People in more developed and modernized countries experience more love with their partners, but at a high level of modernization, mean love levels tend to drop

Modernization, collectivism, and gender equality predict love experiences in 45 countries. Piotr Sorokowski et al. Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 773. Jan 14 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-26663-4

Abstract: Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, we explored whether countries’ modernization indexes are related to love experiences measured by three subscales (passion, intimacy, commitment) of the Triangular Love Scale. Analyzing data from 9474 individuals from 45 countries, we tested for relationships with country-level predictors, namely, modernization proxies (i.e., Human Development Index, World Modernization Index, Gender Inequality Index), collectivism, and average annual temperatures. We found that mean levels of love (especially intimacy) were higher in countries with higher modernization proxies, collectivism, and average annual temperatures. In conclusion, our results grant some support to the hypothesis that modernization processes might influence love experiences.

Discussion

Many descriptive works show how love experiences may change with various levels of modernization^34,35. Other study supported such claims based on the analysis of incidences of love in narrative fiction throughout centuries¹¹. However, based on quantitative, cross-cultural data, our study is the first to provide evidence on how love experiences vary concerning different levels of human development and modernization indexes. We observed that, in general, participants from countries with higher (compared with countries with lower) levels of HDI, World Modernization Index, and gender equality experienced more love with their partners, controlling for participants’ sex, relationship length, countries’ average annual temperatures, and collectivism level. However, after reaching a certain, relatively high threshold of modernization (e.g., in the case of HDI—0.85), mean love levels tend to drop. Overly simplifying, we can conclude that more modernized countries have a higher level of all love subscales (though this effect is more pronounced for intimacy than passion), but the highest levels of modernization do not promote intense love experiences.

Furthermore, the results provided tentative evidence that higher mean levels of intimacy and commitment are positively related to countries’ level of collectivism. It is especially interesting, considering that previous studies highlighted the importance of romantic love in relationships established in more individualistic cultures^7,23,26 as opposed to more collectivistic cultures, in which, historically, arranged rather than love marriages have been more prevalent^36,37. On the other hand, collectivistic values promote a more relational view of romantic relationships³⁸. Thus, individuals from more collectivistic countries might be more altruistic towards their partners^5,39, which could naturally lead to more intimate and stronger bonds between the lovers⁴⁰. However, the observed relationships ceased to be significant when controlling for participants’ age. Also, we did not observe any links between passion level and country’s collectivism index. Considering the most recent cultural changes in collectivistic values in various countries⁴¹, future studies could investigate whether individual levels of collectivistic beliefs might be more related to experiences love than country-levels of collectivism.

Relatively modest relationships between modernization indexes and passion suggest that passion is rather stable across different modernization levels, and that what carries the relationship between the passionate love (i.e., passion to intimacy ratio) and modernization indexes is higher intimacy in countries with higher modernization indexes. A growing body of research provides evidence for biological antecedents of passion and its role in reproduction (see, e.g.,^42,43,44), and thus, the stability of passionate experiences across various countries seems unsurprising. Furthermore, in line with previous works^3,44,45, we observed lower levels of passion and intimacy, and higher levels of commitment among participants with longer relationship duration.

However, questions regarding the mechanisms behind the observed patterns of changes in intimacy/commitment are more challenging to answer. The simplest explanation might be that people from countries with higher modernization indexes tend to emphasize the friendship aspect of relations with their partners⁴⁶. Indeed, some studies provided evidence that individuals from countries with higher modernization indexes expect love to be based on mutual attraction and emotional closeness^31,47. Apart from the environmental and economic factors already tackled in the introduction (i.e., the growing importance of romantic love in adulthood possibly resulting from changes in parental emotional investment and better living conditions^11,16,48,49), we can also hypothesize other possible explanations.

For instance, cultural changes stem from processes of democratization, emancipation of love^34,50,51, gender shifts, and increasing gender equality^52,53. Because love becomes increasingly dependent on the capitalist market, such processes may also promote specific love patterns (that is, more intimate love but not that much of sexual love^47,54). We might also consider social changes in terms of cultural perception of reproduction or, in general, postponed reproduction in countries with higher modernization indexes^55,56. Several of these factors may be responsible for the observed increasing role of intimacy in societies with higher modernization indexes. Future research should focus on disentangling modernization components, which would shed more light on which specific factors drive the observed patterns.

Furthermore, we observed a distinctive drop in the mean levels of love among participants from countries that reached a relatively high level of modernization (e.g., in the case of HDI, the threshold was 0.85). This suggests that, although country’s economic development generally promotes more intense love experiences, reaching a certain developmental point might reverse these beneficial love effects. Such hypotheses have been indirectly laid by ethologists studying animal behaviors^57,58. For instance, in a classical study, Calhoun⁵⁷ observed that mice thrived when granted unlimited access to all necessary resources. However, mice started to lose interest in mating and reproduction when the situation was too good for too long. We can only speculate to which extent such an animal model might apply to humans.

Interestingly, research on the role of temperature in social interactions evokes heated discussions. We found some evidence that a country’s average temperature is positively related to love experiences. When controlling for other factors, we found that participants from countries with higher annual temperatures reported higher levels of love (though this effect was the strongest for passion). However, raw correlations showed the opposite patterns, meaning that participants from countries with higher temperatures experienced lower intimacy and commitment levels. As results of previous studies also yielded contradictory conclusions^28,29, future investigations might attempt to deepen our understanding of the role of climate and temperature on humans’ feelings and behaviors.

Although the current study sheds new light on the cultural evolution of love, it is not free of limitations. First, despite recruiting a relatively large number of participants from various cultures, one needs to bear in mind that the studied sample was not representative of any of the 45 countries. Moreover, our participants were relatively well-educated and from urban areas (see Fig. 3), which makes them even less representative of less modernized countries. Second, although we used one of the most famous love scales, the Triangular Love Scale²⁷, the scale has been criticized for high correlations between love components^59,60. Furthermore, the TLS might not reliably distinguish participants with high levels of love⁶¹. As love measures are not perfectly correlated (their correlations tend to vary from 0.00 to even 0.83, see^62,63), it would be interesting to test the present results' robustness using different love measures. Third, we have focused on cultural and environmental variables at the country-level. Future studies could investigate whether individual-level factors identified in the present study contribute to love experiences in a similar vein. There is some evidence that, for instance, psychological collectivism might impact love patterns differently⁶⁴.

Figure 3

Locations of data collection. Countries (in blue) with corresponding study sites (cities in orange).

In conclusion, our study—one of the largest studies on cross-cultural differences in love experiences to date—provided evidence that, at least at the beginning of the twenty-first century, love is a near universal human experience. The results of the present investigation offer valuable insight into cultural and environmental factors related to countries’ variability of love experiences. Although our research is correlational and no causal conclusions can be made, one may hypothesize that cultural changes in the level of a country’s modernization index may affect patterns of love (i.e., may increase experiences of intimacy and commitment). More studies conducted in countries with lower levels of modernization using a longitudinal design might address this hypothesis.

Our study showed that love experiences differ across cultures. The results corroborate previous research findings on similarities and differences in how people chose their love partners⁶⁵ and how their choices affect their relationship satisfaction^66,67. However, as a concluding remark, we would like to highlight that we believe there is no better or worse way to experience love. On the contrary, understanding different love patterns may be crucial in studying the vast phenomenon of love. Exploring how love differs across cultures may result in identifying the love hardships of couples from different cultural backgrounds, which may, inter alia, promote developing more accurate and effective strategies in couple counseling.