{"id":145093,"date":"2022-08-29T02:25:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T07:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/why-does-love-feel-magical-science-reveals-an-evolutionary-advantage"},"modified":"2022-08-29T02:25:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T07:25:29","slug":"why-does-love-feel-magical-science-reveals-an-evolutionary-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/08\/why-does-love-feel-magical-science-reveals-an-evolutionary-advantage","title":{"rendered":"Why Does Love Feel Magical? Science Reveals an Evolutionary Advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oXGD0zwGsUE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In our current <a href=https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/2158244014521433>age of science<\/a>, many people see <a href=https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/religion\/2019\/10\/17\/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace\/>supernatural forces<\/a> as illusions rooted in wishful thinking. However, love remains a profound exception to humanity\u2019s trend toward rationality.<\/p>\n<p>People are used to seeing romantic love presented as a force cosmically bound to one\u2019s destiny, as it is on the reality show \u201cThe Bachelor.\u201d It\u2019s an idea that is at the same time laughable and uncannily relatable for anyone who has been in love and felt their pairing compellingly \u201cmeant to be.\u201d Our research suggests that these magical notions of fated love and unique soulmates are <a href=https:\/\/osf.io\/t8pvu\/wiki\/home\/>very common and deeply felt<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=tNypAxsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao\">As<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=ari10nYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao\">psychology<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/citations?user=3UEI9NIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao\">researchers<\/a> curious about why human beings think, feel, and behave in the ways they do, we ask a fundamental question: Why does love feel magical? We hope that answering this question might shed some light on the quandaries that have long plagued people in love. Should you blindly trust your heart to lead you to happiness, despite the chaos that\u2019s as much a part of love as bliss is? Or should you instead skeptically regard the tendency to magical thinking about love, striving for rationality in the search for a fulfilling relationship?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our current age of science, many people see supernatural forces as illusions rooted in wishful thinking. However, love remains a profound exception to humanity\u2019s trend toward rationality. People are used to seeing romantic love presented as a force cosmically bound to one\u2019s destiny, as it is on the reality show \u201cThe Bachelor.\u201d It\u2019s an [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}