the eye for this phenomenon. Referred to as the "raster system", the theory is that sea turtles' eyes contain numerous light sensors which take in the overall brightness information of a general area and make a "measurement" of where the light is most intense. If the light sensors detect the most intense light on a hatchling's left side, the sea turtle would turn left. A similar proposal called the complex phototropotaxis system theorizes that the eyes contain light intensity comparators that take in detailed information of the intensity of light from all directions. Sea turtles are able to "know" that they are facing the brightest direction when the light intensity is balanced between both eyes.

This method of finding the ocean is successful in natural beaches, but in developed beaches, the intense artificial lights from buildings, light houses, and even abandoned fires overwhelm the sea turtles and cause them to head towards the artificial light instead of the ocean. Scientists call this misorientation. Sea turtles can also become disoriented and circle around in the same place. Numerous cases show that misoriented hatchling sea turtles either die from dehydration, get consumed by a predator, or even burn to death in an abandoned fire. The direct impact of light pollution on the number of sea turtles has been too difficult to measure. However, this problem is exacerbated because all species of sea turtles are endangered. Other animals, including migratory birds and insects, are also victims to light pollution because they also depend on light intensity at night to properly orient themselves.

Dodo bird and hunting

Dodo birds became completely extinct due to hunting.

The Dodo bird lived on a remote Island, Mauritius, in the absence of predators. Here, the Dodo evolved to lose its instinct for fear and the ability to fly. This allowed them to be easily hunted by Dutch sailors who arrived on the island in the late 16th century. The Dutch sailors also brought foreign animals to the island such as monkeys and pigs that ate the Dodo bird's eggs, which was detrimental to the population growth of the slow breeding bird. Their fearlessness made them easy targets and their inability to fly gave them no opportunity to evade danger. Thus, they were easily driven to extinction within a century of their discovery.

The Dodo's inability to fly was once beneficial for the bird because it conserved energy. The Dodo conserved more energy relative to birds with the ability to fly, due to the Dodo's smaller pectoral muscles. Smaller muscle sizes are linked to lower rates of maintenance metabolism, which in turn conserves energy for the Dodo. Lacking an instinct for fear was another mechanism through which the Dodo conserved energy because it never had to expend any energy for a stress response. Both mechanisms of conservation of energy was once advantageous because it enabled the Dodo to execute activities with minimal energy expenditure. However, these proved disadvantageous when their island was invaded, rendering them defenseless to the new dangers that humans brought.

Peppered moths during the English Industrial Revolution

Before the English Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries the most common phenotypic color of the peppered moth was white with black speckles. However, that changed when the Industrial Revolution produced high levels of pollution. Due to the Industrial Revolution the trees blackened in urban regions, causing the original phenotype to stand out significantly more to predators. Natural selection then began favoring the rare dark peppered carbonaria moth in order for the species to camouflage and prevent attacks. The dark moth's population expanded rapidly and by the 1950s vast amounts of England saw carbonaria frequencies rise above 90%. The once favorable white speckled phenotype quickly became mismatched in the new environment.

However, in the late 1900s, the English made efforts to reduce air pollution, causing the trees to turn back to their normal shade. The change in color led the dark skin phenotype to revert from beneficial to disadvantageous. Once again, the moth was not able to adapt fast enough to the changing environment and thus the carbonaria phenotype became mismatched. Since the trees' return to their natural color caused the original phenotype to become advantageous again since it allowed the peppered moth to hide from predators.

Giant jewel beetle and beer bottles

The jewel beetle has a shiny, brown exterior similar to that of a beer bottle

Evolutionary mismatch can also be seen among insects. One such example is in the case of the giant jewel beetle (Julodimorpha bakewelli). The male jewel beetle has evolved to be attracted to features of the female jewel beetle that allow the male to identify a female jewel beetle as it flies across the desert. These features include size, color, and texture. However, these physical traits are seen manifested in some beer bottles as well. As a result, males often consider beer bottles more attractive than female jewel beetles due to the beer bottle's large size and attractive coloring. Beer bottles are often discarded by humans in the Australian desert that the jewel beetle thrives in, creating an environment where male jewel beetles prefer to mate with beer bottles instead of females. This is a situation that is extremely disadvantageous as it reduces the reproductive output of the jewel beetle as fewer beetles are mating. This condition can be considered an evolutionary mismatch, as a habit that evolved to aid in reproduction has become disadvantageous due to the littering of beer bottles, an anthropogenic cause.

Examples without human influence

Information cascades between birds

A group of Nutmeg Mannikins at a bird feeder

Normally, gaining information from watching other organisms allows the observer to make good decisions without spending effort. More specifically, birds often observe the behavior of other organisms to gain valuable information, such as the presence of predators, good breeding sites, and optimal feeding spots. Although this allows the observer to spend less effort gathering information, it can also lead to bad decisions if the information gained from observing is unreliable. In the case of the nutmeg mannikins, the observer can minimize the time spent looking for an optimal feeder and maximize its feeding time by watching where other nutmeg mannikins feed. However, this relies on the assumption that the observed mannikins also had reliable information that indicated the feeding spot was an ideal one. This behavior can become maladaptive when prioritizing information gained from watching others leads to information cascades, where birds follow the rest of the crowd even though prior experience may have suggested that the decision of the crowd is a poor one. For instance, if a nutmeg mannikin sees enough mannikins feeding at a feeder, nutmeg mannikins have been shown to choose that feeder even if their personal experience indicates that the feeder is a poor one.

House finches and the introduction of the MG disease

Evolutionary mismatch occurs in house finches when they are exposed to infectious individuals. Male house finches tend to feed in close proximity to other finches that are sick or diseased, because sick individuals are less competitive than usual, in turn making the healthy male more likely to win an aggressive interaction if it happens. To make it less likely to lose a social confrontation, healthy finches are inclined to forage near individuals that are lethargic or listless due to disease. However, this disposition has created an evolutionary trap for the finches after the introduction of the MG disease in 1994. Since this disease is infectious, healthy finches will be in danger of contraction if they are in the vicinity of individuals that have previously developed the disease. The relatively short duration of the disease's introduction has caused an inability for the finches to adapt quickly enough to avoid nearing sick individuals, which ultimately results in the mismatch between their behavior and the changing environment.

Exploitation of earthworm's reaction to vibrations

Worm charming is a practice used by people to attract earthworms out of the ground by driving in a wooden stake to vibrate the soil. This activity is commonly performed to collect fishing bait and as a competitive sport. Worms that sense the vibrations rise to the surface. Research shows that humans are actually taking advantage of a trait that worms adapted to avoid hungry burrowing moles which prey on the worms. This type of evolutionary trap, where an originally beneficial trait is exploited in order to catch prey, was coined the "rare enemy effect" by Richard Dawkins, an English evolutionary biologist. This trait of worms has been exploited not only by humans, but by other animals. Herring gulls and wood turtles have been observed to also stamp on the ground to drive the worms up to the surface and consume them.

