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Social Psychological and Personality Science
http://spp.sagepub.com/content/3/2/241
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1948550611417015
2012 3: 241 originally published online 5 August 2011Social Psychological and Personality Science
K. Daniel O'Leary, Bianca P. Acevedo, Arthur Aron, Leonie Huddy and Debra Mashek
Is Long-Term Love More Than A Rare Phenomenon? If So, What Are Its Correlates?
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Is Long-Term Love More Than A Rare
Phenomenon? If So, What Are Its
Correlates?
K. Daniel O’Leary
1
, Bianca P. Acevedo
1
, Arthur Aron
1
,
Leonie Huddy
2
, and Debra Mashek
3
Abstract
Some individuals in long-term marriages report intensities of romantic love comparable to individuals newly in love. How common
is this? Are correlates of long-term romantic love consistent with theoretical models of love? In a random sample of 274 U.S.
married individuals, 40% of those married over 10 years reported being ‘‘Very intensely in love.’’ Importantly, correlates of
long-term intense love, as predicted by theory, were thinking positively about the partner and thinking about the partner when
apart, affectionate behaviors and sexual intercourse, shared novel and challenging activities, and general life happiness. Wanting to
know where the partner is at all times correlated significantly with intense love for men but not women. For women, but not men,
passion about nonrelationship factors significantly correlated with intense love. In a random New York (NY) sample of 322 indi-
viduals married over 10 years, 29% reported being very intensely in love and our predicted correlates cross validated.
Keywords
culture and cognition, impression formation, person perception, social cognition, social judgment
It is commonly assumed that intense romantic love occurs in
the early stages of a romantic relationship, but decreases dras-
tically across time. Some theorists have proposed that romantic
love is uncommon in marriage (e.g., Sternberg, 1986) or has lit-
tle use after the child-rearing years (e.g., Buss, 1989). Others
suggest that given the right circumstances it may evolve into
companionate love—low in intensity and generally devoid of
attraction and sexual desire (e.g., Berscheid & Hatfield,
1969). More recently, some theorists proposed adaptive rea-
sons for romantic love to endure. For example, Buss (2006)
proposed that love emerges in the context of long-term mating
and functions to signal long-term commitment, ensuring indi-
viduals will stay with their partners. Fisher (2006) posited that
romantic love generally fades over time, but that some cou-
ples manage to maintain it because it enhances physical and
mental vitality and provides companionship and optimism for
older individuals.
Despite arguments that intense love may exist in some long-
term relationships, there are minimal data to address this issue.
Cuber and Haroff (1965) interviewed a convenience sample of
500 Americans in marriages of 10 years or more, and they dis-
tinguished between ‘‘intrinsic’’ couples (20%) who continued
to enjoy deep, intimate, and affectionate connections and ‘‘uti-
litarian’’ couples (80%) who maintained bonds for other rea-
sons than to experience deep involvement with their spouse.
Tennov (1979) reported descriptions of happy marriages
among older couples who reported being in love and who
talked about shared interests, leisure activities, ability to work
together, pleasurable sexual experiences, and general content-
ment. However, they did not report continuous and unwanted
intrusive thinking common among those experiencing infatua-
tion. Acevedo and Aron (2009) found that in a New York (NY)
convenience sample married an average of 8.39 years, 13%
reported the highest ratings on nonobsessive type items on the
Passionate Love Scale (PLS; Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). Thus,
based on prior research, we expected that at least 10–15%of
long-term married individuals would report intense love.
Although research with convenience samples suggests
romantic love can last in long-term relationships, it remains
unknown if it is merely a rare phenomenon. As Hatfield, Pille-
mer, O’Brien, and Le (2008) noted, we know little about love
and gender differences in love in long-term marriage. Thus, the
present study assessed, for the first time, the prevalence and
theoretically predicted correlates of intense love in two repre-
sentative samples of long-term married individuals.
