Arthur J. Villasanta – Fourth Estate Contributor
Philadelphia, PA, United States (4E) – Americans largely agree about what makes them feel loved, and also agree it might be small gestures that matter the most.
Small, non-romantic gestures (like someone showing compassion or snuggling with a child) topped the list of what makes people feel loved. On the other, controlling behaviors (someone wanting to know where they were at all times) were seen as the least loving, said a new study from in Penn State’s College of Health and Human Development.
The study results authored by Saeideh Heshmati, a postdoctoral research scholar working with Zita Oravecz and published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships could give insights into how love affects a person’s overall well-being.
“Whether we feel loved or not plays an important role in how we feel from day to day,” said Heshmati.
“We were curious about whether the majority of Americans could agree about what makes people feel loved on a daily basis, or if it was a more personal thing. Our results show that people do agree, and the top scenarios that came back weren’t necessarily romantic.
“So it is possible for people to feel loved in simple, everyday scenarios. It doesn’t have to be over-the-top gestures.”
In the study, 495 American adults answered a questionnaire about whether or not they thought most people would feel loved in 60 different scenarios. The situations included positive actions like being greeted by a pet; neutral scenarios like feeling close to nature and negative situations like someone acting possessive.
Researchers analyzed the data with a cultural consensus model, or a framework for measuring the beliefs of a culture.
“We found that behavioral actions rather than purely verbal expressions triggered more consensus as indicators of love,” said Heshmati.
“For example, more people agreed that a child snuggling with them was more loving than someone simply saying, ‘I love you.’ You might think they 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.”
Participants also agreed on what doesn’t make people feel loved. Behaviors that could be seen as controlling were ranked among the least loving actions.
Researchers found that men tended to know less about what the majority of the American culture deems loving, which Heshmati said could be because previous research has shown that men tend to think about the concept of love differently than women.
People in a relationship and people with agreeable or neurotic personality traits tended to know more about the cultural consensus.
Heshmati said that even though the results may reflect how the American culture in general feels about love, individuals still can and do have their own personal feelings about what makes them feel loved.
“It may not be wise to go into a relationship assuming that both of you know the same things about feeling loved, or that all of the same things will make you feel loved,” said Heshmati.
“I think it’s important to communicate these things to each other, which can assist in being more in tune with each other and feeling loved in the relationship.”
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