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Women and Men in Love: Who
Really Feels It and Says It First?
Marissa A. Harrison a & Jennifer C. Shortall a
a Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg
Available online: 07 Oct 2011
To cite this article: Marissa A. Harrison & Jennifer C. Shortall (2011): Women and Men
in Love: Who Really Feels It and Says It First?, The Journal of Social Psychology, 151:6,
727-736
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The Journal of Social Psychology, 2011, 151(6), 727–736
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Women and Men in Love: Who Really Feels
It and Says It First?
MARISSA A. HARRISON
JENNIFER C. SHORTALL
Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg
ABSTRACT. A widely held belief exists that women are more romantic and tend to fall
in love faster than men. Responses from 172 college students indicated that although both
men and women believe that women will fall in love and say “I love you” first in a rela-
tionship, men reported falling in love earlier and expressing it earlier than women reported.
Analyses also showed no sex differences in attitudinal responses to items about love and
romance. These results indicate that women may not be the greater “fools for love” that
society assumes and are consistent with the notion that a pragmatic and cautious view of
love has adaptive significance for women.
Keywords: evolution, I love you, love, romance, sex differences
LOVE HAS BEEN CALLED “the deepest and most meaningful of sentiments”
(Rubin, 1970), although what constitutes “love” can have a myriad of meanings,
ranging from concepts involving an initial state of attraction, to falling in love, to
being/staying in love (Aron et al. 2008). Yet even though it is difficult to define
falling in love, and the consideration of such may not ever rise entirely above sub-
jectivity (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986; Sternberg & Weis, 2006), researchers have
commented that almost everyone can relate to being or falling in love (Esch &
Stefano, 2005; Stefano & Esch, 2007).
How love is expressed and experienced may differ between women and men.
With respect to the expression of love, surprisingly little research has focused
on the locution “I love you,” even though these three small words appear to
be a critical delineation in relationships (Owen, 1987), as such expressions of
The authors would like to thank Michelle Murmello, A. E. Hall, and the students of the
Borough of Manhattan Community College for their assistance with this project.
Address correspondence to Marissa A. Harrison, Pennsylvania State University,
Harrisburg, Department of Psychology, Olmsted W311, 777 W. Harrisburg Pike,
Middletown, PA 17057, USA; mah52@psu.edu (e-mail).
727
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728 The Journal of Social Psychology
affection are thought to be decisive moments for the advancement of roman-
tic relationships (Baxter & Braithewaite, 2008). Researchers have indicated that
cross-culturally, females tend to use the locution “I love you” more than males
(Wilkins & Gareis, 2006). This is not surprising, since evidence suggests that
women and men differ in their expression of emotions and in their descriptions
of related cognitions (Barbara, 2008). Women tend to be more expressive in
relationships, and women are expected by others to be more expressive (Rubin,
1970; Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2007), particularly in instances of romantic love
(Durik et al., 2006). Interestingly, women appear to enjoy a neurological advan-
tage in terms of processing multisensory, emotional experiences (Collignon et al.
2010); this is likely one reason why women are faster at perceiving others’ emo-
tions (Hampson, van Anders, & Mullin, 2006) and have more confidence than
do men when expressing affection, liking, and love to the opposite sex (Blier &
Blier-Wilson, 1989). In contrast, due to their “inexpressiveness and restrictive
emotionality” (Blier & Blier-Wilson, 1989, p. 287) men may experience intimacy,
parenting, and relationship problems (Dosser, 1982; Balswick, 1988).
Despite men’s purported emotional restriction, however, a few older studies
have shown that men report saying “I love you” first in a relationship (Owen,
1987; Brantley, Knox, & Zusman, 2002). Owen (1987) posited that this transpires
because men are socialized to take the initiative in relationships, and that this
verbal declaration may prompt women to reciprocate this iteration and commit
prematurely to a relationship. Brantley, Knox, and Zusman (2002) interpreted
this through an evolutionary lens, positing that men use this locution first in a
relationship as an inroad to sexual access. In support of Brantley and colleagues’
theory, Tucker, Marvin, and Vivian (1991) noted that women listed their part-
ners’ expressions of “I love you” in their top 10 romantic acts, but men did not.
