Want to feel loved? Penn State study finds all you need is this

By Stephen Beech

People feel more loved when they express love themselves, suggests a new study.

Performing small, everyday acts of love boosts feelings of being loved - an important factor in overall happiness and well-being, say scientists.

Love makes the world go round, according to the song, and now research indicates that expressing love may lead to increased feelings of being loved, which can have "downstream" effects on people’s senses of fulfilment and well-being.

Study leader Professor Zita Oravecz and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University in the United States conducted a survey tracking feelings and acts of love over time.

Over a period of four weeks, 52 participants received prompts sent six times a day asking about their experiences of love in that moment.

The participants responded on a scale of zero to 100 for each question about how much they felt loved and how much they expressed love since the last survey.

The research team analysed the variations in the responses over time.

The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, showed that when people express love to others, they then tend to feel more loved themselves.

But people who received love were not more likely to then express love.

The researchers noted that feelings of being loved tended to persist longer than feelings of expressing love.

They say these sorts of differences may influence how people benefit from the experience of love, such as with improved psychological well-being and health.

Oravecz said: "Love is usually not grand gestures.

"More often, people experience love as smaller and more regular acts.

"This is the basis of a psychological theory called 'positivity resonance' which considers how the small, everyday acts of love create and strengthen connections.

"These acts can generally be divided into two categories: giving love and receiving love."

The researchers also surveyed the participants’ general happiness and asked them about whether they considered themselves to be flourishing in their lives.

Participants who felt loved were more likely to rate themselves as flourishing.

Oravecz says the findings point to potential psychological interventions, encouraging people to express love so that they feel more loved.

She added: “Let’s spread more love in the world by expressing love throughout our daily lives.”