On average, men fall in love about a month earlier than women. This is according to a new study by Australian social psychologists, who for the first time investigated differences in the experience of romantic love between the sexes.
“This is the first study to examine differences between women and men experiencing romantic love in a relatively large cross-cultural sample. It is the first conclusive evidence that women and men differ in some aspects of romantic love.” said psychologist Adam Bode from the Australian National University. The study was published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences.
The authors state that it goes o the first research on gender differences in romantic love in people who self-identified as currently in love. They analyzed more than 800 self-identified young adults in 33 countries in Europe, North America and South Africa. They used data from the Romantic Love Survey 2022, the world’s largest dataset of 1,556 young adults experiencing romantic love.
“We are most interested in whether biological sex affects the occurrence, development and expression of romantic love,” Bode explained.
Based on the answers, he found that men fell in love about a month earlier than women on average, but women experienced romantic love a little more intensely and thought about their loved ones more often. Almost 40% of both sexes fell in love only after starting a relationship. Before an official relationship, 30 percent of men and 20% of women fell in love.
“Romantic love is understudied, given its importance in creating family and romantic relationships, its impact on culture and its proposed universality. We want to help people understand it,” added Bode.