1
Psychology Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
2
Political Science Department, Stony Brook University, NY, USA
3
Psychology Department, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, USA
Corresponding Author:
K. Daniel O’Leary, Psychology Department, Stony Brook University, Stony
Brook, NY 11794, USA
Email: K.D.O’Leary@stonybrook.edu
Social Psychological and
Personality Science
3(2) 241-249
ªThe Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1948550611417015
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We predicted that some key variables would be linked with
intense love, even controlling for general relationship satisfac-
tion, based on (a) the conceptualization of intense romantic love
involving intensity, physical desire, and engagement, but not
involving obsession (Acevedo & Aron, 2009), (b) the self-
expansion model which posits that love is enhanced by engaging
in joint activities that are novel and challenging (Aron & Aron,
1986), and (c) findings from functional magnetic resonance ima-
ging (fMRI) studies of romantic love, which have found signif-
icant reward system activations (Acevedo, Aron, Fisher, &
Brown, 2011; Ortigue, Bianchi-Demicheli, Patel, Frum, &
Lewis, 2010). The focal variables we examined were physical
desire (sex and affection), engagement (thinking positively
about and doing things with the partner), and obsession. We also
examined general life happiness, which we expected to show a
unique relation to love over and above relationship satisfaction,
and general life passion, an exploratory variable.
Physical Desire
Survey studies provide some support for sex and intense love
being significantly correlated in long-term relationships. In
an online study, women reported ‘‘love’’ as among the top 3
of 13 reasons for engaging in sexual intercourse (Meston,
Hamilton, & Harte, 2009). In a study of older Greek adults,
‘‘still being in-love with a partner’’ significantly correlated
with sexual interest and behaviors (Papaharitou et al., 2008).
However, these studies were not representative and they did not
assess love directly.
Engagement
Positive cognitions. Individuals in new relationships develop
idealized images of their partners, exaggerating their strengths
and downplaying their flaws (Murray, Holmes, & Griffin,
1996). In nonrepresentative samples, positive illusions were
associated with love and relationship satisfaction in new mar-
riages and dating couples (Miller, Caughlin, & Huston, 2003;
Murray & Holmes, 1997). Weiss (1980) described a phenom-
enon called ‘‘sentiment override’’ to help explain why individ-
uals in highly satisfactory relationships appear to recall more
positive events than may have actually occurred. Indeed, in
an experiment, individuals in dating relationships described
as satisfying, compared to individuals in less satisfactory rela-
tionships, were more likely to recall positive descriptors of
their partner they had seen presented (Jose, Rajaram, O’Leary,
& Williams, 2010). Similarly, dissatisfied (vs. happily) married
partners were more likely to recall negative words describing
their partner (Whisman & Delinsky, 2002).
Shared activities. It has long been known that individuals who
spend time together engaging in activities such as cooking,
sports, and intellectual pursuits tend to report they are happy
in their marriage. In fact, engaging in outside activities together
and working together on a project are items on Spanier’s (1976)
Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Further, the Marital Satisfaction
Inventory (MSI; Snyder, 1997) contains a Time Together
Scale. In a large community sample, this scale correlated .64
with MSI Global Satisfaction, and highly differentiated com-
munity couples from couples in therapy.
According to the self-expansion model, love is enhanced
when couples engage in shared novel and challenging
activities. Indeed, laboratory (Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna,
& Heyman, 2000) and field experiments (Reissman, Aron,
& Bergen, 1993) with convenience samples show that enga-
ging in such shared activities caused significant increases in
both love and marital quality.
Obsession
Some studies with nonrepresentative samples suggest that one
important distinction between early-stage and long-term
romantic love is less obsession and anxiety in long-term love
(Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Tennov, 1979). However, the level
of obsession about a partner may be underestimated in long-
term relationships because the measures used for it were devel-
oped for new relationships, and thus did not assess the kind of
obsession that might exist in long-term relationships. Thus, we
aimed to examine this issue in representative samples using
measures appropriate for long-term marriages.
