Abstract
Research has shown that romantic love can be regulated. We investigated perceptions about love regulation, because these perceptions may impact mental health and influence love regulation application. Two-hundred eighty-six participants completed a series of items online via Qualtrics that assessed perceived ability to up- and down-regulate, exaggerate and suppress the expression of, and start and stop different love types. We also tested individual differences in perceived love regulation ability. Participants thought that they could up- but not down-regulate love in general and that they could up-regulate love in general more than down-regulate it. Participants thought that they could up-regulate infatuation less than attachment and sexual desire. Participants also thought that they could exaggerate and suppress expressions of infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire, but that they could not start and stop infatuation and attachment, or start sexual desire. The more participants habitually used cognitive reappraisal, the more they thought that they could up- and down-regulate infatuation and attachment and up-regulate sexual desire. The more participants were infatuated with their beloved, the more they thought that they could up- but not down-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire. Finally, participants thought that they could up- and down-regulate happiness more than infatuation These findings are a first step toward the development of psychoeducation techniques to correct inaccurate love regulation perceptions, which may improve mental health and love regulation in daily life.
Highlights
Do you think you can regulate how in love you are? Love can be weaker than desired
The mean score on the items assessing perceived ability to up-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire were significantly higher than 5 (= neutral), all ts>6.7, all ps < .001, all Cohen’s ds>.40, whereas the mean score on the items assessing perceived ability to down-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire were not significantly different from 5 (= neutral), all ts.13. This indicates that participants thought that they could up-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire, but that they felt neutral about their ability to up-regulate infatuation, attachment, and sexual desire
The mean score on the items assessing perceived ability to down-regulate happiness and anger were significantly higher than 5 (= neutral), both ts>3.3, both ps .001, Cohen’s ds>.46, and the mean scores on items assessing perceived ability to down-regulate infatuation, attachment, sexual desire, sadness, and fear were not significantly different from 5 (= neutral), all ts.10. This indicates that participants thought that they could up-regulate infatuation, attachment, sexual desire, happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, and down-regulate happiness and anger
Summary
Do you think you can regulate how in love you are? Love can be weaker than desired. For example, studies have shown that love declines over time [1] and that falling out of love is one of the main reasons for divorce [2]. Do you think you can regulate how in love you are? Studies have shown that love declines over time [1] and that falling out of love is one of the main reasons for divorce [2]. Love can be stronger than desired, such as after a break-up. In these types of situations, it might be advantageous to regulate love. Research has shown that love regulation is feasible [3,4,5,6,7,8,9], but research on people’s perceptions about love regulation (i.e., whether they think that love can be regulated) is scarce
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