Abstract
There are no cognitive studies of love conducted in an Asian culture. Our study is the first to probe the cognitive qualities that urban Chinese youth associate with what it means to be in love. To this end, we build on de Munck et al.’s pioneering studies in two European cultures (Russia, Lithuanian) and in the United States. Expanding on their study, we used a similar questionnaire that also includes additional questions designed to probe the youth of urban China’s perception and understanding of romantic love as an emotional and psychological force. We found that Chinese youths’ responses are similar to the Euro-American five core findings that all individuals, regardless of gender, experience when “in love.” These core attributes are as follows: “I will do anything for the person I love” (or altruism), “I constantly think about the person I am in love with” (or intrusive thinking), “romantic love is the supreme happiness of life” (or self-actualization), my “love makes my partner stronger and a better person,” (or emotional fulfillment), and “sexual attraction is necessary for love” (biology).
Introduction
The finding that passionate love is present in some form or another in most cultures around the globe (Jankowiak & Paladino, 2008; Jankowiak & Fisher, 1992) has produced a cottage industry of case studies exploring the ethnographic and theoretical implications of this new-found human universal (Ahearn, 2001; Cole & Thomas, 2009; Constable, 2003; De Munck & Korotayev, 2007; Hirsch & Wardlow, 2006; Lindholm, 1998a; Padilla, Hirsch, Munoz-Laboy, Sember, & Parker, 2007; Swidler, 2001). Psychologists working within a different conceptual framework have explored the meanings and embedded assumptions that Americans associate with being in the state of love (Berscheid, 2006; Dion & Dion, 2010; Gao, 2001; Fehr, 1994; Goodwin & Findlay, 2005; Hatfield, Rapson, & Martel, 2007; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986; Kline, Horton, & Zhang, 2008; Lee, 1988; Riela, Rodriguez, Aron, Xu, & Acevedo, 2010; Tennov, 1979; Xu et al., 2011; Ze’ev, 2004; Zeki & Romaya, 2010). Other researchers have focused exclusively on the physiological factors associated with being in love and found evidence that suggests companionship and passionate love constitute two distinct arousal states and are also located in different regions of the brain (Aron, Fisher, & Strong, 2006; Fisher, 2004; Fisher, Arthur, Mashek, Li, & Brown, 2002). These emotional states may also be manifested behaviorally as
labile psychophysical responses to the loved person, including exhilaration, euphoria, buoyancy, spiritual feelings, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, shyness, awkwardness . . . flushing, stammering, gazing, prolonged eye contact, dilated pupils . . . accelerated breathing, anxiety . . . in the presence of the loved person (Fisher, 1998, p. 32).
Helen Fisher’s (2004) interdisciplinary model of love identifies 12 psychophysiological characteristics that Americans often associate with being in the state of passionate love. They are (a) “thinking that the beloved is unique”; (b) “paying attention to the positive qualities of the beloved”; (c) feelings of “exhilaration,” “increased energy,” “heart pounding,” and “intense emotional arousal induced by being in contact with, or thinking of, the beloved”; (d) feeling even more connected to the beloved in times of adversity; (e) “intrusive thinking”; (f) feeling possessive and dependent on the beloved; (g) “desiring ‘union’ with the beloved”; (h) having a strong sense of altruism and concern for the beloved; (i) reordering one’s priorities to favor the beloved; (j) “feeling sexual attraction for the beloved”; and (k) ranking “emotional union” as taking “precedence over sexual desire.” In addition, those feeling passionate love discover that the sensation of being in passionate love is “involuntary” and not controllable. The presence of similar neurological mechanisms and brain patterns may account for our ability to readily identify whether someone is romantically involved or erotically excited (Fisher, 1998). Taken together, the totality of the research on love finds that it is not entirely a social-cultural construction. Love is such a powerful emotion that it creates ethical dilemmas for individuals and communities on how best to respond to it.