General Life Happiness and Passion
Several studies suggest that love is an important predictor of
happiness, positive emotions, and life satisfaction (e.g., Diener
& Lucas, 2000; Kim & Hatfield, 2004). For example, Aron and
Henkemeyer (1995), using a convenience sample of long-term
couples, found significant positive correlations of love with
global happiness. However, because previous studies have used
nonrepresentative samples, individuals experiencing low rela-
tionship satisfaction or low general happiness, but intense love,
may have been underrepresented, and the pattern could be quite
different in a representative sample.
We also examined for the first time in a representative sample
the association of intense love [for spouse] with passion (getting
‘‘fired up’’) for life matters (e.g., politics, career, sports, environ-
ment). The fMRI research examining both passion for a partner
and general passion (e.g., for hobbies) suggests the two share
some common reward circuitry (Ortigue, Bianchi-Demicheli,
Hamilton, & Grafton, 2007)
Summary of Study Goals
In sum, the present research examined for the first time the
prevalence and key theoretically relevant correlates of intense
romantic love in representative samples of long-term married
individuals. Study 1, a nationally representative U.S. sample,
assessed the prevalence and key correlates of intense love. In
addition, we conducted partial correlations to evaluate the
extent to which key predictors of intense love remained signif-
icant after controlling for relationship happiness. Finally, we
conducted two specific exploratory analyses of interest: (a) A
moderation testing whether the association of intense love with
242 Social Psychological and Personality Science 3(2)
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physical affection and sexual intercourse would be stronger for
couples with low levels of relationship satisfaction (because the
physical aspect of the relationship would be especially salient)
and (b) conditional probability analyses of the percentage of
individuals reporting intense love but reporting no physical
affection.
Study 2, with NY State residents, replicated and extended
Study 1, employing the love and general relationship happiness
items from Study 1, plus 3 items assessing physical desire,
engagement, and obsession that were behavior-focused to
minimize opportunities for memory distortions or other
response biases and which had been used in previous love
research. Study 2 also provided the opportunity to counterba-
lance the order of response options to the intense love item
to assess whether answers were biased by positive response
options appearing first in Study 1.
Study 1: Nationally Representative Sample
A random-digit dialing (RDD) survey was conducted (August
5, 2007 to September 9, 2007) to contact individuals 18 years
and older, across the United States. Only married individuals
are included in the analyses.
Method
Participants. Out of those with whom we spoke, approxi-
mately 40%agreed to participate. Of the 529 respondents who
started the interview, 500 completed the survey. Of these, 274
(119 women) were married and completed the marriage sec-
tion. Average length of completed surveys was 10 min. There
were no monetary incentives for participation. Demographic
factors were as follows: Women’s mean relationship length,
21.40 years (range 1–62); men, 20.23 (1–62); mean age:
women ¼46.06 years; range 20–84; men ¼48.47, 22–93;
modal family income: women ¼$35,000–59,999, range:
<$20,000 to >$150,000; men ¼$80,000–99,999, range
<$20,000 to >$150,000); education/highest grade obtained:
women: modal: high school graduate; range ninth grade to
master’s degree; men: modal: high school graduate; range
fourth grade to master’s degree; ethnicity: women: White
90%, Black 3%, Hispanic 3%, Asian 4%, and Other 0%; Men’s
respective origins: 73%,9%,3%,9%,4%, and 2%.
Procedure. Respondents were told ‘‘We are conducting a sur-
vey of Americans regarding their views on retirement issues
and people’s relationships. To be sure we obtain an accurate
cross section of local residents, we need to speak to the person
in your household who is 18 years of age or older, and had the
most recent birthday. Is that you?’’ Once selected, respondents
were told that the survey was funded by the State University of
New York at Stony Brook, that their telephone was dialed by a
random process, and that all answers would be kept
confidential.