Coping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping

Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.

Theories of coping

Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to understand how people cope. Classification of these strategies into a broader architecture has not been agreed upon. Researchers try to group coping responses rationally, empirically by factor analysis, or through a blend of both techniques. In the early days, Folkman and Lazarus split the coping strategies into four groups, namely problem-focused, emotion-focused, support-seeking, and meaning-making coping. Weiten has identified four types of coping strategies: appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive), problem-focused (adaptive behavioral), emotion-focused, and occupation-focused coping. Billings and Moos added avoidance coping as one of the emotion-focused coping. Some scholars have questioned the psychometric validity of forced categorisation as those strategies are not independent to each other. Besides, in reality, people can adopt multiple coping strategies simultaneously.

Typically, people use a mixture of several types of coping strategies, which may change over time. All these strategies can prove useful, but some claim that those using problem-focused coping strategies will adjust better to life. Problem-focused coping mechanisms may allow an individual greater perceived control over their problem, whereas emotion-focused coping may sometimes lead to a reduction in perceived control (maladaptive coping).

Lazarus "notes the connection between his idea of 'defensive reappraisals' or cognitive coping and Freud's concept of 'ego-defenses'", coping strategies thus overlapping with a person's defense mechanisms.

Appraisal-focused coping strategies

Appraisal-focused (adaptive cognitive) strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial, or distancing oneself from the problem. Individuals who use appraisal coping strategies purposely alter their perspective on their situation in order to have a more positive outlook on their situation. An example of appraisal coping strategies could be an individual purchasing tickets to a football game, knowing their medical condition would likely cause them to not be able to attend. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humor in a situation: "some have suggested that humor may play a greater role as a stress moderator among women than men".

Adaptive behavioural coping strategies

The psychological coping mechanisms are commonly termed coping strategies or coping skills. The term coping generally refers to adaptive (constructive) coping strategies, that is, strategies which reduce stress. In contrast, other coping strategies may be coined as maladaptive, if they increase stress. Maladaptive coping is therefore also described, based on its outcome, as non-coping. Furthermore, the term coping generally refers to reactive coping, i.e. the coping response which follows the stressor. This differs from proactive coping, in which a coping response aims to neutralize a future stressor. Subconscious or unconscious strategies (e.g. defense mechanisms) are generally excluded from the area of coping.

The effectiveness of the coping effort depends on the type of stress, the individual, and the circumstances. Coping responses are partly controlled by personality (habitual traits), but also partly by the social environment, particularly the nature of the stressful environment. People using problem-focused strategies try to deal with the cause of their problem. They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem. Problem-focused coping is aimed at changing or eliminating the source of the stress. The three problem-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are: taking control, information seeking, and evaluating the pros and cons. However, problem-focused coping may not be necessarily adaptive, but backfire, especially in the uncontrollable case that one cannot make the problem go away.

Emotion-focused coping strategies

Emotion-focused strategies involve:

• releasing pent-up emotions
• distracting oneself
• managing hostile feelings
• meditating
• mindfulness practices
• using systematic relaxation procedures.

Emotion-focused coping "is oriented toward managing the emotions that accompany the perception of stress". The five emotion-focused coping strategies identified by Folkman and Lazarus are:

• disclaiming
• escape-avoidance
• accepting responsibility or blame
• exercising self-control
• and positive reappraisal.

Emotion-focused coping is a mechanism to alleviate distress by minimizing, reducing, or preventing, the emotional components of a stressor. This mechanism can be applied through a variety of ways, such as:

• seeking social support
• reappraising the stressor in a positive light
• accepting responsibility
• using avoidance
• exercising self-control
• distancing

The focus of this coping mechanism is to change the meaning of the stressor or transfer attention away from it. For example, reappraising tries to find a more positive meaning of the cause of the stress in order to reduce the emotional component of the stressor. Avoidance of the emotional distress will distract from the negative feelings associated with the stressor. Emotion-focused coping is well suited for stressors that seem uncontrollable (ex. a terminal illness diagnosis, or the loss of a loved one). Some mechanisms of emotion focused coping, such as distancing or avoidance, can have alleviating outcomes for a short period of time, however they can be detrimental when used over an extended period. Positive emotion-focused mechanisms, such as seeking social support, and positive re-appraisal, are associated with beneficial outcomes. Emotional approach coping is one form of emotion-focused coping in which emotional expression and processing is used to adaptively manage a response to a stressor. Other examples include relaxation training through deep breathing, meditation, yoga, music and art therapy, and aromatherapy, as well as grounding, which uses physical sensations or mental distractions to refocus from the stressor to present.

Health theory of coping

The health theory of coping overcame the limitations of previous theories of coping, describing coping strategies within categories that are conceptually clear, mutually exclusive, comprehensive, functionally homogenous, functionally distinct, generative and flexible, explains the continuum of coping strategies. The usefulness of all coping strategies to reduce acute distress is acknowledged, however, strategies are categorised as healthy or unhealthy depending on their likelihood of additional adverse consequences. Healthy categories are self-soothing, relaxation/distraction, social support and professional support. Unhealthy coping categories are negative self-talk, harmful activities (e.g., emotional eating, verbal or physical aggression, drugs such as alcohol, self-harm), social withdrawal, and suicidality. Unhealthy coping strategies are used when healthy coping strategies are overwhelmed, not in the absence of healthy coping strategies.

Research has shown that everyone has personal healthy coping strategies (self-soothing, relaxation/distraction), however, access to social and professional support varies. Increasing distress and inadequate support results in the additional use of unhealthy coping strategies. Overwhelming distress exceeds the capacity of healthy coping strategies and results in the use of unhealthy coping strategies. Overwhelming distress is caused by problems in one or more biopsychosocial domains of health and wellbeing. The continuum of coping strategies (healthy to unhealthy, independent to social, and low harm to high harm) have been explored in general populations, university students, and paramedics.

Reactive and proactive coping

Most coping is reactive in that the coping response follows stressors. Anticipating and reacting to a future stressor is known as proactive coping or future-oriented coping. Anticipation is when one reduces the stress of some difficult challenge by anticipating what it will be like and preparing for how one is going to cope with it.

Social coping

Social coping recognises that individuals are bedded within a social environment, which can be stressful, but also is the source of coping resources, such as seeking social support from others. (see help-seeking)

Humor

Humor used as a positive coping method may have useful benefits to emotional and mental health well-being. However, maladaptive humor styles such as self-defeating humor can also have negative effects on psychological adjustment and might exacerbate negative effects of other stressors. By having a humorous outlook on life, stressful experiences can be and are often minimized. This coping method corresponds with positive emotional states and is known to be an indicator of mental health. Physiological processes are also influenced within the exercise of humor. For example, laughing may reduce muscle tension, increase the flow of oxygen to the blood, exercise the cardiovascular region, and produce endorphins in the body. Using humor in coping while processing through feelings can vary depending on life circumstance and individual humor styles. In regards to grief and loss in life occurrences, it has been found that genuine laughs/smiles when speaking about the loss predicted later adjustment and evoked more positive responses from other people. A person might also find comedic relief with others around irrational possible outcomes for the deceased funeral service. It is also possible that humor would be used by people to feel a sense of control over a more powerless situation and used as way to temporarily escape a feeling of helplessness. Exercised humor can be a sign of positive adjustment as well as drawing support and interaction from others around the loss.

