Aron, A., Paris, M., & Aron, E. N. (1995). Falling in love: Prospective studies of self-concept change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(6), 1102-1112.

Two prospective, longitudinal studies examined the consequences of falling in love, focusing on predictions developed in the context of A. Aron and E. N. Aron’s (1986, in press) self-expansion model of motivation and cognition in close relationships. In each study a sample with a high expected incidence of falling in love (first- and second-year undergraduates in the fall term) was tested 5 times over 10 weeks. At each testing participants indicated whether they had fallen in love and either made open-ended lists of self-deive terms (Study 1;N = 329) or completed standard self-efficacy and self-esteem measures (Study 2;N = 529). As predicted, after falling in love there was greater change and increased diversity of self-concept domains (Study 1) and increased self-efficacy and self-esteem (Study 2). Partial correlation analyses suggested that results in both studies were not due to mood change.

 

 

Aron, A., Paris, M., & Aron, E. N. (1995). Falling in love: Prospective studies of self-concept change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(6), 1102-1112.