The questions were read to the respondents and they were to
answer each only after all options for that question were given,
with most questions having several options. For example, the
central question about intense love was as follows:
How in love are you with your partner?
1. Very intensely in love
2. Intensely in love
3. Very in love
4. In love
5. Somewhat in love
6. A little in love
7. Not at all in love
We employed a global item for intense love for two reasons.
First, and most important, existing widely used measures of
romantic love (e.g., PLS, Love Attitudes Scale) are based on
theoretical conceptualizations of newly in-love individuals.
Second, it is specifically the subjective sense of being intensely
in love that was our focus, not the prevalence or correlates of a
set of hypothetically underlying variables that might or might
not correspond to what people experience as intense love and
might or might not overlap with other related constructs.
The sample was weighted to conform to the 2007 American
Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Fol-
lowing standard procedures, weighting was conducted by a rak-
ing procedure on the basis of gender, age, race, and education,
and thus the weighted sample closely matches the demo-
graphics of the United States.
Results
Prevalence of very intense love. Unexpectedly, when asked
how in love they are with their partner, the most frequent
response was ‘‘Very Intensely in Love;’’ Women 46.3%; Men:
49.0%. Since the gender differences were not significant, per-
centages are combined in Table 1. Notably, even for the very
longest marriages (30 years), 40%of women and 35%of
men reported being very intensely in love. When relationship
length was divided into four groups (<10 years, 10–19 years,
20–29 years, 30þyears), there were differences across the
groups, F(3, 249) ¼3.81, p¼.011. Bonferroni comparisons
showed that marriages <10 years had higher levels of love than
marriages of 10–19 years (p¼.015), but mean levels were not
different across the other groups (see Figure 1).
Zero-order general correlations
Thinking about the partner in positive ways and how often they
thought about the partner when not together were two of the
strongest predictors of intense love (See Table 2). Affection
(hugging, kissing), frequency of intercourse, doing novel things
together, and general life happiness were also significantly
related to reports of intense love. Wanting to know where-
abouts of the partner was significantly associated with intense
love for men but not women; getting ‘‘fired up’’ about issues
with intense love, for women but not men.
O’Leary et al. 243
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Two demographic variables had small but significant asso-
ciations with intense love, age (0.19) and relationship length
(0.15). Education and income were not significantly corre-
lated with intense love.
Love and general relationship happiness were very strongly,
but far from perfectly correlated (r¼.80 for women; r¼.50
for men; difference: Z¼4.30, p< .001).
Partial correlations. Since relationship happiness had a stron-
ger association with intense love for wives, correlations of
intense love controlling for relationship happiness are pre-
sented separately for wives and husbands. As seen in Table 3,
there were fewer significant associations for wives, not surpris-
ingly given that relationship happiness and intense love had
stronger associations for women. Two of the seven first-order
significant correlations for men no longer remained significant
controlling for relationship happiness—happiness with life in
general and intercourse frequency. One nonsignificant correla-
tion became negatively significant controlling for relationship
happiness—getting fired up about issues. For women, three of
the seven significant first-order correlations were not significant
controlling for relationship happiness—doing novel things with
partner, intercourse frequency, and getting fired up about issues.
Interaction of association of intense love and physical desire by
level of relationship satisfaction. Standard scores were obtained
for a combined measure of affection and sexual intercourse
which in turn were related to marital satisfaction. This measure
of affection and intercourse (physical desire) was positively
associated with intense love at both low and high levels of mar-
ital satisfaction but the association was strongest under condi-
tion of low satisfaction (interaction b¼234; p< .025). In
short, physical desire and love are most clearly associated when
marital satisfaction is low.
Conditional probability analyses. No intercourse but intense
love? There were 25 individuals (9%of the total sample) who
reported not having any intercourse in the past month. Of these
25, 6 (24%) reported being very intensely in love; these 6 ran-
ged in age from 48 to 84 (Mean ¼64.16).