Negative techniques (maladaptive coping or non-coping)

Whereas adaptive coping strategies improve functioning, a maladaptive coping technique (also termed non-coping) will just reduce symptoms while maintaining or strengthening the stressor. Maladaptive techniques are only effective as a short-term rather than long-term coping process.

Examples of maladaptive behavior strategies include anxious avoidance, dissociation, escape (including self-medication), use of maladaptive humor styles such as self-defeating humor, procrastination, rationalisation safety behaviors, and sensitization. These coping strategies interfere with the person's ability to unlearn, or break apart, the paired association between the situation and the associated anxiety symptoms. These are maladaptive strategies as they serve to maintain the disorder.

• Anxious avoidance is when a person avoids anxiety provoking situations by all means. This is the most common method.

• Dissociation is the ability of the mind to separate and compartmentalize thoughts, memories, and emotions. This is often associated with post traumatic stress syndrome.

• Escape is closely related to avoidance. This technique is often demonstrated by people who experience panic attacks or have phobias. These people want to flee the situation at the first sign of anxiety.

• The use of self-defeating humour means that a person disparages themselves in order to entertain others. This type of humour has been shown to lead to negative psychological adjustment and exacerbate the effect of existing stressors.

• Procrastination is when a person willingly delays a task in order to receive a temporary relief from stress. While this may work for short-term relief, when used as a coping mechanism, procrastination causes more issues in the long run.

• Rationalisation is the practice of attempting to use reasoning to minimise the severity of an incident, or avoid approaching it in ways that could cause psychological trauma or stress. It most commonly manifests in the form of making excuses for the behaviour of the person engaging in the rationalisation, or others involved in the situation the person is attempting to rationalise.

• Sensitization is when a person seeks to learn about, rehearse, and/or anticipate fearful events in a protective effort to prevent these events from occurring in the first place.

• Safety behaviors are demonstrated when individuals with anxiety disorders come to rely on something, or someone, as a means of coping with their excessive anxiety.

Further examples

Further examples of coping strategies include emotional or instrumental support, self-distraction, denial, substance use, self-blame, behavioral disengagement and the use of drugs or alcohol.

Many people think that meditation "not only calms our emotions, but...makes us feel more 'together'", as too can "the kind of prayer in which you're trying to achieve an inner quietness and peace".

Low-effort syndrome or low-effort coping refers to the coping responses of a person refusing to work hard. For example, a student at school may learn to put in only minimal effort as they believe if they put in effort it could unveil their flaws.

Historical psychoanalytic theories

Otto Fenichel

Main article: Otto Fenichel

Otto Fenichel summarized early psychoanalytic studies of coping mechanisms in children as "a gradual substitution of actions for mere discharge reactions...[&] the development of the function of judgement" – noting however that "behind all active types of mastery of external and internal tasks, a readiness remains to fall back on passive-receptive types of mastery."

In adult cases of "acute and more or less 'traumatic' upsetting events in the life of normal persons", Fenichel stressed that in coping, "in carrying out a 'work of learning' or 'work of adjustment', [s]he must acknowledge the new and less comfortable reality and fight tendencies towards regression, towards the misinterpretation of reality", though such rational strategies "may be mixed with relative allowances for rest and for small regressions and compensatory wish fulfillment, which are recuperative in effect".

Karen Horney

Main article: Karen Horney

In the 1940s, the German Freudian psychoanalyst Karen Horney "developed her mature theory in which individuals cope with the anxiety produced by feeling unsafe, unloved, and undervalued by disowning their spontaneous feelings and developing elaborate strategies of defence." Horney defined four so-called coping strategies to define interpersonal relations, one describing psychologically healthy individuals, the others describing neurotic states.

The healthy strategy she termed "Moving with" is that with which psychologically healthy people develop relationships. It involves compromise. In order to move with, there must be communication, agreement, disagreement, compromise, and decisions. The three other strategies she described – "Moving toward", "Moving against" and "Moving away" – represented neurotic, unhealthy strategies people utilize in order to protect themselves.

Horney investigated these patterns of neurotic needs (compulsive attachments). The neurotics might feel these attachments more strongly because of difficulties within their lives. If the neurotic does not experience these needs, they will experience anxiety. The ten needs are:

1. Affection and approval, the need to please others and be liked.
2. A partner who will take over one's life, based on the idea that love will solve all of one's problems.
3. Restriction of one's life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little, inconspicuous; to simplify one's life.
4. Power, for control over others, for a facade of omnipotence, caused by a desperate desire for strength and dominance.
5. Exploitation of others; to get the better of them.
6. Social recognition or prestige, caused by an abnormal concern for appearances and popularity.
7. Personal admiration.
8. Personal achievement.
9. Self-sufficiency and independence.
10. Perfection and unassailability, a desire to be perfect and a fear of being flawed.

In Compliance, also known as "Moving toward" or the "Self-effacing solution", the individual moves towards those perceived as a threat to avoid retribution and getting hurt, "making any sacrifice, no matter how detrimental." The argument is, "If I give in, I won't get hurt." This means that: if I give everyone I see as a potential threat whatever they want, I won't be injured (physically or emotionally). This strategy includes neurotic needs one, two, and three.

In Withdrawal, also known as "Moving away" or the "Resigning solution", individuals distance themselves from anyone perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt – "the 'mouse-hole' attitude ... the security of unobtrusiveness." The argument is, "If I do not let anyone close to me, I won't get hurt." A neurotic, according to Horney desires to be distant because of being abused. If they can be the extreme introvert, no one will ever develop a relationship with them. If there is no one around, nobody can hurt them. These "moving away" people fight personality, so they often come across as cold or shallow. This is their strategy. They emotionally remove themselves from society. Included in this strategy are neurotic needs three, nine, and ten.

In Aggression, also known as the "Moving against" or the "Expansive solution", the individual threatens those perceived as a threat to avoid getting hurt. Children might react to parental in-differences by displaying anger or hostility. This strategy includes neurotic needs four, five, six, seven, and eight.

Related to the work of Karen Horney, public administration scholars developed a classification of coping by frontline workers when working with clients (see also the work of Michael Lipsky on street-level bureaucracy). This coping classification is focused on the behavior workers can display towards clients when confronted with stress. They show that during public service delivery there are three main families of coping:

- Moving towards clients: Coping by helping clients in stressful situations. An example is a teacher working overtime to help students.
- Moving away from clients: Coping by avoiding meaningful interactions with clients in stressful situations. An example is a public servant stating "the office is very busy today, please return tomorrow."
- Moving against clients: Coping by confronting clients. For instance, teachers can cope with stress when working with students by imposing very rigid rules, such as no cellphone use in class and sending everyone to the office when they use a cellphone. Furthermore, aggression towards clients is also included here.

