Who falls in love faster? Women or men?
This is a great question and there is some hard evidence behind the possible answer, although I warn you, it is mixed evidence. Remember, we’re dealing with social science here and so the conclusions are often a bit wobbly.
First, What the Heck is Love?
Writers, artists, philosophers, poets and sculptors have tried for centuries to capture the meaning of love, but it is only starting in the late twentieth century that science has focused on human love (Fehr, 2006). The scientific investigation of love has just erupted in the last 60 years and is now of interest in anthropology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, history, neuroscience, and sociology. The American Psychological Association defines love as:
- n. a complex emotion involving strong feelings of affection and tenderness for the love object, pleasurable sensations in their presence, devotion to their well-being, and sensitivity to their reactions to oneself. Although love takes many forms, including concern for one’s fellow humans (brotherly love), parental love, erotic love, self-love, and identification with the totality of being (love of God) (https://dictionary.apa.org/love).
The first psychologist to tackle love was Rubin (1973) who delineated three key components: intimacy, attachment, and caring. These concepts were later developed into The Triangular Theory of Love composed of the ratios of passion, intimacy, and commitment (Sternberg, 1986). These three elements can configure into eight different kinds of love (Rokach, 2024). I taught this model as an instructor in General Psychology for many years and always found it both simple and practicable.
And the Science Says…
The neuropsychological approach to love has emerged in importance with the advent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology in recent years.
Research studies have scanned the brain activity of people who were deeply in love while they viewed a picture of (a) their partner and then a picture of their (b) friends and found evidence for a specialized brain network devoted to the experience of love (Bartels & Zeki, 2000). fMRI studies show that romantic love and maternal love are governed by specific regions as well as overlapping with the brain’s reward system. Significant loci of activation have been found in the middle insula, superior parietal lobule, right periaqueductal gray, right globus pallidus (medial), right caudate nucleus (dorsal head), left ventral tegmental area and left rostro-dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (Beauregard et al., 2009; Tobore, 2020).
Adrenaline levels jump when a person is in the presence of his or her beloved. During this reaction, the person’s heart rate increases, the pupils dilate, the sweat glands are stimulated, and the brain becomes increasingly more alert. These physiological experiences—sweating, dilated pupils, increased heart rate—is exactly how people describe being in love. Evidence indicates the activities of other neurohormones as well including endorphins, oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, cortisol, and nerve growth factor (Tobore, 2020). Endorphins are neuropeptides—“feel good chemicals”—from the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. These both bring general relaxation and a feeling of well-being (Chapman, 2011).
And the Experiment Says…
Because women tend to be skeptical of men’s commitment, this view entails that men may have evolved to fall in love first, in order to show their commitment to women. Using a sample of online participants of a broad range of ages, this study tested this sex difference and several related individual difference hypotheses concerning the ease of falling in love. There were 357 participants—166 men and 191 women—in the questionnaire-based study. Results showed mixed evidence for sex differences. Some measures indicated that men are generally more susceptible to falling love than women. Men were more prone if they overestimated the women’s sexual interest and if they strongly valued physical attractiveness in their potential sexual partners. Women fell in love more often if they had a stronger sex drive. The correlations are weak for both sexes, but in general, this study modestly supports that there are sex differences in falling in love. It also connects several individual difference variables to the likelihood of falling in love (Galperin, 2010).
Closing Thoughts
There are several observations to be made here.
First, while love is a function of brain activity and neurohormonal effects, it is ultimately a full body experience. Second, romantic love appears to be a very strong trait of our species. Lastly, men and women tend to fall in love at slightly different rates depending on some personal characteristics—e.g., strength of sex drive in women and men’s level of desire in sexually attractive body features. There are some other variables in play in the Galperin study and it’s definitely worth picking up for a much closer read than I can provide here in this context.
Paul Shane, Ph.D., LMT
Director, Academic Content
References
Bartels, A. & Zeki, S. (2000). The neural basis of romantic love. NeuroReport11(17), p. 3829-3834.
Beauregard, M., Courtmanche, J., Paquette, V., & St-Pierre, É. (2009). The neural basis of unconditional love. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 172, p. 93-98.
Chapman, H. (2011). Love: A Biological, Psychological and Philosophical Study. Senior Honors Projects, University of Rhode Island, Paper 254. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/srhonorsprog/254.
Fehr, B. (2006). A prototype approach to studying love. In R. Sternberg & K. Weis (Eds.), The New Psychology of Love. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 225–246.
Galperin, A., (2010). Predictors of how often and when people fall in love. Evolutionary Psychology 8(1), p. 5-28.
Rokach, A. (2024). The meaning of love: An introduction. The Journal of Psychology 158(1), p. 1-4.
Rubin, Z. (1973). Liking and Loving. New York, NY: Reinhart & Winston.
Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), p. 119–135.
Tobore, T. (2020). Towards a comprehensive theory of love: The Quadruple Theory. Frontiers in Psychology 11, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00862.