No hugs, intense love?. Only 10 individuals (4%of the total
sample) reported that there was no physical affection (hugging,
kissing, holding hands). Of these 10, not a single individual
reported being very intensely in love.
Study 2: NY State Sample
Method
To replicate and extend Study 1, we surveyed a sample of NY
residents (October 14, 2009 to November 24, 2009) using a list-
assisted RDD method, employing the selection procedures
used in Study 1. A total of 807 interviews were conducted in
the general population of NY. Of these, 396 were married and
included in the analyses reported below. Results were weighted
on gender, age, educational attainment, race, ethnicity, and
living location in NY state.
To address the issue of question order, a random half of the
married respondents were asked the question about intensity of
love with the first option being ‘‘Very intensely in love,’’ and
Table 1. Weighted Percentage of Responses to ‘‘How in Love are you With Your Partner?’’ in Two Representative Samples
US(%) US > 10 Years (%) NY (%) NY > 10 Years (%)
Very intensely in love 47.8 40.3 33.3 29.1
Intensely in love 13.4 14.5 15.5 15.9
Very in love 26.2 29.2 28.5 27.3
In love 6.5 8.7 16.1 20.0
Somewhat in love 2.6 3.8 4.0 5.1
A little in love 2.4 3.0 2.0 2.0
Not at all in love 1.1 0.6 0.5 0.7
NY ¼New York; US ¼United States.
Mean of United States 5.86 (SD ¼1.37); n¼255.
Mean of New York 5.50 (SD ¼1.35); n¼322.
t¼3.63; p<.001; NY means are lower.
Mean of U.S. sample married more than or equal to 10 years ¼5.67; SD ¼1.39; n¼174.
Mean of NY sample married more than or equal to 10 years ¼5.35; SD ¼1.38; n¼254.
Figure 1. Intensity of being in love on a scale of 1 (Not at all in love)to
7(Very intensely in love) with one’s spouse by relationship length (Study
1, representative U.S. sample).
244 Social Psychological and Personality Science 3(2)
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the last option, ‘‘Not at all in love’’; the other random half had
the first option ‘‘Not at all in love,’’ and the last option, ‘‘Very
intensely in love.’’
Results
There were nosignificant ornear significant differences between
mean ratings of intensity of love related to the question order.
Overall, 33.3%of respondents indicated that they were inten-
sely in love. Means were lower in the NY sample (Mean ¼5.50;
SD ¼1.37) than in the national sample (5.86; 1.35), t¼3.16; p<
.001. Thus, using our national sample, we compared respondents
from the Northeast with three other U.S. regions (South,
Midwest, and West). As expected based on previous studies of
general happiness ratings of NY and other Northeast states com-
pared to other areas of the country (Oswald & Wu, 2010), in our
data, ratings of intense love were lower in the Northeast than in
the remaining regions, t(253) ¼1.74, p¼.04.
In our NY sample, as in Study 1, relationship length had
a small negative correlation with love intensity (r¼.11;
p¼.034), but age was not significant (r¼.09). Replicating
Study 1, in the NY sample, there was also a significant differ-
ence in love intensity when relationship length was divided into
four decade groups, F(3, 317) ¼5.08; p¼.002. Bonferroni
comparisons showed that individuals married <10 years had
higher levels of love than those in the other three relationship
groups (ps < .05), but mean levels of love were not different
across the other groups. Also as was true for the U.S. sample,
the marital happiness with love-intensity correlation was
stronger for women (r¼.77) than men (r¼.48), Z¼4.35,
p< .001.
To assess the extent to which engaging in three types of beha-
vior measuring our three key theoretical variables were related
to ratings of intensity of love, respondents were asked to indicate
‘‘how true each of the following statements is:’’ (using a 6-point
Likert-type scale from Definitely true to Not at all true).
1. I spend time almost every day with my partner in pleasant
activities like cooking together, watching TV, or walking
together.
