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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-descriptive 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.

We define falling in love as the onset of a strong desire for a close, romantic relationship with a particular person; it is the transition from not being in love to being in love (Aron, Aron, Paris, Tucker, & Rodriguez, 1989). Falling in love has long been described as a transforming experience by poets and troubadours, philosophers and psychologists (James, 1906/1961; Jung, 1925/1959), and it seems to happen at least once to most North Americans at some point in their lives (Aron, Dutton, Aron, & Iverson, 1989; Dion & Dion, 1973; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). This study addressed the consequences of falling in love, focusing specifically on changes in self-concept.

Among personality and clinical theorists, there seem to be two schools of thought about the impact of falling...