If men possess knowledge that women find “I love you” to be romantic, men
may communicate what their partners want to hear so as to advance a relation-
ship sexually and/or emotionally. This makes sense evolutionarily, as women in
our ancestral environment, who have few gametes compared to men, would have
benefitted from pair-bond assurance more than would males (Symons, 1979) and
saying “I love you” appears to communicate a commitment. Moreover, men place
a greater premium on sex than women do (Buss, 2004, 2006), and this is theo-
rized to be the case because of the reproductive advantage that sex with multiple
women confers to men, who have a virtually unlimited supply of sperm. Thus,
any strategy serving as the means to a sexual end would be beneficial to men,
including declarations of love. With this in mind, then, one might wonder if the
public’s perception of women as the more romantic sex (Hatfield & Walster, 1978;
Hyde & Delamater, 2009) might simply be due to the fact that men report being
and are perceived as more sexual than are women, and are therefore viewed as
less romantic.
It should be noted, however, that men may have a different sexual attitude
toward long-term, committed partners than they do toward short-term, sex-only
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Harrison & Shortall 729
partners. Evidence shows that men and women report similar preferences for a
long-term partner who is kind, intelligent, and understanding, and one who loves
them in return (Buss, 2007).
In terms of romance, a widely-held stereotype in our society contends that
women are more romantic than are men, although older data from college stu-
dents show men to have a greater number of romantic attitudes than women do
(Knox & Sporakowski, 1968). Further, researchers have reported that men fall in
love earlier than do women (Kanin, Davidson, & Schreck, 1970; Rubin, Peplau, &
Hill, 2004). Even adolescent boys seem to fall in love earlier than do adolescent
girls (Montgomery & Sorrell, 1998), and these individuals are at an age when pas-
sionate love is thought to be more intense (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). Although
at what age we fall in love for the first time has been the topic of scientific scrutiny
(e.g., Montgomery & Sorrell, 1998; Reagan, Durvasula, Howell, Ureno, & Rea,
2004), the exact timeframe of falling in love (e.g., hours, days, weeks, months into
a relationship) is difficult to study empirically because of the retrospective nature
of the question. Perhaps this is why this not been extensively explored in previous
studies.
Much of the seminal research of “love” was conducted more than a genera-
tion ago (e.g., 1960s, 1970s). The present study used a contemporary sample of
college students in an attempt to determine if there has been a social change in
this phenomenon. Our study attempts to replicate, integrate, and extend upon pre-
vious work on which sex falls in love first, when they fall in love, and who says, “I
love you” first. This study also sought to examine if women’s perceptions of love
and romance are really that different from men’s perceptions by asking questions
about these phenomena, thus attempting to dispel the popular notion that women
are hopeless romantics and support the notion that women are careful, comparison
shoppers in terms of relationships.
Method
All procedures were approved by the local Institutional Review Board. A 28-
item internet-based instrument was created to assess similarities and differences
between men’s and women’s attitudes, expectations, and experiences with respect
to love and relationships. As researchers have reported that first- and second-year
college students have an expected high incidence of falling in love (Aron, Paris, &
Aron, 1995), the choice of a college sample was appropriate for the purposes of
this study. We attempted to obtain a diverse sample by recruiting participants from
the subject pool of a mid-sized university and by recruiting volunteer respondents
from a large community college in a major metropolitan city in the northeastern
United States. Of the 188 participants who responded to the questionnaire, 10 did
not indicate their sex and were excluded from analysis. Although of interest,
the sample of homosexual and bisexual respondents was not large enough for
analysis, and therefore the data from seven individuals (6 men and 1 woman) who
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730 The Journal of Social Psychology
reported preferring to date and have sex with men and women equally, mostly the
same sex, or only the same sex were excluded from the analysis to control for
error variance. The resulting sample of 171 heterosexual individuals consisted of
72 men and 99 women with a mean age of 20.28 (SD =5.25). Ethnicities reported
were: 77.1% White, 13.0 % Asian, 5.3% Black, 3.5% Hispanic, and 1.1% Other.
Results
Analyses revealed that 61 men (84.72%) and 88 (90.90%) women reported
they had been involved in a committed, romantic relationship at some point in
their lives, with no sex difference, χ2(1, N=171) =1.54, p>.214, N.S.