Table 2. Predictors of Being Intensely in Love With One’s Spouse in Two Representative Samples
Predictor U.S. Women U.S. Men NY Women NY Men
Thinking positively about partner .55*** .47***
Thinking about partner, when apart .41*** .48***
Difficulty concentrating/thoughts of partner .30** .27**
Novel and challenging activities .47*** .29**
Time in joint activities .42* .15*
Affection .64*** .43***
Body responses to partner .43** .38**
Sexual intercourse .45*** .24***
General life happiness .45*** .24**
Get fired up about issues .21* .07
Obsessive thinking about partner .10 ns .07 ns
Wanting to know whereabouts of partner .08 .30***
NY ¼New York; US ¼United States.
*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p< .001.
Table 3. Predictors of Being Intensely in Love With One’s Spouse in Two Representative Samples, Controlling for General Relationship
Happiness
Predictor U.S. Women U.S. Men NY Women NY Men
Thinking positively about partner .24* .44***
Thinking about partner, when apart .28** .46***
Difficulty concentrating/thoughts of partner .07 .14*
Novel and challenging activities .12 ns .22**
Time in joint activities .12 .27**
Affection .37*** .32***
Body responses to partner .16* .24**
Sexual intercourse .19 ns .15 ns
General life happiness .21* .15 ns
Getting fired-up about things .13 ns .18*
Obsessive thinking about partner .18*** .05 ns
Wanting to know whereabouts of partner .07 ns .21**
NY ¼New York.
*p< .05. **p< .01. ***p<.001.
O’Leary et al. 245
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2. I sense my body responding when my partner touches me.
3. I sometimes find it difficult to concentrate because
thoughts of my partner occupy my mind.
As seen in Table 2, all three types of behavior significantly cor-
related with ratings of intensity of love both for women and
men. As reflected in Table 3, when relationship happiness was
controlled, the correlations dropped markedly for women,
given the very strong correlation between relationship happi-
ness and intense love. Only body responses remained signifi-
cant for women whereas all three types of behavior remained
significantly correlated for men.
Discussion
A substantially larger percentage of married individuals
reported being intensely in love with their partners than pre-
dicted. In the national sample, even among those in marriages
of 30 years or more, 40%of wives and 35%of husbands
reported very intense love for their partner. In the NY sample
married 30 years or more, 19%of wives and 29%of husbands
reported being very intensely in love. The NY sample’s lower
percentage is consistent with research on general happiness in
the United States, showing that NY and Northeastern states dis-
proportionately report the lowest happiness ratings (Oswald &
Wu, 2010).
The higher than expected prevalence of intense love may
have been due in part to a social desirability response set and
a belief that one should be intensely in love with a partner.
However, controlling for social desirability in reports of con-
structs like marital satisfaction is debatable, as has long been
noted by Murstein and Beck (1972) who found that social
desirability corrections did not influence the pattern of results
they obtained regarding person perception and marital adjust-
ment. Further, there are a number of studies showing that social
desirability and marital satisfaction have small correlations as
exemplified by Hansen (1981) who reported correlations of
.24 for men and .22 for women. With correlations of that mag-
nitude, statistical adjustments for social desirability will be
minor. Indeed, Aron and Henkemeyer (1995) in a convenience
sample of 100 married individuals found that the associations
of passionate love with items like relationship excitement,
kissing, shared activities remained significant after control-
ling for social desirability, and the changes in effect size were
negligible. Finally, Study 2 showed that question order did not
affect the ratings of intense love, suggesting that the high inci-
dence was not due to a response bias due to which option was
presented first.
The percentages of individuals who reported being intensely
in love raise concerns that self-reported intense love is inflated
because of the presence of an interviewer (Aquilino 1994; Cur-
rivan, Nyman, Turner, & Biener, 2004; Villarroel et al., 2006).
While there may be a modest increase in self-reported estimates
of intense love due to having a phone interviewer, that possible
increase seems far less of a problem than estimates regarding
prevalence of intense love based on convenience samples.
