Rationalizing emotions is not particularly socially acceptable and trying to rationalize an emotion as strong and socially important as love is potentially a dangerous endeavour. I very much doubt I could get away with simply stating that love is the highest form of trust, acting to increase the propagation of our genes, but I do have supporting evidence. The best arguments at my disposal are considering who we love, showing that my evolutionary model accounts for these choices, and showing how our responses to those we love correspond to what we would expect for targets of high trust in my general model of emotions.
Evidence 1 - Family: If love is about maximizing the propagation of our genes, our most unwavering love (i.e. emotional Trust without rational trust) should be for those most likely to share and propagate our genes. Who better fills this role than our children, the very medium by which we propagate our genes, and it is unquestionably our children who are our greatest loves. Similarly, our blood relatives share many of our genes so their success is partially our success (known as kin-selection), leading to the predicted high level of love for family (though more wavering than for children) which we observe in ourselves.
Evidence 2 - Friends: We can also trust to the point of loving individuals who we very strongly believe will aid us in the future (i.e. increase our fitness). This can include very good friends, brothers in arms, as well as leaders. The latter may seem odd in this day but the love of one’s king or queen is not unexpected. This is due to the large influence rulers have on the wellbeing of their people in conjunction with the strong link between the wellbeing of the people and the ruler’s wellbeing. As such, at least when there is conflict between nations (I will explain why later when I discuss in-groups and out-groups), we would strongly expect sovereign leaders to act in the best interests of their people.
Evidence 3 – Mates: Romantic love, the love between (current and potential) mate pairs is probably the first type of love most people think of. Clearly not limited to heterosexual relationships it is easiest to understand in that context. Romantic love is a special case, the targets of romantic love are not close family (they can be but there are selective forces like inbreeding depression and immune system diversification acting against it) and while we hope that our partners are also our close friends (a) it is not necessary and (b) romantic love is something beyond friendship. As one might guess, the basis of romantic love can be thought of as sex but, more appropriately, it is as an extension of our love for our children (current or future).
As sexual organisms we need a partner of the opposite sex to produce offspring and those offspring will get half of its genes from our partner. The quality of our offspring (i.e. our ability to propagate our genes to future generations; the likelihood we will have grandchildren) then relies on the quality of our partner, both their independent value and their value as a match for us. Additionally, the more uniquely human quality of romantic love lies in the absurd neediness of our children who require huge amounts of parental care relative to other organisms. This required parental care means that the quality of our offspring is also in large part due to the quality of their upbringing. These two qualities, sexual reproduction and needy children, help explain who we fall in love with. We love the qualities in our mates which we desire in our offspring and which will make our mate a good parental partner. Finally, we love our partner simply due to a shared love of our offspring, a shared goal of maximize their wellbeing. To summarize, if we like our partner’s genes and personality and we share or will share their children we can strongly trust them to produce and raise high quality high quality offspring which will propagate our genes. One final clarification, since evolution selects for success rather than any particular strategy and since those who don’t try to reproduce don’t have an evolutionary say in how best to reproduce, romantic love can act even when there is no intention of producing offspring.
Evidence 4 - Investment: The most characteristic quality of love is the willingness to accept personal sacrifice for their benefit of those we love. This is the same thing as investing in those individuals and, at least based on my emotional model, the more we trust something the more willing we are to invest in it, supporting the hypothesis that love is an intense form of trust.
Evidence 5 – Sympathetic happiness: Sympathetic happiness means to feel happy about the happiness of others. Under my model, this indirect happiness (happiness without any current physical benefit) occurs when our investment in a trusted target leads to increased value. Using a financial analogy this corresponds to the number of shares we have in the target multiplied by the value of those shares increasing more than the cost of the action. If the target is not highly trusted then we can imagine our investment increasing the targets wellbeing (their value) but not adequately increasing the likelihood we will recoup our investment (the number of shares). With a loved target, though, the number of shares can be thought to be very high such that any increase in their value will benefit us. As such, since happiness suggests an increase in value we are likely to feel sympathetic happy when we observe the happiness of a loved one. Such sympathetic happiness is a common experience of love, similar to feeling proud of a loved one (despite pride being defined as an inward feeling reflecting one’s own value), further supporting my hypothesis.
Evidence 6 – Mourning: The greatest sadness is in response to the death of a loved one. This sadness makes sense as death is final; death represents a complete loss of all investment in the target. The more we trust an individual the more we have invested in them and the greater the loss when they die so the death of a loved one, those in whom we have the most invested, is expected to represent the greatest loss.
Hopefully this evidence convincingly makes my point, not simply with regard to love but the emotional model as a whole. Any questions, comments, or examples suggested to be unexplained by my model are welcome.
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