A recent paper in Personality and Individual Differences argues that the concept of “emophilia”—the tendency to fall in love both quickly and often—deserves greater attention in psychology and relationship studies. Written by Daniel Jones, an associate professor at the University of Nevada Reno, the paper highlights emophilia as a distinct trait that influences how people approach romantic relationships.
Emophilia, first introduced by Jones in 2011, describes a pattern of seeking out and thriving on the emotional high of falling in love. Unlike those driven by a deep need for connection or fear of loneliness, people high in emophilia are motivated by the excitement, novelty, and euphoria of new romantic connections. They are more likely to develop intense feelings for a romantic partner very quickly and often experience these emotions repeatedly with different people.
Emophilia isn’t inherently negative. It represents a natural variation in how people experience romantic attraction. However, it may come with specific risks.
“Some of my early research interests surrounded relationships, infidelity, and jealousy. I especially felt that not enough attention had been paid to jealousy over past sexual and emotional experiences,” explained Jones, the author of a forthcoming book on the topic that is titled Emophilia: The Science of Serial Romance.
“So, I designed several studies to examine how past sexual and emotional connections may interfere with current relationships. Although that research did not go anywhere, through the process I realized that people vary greatly in how many past partners with whom they had fallen in love. Much like sexual history, emotional history was quite different across different people. Thus, I began to explore emophilia as an individual difference trait.”
Emophilia has faced challenges in gaining recognition as a legitimate area of study. Early research by Jones and his collaborators struggled to differentiate emophilia from similar traits like anxious attachment, leading to resistance in academic circles. Despite this, Jones persisted in establishing emophilia as a unique personality trait with specific characteristics and outcomes.
“My first surprise was not related to my findings, but to the pushback I received in the field of romantic relationships,” Jones told PsyPost. “I was surprised how many insisted that emophilia is just a form of anxious attachment, and that I am studying disordered behavior rather than a unique individual difference. With respect to the findings, colloquially, we all assumed to this point that love takes time or love is a process. What I am learning through my research is that although love is a process, that process can move at warp speed.”
“Up to this point, many dismiss the declarations of love by someone high in emophilia as immature, fanciful, or imaginary. Similarly, some suggest that someone high in emophilia must be emotionally damaged or unaware of what real love is because of how quickly they feel it. From what my research shows, the love they feel is real, and the feelings that come along with that love are also real.”
“The behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes that those high in emophilia hold towards their relationship and partner are the same as someone who may have taken years to fall in love,” Jones said. “When in love, people will lie to protect their partners, sacrifice for them, see them in an unrealistically positive fashion, and include their partner as part of how they define the self. The difference between someone who is high vs. low in emophilia is that the person high in emophilia feels all that love much sooner, so they engage in all these love-related behaviors much sooner as well.”
Research on emophilia has uncovered several intriguing patterns. For example, people high in emophilia tend to idealize their partners early in relationships, often viewing them through “rose-colored glasses.” They may bypass the typical screening processes most people use when evaluating potential partners, instead leaping into relationships with minimal caution. This impulsivity can lead to both positive and negative consequences. Individuals with high emophilia tend to have more romantic relationships and higher instances of unfaithfulness.
On the one hand, emophilic individuals often experience profound joy and fulfillment in their relationships. On the other, they are at a higher risk for infidelity, unhealthy partnerships, and emotional distress when relationships inevitably fail.
Jones also explored how emophilia relates to other traits, such as sociosexuality. While there is some overlap—both traits are associated with a higher number of lifetime partners—emophilia remains distinct. It prioritizes the emotional aspects of love over purely physical attraction. Similarly, emophilia differs from romantic idealism, which focuses on long-term, almost fairy-tale-like beliefs about love, whereas emophilia centers on the immediate emotional rush.
“Emophilia is an individual difference trait that affects our relationships,” Jones explained. “Like any personality or individual difference trait (such as extraversion) there are situations when it can facilitate happiness and life satisfaction, and other times when it might hinder those things. People too low in emophilia may also struggle with loneliness through not falling in love soon enough.”
“Self-awareness is the key to working with your level of emophilia. If you are high in emophilia, knowing the red flags to screen for, pay attention to, and act on when you find them can save you not only heartache, but help you avoid real physical or psychological danger. People high in emophilia enjoy a beautiful thing: which is the repeated rush and excitement and connection of the feeling of love. But, just like any emotion, it can lead to excellent or poor decisions depending on the situation. So, knowing yourself is a major part of making good choices.”
As with any area of research, emophilia studies face limitations. Much of the current evidence relies on self-reported data, which, while common in psychological research, has its drawbacks. Future studies could explore physiological and neurological markers of emophilia to deepen our understanding. For example, measuring oxytocin levels—often called the “love hormone”—before and after emophilic individuals meet a potential romantic partner could shed light on the biological processes underlying their experiences.
“Most of the research I have done measures emophilia through the 10-item EP Scale (which can be found at www.darktriad.co),” Jones said. “It is important to know that, although self-report is the industry gold standard, it would be great to have some hormonal and neurological studies conducted on emophilia. For example, I would love to measure people’s emophilia scores, and then tell them that they are about to meet someone determined to be their soulmate. Right before they meet, we could measure their current oxytocin levels. Such research would go a long way to providing objective evidence that emophilia affects physiological processes as well as psychological ones.”
Another avenue for future research involves investigating how emophilia interacts with cognitive biases. Jones speculates that people high in emophilia may focus disproportionately on the positive qualities of new partners while ignoring potential red flags. Understanding these cognitive processes could lead to interventions that help emophilic individuals make more balanced relationship decisions.
“In the long term I would like to raise awareness about this trait and let people know it is natural to fall in love extremely quickly and often, or extremely slowly and rarely (if ever),” Jones said. “These are natural individual variations that occur in the real world. They do not make you broken, or somehow deficient. That said, there are sometimes behaviors such as premature commitment or ignoring red flags that could be problematic if unchecked. We know that people high in emophilia are at higher risk for antisocial partners and premature sacrifices that can get them into trouble early in a relationship. So, I would also like to help those who are high in emophilia to build boundaries and awareness to avoid negative life outcomes.”
“If you are interested in learning more about emophilia, please visit our website: www.darktriad.co. I would love it if more researchers would collaborate on this topic, and I am open to collaboration as well as consulting on this topic. If emophilia has interfered in your life, please see a trained and licensed therapist. It is important to get the help you need to navigate some of the feelings you have in the service of creating boundaries and healthy screening of potential partners.”
The paper, “Emophilia: An overlooked (but not forgotten) construct in relationships and individual differences,” was published in April 2024.