Further, our national sample had ratings of marital happiness that
were similar but even lower than in another national sample. In a
National Survey of Families and Households, Donnelly (1993)
found that the mean 1–7 rating of marital satisfaction was 5.90
for women (SD ¼1.35) and 5.95 for men (SD ¼1.31). The mean
7-point rating of marital happiness in our national study was 5.68
for women and 5.73 for men.
There was a stronger association for women than men of
marital happiness intensity of love in both the national and the
NY sample, and the absolute magnitude of the associations was
almost identical across the two samples. This greater associa-
tion for women may be due to women’s well demonstrated
typically greater life centrality of relationships. Such differen-
tial associations provide some rationale for the greater reduc-
tions in the association of intense love and other variables for
women. Nonetheless, even for women, intense love reflects
more than overall happiness in a relationship. The ratings of
intense love had valid and predicted associations with reports
of thoughts and behaviors in two randomly recruited samples.
Further, the patterns across the two samples showed consis-
tency in that affection in the form of hugs (national sample) and
physical responding (NY sample) had moderate to strong cor-
relations with intense love; range 0.43–0.63). In addition, the
cognitive variables regarding thoughts about the partner also
were significantly associated with intense love in both the
national and NY sample range 0.28–0.55. Finally, engaging
in novel and challenging activities together (national sample)
or joint activities (NY sample) was more strongly associated
with being intensely in love for women than men in both sam-
ples. More specifically, the correlation of intense love with
engaging in joint activities in the NY sample for women was
.42 and for men it was .15, Z¼2.63, p< .01. The correlation
of intense love and engaging in novel activities in the national
sample was .47 for women and .29 for men, Z¼1.64, p¼.05.
As shown above, the use of a single Likert-type scale in-love
item with seven options read to the respondents in phone sur-
veys showed consistent patterns across two samples. Further,
we assessed the extent to which an almost identical single-
item in-love measure [‘‘On a scale from 0 (not at all)to10
(extremely), how in love are you with your partner?] related
to the 15-item short form of Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986)
PLS, the most widely used measure of romantic love, in a
sample of undergraduates from one of our labs of whom 63
were in committed relationships of 12 months or longer. A little
less than half (45%) gave a rating of 10. Five PLS items had
correlations with the single in-love item of .60 or greater (all
p< .0001): ‘‘I will love <> forever’’ (r¼.85); ‘‘<> can make
me feel effervescent and bubbly’’ (.77);’’ I possess a powerful
attraction for <>’’ (.64); ‘‘I have an endless appetite for
affection from <>’’ (.62); and ‘‘An existence without <> would
be dark and dismal’’ (.60). Further, the 1-item Likert-type scale
in-love assessment had an overall correlation with the 15-item
PLS of .75, p< .000001.
A major strength of the present research is the random
sampling of U.S. and NY respondents, including individuals
with a wide range of family incomes, educational backgrounds,
246 Social Psychological and Personality Science 3(2)
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and ethnicities. The national sample herein included married
individuals from ages 20 to 93, and we were able to examine
for the first time whether intense love was reported in individ-
uals who do not report any intercourse in the past year. That
was the case for 24%of that group, and, as expected, the aver-
age age of those individuals was over 60 years. Of the individ-
uals who reported no physical affection, not a single individual
reported being intensely in love. Thus, some individuals, espe-
cially older individuals can feel intensely in love without inter-
course in the past month, but a sine qua non for intense love to
exist appears to be frequent affection.
Outside the marital relationship, general life happiness was
predictive of reports of being intensely in love for both women
and men in the national sample. This is consistent with research
showing strong links between marital quality and well-being
(e.g., Coan, Schaefer, & Davidson, 2006; Kiecolt-Glaser
et al., 2005). Similarly, low-quality marital bonds are associ-
ated with depression (Beach & O’Leary, 1993), poor health
outcomes (Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001), and marital disso-
lution (e.g., Huston, Niehuis, & Smith, 2001).