In a series of pioneering studies, Victor de Munck, Andrey Korotayev, and Daria Khaltourina (2009, 2010) constructed a multisite (e.g., the United States, Russia, Lithuania) investigation that focused on identifying underlying beliefs, assumptions, and attributes that individuals associate with being in love. They used American and non-American cultures to explore the universality of Fisher’s model of love. They found, for example, that Russians, like other East Europeans, perceive romantic love as a kind of “sickness” that is “temporary and unreal” (2009, p. 339). In contrast, Americans overwhelmingly do not. Furthermore, Russians are more concerned with the material foundation of love, whereas Americans are more concerned with the loss of independence that comes from being involved in a romantic relationship (2009). They also found cross-cultural commonalities in the Russian, Lithuanian, and American cognitive models of love. These are as follows: “I will do anything for the person I love” (or altruism), “I constantly think about the person I am in love with” (or intrusive thinking), and “romantic love is the supreme happiness of life” (or self-actualization). The authors suggest that these attributes may prove to be the core essence of what individuals around the globe experience when “in love.” Because de Munck et al.’s research is restrictive to Euro-American cultures, its implications for documenting love’s universal cognitive traits is suggestive and not conclusive.
In this article, we will build on and expand the de Munck et al. comparative studies to probe how contemporary urban Chinese youth, specifically the single-child generation, conceptualize love. Our study is the first investigation into the cognitive assumptions embedded in a non-Western culture’s notion of love. Given China’s cauldron of rapid social change, we want to understand the terms, words, expressions, and feeling states that youth associate with being in love. Moreover, we want to identify, if possible, passionate love’s core or universal attributes.
Method
There are few studies that attempt to validate Helen Fisher’s (2004) model of love that identifies its core attributes. De Munck et al.’s (2009, 2010) questionnaire is the first effort to do so. It was designed to elicit a variety of responses ranging from the instrumental to intense introspection.
To establish a more robust finding and to be consistent with de Munck et al.’s methods, we used a forced choice format requiring respondents to either agree or disagree with a statement. De Munck et al.’s survey consisted of 23 questions measured on a Likert-type 4-point scale as follows: 4 = completely agree, 3 = mostly agree, 2 = mostly disagree, and 1 = completely disagree. To more fully understand the possible cultural factors, we expanded on de Munck et al.’s questionnaire to include additional questions that probe an individual’s perception of the durability of love, the economic foundation for it, importance of love as a basis for marriage, and the quality of their own parents’ relationship (see Table 4 for the list of de Munck’s 13 questions expanded to include 25 additional questions for a total of 38 questions). In Table 4, de Munck’s 13 questions are highlighted with an asterisk, and when there is significant gender difference to a specific question, we bold that question. We asked similar questions and included new ones derived from our free list sample (see the appendix), which asked six individuals to list as many qualities they could that they associated with being in love. The free list was supplemented by information obtained from our focus groups that explored the behaviors and meanings individuals associated with being in love. We used the free list, focus group discussions, and ethnographic knowledge obtained from earlier research (Jankowiak, 2013) to construct our questionnaire. The questionnaire was then translated with an ear for current expressions of love popular among China’s singletons.
Our sample included 151 college participants (114 females and 37 males) at Fudan University, Shanghai. Respondents’ ages ranged from 17 years to 22 years, with a mean of 20 years for both females and males. The disparity in the representation of genders is an artifact of a demographic shift in Chinese colleges, resulting in more females enrolled, particularly in the humanities and liberal arts. The survey was given to a session of Introduction to Anthropology, which reflected this demography. However, it does not appear to directly influence the statistical analysis as there was more agreement than disagreement among the genders, which will be discussed in our results. Responses were entered in Microsoft Excel for later input into SPSS V.22 for interpretation and statistical analysis via principal components analysis, with gender comparison using a Mann-Whitney U test. We also analyzed individual questions for comparison of agreement and disagreement.
Results
A principal components analysis was completed on the responses to determine whether questions could be grouped into factors measuring core features of love in the sample population of Chinese college youth. The majority of questions loaded into two factors. Factor 1 measures the idealized features of being in love (both those viewed as positive and negative), and Factor 2 measures the pragmatic features of being in love. Table 1 details the factors by listing the questions that loaded into each factor, along with their correlations for each factor.
Questions as Loaded Into Factors 1 and 2.
Note.Factor loading was accepted with a score of ≥(±).400.
The gender disparity within our sample did not appear to affect the loading of factors, as there was no significant difference between genders on the factors (Factor 1, U = 1,994.00, p = .619; Factor 2, U = 1,925.00, p = .426, see Table 2). It is likely that this represents a generational shift in the view of love in China toward a more romanticized ideal. Because of this, China appears to be trending in the same direction as the United States, Lithuania, and Russia as discussed by de Munck and his colleagues (2010). Table 3 provides the five core features of consensus as found in de Munck et al.’s study as compared with the core features we found in China.