In their systematic review of 35 years of the literature, the scholars found that the most often used family is moving towards clients (43% of all coping fragments). Moving away from clients was found in 38% of all coping fragments and Moving against clients in 19%.

Heinz Hartmann

Main article: Heinz Hartmann

In 1937, the psychoanalyst (as well as a physician, psychologist, and psychiatrist) Heinz Hartmann marked it as the evolution of ego psychology by publishing his paper, "Me" (which was later translated into English in 1958, titled, "The Ego and the Problem of Adaptation"). Hartmann focused on the adaptive progression of the ego "through the mastery of new demands and tasks". In fact, according to his adaptive point of view, once infants were born they have the ability to be able to cope with the demands of their surroundings. In his wake, ego psychology further stressed "the development of the personality and of 'ego-strengths'...adaptation to social realities".

Object relations

Emotional intelligence has stressed the importance of "the capacity to soothe oneself, to shake off rampant anxiety, gloom, or irritability....People who are poor in this ability are constantly battling feelings of distress, while those who excel in it can bounce back far more quickly from life's setbacks and upsets". From this perspective, "the art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill; some psychoanalytic thinkers, such as John Bowlby and D. W. Winnicott see this as the most essential of all psychic tools."

Object relations theory has examined the childhood development both of "[i]ndependent coping...capacity for self-soothing", and of "[a]ided coping. Emotion-focused coping in infancy is often accomplished through the assistance of an adult."

Gender differences

Gender differences in coping strategies are the ways in which men and women differ in managing psychological stress. There is evidence that males often develop stress due to their careers, whereas females often encounter stress due to issues in interpersonal relationships. Early studies indicated that "there were gender differences in the sources of stressors, but gender differences in coping were relatively small after controlling for the source of stressors"; and more recent work has similarly revealed "small differences between women's and men's coping strategies when studying individuals in similar situations."

In general, such differences as exist indicate that women tend to employ emotion-focused coping and the "tend-and-befriend" response to stress, whereas men tend to use problem-focused coping and the "fight-or-flight" response, perhaps because societal standards encourage men to be more individualistic, while women are often expected to be interpersonal. An alternative explanation for the aforementioned differences involves genetic factors. The degree to which genetic factors and social conditioning influence behavior, is the subject of ongoing debate.

Physiological basis

Hormones also play a part in stress management. Cortisol, a stress hormone, was found to be elevated in males during stressful situations. In females, however, cortisol levels were decreased in stressful situations, and instead, an increase in limbic activity was discovered. Many researchers believe that these results underlie the reasons why men administer a fight-or-flight reaction to stress; whereas, females have a tend-and-befriend reaction. The "fight-or-flight" response activates the sympathetic nervous system in the form of increased focus levels, adrenaline, and epinephrine. Conversely, the "tend-and-befriend" reaction refers to the tendency of women to protect their offspring and relatives. Although these two reactions support a genetic basis to differences in behavior, one should not assume that in general females cannot implement "fight-or-flight" behavior or that males cannot implement "tend-and-befriend" behavior. Additionally, this study implied differing health impacts for each gender as a result of the contrasting stress-processes.

Romance (love)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_(love)

An 1870 oil painting by Ford Madox Brown of Romeo and Juliet, considered to be the archetypal romantic couple, depicting the play's iconic balcony scene

Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Family Studies states that "Romantic love, based on the model of mutual attraction and on a connection between two people that bonds them as a couple, creates the conditions for overturning the model of family and marriage that it engenders." This indicates that romantic love can be the founding of attraction between two people. This term was primarily used by the "western countries after the 1800s were socialized into, love is the necessary prerequisite for starting an intimate relationship and represents the foundation on which to build the next steps in a family."

Alternatively, Collins Dictionary describes romantic love as "an intensity and idealization of a love relationship, in which the other is imbued with extraordinary virtue, beauty, etc., so that the relationship overrides all other considerations, including material ones."

Although the emotions and sensations of romantic love are widely associated with sexual attraction, romantic feelings can exist without expectation of physical consummation and be subsequently expressed. In certain cases, romance could even be interpreted as a normal friendship. Historically, the term romance originates with the medieval ideal of chivalry as set out in the literature of chivalric romance.

General definitions

Bode & Kushnick undertook a comprehensive review of romantic love from a biological perspective in 2021. They considered the psychology of romantic love, its mechanisms, development across the lifespan, functions, and evolutionary history. Based on the content of that review, they proposed a biological definition of romantic love:

"Romantic love is a motivational state typically associated with a desire for long-term mating with a particular individual. It occurs across the lifespan and is associated with distinctive cognitive, emotional, behavioral, social, genetic, neural, and endocrine activity in both sexes. Throughout much of the life course, it serves mate choice, courtship, sex, and pair-bonding functions. It is a suite of adaptations and by-products that arose sometime during the recent evolutionary history of humans."

Anthropologist Charles Lindholm defined love as "any intense attraction that involves the idealization of the other, within an erotic context, with expectation of enduring sometime into the future". Romance is a feeling of love and attraction, that people currently like and want to continue in the future.

Historical usage

The word "romance" comes from the French vernacular where initially it indicated a verse narrative. The word was originally an adverb of Latin origin, "romanicus", meaning "of the Roman style". European medieval vernacular tales, epics, and ballads generally dealt with chivalric adventure, not bringing in the concept of love until late into the seventeenth century. The word romance developed other meanings, such as the early nineteenth century Spanish and Italian definitions of "adventurous" and "passionate", which could intimate both "love affair" and "idealistic quality".

Bernger von Horheim in the Codex Manesse (early 14th century)

Anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss show that there were complex forms of courtship in ancient as well as contemporary primitive societies. There may not be evidence, however, that members of such societies formed loving relationships distinct from their established customs in a way that would parallel modern romance. Marriages were often arranged, but the wishes of those to be wed were considered, as affection was important to primitive tribes.

In the majority of primitive societies studied by the anthropologists, the extramarital and premarital relations between men and women were completely free. The members of the temporary couples were sexually attracted to each other more than to anyone else, but in all other respects their relationships had not demonstrated the characteristics of romantic love. In the book of Boris Shipov Theory of Romantic Love the corresponding evidences of anthropologists have been collected. Lewis H. Morgan: "the passion of love was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and super added refinement of love was unknown among the barbarians." Margaret Mead: "Romantic love as it occurs in our civilisation, inextricably bound up with ideas of monogamy, exclusiveness, jealousy and undeviating fidelity does not occur in Samoa." Bronislaw Malinowski: "Though the social code does not favour romance, romantic elements and imaginative personal attachments are not altogether absent in Trobriand courtship and marriage."