Additionally, 27 men (38.02%) and 56 women (56.57%) reported that they were
currently involved in a committed, romantic relationship and this sex difference
was significant, χ2(1, N=170) =5.69, p<.017. Of people who were currently in
relationships, most men (91.30%) and women (98.21%) reported being “in love”
with their partner, with no sex difference in frequency, χ2(1, N=76) =2.13,
p>.144.
As this study was interested in relationship dynamics, only responses from
those with previous relationship experience were included in subsequent analyses.
Participants were asked, “In your most recent romantic relationship, how long
did it take you to realize you were in love?” Answer choices were: 1 =“Iam
not in love,” 2 =“Immediately,” 3 =“A few days,”4=“A few weeks,”5=
“A few months,” 6 =“A year,” and 7 =“More than a year.” Men (M=4.47,
SD =1.23) reported falling in love more quickly than women (M=5.01, SD =
.99) reported falling in love, t(127) =2.74, p<.007, d=.48. In addition, in
response to the question, “In your most recent committed, romantic relationship,
who said ‘I love you’ FIRST?” only 12.10% reported that neither partner did.
Among those for whom this was expressed, there was a relationship to sex, with
64% of men compared to 18.51% of women reporting they said “I love you” to
their partners first, χ2(1, N=131) =27.80, p<.000.
Participants were also asked, “Who falls in love first in a relationship, a man
or a woman?” Interestingly, 87.78% of participants believed that a woman falls in
love first in a relationship, χ2(1, N=131) =74.82, p<.000, and this response
was unrelated to sex, χ2(1, N=131) =.939, p>.332. Participants were further
asked, “Do you think a man or a woman is more likely to say ‘I love you’ first in a
relationship?” Results showed that 75.20% of participants believed that a woman
is more likely to express this sentiment first, χ2(1, N=125) =31.75, p<.000,
and there was no relationship to sex, χ2(1, N=125) =2.04, p>.153.
Participants were asked, “About how far into a relationship would you be
able to tell you were in love?” and “About how far into a relationship would you
be able to tell your partner was in love?” Answer choices were presented on a
Likert-type scale: 1 =“Immediately”; 2 =“A few days”; 3 =“A few weeks”; 4 =
“A few months”; 5 =“A year”; and 6 =“More than a year.” Women anticipated
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Harrison & Shortall 731
knowing they were in love with a partner (M=4.00, SD =.67) later than men
anticipated knowing they were in love (M=3.62, SD =1.14), t(148) =2.54, p<
.012, d=.41, and women anticipated being able to tell their partner was in love
with them later (M=4.09, SD =.80) than men anticipated being able to tell (M=
3.70, SD =.99), t(147) =2.63, p<.009, d=.43. However, both sexes reported
anticipating they would know they were in love with a partner the same time they
knew their partners were in love with them [women: t(87) =1.82, p=.072; men:
t(60) =.820, p=.416]. Participants were also asked, “How far into a committed,
romantic relationship would you want to have sex with a partner?” The same scale
reported above was used for responses. Women reported a desire to wait longer
to have sex (M=3.83, SD =1.14) than men reported (M=3.42, SD =1.18),
t(147) =2.15, p<.034, d=.35 Additional analyses showed that men’s responses
indicated that they anticipated wanting to have sex at the same time they would
know they were in love, t(59) =1.01, p<.318, and that their partners were in
love, t(59) =1.61, p<.112. Women’s responses indicated they also anticipated
wanting to have sex at the same time they would know they were in love, t(87) =
1.39, p<.167, and their responses indicated they would want to have sex before
knowing their partners were in love, t(86) =2.19, p<.031, but a Bonferroni
correction to alpha for multiple comparisons renders this result non-significant.
Participants were then presented with a series of statements about love, dat-
ing, romance, sex, and physical attraction, and were asked to report on a scale the
degree to which they agreed with each statement, with again, 1 =“Totally dis-
agree”; 2 =“Slightly disagree”; 3 =“Neither agree not disagree”; 4 =“Slightly
agree”; and 5 =“Totally agree.” When employing a Bonferroni correction to
alpha for multiple comparisons, there were no sex differences in responses to any
questions about love and romance. Results are presented in Table 1.