Summary of Mann-Whitney U Statistics on Factors 1 and 2.
Four Nation Cultural Sample: Core Features of Love.
Note.Data on Russia, Lithuania, and the United States are compiled from de Munck et al. (2010).
This question was not asked in the corresponding survey.
In addition to the factors, completing a Mann-Whitney U test on individual questions found significant gender differences on a small selection of questions (see bolded questions in Table 4). In responding to the questions “sex without love is sadness” (p = .003), “to love is not a weakness” (p = .006), and “loving a person should not mean a loss of independence” (p = .001), women agreed more frequently than men. In response to the question “I will do anything for my lover” (p = .003), women disagreed more often than men. Viewed from an evolutionary psychology perspective, these findings are not surprising and are discussed in more detail in the “Discussion” section of this article. Although there is a disparity in the gender presence among the sample, suggesting that replication is needed, the significance of the findings still warrants consideration.
Percent Agreed and Disagreed by Gender for Individual Questions.
Note. Bolded questions show statistically significant gender differences.
Questions are based on de Munck, Korotayev, and Khaltourina’s (2009, 2010) original survey.
Discussion
Urban Chinese youth are in good agreement with Russian, Lithuanian, and American youth that one of the ways to know you are in love is the presence of inclusive thoughts about your lover (see Table 4, Q4), love makes their partner stronger and a better person (see Table 4, Q10), and to love is the supreme happiness of life (see Table 4, Q5). There is gender difference and thus mixed support for “I will do anything for a lover” (see Table 4, Q3).
Our expansion of de Munck’s initial survey also found a small sex difference in the way that men and women think and, we suspect, experience being in love (see Northeastern China study, which did not find gender differences when single-child youth talked about being in love). Chinese male youth, who are perceived to be the most responsible for initiating and maintaining the relationship, are in agreement (Table 4, Q3—64.7%) in their response that they will “do anything for my lover.” In contrast, only 33.4% of women thought they would do anything for a lover. Moreover, our findings found that both Chinese men and women insisted on the importance of material factors for sustaining a relationship. This contrasts with Russia where only women emphasized the importance of material factors. For example, a 22-year-old Chinese woman in our focus group asserted that “love alone is not enough. The love immense in sweet words could not stand the time and hardship.” Her response is consistent with our post-survey conversations with female students who overwhelmingly believe that material factors are the foundation for an intimate and successful marriage. Sprecher and Toro-Morn (2002) and Kline, Horton and Zhang (2008) in separate studies conducted in Northern China also found a similar sex difference toward willingness to “do anything for a lover.” We suspect that Chinese women place a strong emphasis on the value of being an independent self and, thus, are not willing to lose that image in the name of love. It is significant that 100% of females agreed with Question 37: “Loving a person should not mean the loss of independence.”
For most Chinese women, there is no contradiction between desiring love and material benefits. They believed that they can, and should, go together. This sentiment is clearly articulated in the words of a 20-year-old woman who remarked in our focus group, “I want a man who loves me, cares for me, and also understands me as I understand him. We can work together for our future.” Her mate selection preference is representative of her generational cohort, and it is similar to that voiced among Aka and Hadza, and we suspect all foraging populations, whereby women de-emphasize physical attraction in favor of male behavior that demonstrates a love manifested as a “willingness to work” (i.e., do things) for the family (Alyssa Crittenden and Barry Hewlett, email correspondence, September, 2014). The sex differences may account for why urban Chinese men, in the domain of romantic love, appear more idealistic in their desire to make a grand gesture of self-sacrifice for their beloved. The gesture is also consistent with the masculine image of being responsible for the family’s welfare and thus gets expressed in some demonstration of a man’s willingness to make a long-term commitment. We surmise that the male sacrificial gesture(s) is about social signaling, whereby young men interested in attracting a potential mate want to declare their commitment to the cultural ideal of male responsibility to the family’s overall welfare (Buss, 2007).
Conclusion
The de Munck et al. (2009, 2010) pioneering investigations found five core attributes or commonalities among the Russian, Lithuanian, and American cognitive models of love. These are as follows: “I constantly think about the person I am in love with” (or intrusive thinking), “romantic love is the supreme happiness of life” (or self-actualization), my “love makes my partner stronger and a better person” (or emotional fulfillment), “I will do anything for the person I love” (or altruism), and “sexual attraction is necessary for love” (biology). We neglected to query in our sample whether sexual attraction was a core attribute necessary to invoke a love interest. Based on sexual survey reports (Burger, 2012) and ethnographic research (Jankowiak, 1993, 2013; Parish et al., 2003), however, we believe that the Chinese single-child generation would overwhelmingly also agree on the importance of sexual attraction as a foundational factor necessary for love’s cultivation and development.
