The everyday experiences that make us feel loved

By Christian Jarrett Psychologists, philosophers and poets have devoted many years reflecting on the meaning of love for another. A less-explored question – the focus of a study to appear in the January 2019 issue of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships – is what makes us feel loved by others? More specifically, the study investigated whether there is widespread agreement about the everyday experiences, romantic and non-romantic, that lead us (or US citizens, at least) to feel loved. Some of the results are obvious – many participants agreed that making love, being hugged, receiving compliments and gifts, make us feel loved. But there was even stronger agreement that mundane yet touching gestures make us feel loved, such as our pets being happy to see us, a child snuggling up to us, or someone showing us compassion. Employing an approach known as “cultural consensus theory”, Saeideh Heshmati at Penn State University and her colleagues presented nearly 500 online participants (men and women aged 18 to 93 selected to be representative of the US population as a whole) with 60 everyday scenarios, and for each one asked them to indicate whether it was true or false that most people would feel loved in that situation (or to pass if they didn’t know). Other scenarios for which there was particularly strong agreement that the situation would provoke felt love included being cared for when sick; being told “I love you”; spending time wit...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Emotion Social Source Type: blogs