“Our results show that people do agree, and the top scenarios that came back weren’t necessarily romantic. Heshmati says, “You might think would score on the same level, but people were more in agreement about loving actions, where there’s more authenticity perhaps, instead of a person just saying something.” So, basically, a happy cat rolling on its back when you come home is more important than your boyfriend saying “I love you.” In third place was a pet being happy to see them, and actually being told “I love you” came in next, at number four. In fact, the two highest-ranking scenarios that made participants “feel the love” were someone showing them compassion when they’re going through a tough time, and a child snuggling up to them. “For example,” she continues, “more people agreed that a child snuggling with them was more loving than someone simply saying, ‘I love you.'” “We found that behavioral actions - rather than purely verbal expressions - triggered more consensus as indicators of love,” explains Heshmati. What they found was this: when it comes to feeling loved - and, by extension, showing love - most people would agree that it’s more much more important to walk the walk than just talk the talk. Since the team was interested in cultural consensus, Heshmati and colleagues analyzed the data using a so-called extended Condorcet model, which is basically a fancy term for an even fancier statistical tool used to account for bias and other things that may influence the results. The researchers recruited 495 Americans who were 50 years old, on average, and they asked them to give their opinion on 60 different scenarios “where love might be felt.” These scenarios were quite varied: they were positive, neutral, or negative, and involved pets, lovers, and nature.įor example, participants were asked to say if they thought that “most people would feel loved” when “someone wants to know where they are at all times,” when they spend time with their friends, when they come home and their pet greets them, or when the sun is shining.
She adds, “We were curious about whether the majority of Americans could agree what makes people feel loved on a daily basis, or if it was a more personal thing.” What made the researchers embark on this love quest? “Whether we feel loved or not,” Heshmati says, “plays an important role in how we feel from day to day.” The research was led by Saeideh Heshmati - a postdoctoral scholar in the College of Health and Human Development at Pennsylvania State University in State College - and it was no easy task.Īlmost 500 Americans were asked questions about 60 different scenarios, and their answers were fed into a complex mathematical model that sorted and measured the information. These are just two of many revelations of a new study recently published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. It also seems that our pets can fill the void in our hearts just fine.
When it comes to that warm and fuzzy feeling, it’s the small, non-romantic, everyday gestures that count the most. Instead, it’s the small, daily gestures that count.
Share on Pinterest Romance is not very important when it comes to feeling loved, new research shows.
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