De Munck et al.’s (2009, 2010) research suggests that the five core attributes form a universal essence or the affective core of what all individuals, regardless of gender, experience when “in love.” (De Munck et al., 2010) The Chinese youth survey, with the exception of the gender difference found in the response to the question “I will do anything for my lover,” lends further support to de Munck’s Euro-American core attributes of love findings (see Table 3). We did find, however, a cultural shift in the value placed on romantic love (see note 1). Many single-child youth, unlike their parents’ generation (Jankowiak, 1993) but more like their American counterpart, are optimistic that romantic love is a real force that can continue to prosper in a long-term marriage. The Russian and Lithuanian youth, however, think romantic love is a temporary stage on the way to a more “real” marital, companionship type of love (de Munck et al., 2009, 2010). Moreover, urban Chinese youth continue to see “dating” as a time for looking for a potential spouse, instead of an opportunity for friendship in the form of extended play with the opposite sex (Jankowiak, 2013).
Cross-cultural research into love’s cognitive dimensions has just begun. To fully appreciate both love’s rich variation and uniformity, additional research in different cultural settings is required. Only then will we be able to adequately evaluate de Munck et al.’s (2009, 2010) Euro-American findings, our urban Chinese youth’s findings, and Fisher’s (2004) list of love’s universal core attributes (Jankowiak & Paladino, 2008). To this end, additional scholarly effort is required.
Footnotes
Appendix
Chinese Free List: Qualities Associated With Being in Love 9 (see notes 2 and 3).
| Item | Frequency | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 开心 Happy | 48 | 41.0 |
| 2 | 甜蜜浪漫 Sweet/romantic | 44 | 37.6 |
| 3 | 承诺 Commitment | 41 | 35.0 |
| 4 | 有趣欢乐 Joy | 34 | 29.1 |
| 5 | 婚礼/戒指 Wedding related | 32 | 27.4 |
| 6 | 奉献牺牲 Sacrifice | 31 | 26.5 |
| 7 | 花/玫瑰 Flowers | 30 | 25.6 |
| 8 | 激情热情 Passion | 24 | 20.5 |
| 9 | 英俊美丽 Appearance | 24 | 20.5 |
| 10 | 牵手 Holding hands | 23 | 19.7 |
| 11 | 烛光晚餐 Candlelight dinner | 21 | 17.9 |
| 12 | 情绪起伏 Emotional upsurge | 21 | 17.9 |
| 13 | 旅行 Travel | 20 | 17.1 |
| 14 | 灵犀默契 Connection | 20 | 17.1 |
| 15 | 梦想梦幻 Dream | 19 | 16.2 |
| 16 | 相伴在一起 Being together | 18 | 15.4 |
| 17 | 关爱照顾 Care | 17 | 14.5 |
| 18 | 支持 Support | 17 | 14.5 |
| 19 | 亲吻 Kiss | 17 | 14.5 |
| 20 | 拥抱 Hug | 17 | 14.5 |
| 21 | 理解相知 Understand | 17 | 14.5 |
| 22 | 想念分离 Miss | 16 | 13.7 |
| 23 | 海滩 Beach | 13 | 11.1 |
| 24 | 惊喜 Surprise | 13 | 11.1 |
| 25 | 般配 Match | 11 | 9.4 |
| 26 | 缘分 “Yuan” | 11 | 9.4 |
| 27 | 奢侈/物质 Luxury | 11 | 9.4 |
| 28 | 奋斗成长 Hardworking and growth | 11 | 9.4 |
| 29 | 约会恋爱 Spending time together | 10 | 8.5 |
| 30 | 自由/差异 Freedom/independent | 10 | 8.5 |
| 31 | 性 Sex | 9 | 7.6 |
| Total | 878 |
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following people for their suggestions and encouragement: Dan Benyshek, Alyssa Crittenden, Shanshan Du, Barry Hewlett, Fengjiang Jiazhi, Yuezhu Sun, Victor de Munck, Thomas Paladino, and three anonymous reviewers. We would especially like to thank Carol Ember who provided continuous and immensely insightful suggestions and helped guide us in our revisions.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.