One should notice that the phenomenon which B.Malinowski calls love, actually has very little in common with the European love: "Thus there is nothing roundabout in a Trobriand wooing; nor do they seek full personal relations, with sexual possession only as a consequence. Simply and directly a meeting is asked for with the avowed intention of sexual gratification. If the invitation is accepted, the satisfaction of the boy's desire eliminates the romantic frame of mind, the craving for the unattainable and mysterious." "An important point is that the pair's community of interest is limited to the sexual relation only. The couple share a bed and nothing else. ... there are no services to be mutually rendered, they have no obligation to help each other in any way..."

The aborigines of Mangaia island of Polynesia, who mastered the English language, used the word "love" with a completely different meaning as compared to that which is usual for the person brought up in the European culture. Donald S.Marshall: "Mangaian informants and co-workers were quite interested in the European concept of "love". English-speaking Mangaians had previously used the term only in a physical sense of sexual desire; to say "I love you" in English to another person was tantamount to saying "I want to copulate with you." The components of affection and companionship, which may characterize the European use of the term, puzzled the Mangaians when we discussed the term." "The principal findings that one can draw from an analysis of emotional components of sexual relationship feelings on Mangaia are:

1. There is no cultural connection between a willingness to copulate with a person and any feeling of affection or liking or admiration between copulating partners.
2. The degree of "passion" between two individuals in sexual relationships is not related to an emotional involvement but to degrees of instruction in, and use of, sexual techniques."

Nathaniel Branden claims that by virtue of "the tribal mentality,” "in primitive cultures the idea of romantic love did not exist at all. Passionate individual attachments are evidently seen as threatening to tribal values and tribal authority." Dr. Audrey Richards, an anthropologist who lived among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia in the 1930s, once related to a group of them an English folk-fable about a young prince who climbed glass mountains, crossed chasms, and fought dragons, all to obtain the hand of a maiden he loved. The Bemba were plainly bewildered, but remained silent. Finally an old chief spoke up, voicing the feelings of all present in the simplest of questions: "Why not take another girl?" he asked.

The earliest recorded marriages in Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and among Hebrews were used to secure alliances and produce offspring. It was not until the Middle Ages that love began to be a real part of marriage. The marriages that did arise outside of arranged marriage were most often spontaneous relationships. In Ladies of the Leisure Class, Rutgers University professor Bonnie G. Smith depicts courtship and marriage rituals that may be viewed as oppressive to modern people. She writes, "When the young women of the Nord married, they did so without illusions of love and romance. They acted within a framework of concern for the reproduction of bloodlines according to financial, professional, and sometimes political interests."

Anthony Giddens, in The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Society, states that romantic love introduced the idea of a narrative to an individual's life, and telling a story is a root meaning of the term romance. According to Giddens, the rise of romantic love more or less coincided with the emergence of the novel. It was then that romantic love, associated with freedom and therefore the ideals of romantic love, created the ties between freedom and self-realization.

David R. Shumway states that "the discourse of intimacy" emerged in the last third of the 20th century, intended to explain how marriage and other relationships worked, and making the specific case that emotional closeness is much more important than passion, with intimacy and romance coexisting.

One example of the changes experienced in relationships in the early 21st century was explored by Giddens regarding homosexual relationships. According to Giddens, since homosexuals were not able to marry they were forced to pioneer more open and negotiated relationships. These kinds of relationships then permeated the heterosexual population.

La Belle Dame sans Merci 1893, by John William Waterhouse

The origin of romantic love

Boris Shipov hypothesizes that "those psychological mechanisms that give rise to limerence or romantic love between a man and a woman [arise] as a product of the contradiction between sexual desire and the morality of a monogamous society, which impedes the realization of this attraction."

In F. Engels book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: "monogamy was the only known form of the family under which modern sex love could develop, it does not follow that this love developed, or even predominantly, within it as the mutual love of the spouses. The whole nature of strict monogamian marriage under male domination ruled this out." Sigmund Freud stated, "It can easily be shown that the psychical value of erotic needs is reduced as soon as their satisfaction becomes easy. An obstacle is required in order to heighten libido; and where natural resistances to satisfaction have not been sufficient men have at all times erected conventional ones so as to be able to enjoy love. This is true both of individuals and of nations. In times in which there were no difficulties standing in the way of sexual satisfaction, such as perhaps during the decline of the ancient civilizations, love became worthless and life empty."

Popularization of the term "Romance"

The conception of romantic love was popularized in Western culture by the concept of courtly love. Chevaliers, or knights in the Middle Ages, engaged in what were usually non-physical and non-marital relationships with women of nobility whom they served. These relations were highly elaborate and ritualized in a complexity that was steeped in a framework of tradition, which stemmed from theories of etiquette derived out of chivalry as a moral code of conduct.

Courtly love and the notion of domnei were often the subjects of troubadours, and could be typically found in artistic endeavors such as lyrical narratives and poetic prose of the time. Since marriage was commonly nothing more than a formal arrangement, courtly love sometimes permitted expressions of emotional closeness that may have been lacking from the union between husband and wife. In terms of courtly love, "lovers" did not necessarily refer to those engaging in sexual acts, but rather, to the act of caring and to emotional intimacy.

The bond between a knight and his Lady, or the woman of typically high stature of whom he served, may have escalated psychologically but seldom ever physically. For knighthood during the Middle Ages, the intrinsic importance of a code of conduct was in large part as a value system of rules codified as a guide to aid a knight in his capacity as champion of the downtrodden, but especially in his service to the Lord.

In the context of dutiful service to a woman of high social standing, ethics designated as a code were effectively established as an institution to provide a firm moral foundation by which to combat the idea that unfit attentions and affections were to ever be tolerated as "a secret game of trysts" behind closed doors. Therefore, a knight trained in the substance of "chivalry" was instructed, with especial emphasis, to serve a lady most honorably, with purity of heart and mind. To that end, he committed himself to the welfare of both Lord and Lady with unwavering discipline and devotion, while at the same time, presuming to uphold core principles set forth in the code by the religion by which he followed.

Religious meditations upon the Virgin Mary were partially responsible for the development of chivalry as an ethic and lifestyle: the concept of the honor of a lady and knightly devotion to her, coupled with an obligatory respect for all women, factored prominently as central to the very identity of medieval knighthood. As knights were increasingly emulated, eventual changes were reflected in the inner-workings of feudal society. Members of the aristocracy were schooled in the principles of chivalry, which facilitated important changes in attitudes regarding the value of women.

Behaviorally, a knight was to regard himself towards a lady with a transcendence of premeditated thought—his virtue ingrained within his character. A chevalier was to conduct himself always graciously, bestowing upon her the utmost courtesy and attentiveness. He was to echo shades of this to all women, regardless of class, age, or status. Over time, the concept of chivalry and the notion of the courtly gentleman became synonymous with the ideal of how love and romance should exist between the sexes. Through the timeless popularization in art and literature of tales of knights and princesses, kings and queens, a formative and long standing (sub)consciousness helped to shape relationships between men and women.

