School of Health Sciences/School of Psychology, Department of Clinical Psychology, Psychobiology and Methodology, University of La Laguna, P.O. Box 456, 38200 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
Med Hypotheses. 2019 Aug;129:109225. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2019.05.011. Epub 2019 May 17.
The multitude of terms associated with love has given rise to a false perception of love. In this paper, only maternal and romantic love are considered. Love is usually regarded as a feeling, motivation, addiction, passion, and, above all, an emotion. This confusion has consequences in the lives of human beings, leading not only to divorces, suicides, femicides but possibly also to a number of mental illnesses and suffering. Therefore, it is crucial to first clarify what is meant by emotion, motivation and love. This work aims to finally place love within the category of physiological motivations, such as hunger, thirst, sleep, or sex, on the basis that love is also essential for human survival, especially in childhood. Love is presented from an evolutionary perspective. Some other similarities between love and other physiological motivations are pointed out, such as its importance for appropriate human development, both its ontogeny and its permanence, and the long-lasting consequences of abuse and neglect. There are summarized reasons that account for this, such as the fact that physiological motivations are essential for survival and that love is an essential motivation for the survival of human offspring. Other reasons are that minimum changes in the quantity and quality of love alters development, that there can be a variety of neurophysiological and behavioural states within a motivation, and that motivations (also love) appear and change throughout development. Also, motivations and love sometimes may lead to an addictive behaviour. Finally, it is recognized that once physiological motivations (and love) appear, they become permanent. In a third section, some potential social, cultural, clinical and scientific consequences of the proposed consideration of love as a motivation are discussed. Accordingly, love's recognition as a motivation in the clinical field would imply a better understanding of its disorders and its inclusion in classifications manuals such as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), or in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Considering love as a motivation rather than an emotion could also impact the results of scientific research (an example is included). A comprehensive understanding of these questions could potentially allow for a new therapeutic approach in the treatment of mental illness, while offering an all-inclusive evolutionary explanation of cultural phenomena such as the origin and diffusion of both language and art. Love should be understood as a physiological motivation, like hunger, sleep or sex, and not as an emotion as it is commonly considered.
爱这个词有很多含义，这导致了人们对爱的错误认识。在本文中，我们只考虑母爱和浪漫之爱。爱通常被视为一种感觉、动机、上瘾、激情，最重要的是一种情感。这种混淆给人类的生活带来了后果，不仅导致离婚、自杀、杀妻，还可能导致许多精神疾病和痛苦。因此，首先澄清情感、动机和爱是什么意思是至关重要的。这项工作旨在最终将爱置于生理动机的范畴内，例如饥饿、口渴、睡眠或性，因为爱也是人类生存所必需的，尤其是在童年时期。从进化的角度来看待爱。还指出了爱与其他生理动机之间的一些相似之处，例如它对人类适当发展的重要性，无论是个体发生还是永久性，以及虐待和忽视的持久后果。我们总结了一些原因，例如生理动机是生存所必需的，而爱对于人类后代的生存是必不可少的动机。其他原因是，对爱（和其他动机）的数量和质量的最小变化会改变发展，在一个动机中可以有多种神经生理和行为状态，以及动机（包括爱）在整个发展过程中出现和变化。此外，动机和爱有时可能导致上瘾行为。最后，我们认识到，一旦生理动机（和爱）出现，它们就会变得持久。在第三部分，讨论了将爱视为一种动机所带来的一些潜在的社会、文化、临床和科学后果。因此，在临床领域将爱视为一种动机将意味着更好地理解其障碍，并将其纳入《精神障碍诊断与统计手册》（DSM）或《国际疾病分类》（ICD）等分类手册中。将爱视为一种动机而不是一种情感也可能会影响科学研究的结果（包括一个例子）。对这些问题的全面理解可能会为精神疾病的治疗提供一种新的治疗方法，同时为语言和艺术的起源和传播等文化现象提供一种全面的进化解释。爱应该被理解为一种生理动机，就像饥饿、睡眠或性一样，而不是像通常认为的那样是一种情感。
