In a latest article printed within the journal Humanities & Social Communications, researchers reviewed developments in latest analysis and avenues for future research as regards to romantic love and relationships. Their findings have implications for the formulation of insurance policies that may promote stronger familial ties and, thus, a extra stable and resilient social cloth.
Overview: A decade of affection: mapping the panorama of romantic love analysis by means of bibliometric evaluation. Picture created with the help of DALL·E 3
Background
Romantic love has been outlined as an intense eager for union with one other individual. The presence of affection results in the transition from the preliminary levels of a relationship to the communication and satisfaction of a dedicated partnership.
Regardless of the ability of affection, nevertheless, romantic relationships are shorter than ever, and almost half of first marriages now finish in divorce in the USA. Dedication is now not a major consider relationships, and expectations and experiences of affection additionally seem like altering.
Love is a singular and enigmatic phenomenon that has captivated not simply the good poets but additionally neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, and biologists. This has led to a big selection of scholarly work on the topic, overlaying quite a few disciplinary domains and inspecting not simply the constructive feelings that love evokes but additionally the adverse behaviors that it might engender.
Bibliometric evaluation, which gives quantitative insights into scientific, technological, and educational work, provides a strategy to summarize and synthesize the depth and breadth of this huge literature.
In regards to the research
The Net of Science database was used to determine related literature printed between 2013 and 2022 utilizing a key phrase search. Included research have been written in English; early entry articles, convention proceedings, guide chapters, retracted publications, and knowledge papers have been excluded.
On making use of these standards, 6858 papers have been included within the evaluation, which concerned producing and deciphering informative and intuitive visible maps in addition to evolutionary and co-occurrence evaluation primarily based on themes and developments recognized from the literature.
Findings
Since 2013, annual publications and quotation counts have proven an upward pattern, with a 90-fold surge to 2022. Extra researchers are specializing in this matter, suggesting that these numbers would possibly rise quicker within the coming years. Greater than 15,000 researchers from 104 nations contributed to those papers.
Community evaluation recognized probably the most influential authors and collaborators on this group; the best author printed 74 articles. The pattern confirmed excessive ranges of collaboration between authors from all over the world. Nevertheless, dissemination of analysis was larger in high-income nations, which has implications for well-being.
The 6,858 publications have been printed in 1,251 journals, with the highest 10 publications accounting for almost one-fourth of all articles. Journals from the USA accounted for half of all publications, whereas the UK printed 40%. China was probably the most prolific of the creating nations, with 328 publications.
Whereas some papers have been printed in journals with an influence issue (IF) of almost 8.5, there have been indications that research on romantic love might need problem getting accepted to high-IF publications (the typical IF was 4.070). Psychology journals accounted for 66% of publications, however different disciplines included psychiatry, sociology, ladies’s research, and economics.
Key phrase evaluation prompt that between 2020 and 2022, the phrases ‘battle decision,’ ‘social relationships,’ and ‘same-sex’ peaked in recognition. Non-heterosexual relationships have typically been stigmatized, however rising analysis reveals how destigmatization can result in much less dangerous sexual behaviors and better emotional well-being.
A rise in give attention to battle decision could promote more healthy relationship outcomes; on this regard, computer-mediated battle decision has proven promise. Research on social relationships have centered on racial points and mind scans to look at the neurobiological foundations of affection. In recent times, research have proven that peer victimization and relationship violence have gotten extra widespread in youthful age teams and that on-line relationship can result in will increase in melancholy.
Over time, the authors observed a shift from an idealized view of affection to a extra life like one. Open fields of inquiry embody teen relationship, intimate accomplice violence, sexual abuse, and attachment insecurity, with a give attention to the interconnected cluster of romantic relationships, gender, and attachment. For instance, there have been clear indicators that male adolescents usually tend to be perpetrators of relationship or intimate accomplice violence.
Conclusions
The findings from this research included developments in analysis, recognized the historic trajectory that scholarship has taken, and assessed fruitful avenues for future exploration. The outcomes are additionally related by way of figuring out interventions – for instance, adolescent males may be focused to cut back the incidence of relationship violence. Future research can increase this analysis query to databases past the Net of Science and embody publications written in different languages in addition to gray literature (convention papers, working papers, and different publications.
Journal reference:
- A decade of affection: mapping the panorama of romantic love analysis by means of bibliometric evaluation. Han, Y., Luo, Y., Chen, Z., Gao, N., Track, Y., Liu, S. Humanities & Social Communications (2024), DOI – 10.1057/s41599-024-02665-7, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-02665-7