Category Archives: love

Lasting love? Research on Making and Breaking Romantic Relationships

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4264611133_b9cfdd8566_zRomance is in the air. Vacation getaways, cool breezes, and warm nights can set the scene for a good, old fashioned ‘summer fling.’ In celebration of love and the summer, here is some romance-centric science to round out the season:

As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder; however, researchers have found beauty may also be in the face of the beholder.  In a recent study, researchers discovered that we prefer partners who most resemble ourselves! The authors recruited over 20 couples and morphed each partner’s face in different ways: a morph with a prototypical female, one with a prototypical male, and a morph blending the participants’ faces with that of their mates.  Using a ranking system, they found that participants clearly preferred their partner’s face when it resembled their own over all other facial morphs. This research provides insight into what may attract us to our summer flings, but how about their longevity?

Conflict resolution is key to the stability of adult relationships; however, we have little understanding of how conflict resolution affects teen relationships.  In a study published this spring, researchers sought to discover if successfully resolving conflicts predicts whether a teen relationship will last. The authors interviewed 80 teenage couples and observed each of them during a confrontation.  They then followed up with the couples over the next four years. During this analysis, the researchers discovered that adolescents who successfully resolved conflicts were not more likely to stay together then the couples who struggled through conflict resolution. Factors such as peer-groups, personality changes, and other causes may be more likely to influence the success of an adolescent relationship.

But what becomes of adult couples who can’t resolve conflicts? Researchers found that the quality of a person’s romantic relationship may predict the likelihood of depression.  The authors analyzed survey data, including a ten-year follow-up, from nearly five thousand adults.  The initial analysis outlined the quality of social and romantic relationships, assessing the individual’s social support and strain.  In the follow-up survey, the researchers analyzed the quality of a participant’s relationship with their partners, family, and friends to assess social stress or support. Through this analysis, they found that strained romantic relationships increased the risk for depression more than stressed friendships or family relationships.

From physical preference, to conflict resolution, to depression, these research articles give us a glimpse of what shapes our romantic choices. For more PLOS ONE articles on the topic of love, visit our website

Citations:

Laeng B, Vermeer O, Sulutvedt U (2013) Is Beauty in the Face of the Beholder? PLoS ONE 8(7): e68395. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068395

Ha T, Overbeek G, Lichtwarck-Aschoff A, Engels RCME (2013) Do Conflict Resolution and Recovery Predict the Survival of Adolescents’ Romantic Relationships? PLoS ONE 8(4): e61871. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0061871

Teo AR, Choi H, Valenstein M (2013) Social Relationships and Depression: Ten-Year Follow-Up from a Nationally Representative Study. PLoS ONE 8(4): e62396. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062396

Image: Lovers embracing on the beach at sundown / sunset on Morro Strand State Beach by Mike Baird

 

Animal Heartbreakers? Animals, Behavior, and “Love”

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Animal emotion remains a fairly contentious area of scientific research, but there is a growing body of evidence to support the idea that nonhuman animals can have feelings. The scientific community may not be ready to use the “L” word for animals, but we are beginning to understand that they do form relationships that are both more complex and insightful than they initially appeared.

While the birds and the bees don’t pre-order roses online or bust out heart-shaped boxes of chocolate for Valentine’s Day, many animal species—yes, even insects and spiders—exhibit courtship behavior to woo their mates (singing mice, anyone?). On the opposite end of the spectrum, animals can also be sneaky and engage in promiscuous behavior that rivals the latest plotline from your favorite soap opera. The physical, chemical, mental, and emotional drivers behind these behaviors are still under active investigation by the scientific community, and we have a few handy examples published in PLOS ONE.

In “Heaven It’s My Wife! Male Canaries Conceal Extra-Pair Courtships but Increase Aggressions When Their Mate Watches,” male domestic canaries, known to be socially monogamous, altered their courtship behavior toward females depending on the audience. Males were generally more aggressive with females around than with males or no one present. Males also courted other females more if their mates weren’t around, which the authors suggested may imply that there are costs (“divorce”) associated with courting other females while a mate watches. Tsk, tsk.

While canaries may be coy, some of our closest relatives display some of the fiercest aggressive and competitive behavior. In the recently published “Till Death (Or an Intruder) Do Us Part: Intrasexual-Competition in a Monogamous Primate,” owl monkey pairs were broken up by intruding “floater” monkeys, which in some cases, resulted in serious consequences for the ousted monkey: disappearance or death. These breakups also had a negative effect on the reproductive success of both the male and female monkey in the pair. Lasting monogamous owl monkey couples produced 25% more offspring than monkeys with two or more partners.

Are animals always heartbreakers? In what researchers consider an act of monogamy, pair-bonded California mice in this study refrained from scent marking when given the opportunity. This may not seem like a proud display of love and loyalty, but in the animal kingdom, scent marking can be a form of advertising for new females. The researchers also found that virgin male mice still participated in scent-marking behavior, providing further evidence that the other animals’ restraint was related specifically to pair bonding.

Just as we see behavioral differences in the animal kingdom, there’s certainly a lot of variety in human love and relationships. Regardless, we’d like to wish you all a happy Valentine’s Day!

Citations:

Hanson JL, Hurley LM (2012) Female Presence and Estrous State Influence Mouse Ultrasonic Courtship Vocalizations. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40782. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040782

Panksepp J (2011) Cross-Species Affective Neuroscience Decoding of the Primal Affective Experiences of Humans and Related Animals. PLoS ONE 6(9): e21236. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021236

Ung D, Amy M, Leboucher G (2011) Heaven It’s My Wife! Male Canaries Conceal Extra-Pair Courtships but Increase Aggressions When Their Mate Watches. PLoS ONE 6(8): e22686. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022686

Fernandez-Duque E, Huck M (2013) Till Death (Or an Intruder) Do Us Part: Intrasexual-Competition in a Monogamous Primate. PLoS ONE 8(1): e53724. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053724

Image credit:

Monkey image, M. Corley/Owl Monkey Project

Graph, PLOS ONE paper, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053724