De amore or The Art of Courtly Love, as it is known in English, was written in the 12th century. The text is widely misread as permissive of extramarital affairs. However, it is useful to differentiate the physical from without: romantic love as separate and apart from courtly love when interpreting such topics as: "Marriage is no real excuse for not loving", "He who is not jealous cannot love", "No one can be bound by a double love", and "When made public love rarely endures".

Some believe that romantic love evolved independently in multiple cultures. For example, in an article presented by Henry Grunebaum, he argues "therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages."

The more current and Western traditional terminology meaning "court as lover" or the general idea of "romantic love" is believed to have originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily from that of the French culture. This idea is what has spurred the connection between the words "romantic" and "lover", thus coining English phrases for romantic love such as "loving like the Romans do". The precise origins of such a connection are unknown, however. Although the word "romance" or the equivalents thereof may not have the same connotation in other cultures, the general idea of "romantic love" appears to have crossed cultures and been accepted as a concept at one point in time or another.

Types

Romantic love is contrasted with platonic love, which in all usages precludes sexual relations, yet only in the modern usage does it take on a fully nonsexual sense, rather than the classical sense, in which sexual drives are sublimated.

Unrequited love can be romantic in different ways: comic, tragic, or in the sense that sublimation itself is comparable to romance, where the spirituality of both art and egalitarian ideals is combined with strong character and emotions. Unrequited love is typical of the period of romanticism, but the term is distinct from any romance that might arise within it.

Romantic love may also be classified according to two categories, "popular romance" and "divine or spiritual" romance:

Popular romance

Popular romance may include, but is not limited to the following types: idealistic, normal intense (such as the emotional aspect of "falling in love"), predictable as well as unpredictable, consuming (meaning consuming of time, energy and emotional withdrawals and bids), intense but out of control (such as the aspect of "falling out of love") material and commercial (such as societal gain mentioned in a later section of this article), physical and sexual, and finally grand and demonstrative.

Divine (or spiritual) romance

Divine (spiritual) romance may include, but is not limited to these following types: realistic, as well as plausible unrealistic, optimistic as well as pessimistic (depending upon the particular beliefs held by each person within the relationship.), abiding (e.g. the theory that each person had a predetermined stance as an agent of choice; such as "choosing a husband" or "choosing a soul mate".), non-abiding (e.g. the theory that each person do not choose their actions, and therefore their romantic love involvement has been drawn from sources outside of themselves), predictable as well as unpredictable, self-control (such as obedience and sacrifice within the context of the relationship) or lack thereof (such as disobedience within the context of the relationship), emotional and personal, soulful (in the theory that the mind, soul, and body, are one connected entity), intimate, and infinite (such as the idea that love itself or the love of a God's "unconditional" love is or could be everlasting).

In philosophy

Roman copy of a Greek sculpture by Lysippus depicting Eros, the Greek personification of romantic love

Plato

Greek philosophers and authors have had many theories of love. Some of these theories are presented in Plato's Symposium. Six Athenian friends, including Socrates, drink wine and each give a speech praising the deity Eros. When his turn comes, Aristophanes says in his mythical speech that sexual partners seek each other because they are descended from beings with spherical torsos, two sets of human limbs, genitalia on each side, and two faces back to back. Their three forms included the three permutations of pairs of gender (i.e. one masculine and masculine, another feminine and feminine, and the third masculine and feminine) and they were split by the gods to thwart the creatures' assault on heaven, recapitulated, according to the comic playwright, in other myths such as the Aloadae.

This story is relevant to modern romance partly because of the image of reciprocity it shows between the sexes. In the final speech before Alcibiades arrives, Socrates gives his encomium of love and desire as a lack of being, namely, the being or form of beauty.

René Girard

Though there are many theories of romantic love—such as that of Robert Sternberg, in which it is merely a mean combining liking and sexual desire—the major theories involve far more insight. For most of the 20th century, Freud's theory of the family drama dominated theories of romance and sexual relationships. This gave rise to a few counter-theories. Theorists like Deleuze counter Freud and Jacques Lacan by attempting to return to a more naturalistic philosophy:

René Girard argues that romantic attraction is a product of jealousy and rivalry—particularly in a triangular form.

Girard, in any case, downplays romance's individuality in favor of jealousy and the love triangle, arguing that romantic attraction arises primarily in the observed attraction between two others. A natural objection is that this is circular reasoning, but Girard means that a small measure of attraction reaches a critical point insofar as it is caught up in mimesis. Shakespeare's plays A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and The Winter's Tale are the best known examples of competitive-induced romance.

Girard's theory of mimetic desire is controversial because of its alleged sexism. This view has to some extent supplanted its predecessor, Freudian Oedipal theory. It may find some spurious support in the supposed attraction of women to aggressive men. As a technique of attraction, often combined with irony, it is sometimes advised that one feign toughness and disinterest, but it can be a trivial or crude idea to promulgate to men, and it is not given with much understanding of mimetic desire in mind. Instead, cultivating a spirit of self-sacrifice, coupled with an attitude of appreciation or contemplation, directed towards the other of one's attractions, constitutes the ideals of what we consider to be true romantic love. Mimesis is always the desire to possess, in renouncing it we offer ourselves as a sacrificial gift to the other.

Mimetic desire is often challenged by feminists, such as Toril Moi, who argue that it does not account for the woman as inherently desired.

Though the centrality of rivalry is not itself a cynical view, it does emphasize the mechanical in love relations. In that sense, it does resonate with capitalism and cynicism native to post-modernity. Romance in this context leans more on fashion and irony, though these were important for it in less emancipated times. Sexual revolutions have brought change to these areas. Wit or irony therefore encompass an instability of romance that is not entirely new but has a more central social role, fine-tuned to certain modern peculiarities and subversion originating in various social revolutions, culminating mostly in the 1960s.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The process of courtship also contributed to Arthur Schopenhauer's pessimism, despite his own romantic success, and he argued that to be rid of the challenge of courtship would drive people to suicide with boredom. Schopenhauer theorized that individuals seek partners looking for a "complement" or completing of themselves in a partner, as in the cliché that "opposites attract", but with the added consideration that both partners manifest this attraction for the sake of the species:

But what ultimately draws two individuals of different sex exclusively to each other with such power is the will-to-live which manifests itself in the whole species, and here anticipates, in the individual that these two can produce, an objectification of its true nature corresponding to its aims. —World as Will and Representation, Volume 2, Chapter XLIV

Other philosophers

Later modern philosophers such as La Rochefoucauld, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau also focused on morality, but desire was central to French thought and Hume himself tended to adopt a French worldview and temperament. Desire in this milieu meant a very general idea termed "the passions", and this general interest was distinct from the contemporary idea of "passionate" now equated with "romantic". Love was a central topic again in the subsequent movement of Romanticism, which focused on such things as absorption in nature and the absolute, as well as platonic and unrequited love in German philosophy and literature.

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze linked this concept of love as a lack mainly to Sigmund Freud, and Deleuze often criticized it.

