The Mechanism Of Reinforcement Sensitivity In Passion Of Love Between College Students

As the part of love most likely to change and most difficult to control,passion is very critical in research of intimate relationships.At present,most studies on passion home and abroad have been focusing on its neural mechanism or its effect on intimate relationships,while less have investigated the existence of personality difference(such as difference in reinforcement sensitivity)in activation and degree of passion.Reinforcement sensitivity refers to individual's reactivity when faced with reinforcement stimulus,influencing individual's behavioral,emotional and motivational trends and extents.The theory has been widely used in the fields of psychopathology,addiction behavior and personnel organization.Nevertheless,effect of this theory on heterosexual intimate relationship still needs further exploration.Previous studies have shown the significance of rewarding and punishing interactions between lovers on the development of intimate relationships.Different rewarding and punishing recognition toward stimulate information may lead to different emotional state.In view of the problems and limitations of previous research,studies have been conducted here aiming at the following topics:(1)the influence of individual reinforcement sensitivity on passion and degree of satisfaction of intimate relationships;(2)the brain or physiological mechanism in activation of passion;(3)the difference of neurophysiological activation pattern of activation of passion between individuals of different reinforcement sensitivity.In this study,discussion of the issues above is divided into two parts:self-report and neurophysiological experiment.Research 1:investigation on the influence of SR and SP in reinforcement sensitive personality on the degree of satisfaction and passion in love.Questionnaire survey is conducted among 550 college couples in romantic relationships.Quantization,analysis and discussion are carried out on the participants'reinforcement sensitivity,passion and degree of satisfaction on intimate relationship.The results show that SR positively predicts the degree of passion,while SP negatively predicts the degree of satisfaction on intimate relationship.Furthermore,gender is significantly correlated with degree of both passion and satisfaction on intimate relationship.Scores of males are significantly higher than females except for SP scores.However,the existence of general reinforcement sensitive personality difference between males and females will be further explored in Research 2,as well as whether males have stronger tendencies of social approval in self-report compared to females.Based on the results of Research 1,SR has a closer relationship with degree of passion.In contrast,SP is not significantly correlated to the degree of passion.Therefore,only SR is considered in studying the mechanism of effect on passion.Research 2:investigation on whether SR in reinforcement sensitive personality has effect on degree of passion in heterosexual intimate relationship on a neurophysiological level.Aiming at this,functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)technique is combined with multi-channel physiological recorder to monitor the HbO concentrations and several physiological indices during the process of SR participants watching different character photos and recalling corresponding events.As shown by the results under high and low SR,individual brain activation differs in pattern and degree during activation of passion,and these differences are affected by gender factors.Moreover,different physiological responding patterns correspond to different activating conditions,while the level of individual SR is of no significant impact on this.