Falling head over heels in love may be a thing of the past, according to scienceimageBROKER.com/Alamy
Individualism – prioritising your own goals over those of the wider community – is on the rise, and according to one of the largest ever studies on love, it is affecting how we feel about our partners. But this may not be a bad thing.
“Being completely in love and dependent [and] intensively thinking about one person may reduce your ability to work or study, etcetera,” says Jaroslava Varella Valentova at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, who wasn’t involved in the study. On the flip side, reducing our focus on our romantic partner could allow us to invest more time and energy into other relationships or hobbies, she says.
Previous research suggests that individualism is increasing around the world. “My opinion is that younger generations [today] are likely to be more self-obsessed [and] more individualistic [than previous generations at the same age],” says Julie Aitken Schermer at Western University in Ontario, Canada, who also wasn’t involved in the latest study.
This can be pointed at globalisation or modern technologies like social media. But when it comes to the consequences of individualism, specifically around romantic love, the research has been mixed. This is probably because the studies were small and focused on just one or two countries, says Marta Kowal at the University of Wrocław, Poland, who presented the new study at the Love, actually and in theory conference in Edinburgh, UK, earlier this month.
