Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Research in Personality (MaryBeth McGavran)/Articles/Unconditional Love

Unconditional love is known as affection without any limitations. This term is sometimes associated with other terms such as true altruism, complete love, or "mother's love." Each area of expertise has a certain way of describing unconditional love, but most will agree that it is that type of love which has no bounds and is unchanging. An example of this is a parent's love for their child; no matter a test score, a life changing decision, an argument, or a strong belief, the amount of love that remains between this bond is seen as unchanging and unconditional.

In religion, unconditional love is thought to be part of The Four Loves; affection, friendship, romance, and unconditional. In ethology, or the study of animal behavior, unconditional love would refer to altruism which in turn refers to the behavior by individuals that increases the fitness of another while decreasing the fitness of the individual committing the act. In psychology, unconditional love would refer to a state of mind in which the individual has the goal of increasing the welfare of another, despite any evidence of benefit for them self. The term is also widely used in family and couples counseling as seen in counseling manuals such as "Love for No Reason: 7 Steps for Creating a Life of Unconditional Love" .

Neurological Basis

There has been some evidence to support a neural basis for unconditional love, showing that it stands apart from other types of love.

In a study conducted by Mario Beauregard and his colleagues, using an fMRI procedure, they studied the brain imaging of participants who were shown different sets of images either referring to "maternal love" (unconditional love) or "romantic love". Seven areas of the brain became active when these participants called to mind feelings of unconditional love. Three of these were similar to areas that became active when it came to romantic love. The other four active parts were different, showing certain brain regions associated with rewarding aspects, pleasurable (non sexual) feelings, and human maternal behaviors are activated during the unconditonal love portions of the experiment. Through the associations made between the different regions, results show that the feeling of love for someone without the need of being rewarded is different from the feeling of romantic love.

Along with the idea of "mother's love", which is associate with unconditional love, a study found patterns in the neuroendocrine system and motivation-affective neural system. Using the fMRI procedure, mother's watched a video of them playing with their children in a familiar environment, like home. The procedure found part of the amygdala and nucleus accumbens were responsive on levels of emotion and empathy. Emotion and empathy (compassion) are descriptives of love, therefore it supports the idea that the neural occurrences are evidence of unconditional love.

Criticism of Unconditional Love

There are those who state claims that there is no existence of unconditional love. Many biologist will say the behavior seen as unconditional love, motherly love, or alrutism, are there to ensure the blood line and genetics within that species will be carried on to the next generation. Therefore, the love would not be without bounds because there is a reason behind it. Evidence behind this comes more from the realm of altruism and it's reality. Debate surrounding altruism (unconditional love, mother's love) has been around for many years. It's development, it's prevelance, and the multipel facets of it have been discussion of many biologists. For more information see altruism.