Discussion
In our contemporary college sample, nearly 9 out of 10 people who have had
relationship experience expressed that it is likely a woman who will fall in love
first in a relationship. Further, 7 out of 10 people believed that a woman will say,
“I love you” first. However, our data showed that men reported falling in love
sooner and that three times as many men as women said, “I love you” first to their
partners. These results show no change from those in older studies (e.g., Dion &
Dion, 1973) in that men report falling in love and saying it first. This suggests
that women tend to be more pragmatic about love than society tends to believe,
i.e., not rushing fool heartedly into a relationship. The emergence of the locu-
tion “I love you” in relationship vocabulary is important, as emotional narration
can offer a window into the speaker’s affective state (Barbara, 2008). It can be
argued that men’s falling in love and exclaiming this love first may be explained
as a byproduct of men equating love with sexual desire, as evidence suggests
that men are more interested in sex than are women (see Buss, 2006). However,
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732 The Journal of Social Psychology
TABLE 1. Men’s and Women’s Responses to Items About Love and Romance
Men (n=72) Women (n=100)
Item M (SD) M (SD) t(df) p
Romantic love is a biological trick to
get you to reproduce.
2.53 (1.32) 2.04 (1.07) 2.69 (170) .008
You really need to get to know
someone’s personality before you
can be in love with them.
4.32 (.80) 4.57 (.66) 2.20 (169) .029
Love at first sight exists. 3.08 (1.20) 3.08 (1.20) .015 (167) .988
Love is a waste of time. 1.85 (1.10) 1.39 (.82) 3.10 (169) .029
My being in love is important to me. 3.76 (1.04) 3.89 (1.14) .758 (169) .450
Physical attraction fades over time. 2.90 (1.20) 2.61 (1.08) 1.67 (170) .096
Being in love fades over time. 2.46 (1.17) 2.32 (1.10) .791 (170) .430
I am a fool for love. 2.86 (1.25) 3.20 (1.28) 1.74 (169) .084
I become more and more in love with
the person I am attracted to.
3.88 (.96) 3.98 (.91) .73 (170) .467
I become more and more physically
attracted to the person I love.
4.08 (1.12) 4.31 (.84) 1.47 (167) .143
Notes. No differences were significant after employing a Bonferroni correction to alpha for multiple comparisons. Answers were
given on a five-point Likert-type scale where 1 =“Totally disagree”; 2 =“Slightly disagree”; 3 =“Neither agree not disagree”; 4
=“Slightly agree”; and 5 =“Totally agree.”
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Harrison & Shortall 733
researchers have proposed that passionate love and sexual desire are distinctly dif-
ferent mechanisms (see Reis & Aron, 2008), and our data showed that men and
women showed equivocal agreement that they become increasingly physically
attracted to someone with whom they are in love, indicating an understanding of
the difference. Again, evidence does suggest that people in North American cul-
ture (from which our sample was obtained) can relate to what it means to fall in
love (Aron et al., 2008).
Our results indicated that when asked to speculate, women reported antici-
pating they would know they were in love with a partner in about a few months
and that they would also know the feeling was mutual within a few months. This
was significantly later than the timeline indicated by men who reported antici-
pating knowing they were in love and knowing their partner’s mutual feelings in
about a few weeks to a few months. These findings are novel and provide support
that women do not rush into a romance before men do. Additionally, neither sex
indicated an expected temporal difference between realizing one’s own and one’s
partner’s feelings. This further indicates that women are not hopeless romantics
engulfed in unrequited or unsure love any more or less than are men.
Most men and women in our study reported being involved in a committed
relationship before, and almost all who were in romantic relationships at the time
of participation reported being in love with their partners. As in previous research,
men’s reports of when they fell in love with their partners indicated that they
did so sooner than women’s reports indicated they did. However, unlike previous
studies, our data highlighted a timeline, whereby men reported falling in love with
their most recent, committed partner in about a few weeks to a few months, and
women reported falling in love in about a few months. These findings corroborate
our data, as mentioned above, that show men are more likely than women to say,
“I love you” first to their partners.
