In the 1947 song " Nature Boy , " songwriter Eden Abhez posits , " The greatest thing you ’ll ever con is just to love and be loved in return key " [ source : Sing365 ] . Four years in the beginning , the psychologist Abraham Maslow published his book , " A possibility of Human Motivation , " which included his famoushierarchy of needs . In the eye of this pecking order , above physical needs like safety but below esoteric needs like self - admiration , lies our penury for love and go – the need to love and be have it away in return .
While Abhez and Maslow may have disagreed exactly on how significant making love is to the human experience , both do it that love is one of the most important aspects of being human . Where Abhez was content to simply mark its importance , Maslow included love as something humans are motivated to have or attain . Love is a prompt goal for humans , and our behavior can be explained by our attempts to achieve this goal .
Research support Maslow ’s hierarchy for decades . In 2005 , a groundbreaking study using functional magnetised resonance imaging ( fMRI ) was published . The field of study , comport jointly by researchers at three universities , find visual evidence that support Maslow ’s view of making love as need .
The human motive organisation is linked to the reinforcement scheme in thebrain . Once we achieve a goal , the brain releases dopamine into a region of the advantage system called thenucleus insightfulness . We see this as a unfathomed sense of pleasure and excitement – the type of sensation one associate degree with the experience of romanticist love .
In the 2005 written report , researchers line up that when 17 young participants were shown a photo of the person they loved , regions of the brain responsible for propel and rewarding lead off to run . In other words , the study found that quixotic beloved motivates people , and the motivation toward this end – love and being loved – is fire by the brainpower ’s advantage system [ source : APS ] .
The imaging also show that while the emotional centers of the brain were alive , no distinguishable convention of emotion was followed . This determination foresee the longstanding view that love is base in emotion ; alternatively , it seems that enjoy saltation from our goal - seek behaviour and that the emotions we attach to it come secondly to our motive .
But the question remains : Why do we love ?
Evolution and Love
This doubtfulness of why we ’re equipped tolovehas already been answered viaevolutionarytheory : We love because we ’re meant to procreate . Species continue through breeding , and continuation of the species is preponderating in evolution . Since mat up is the ultimate end , then feelings of romantic love are merely a fomite toward this goal . Yet , the 2005 sketch found that the area that cause sexual stimulation in the brain are n’t fully participating as people fall in love . The two regions overlap , but the experiences are n’t the same [ source : APS ] .
This does n’t confute the idea that erotic love exists to further procreation , but it sure bring up Modern enquiry . Specifically , why do we continue to feel love even after we ’ve multiply ? The current result is also based in evolution : The combination of reward and attachment booster cable to a survive dependency for a particular somebody – our mate .
Because of the association with reward motivation and its concomitant releases of dopamine , that initial rush of romantic making love resembles addiction rather than emotion . Over time , however , other neurotransmitters may play a larger use in forming long - term attachment that lasts beyond our reproductive years .
The chemicalsvasopressinandoxytocinhelp humans and about 3 percentage of other mammal mintage to live lasting , monogamous love life . These two chemical are associated with our ability to form memories of others and aid us recognize other people . They ’re also release , along with dopamine , during sex .
This compounding ofdopamine(which induces feelings of pleasure ) , oxytocin ( which is associate with feelings of fond regard ) and vasopressin ( which also promotes attachment and also allow societal credit ) leads to a learned behaviour where we in reality become addicted to our mate [ source : economic expert ] . irrespective of whether it ’s the sight of the person we ’re in beloved with or the shot of some drug , if both trigger similar discharge , humans can know both similarly and become addicted as well .
These same chemical may also bring a part in familial love , like that between a parent and child or among sibling . The chemical Pitocin , for model , plays a purpose in parental bonding . It ’s released in mother during childbirth , and it plays a role in the yield and release of chest milk [ generator : Johnson ] .
We experience dearest , then , to foster the family relationship that may go to breeding and to conserve relationships with the offspring digest from those kinship .
