Hi there. I have a question about **romantic attraction**.
So if scientist is doing a study on human attraction, do they differentiate between **romantic attraction** and sexual attraction?
I would also additionaly want to know, what is exactly the definition used by scientists for **romantic attraction**?
Any information will be appreciated.
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Psychologically speaking, yes. We know that those two feelings create different ways of thinking and emotions. And we know that sexual and romantic attraction doesn’t need to coexist every single time.
Anatomically speaking, no. Brain responds almost exactly the same way to both emotions. Your body releases the same chemical and hormones, gives the same reaction.
There isn’t a stone cold definition for romantic attraction. While hormone levels such as oxytocin, dopamine, vasopressin etc. can be used to “suggest” if you’re in love or not it’s not an exact method. Usually psychologists would listen to one’s feelings about another person and use those clues but even then no one can claim for 100% that you’re in love. That feeling is in you to understand.
A recent study concluded that there are: 27 human emotions:
Admiration, Adoration, Aesthetic Appreciation, Amusement, Anxiety, Awe, Awkwardness, Boredom, Calmness, Confusion, Craving, Disgust, Empathic pain, Entrancement, Envy, Excitement, Fear, Horror, Interest, Joy, Nostalgia, **Romance**, Sadness, Satisfaction, **Sexual Desire**, Sympathy and Triumph.
[https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1702247114#sec-1](https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1702247114#sec-1)
Theres an anime where they try to figure out a concrete scientific definition of romantic attraction or simply put “love”. Its called Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It. Pretty nice show, and it also tries to explain a lot of scientific concepts.
Anyways, the fact that the characters in the show haven’t really figured it out yet and the amount of information they go through in the anime must mean that there is yet to be an actual concrete definition that separates liking someone as a friend to being in love, and this could also apply to the difference between being in love with someone romantically and sexually. And if the author is just holding that definition and it did exist, then it would make it seem like the author willingly made their characters act dumb which would ruin the story.
Those seem like pretty ambiguous concepts and it would probably be simpler to just put romantic and sexual attraction in the same area as they would also need to prove whether the attraction is romantic or sexual.
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