Physical desire/affection interacted with level of marital
satisfaction in that there was a stronger association of physical
desire/affection and reports of intense love for individuals with
lower levels of marital satisfaction. In our experience, couples
with marital problems sometimes report excellent sexual inter-
actions and strong feelings of love but at the same time they
may have very significant problems in other areas of their mar-
riage (differences over child discipline, money, and how they
each spend individual time). Thus, their overall level of marital
satisfaction would not be particularly high. However, the phys-
ical desire/affection can be a key factor on which they can
focus and have strong positive feelings.
The generalizability of the present findings beyond the
United States would seem to be a clearly important direction
for future research. Studies of convenience samples in diverse
cultures have found differences in the relation of love with
other variables (e.g., Kim & Hatfield, 2004), so that it is possi-
ble that the incidence and correlates of long-term intense love
when studied with representative samples may well differ in
important ways across cultures.
Nevertheless, the present study is the first research endeavor
to formally and randomly sample individuals in any cultural
context to assess the prevalence and correlates of intense love.
Further, at least in the U.S. context, this knowledge may be
helpful to practitioners in guiding them to set expectations
about the possibility of intense love in long-term marriages.
However, as has been shown by Huston (2009) in a longitudi-
nal study of marriage across the first 14 years, couples can
have long-lasting marriages without being deeply in love. The
data herein also show that about half the couples married more
than 10 years or more do not rate themselves as being ‘‘very
intensely in love’’ or ‘‘intensely in love.’’ Nonetheless, our
findings provide a scientific basis for the development of a
conceptualization of long-term intense love by showing fac-
tors associated with love, such as thinking about one’s partner
in positive ways, engaging in novel and challenging activities
together, and engaging in affectionate behaviors and sexual
intercourse.
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) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
research was supported in part by a Provost’s Research Award at
Stony Brook University.
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Bios
K. Daniel O’Leary is a distinguished professor of psychology and a
past chair of the Stony Brook Psychology Department. His research
has several foci, namely, the intersection of marital discord and clin-
ical depression; etiology, prevention, and treatment of intimate partner
aggression; and treatment of coexisting depression and marital discord
through dyadic treatment. His most recent books are psychological
and physical aggression in couples (APA, 2009) with Woodin and
couples therapy treatment planner (Wiley, 2011) with Heyman and
Jongsma.
Bianca Acevedo is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Public
Health at Weill Cornell Medical College. She received her PhD in
Social/Health Psychology from Stony Brook University. Her research
in social neuroscience focuses on the neurobiological underpinnings
of love and attachment, and their many facets and applications. Her
work on intense long-term romantic love has been disseminated in
news around the world.
Arthur Aron is a professor of psychology at the State University of
New York at Stony Brook. His research centers on the self-
expansion model of motivation cognition in personal relationships,
including the neural underpinnings and real-world applications of the
model to marriage, family, and intergroup relations. He was the 2006
248 Social Psychological and Personality Science 3(2)
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recipient of the distinguished research Career Award for the Interna-
tional Association for Relationship Research.
Leonie Huddy is a professor of political science and Director of the
Center for Survey Research at Stony Brook University. Her research
focuses on psychological approaches to public opinion and she has
published numerous journal articles and book chapters on the emo-
tional responses to the threat of terrorism, the dynamics of gender and
race-related political attitudes, and the study of political identities. She
is the coeditor of the award winning Oxford Handbook of Political
Psychology, former coeditor of the journal Political Psychology, and
current (2010–2011) president of the International Society for Politi-
cal Psychology.
Debra Mashek is an associate professor of psychology at Harvey
Mudd College. Her research examines individual’s feelings of connec-
tion with intimate partners and community. She has edited two
volumes: Handbook of Closeness and Intimacy with Arthur Aron and
Empirical Research in Teaching and Learning with Elizabeth Yost
Hammer.
O’Leary et al. 249
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