Love

===Psychological basis===
{{Further|Human bonding}}
[[File:Sri Lankan woman and child.jpg|thumb|Grandmother and grandchild in [[Sri Lanka]]]]
[[Psychology]] depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. [[Psychologist]] [[Robert Sternberg]] formulated a [[triangular theory of love]] in which love has three components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is when two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives, and is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components. Non-love does not include any of these components. Liking only includes intimacy. Infatuated love only includes passion. Empty love only includes commitment. Romantic love includes both intimacy and passion. Companionate love includes intimacy and commitment. Fatuous love includes passion and commitment. Consummate love includes all three components.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Sternberg| first= R.J. |year=1986| title=A triangular theory of love| journal=Psychological Review|volume= 93 |issue=2|pages= 119–135| doi= 10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119}}</ref>

American psychologist [[Zick Rubin]] sought to define ''love'' by [[psychometrics]] in the 1970s. His work identifies a different set of three factors that constitute love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.<ref>{{multiref2
|1={{cite journal|last=Rubin|first=Zick|title=Measurement of Romantic Love|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|volume=16|pages=265–273|year=1970|doi=10.1037/h0029841|pmid=5479131|issue=2|citeseerx=10.1.1.452.3207}}
|2={{cite book|last=Rubin|first=Zick|title=Liking and Loving: an invitation to social psychology|url=https://archive.org/details/likinglovinginvi00rubi|url-access=registration|location=New York|publisher=Holt, Rinehart & Winston|year=1973|isbn=978-0030830037}} }}</ref>

Following developments in electrical theories such as [[Coulomb's law]], which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were envisioned, such as "opposites attract". Research on human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality—people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as [[immune system]]s, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g., with an orthogonal immune system), perhaps because this will lead to a baby that has the best of both worlds.<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Berscheid | first1 = Ellen | author-link1 = Ellen S. Berscheid |last2=Walster|first2= Elaine H. | title = Interpersonal Attraction | publisher = Addison-Wesley Publishing Co | year = 1969 | lccn = 69-17443 | isbn = 978-0-201-00560-8 }}</ref>

In recent years, various [[human bonding]] theories have been developed, described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities.
Some [[Western culture|Western]] authorities {{clarify|text=disaggregate|reason=disaggregate what?|date=August 2023}} into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of [[M. Scott Peck|Scott Peck]], whose work in the field of [[applied psychology]] explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another" and simple narcissism.<ref name="peck">{{cite book | title=The Road Less Traveled | isbn=978-0-671-25067-6 | last=Peck | first=Scott | publisher=Simon & Schuster | year=1978 | page=[https://archive.org/details/roadlesstraveled00peck_0/page/169 169] | url=https://archive.org/details/roadlesstraveled00peck_0/page/169 }}</ref> In combination, love is an ''activity'', not simply a feeling.

Psychologist [[Erich Fromm]] maintained in his book ''[[The Art of Loving]]'' that love is not merely a feeling but is also actions, and that in fact the "feeling" of love is superficial in comparison to one's commitment to love via a series of loving actions over time.{{r|Fromm}} Fromm held that love is ultimately not a feeling at all, but rather is a commitment to, and adherence to, loving actions towards another, oneself, or many others, over a sustained duration.{{r|Fromm}} Fromm also described love as a conscious choice that in its early stages might originate as an involuntary feeling, but which then later no longer depends on those feelings, but rather depends only on conscious commitment.{{r|Fromm}}