Love Vs. Love in "The Love Competition"

By Erin Froehlich
From the Id and Ego Blog Series

Hello all and welcome back to Id and Ego - the psychology news blogs with psychology news morsels for you each and every week.

This week: as disillusioned as many of us are toward that commercial holiday, Valentine's Day, it's hard to pass the occasion without thinking about love. But what IS love actually? We experience it in so many different ways. Love or lust for our partner. Familial love for our parents and siblings. There's love for close friends. Love for pets. And it's not a constant. It can grow or it can fade. Now, science is attempting to measure that elusive feeling in an intriguing 15 minute documentary, "The Love Competition."

Watching this strangely moving, yet scientific short film, 7 participants volunteer to put their love to the test and to attempt to "outlove" the other 6.

As the film explains the rules "Contestants will have 5 minutes in an fMRI machine to love someone as hard as they can. Brain regions involved in producing the neurochemical experience of love will be measured. The contestant who generates the greatest level of activity in those areas, wins."

Love For A Wife. The first introduced to us in the film is Kent, aged 75. Kent is going to attempt to outlove the others by thinking about his wife he says he met and fell in love with over 50 years ago. He tells the interviewer, "I can still feel that feeling and while that original intensity maybe has moderated, my respect and admiration for her has deepened so the love has taken on a new definition as we've been together all these years."

New Love. The second says she’ll be focusing a much more recent love interest. In order to outlove the others,"I will be thinking of all the cute, random, sweet things of my boyfriend." said Tiffany, age 23.

Lost Love. The third, Peter age 31 had an unusual subject he would be pinning for - his EXgirlfriend."When you’re in a relationship like that it's sort of like a death. You know, when it's not around anymore you do go through the stages of grief…” But instead of focusing on his loss, he told the interviewers, “I'm going to focus on the first 8 months when things were perfect."

Just Love. As Morgan, age 24 told interviewers, she wouldn't be thinking of any one person at all! Rather, she says she’d be focusing on love in general. "I've been meditating on love...it's sort of truncated chakra medication.” She admits she doesn’t think this love could win out over a love that is focused on a single person but,“I don't feel like I've ever actually been in love so... I'm told that once you are in love you know and if I'm apprehensive, that probably means I haven't felt it."

Love in Many Forms. The fifth, Don, age 60 tells the interviewer that while he’s been in love many times throughout his life, he’ll be taking a similar approach to Morgan on this challenge. "I can think of so many things that I've loved that don't necessarily relate to romance or lust or whatever the wide variety of responses are that we attach the word love to. I find love unavoidable and continuous and often coming from somewhere you don't expect.

Love for a Husband. The silly game of “I love you.”“I love you more!” isn’t typically a contest where any clear winner could be determined, but for perhaps the first time, the introduction of the next contestant actually allows the love of two partners to be scientifically measured against the other. Marilyn, aged 72 is actually the wife of contestant one! When asked what real love meant to her she explained, “It means to evolve together... you're helping the other person to evolve into the person their meant to be, and they're helping you evolve."

Innocent Love. When asked whether he’d ever been in love before, the last contestant answered somewhat embarrassed, “Not like CRUSH love, but I have." Milo, age 10 would be representing the innocent familial type of love as he focused on his baby cousin.

So whose love would prove most powerful?

The husband’s for the wife? The wife’s for the husband? The grief-stricken ex’s? The new, exciting love of the young woman? The pure, non-specific love? The love of a child for his baby cousin?

Scientists analyzing the data, watching as thoughts of love sparked blue, yellow and green across the brain, were more curious spectators than answer-seeking experts. What does love actually look like? How would these very different types of love measure up against the others?

As for the contestants, though the actual measurement process lasted for just 5 minutes, there were some very powerful responses in its aftermath. There were tears of gratitude from some and somber revelations made by others.