Not surprisingly, women in our study reported a preference to engage in first
sex later in new relationship (a few months into it) than men’s reported preference
(a few weeks to a few months into it), but both sexes reported a desire to have sex
at the same time they were certain of their own and their partner’s feelings. This
suggests that women, relative to men, are making more careful assessments of
their partners before committing sexually and emotionally to a relationship.
Interestingly, other than the above, our data indicated no significant differ-
ences between the sexes, revealing that women’s general viewpoints (including
cynical beliefs, e.g., “Love is a waste of time”) about love, dating, and romance,
are not different than those of men. These data reveal a trend for women which
apparently goes against the popular belief that women are more romantic and ide-
alistic about love than are men. There were no sex differences in agreement to
statements such as, “Love at first sight exists,” “My being in love is important to
me,” “Physical attraction fades over time,” “Being in love fades over time,” and
“I am a fool for love.” These data show that women are not greater fools for love
than are men as is the common societal stereotype, and are not, as Heiss (2005)
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734 The Journal of Social Psychology
reported, “handicapped in the competition” (p. 575). In fact, these data arguably
show that both sexes are equally as pragmatic and as foolish about love.
It is curious why the belief that women are fools for love persists, as the
notion that women should logically and realistically view love and commitment
follows evolutionary theory that women need to be discriminative in their mate
choices due to their relatively limited reproductive capabilities (Symons, 1979).
That is, it is reproductively advantageous for a woman to be tentative and not
simply jump into a sexual or romantic relationship until she is sure of her part-
ner’s intent to commit, as this would have assured resources and protection in the
ancestral environment which was likely not very female-friendly.
Still, alternative explanations may exist for such beliefs and therefore our
findings. Who says what to whom and at what time in a relationship may sim-
ply be learned from others as appropriate or inappropriate. Personal perceptions
and cognitions of sex roles likely lead men and women to behave in love rela-
tionships as they feel they are expected to behave. For example, it may be part of
a man’s gender schema (Bem, 1981) to be the one to facilitate the solidification
of a relationship by stating “I love you” first. Likewise, it may be enmeshed in
a woman’s gender schema to wait for the man in a relationship to make such a
move first. Societal expectations may dictate and place pressure upon men and
women to act accordingly as well, likely beginning very early in life, and mes-
sages on how men and women “typically” behave as their respective genders
are presented though the family, school, friends, and media (for discussion, see
Mascionis, 2004, p. 250). As beliefs can be culturally transmitted, however, they
can create selection pressures for behavioral adaptations (Confer et al., 2010).
With respect to interpreting the findings of the present study through an evolution-
ary framework, perhaps it is men who expressed love to their partners first that left
more descendants than men who did not, and likewise, perhaps it is women who
waited for men to make the first more left more descendants. It seems plausible
that both evolutionary and cultural theory can come into play when interpreting
the results presented herein.
There are admitted limitations to the present study. First, participants’
responses, as is the case with any self-report research, may reflect inaccuracies
due to social desirability, difficulties with estimates, and problems with retro-
spective judgments (Hyde & DeLamater, 2009). Future studies might involve
longitudinal assessments of individuals who have recently become romantically
involved, recording progression of love experiences and expressions. For exam-
ple, a diary study would allow fairly accurate determination of the time frame and
expression of love feelings. In addition, the love and romance experiences of col-
lege men and women from the northeastern United States may not represent the
psychology of men and women in all cultures. As such, additional research may
wish to replicate these findings in other countries.
In conclusion, our data show that women tend to be more cautious about
love and the expression thereof than what is commonly believed. Perhaps women
are perceived as less rational about love compared to men because women have
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Harrison & Shortall 735
a greater capacity for processing emotional experiences (Collignon et al., 2010)
and have a more emotionally expressive nature than do men (Rubin, 1970; Hess,
Adams, & Kleck, 2007; Barbara, 2008). If this is the case, then the stereotype of
women as hopeless romantics compared to men will likely persist even in the face
of scientific evidence to the contrary.
AUTHOR NOTES
Marissa A. Harrison is an Assistant Professor of psychology at the School
of Behavioral Sciences and Education at the Pennsylvania State University,
Harrisburg. Jennifer C. Shortall earned her BS in psychology from the
Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg and is currently a Graduate Student
at Duquesne University.
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Received April 19, 2010
Accepted July 27, 2010
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