American views of romantic love

Victor C. De Munck and David B. Kronenfeld conducted a study named "Romantic Love in the United States: Applying Cultural Models Theory and Methods". This study was conducted through an investigation of two cultural model cases. It states that in America, "we have a rather and dynamic cultural model that is falsifiable and predictive of successful love relationships." Which supports that is popular for American people to successfully share feelings of romanticism with each other's partners. It describes American culture by stating: "The model is unique in that it combines passion with comfort and friendship as properties of romantic love." One of its main contributions is advising the reader that "For successful romantic love relations, a person would feel excited about meeting their beloved; make passionate and intimate love as opposed to only physical love; feel comfortable with the beloved, behaving in a companionable, friendly way with one's partner; listen to the other's concerns, offering to help out in various ways if necessary; and, all the while, keeping a mental ledger of the degree to which altruism and passion are mutual."

In literature

Archetypal lovers in Romeo and Juliet by Frank Dicksee, 1884

Shakespeare and Søren Kierkegaard share a similar viewpoint that marriage and romance are not harmoniously in tune with each other. In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, for example, "...there has not been, nor is there at this point, any display of affection between Isabella and the Duke, if by affection we mean something concerned with sexual attraction. The two at the end of the play love each other as they love virtue." In Romeo and Juliet, in saying "all combined, save what thou must combine By holy marriage", Romeo implies that it is not marriage with Juliet that he seeks but simply to be joined with her romantically.

Kierkegaard addressed these ideas in works such as Either/Or and Stages on Life's Way:

In the first place, I find it comical that all men are in love and want to be in love, and yet one never can get any illumination upon the question what the lovable, i.e., the proper object of love, really is.

In his 2008 book How to Make Good Decisions and Be Right All the Time, British writer Iain King tried to establish rules for romance applicable across most cultures. He concluded on six rules, including:

1. Do not flirt with someone unless you mean it.
2. Do not pursue people who you are not interested in, or who are not interested in you.
3. In general, express your affection or uncertainty clearly, unless there is a special reason not to.

Psychology

Many theorists attempt to analyze the process of romantic love.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher, in her book Why We Love, uses brain scans to show that love is the product of a chemical reaction in the brain. Norepinephrine and dopamine, among other brain chemicals, are responsible for excitement and bliss in humans as well as non-human animals. Fisher uses MRI to study the brain activity of a person "in love" and she concludes that love is a natural drive as powerful as hunger.

Psychologist Karen Horney in her article "The Problem of the Monogamous Ideal", indicates that the overestimation of love leads to disillusionment; the desire to possess the partner results in the partner wanting to escape; and the friction against sex result in non-fulfillment. Disillusionment plus the desire to escape plus non-fulfillment result in a secret hostility, which causes the other partner to feel alienated. Secret hostility in one and secret alienation in the other cause the partners to secretly hate each other. This secret hate often leads one or the other or both to seek love objects outside the marriage or relationship.

Psychologist Harold Bessell in his book The Love Test, reconciles the opposing forces noted by the above researchers and shows that there are two factors that determine the quality of a relationship. Bessell proposes that people are drawn together by a force he calls "romantic attraction", which is a combination of genetic and cultural factors. This force may be weak or strong and may be felt to different degrees by each of the two love partners. The other factor is "emotional maturity", which is the degree to which a person is capable of providing good treatment in a love relationship. It can thus be said that an immature person is more likely to overestimate love, become disillusioned, and have an affair whereas a mature person is more likely to see the relationship in realistic terms and act constructively to work out problems.

Romantic love, in the abstract sense of the term, is traditionally considered to involve a mix of emotional and sexual desire for another as a person. However, Lisa M. Diamond, a University of Utah psychology professor, proposes that sexual desire and romantic love are functionally independent and that romantic love is not intrinsically oriented to same-gender or other-gender partners. She also proposes that the links between love and desire are bidirectional as opposed to unilateral. Furthermore, Diamond does not state that one's sex has priority over another sex (a male or female) in romantic love because her theory suggests it is as possible for someone who is homosexual to fall in love with someone of the other gender as for someone who is heterosexual to fall in love with someone of the same gender. In her 2012 review of this topic, Diamond emphasized that what is true for men may not be true for women. According to Diamond, in most men sexual orientation is fixed and most likely innate, but in many women sexual orientation may vary from 0 to 6 on the Kinsey scale and back again.

Martie Haselton, a psychologist at UCLA, considers romantic love a "commitment device" or mechanism that encourages two humans to form a lasting bond. She has explored the evolutionary rationale that has shaped modern romantic love and has concluded that long-lasting relationships are helpful to ensure that children reach reproductive age and are fed and cared for by two parents. Haselton and her colleagues have found evidence in their experiments that suggest love's adaptation. The first part of the experiments consists of having people think about how much they love someone and then suppress thoughts of other attractive people. In the second part of the experiment the same people are asked to think about how much they sexually desire those same partners and then try to suppress thoughts about others. The results showed that love is more efficient in pushing out those rivals than sex.

Research by the University of Pavia suggests that romantic love lasts for about a year (similar to limerence) before being replaced by a more stable, non-passionate "companionate love". In companionate love, changes occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established and romantic feelings seem to end. However, research from Stony Brook University in New York suggests that some couples keep romantic feelings alive for much longer.

Attachment patterns

Attachment styles that people develop as children can influence the way that they interact with partners in adult relationships, with secure attachment styles being associated with healthier and more trusting relationships than avoidant or anxious attachment styles. Hazen and Shaver found that adult romantic attachment styles were similar to the categories of secure, avoidant, and anxious that had previously been studied in children's attachments to their caregivers, demonstrating that attachment styles are stable across the lifespan. Later on, researchers distinguished between dismissive avoidant attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. Others have found that secure adult attachment, leading to the ability for intimacy and confidence in relationship stability, is characterized by low attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, while the fearful style is high on both dimensions, the dismissing style is low on anxiety and high on avoidance, and the preoccupied style is high on anxiety and low on avoidance.

Romantic love definition/operationalization

Singer (1984a, 1984b, 1987) first defined love based on four Greek terms: eros, meaning the search for beauty; philia, the feelings of affection in close friendships, nomos, the submission of and obedience to higher or divine powers, and agape, the bestowal of love and affection for the divine powers. While Singer did believe that love was important to world culture, he did not believe that romantic love played a major role (Singer, 1987). However, Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick at Texas Tech University (1992, 2009) have theorized that romantic love will play an increasingly important cultural role in the future, as it is considered an important part of living a fulfilling life. They also theorized that love in long-term romantic relationships has only been the product of cultural forces that came to fruition within the past 300 years. By cultural forces, they mean the increasing prevalence of individualistic ideologies, which are the result of an inward shift of many cultural worldviews.

