[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-661177-105":59,"doc-detail-661177-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","the-new-psychology-of-love-chapter-1-love-as-expansion-of-the-self","The New Psychology of Love - Chapter 1 - Love as Expansion of the Self","","An academic excerpt introduces a self-expansion model to explain romantic love, defining love as behaviors, cognitions, and emotions linked to entering or maintaining close relationships with a specific other. The model is presented through two principles: a motivational drive to expand efficacy and a mechanism of inclusion-of-other-in-the-self, where partners’ resources and identities are partly experienced as one’s own. It outlines implications for attraction, intense love, and relationship trajectories, and provides research examples supporting both principles.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-new-psychology-of-love-chapter-1-love-as-expansion-of-the-self/661177/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-new-psychology-of-love-chapter-1-love-as-expansion-of-the-self/661177.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"bocahgabuttt","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-28",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":14},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How does the self-expansion model define love?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Love is defined as the constellation of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person, as self-expansion by including a desirable other in the self.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What are the two key principles of the self-expansion model?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The model has a motivational principle: people seek to expand their potential efficacy to accomplish goals, and an inclusion-of-other-in-the-self principle: close relationships allow the other’s resources and identities to be experienced as partly one’s own.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What evidence supports the motivational principle in the model?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"A study with undergraduates found that students who reported falling in love showed higher self-esteem, self-efficacy, and more self-concept traits after two-week intervals, linking love with measurable self-expansion.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},661177,1793159329,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":14,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":52,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":129,"read_time":143},962094248839,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d","Cambridge University Press  \n978-1-108-47568-6—The New Psychology of Love Edited by Robert J. Sternberg , Karin Sternberg Excerpt  \nMore Information  \nChapter 1  \nLove as Expansion of the Self Arthur Aron and Jennifer M. Tomlinson  \nWhat Is Love? And How Can the Self-expansion Model Help Us Understand It?  \nThe self-expansion model of love was developed in the 1980s (Aron & Aron, 1986; for a recent review, see Aron, Lewandowski, Mashek, & Aron, 2013) . It emerged from an integration of two diverse worlds of knowledge. The first world of knowledge was relevant social-psychological theories of basic human motivation, and the little research that existed at the time on attraction and relationships. The second world of knowledge was from classical concepts of love. From Western philosophy, for example, Plato’s Symposium on love emphasizes the ultimate goal of growth from loving a specific person to universality. From Eastern philosophy, for example, the Upanishad discusses how close relationships lead to this kind of universality: “the love of the husband is not for the sake of the husband, but he is loved for the sake of the self which, in its true nature, is one with the Supreme Self” (and then continues the same for love of the wife, of children, and even of wealth) .  \nOur focus then was mainly on romantic love, although since then the model has been applied much more widely, both to diverse types of love, and beyond love to fields such as intergroup relations and individual motivation. In this chapter, our focus is on romantic love, both intense passionate love and close relationships more generally.  \nWe first describe key principles of the model, and then turn in more detail to its implications, focusing on initial attraction, the neural basis of being intensely in love, and the trajectories of romantic relationships over the lifespan. We then turn to implications for maintaining and enhancing relationships; then to understanding diverse problems that arise in relationships; and finally, briefly to other kinds of love. We conclude with examples of how the self-expansion model relates to some other major theories and discussion of future directions. We consider our model not  \n1  \n© in this web service Cambridge University Press [www.cambridge.org](www.cambridge.org)  \nCambridge University Press  \n978-1-108-47568-6—The New Psychology of Love Edited by Robert J. Sternberg , Karin Sternberg Excerpt  \nMore Information  \n2 Arthur Aron and Jennifer M . Tomlinson  \nas a competitor to other approaches, but rather as a partner, with the selfexpansion model in some cases helping to deepen (or even “expand”) other models, and in other cases, with other models helping to deepen and expand our model (and, of course, in some cases both) .  \nThe Self-expansion Model  \nWhat is the self-expansion model? The model has two key principles:  \n1. Motivational principle: People seek to expand their potential efficacy, to increase their ability to accomplish goals. That is, a fundamental human motive is what other scholars have described as exploration, effectance, self-improvement, curiosity, competence, or a broadening of one’s perspective. (And experiencing rapid self-expansion should be particularly rewarding.) The motivational principle was influenced by White’s (1959) work, arguing that the drive for efficacy or competence is similar to drives for basic needs such as hunger and thirst. Deci and Ryan’s (1987) theory of intrinsic motivation, Bowlby’s (1969) theory of secure base support for exploration, and Fredrickson’s (2001) broadenand-build model all touch on related motivational principles. See Aron, Aron, and Norman (2004) for a more detailed discussion.  \n2. Inclusion-of-other-in-the-self principle: One way people seek to expand the self is through close relationships, because in a close relationship the other’s resources, perspectives, and identities are experienced, to some extent, as one’s own.  \nAnd what does all of this mean for lo","cbCaifn13YB6vwOP","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifn13YB6vwOP","pdf",114878,"English","# Chapter 1\n## Love as Expansion of the Self\n## What Is Love? And How Can the Self-expansion Model Help Us Understand It?\n## The Self-expansion Model\n## Example Research Support for the Motivational Principle\n## Example Research Support for Inclusion-of-Other-in-the-Self","[{\"question\":\"How does the self-expansion model define love?\",\"answer\":\"Love is defined as the constellation of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close relationship with a specific other person, as self-expansion by including a desirable other in the self.\"},{\"question\":\"What are the two key principles of the self-expansion model?\",\"answer\":\"The model has a motivational principle: people seek to expand their potential efficacy to accomplish goals, and an inclusion-of-other-in-the-self principle: close relationships allow the other’s resources and identities to be experienced as partly one’s own.\"},{\"question\":\"What evidence supports the motivational principle in the model?\",\"answer\":\"A study with undergraduates found that students who reported falling in love showed higher self-esteem, self-efficacy, and more self-concept traits after two-week intervals, linking love with measurable self-expansion.\"}]","The New Psychology of Love - Chapter 1 - Love as Expansion of the Self | PDF",25]