ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses the few experiments in social psychology that have featured the cognitive consequences of being in a communal relationship. It is important to recognize that, although love has been contemplated by poets and philosophers for thousands of years, it has only been studied scientifically for a few decades. Taking hints from William James and Kurt Lewin, Arthur and Elaine Aron suggested that people relate to close others much as they relate to themselves. Aron analyzed their data in several ways, but always found the same pattern of results. The contention that our perspective of the other is different depending on whether the other is an intimate or a stranger is supported by a number of empirical findings. The participants were instructed to form as vivid and interesting mental images as possible of either themselves or a target person interacting with whatever each noun denoted.
