Emily

This research project looks at what love is, how it begins, and how it endures or fades with time. People often imagine true love to be a moment of instant bonding: “love at first sight”, a single glance across a crowded room, or the fairy tales where Prince Charming meets Cinderella and simply knows from one dance. Stories and films teach us to see love as destined, an emotion that arrives fully formed. Yet beyond these glorified myths is the more complicated truth: love rarely arrives at a single mysterious spark, but gradually through forming meaningful experiences. Drawing on the work of Reis and Aron, love emerges as a motivational force that encourages individuals to integrate their partner into their lives, combining passionate attraction and companionate attachment. Attraction may first arise through familiarity but love is formed through reciprocal self-disclosure. 

This research explores attraction techniques of positive association, mirroring, expectancy effects, and even the Ben Franklin effect that encourage liking. Experimental evidence also shows that intentional conversation can cultivate closeness, while neuroscientific research shows that romantic attachment engages the brain’s reward circuitry where dopamine, oxytocin and other neurochemicals bind connection to an individual.

Relationships flourish when partners continue to expand one another’s worlds through shared appreciation and growth, while cultural narratives determine how love is maintained in reality. In conclusion, this Senior exhibition project interprets love as a living relational process. To understand love is to see it as meaning that is continually made.

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