Passionate and companionate love

Researchers have determined that romantic love is a complex emotion that can be divided into either passionate or companionate forms. Berscheid and Walster (1978) and Hatfield (1988) found that these two forms can co-exist, either simultaneously or intermittently. Passionate love is an arousal-driven emotion that often gives people extreme feelings of happiness, and can also give people feelings of anguish. Companionate love is a form that creates a steadfast bond between two people, and gives people feelings of peace. Researchers have described the stage of passionate love as "being on cocaine", since during that stage the brain releases the same neurotransmitter, dopamine, as when cocaine is being used. It is also estimated that passionate love (as with limerence) lasts for about twelve to eighteen months.

Robert Firestone, a psychologist, has a theory of the fantasy bond, which is what is mostly created after the passionate love has faded. A couple may start to feel comfortable with each other to the point that they see each other as simply companions or protectors, but yet think that they are still in love with each other. The results to the fantasy bond is the leading to companionate love. Hendrick and Hendrick (1995) studied college students who were in the early stages of a relationship and found that almost half reported that their significant other was their closest friend, providing evidence that both passionate and companionate love exist in new relationships. Conversely, in a study of long-term marriages, Contreras, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1996) found that couples endorsed measures of both companionate love and passionate love and that passionate love was the strongest predictor of marital satisfaction, showing that both types of love can endure throughout the years.

The triangular theory of love

Psychologist Robert Sternberg (1986) developed the triangular theory of love. He theorized that love is a combination of three main components: passion (physical arousal); intimacy (psychological feelings of closeness); and commitment (the sustaining of a relationship). He also theorized that the different combinations of these three components could yield up to seven different forms of love. These include popularized forms such as romantic love (intimacy and passion) and consummate love (passion, intimacy, and commitment). The other forms are liking (intimacy), companionate love (intimacy and commitment), empty love (commitment), fatuous love (passion and commitment), and infatuation (passion). Studies on Sternberg's theory love found that intimacy most strongly predicted marital satisfaction in married couples, with passion also being an important predictor (Silberman, 1995). On the other hand, Acker and Davis (1992) found that commitment was the strongest predictor of relationship satisfaction, especially for long-term relationships.

The self-expansion theory of romantic love

Researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron (1986) theorized that humans have a basic drive to expand their self-concepts. Further, their experience with Eastern concepts of love caused them to believe that positive emotions, cognitions, and relationships in romantic behaviors all drive the expansion of a person's self-concept. A study following college students for 10 weeks showed that those students who fell in love over the course of the investigation reported higher feelings of self-esteem and self efficacy than those who did not (Aron, Paris, and Aron, 1995).

Mindful relationships

Gottman studies the components of a flourishing romantic relationship have been studied in the lab (1994; Gottman & Silver, 1999). He used physiological and behavioral measures during couples' interactions to predict relationship success and found that five positive interactions to one negative interaction are needed to maintain a healthy relationship. He established a therapy intervention for couples that focused on civil forms of disapproval, a culture of appreciation, acceptance of responsibility for problems, and self-soothing (Gottman, Driver, & Tabares, 2002).

Relationship behaviors

Recent research suggests that romantic relationships impact daily behaviors and people are influenced by the eating habits of their romantic partners. Specifically, in the early stages of romantic relationships, women are more likely to be influenced by the eating patterns (i.e., healthiness/unhealthiness) of men. However, when romantic relationships are established, men are influenced by the eating patterns of women (Hasford, Kidwell, & Lopez-Kidwell).

Relationship maintenance

Daniel Canary from the International Encyclopedia of Marriage describes relationship maintenance as "At the most basic level, relational maintenance refers to a variety of behaviors used by partners in an effort to stay together." Maintaining stability and quality in a relationship is the key to success in a romantic relationship. He says that: "simply staying together is not sufficient; instead, the quality of the relationship is important. For researchers, this means examining behaviors that are linked to relational satisfaction and other indicators of quality." Canary suggests using the work of John Gottman, an American physiologist best known for his research on marital stability for over four decades, serves as a guide for predicting outcomes in relationships because "Gottman emphasizes behaviors that determine whether or not a couple gets divorced".

Furthermore, Canary also uses the source from Stafford and Canary (1991), a journal on Communication Monographs, because they created five great strategies based on maintaining quality in a relationship, the article's strategies are to provide:

• Positivity: being joyful and optimistic, not criticizing each other.
• Assurances: proving one's commitment and love.
• Openness: to be honest with one another according to what they want in the relationship.
• Social networks: efforts into involving friends and family in their activities.
• Sharing tasks: complementing each other's needs based on daily work.

On relational maintenance, Steven McCornack and Joseph Ortiz, the authors of the book Choices & Connection, state that relationship maintenance "refers to the use of communication behaviors to keep a relationship strong and to ensure that each party continues to draw satisfaction from the relationship".

Physiology

Researchers such as Feeney and Noller question the stability of attachment style across the life span since studies that measured attachment styles at time points ranging from two weeks to eight months found that one out of four adults' attachment style changed. Furthermore, a study by Lopez and Gormley found that attachment styles could change during the first year of college and that changes to more secure attachment styles were associated with adjustments in self-confidence ratings and coping styles. On the other hand, attachment styles in childhood mirror the ones found in adult romantic relationships. In addition, research has shown that building interpersonal connections strengthens neural regulatory systems that are involved in emotions of empathy, enjoyment of positive social events, and stress management, providing evidence that early social interactions affect adult relationships.

Another topic of controversy in the field of romantic relationships is that of domestic abuse. Following the theory that romantic love evolved as a byproduct of survival, it can be said that in some instances, it has turned into a maladaptation. Oxytocin (OT) is a neurophysical hormone produced in the brain. It is known to cause a decrease in stress response. It also can cause an increase in feelings of attachment. In the beginning stages of a romantic relationship, OT levels surge and then remain relatively stable over the duration of the relationship. The higher the surge of OT, the greater the likelihood is of partners staying together. It plays an important role in increasing positive interpersonal behaviors such as trust, altruism, empathy, etc. This response is not universal and can in fact, cause the opposite to occur depending on environment and individual. Individuals ranked high in rejection sensitivity exhibited aggressive tendencies and decreased willingness for cooperation, indicating a link between oxytocin and relationship maintenance.

The feelings associated with romantic love function to ensure the greater reproductive fitness of individuals. The obligations of individuals in romantic relationships to preserve these bonds are based in kin selection theory, where by exhibiting aggressive behavior, a mate can use intimidation and dominance to ward off other potential predators, thus protecting the pair bond and their actual or potential offspring. This has however evolved to the point where it has become detrimental to the fitness of individuals; what is causing attachment to occur in a relationship, is now causing one partner to harm the other.

In the search for the root of intimate partner violence (IPV), intranasal oxytocin was administered to a control group and a group of participants with aggressive tendencies. Participants were then surveyed on how willing they were to engage in five behaviors towards their romantic partner. What they found was that oxytocin increased IPV inclinations only among the participants with a predisposition towards aggressive tendencies. Oxytocin decreases trust and prosocial behavior in individuals with interpersonal difficulties. This, coupled with its role in relationship maintenance, illustrates that oxytocin serves to instill a sense of territoriality and protectiveness towards a mate.