Feeling Loved and Showing Love: Associatations with Flourishing

Abstract Many empirical studies have found that feeling loved is beneficial to well-being. Less is known about the effect of showing love to others and the relative importance of feeling loved versus showing love on our overall flourishing. We used data from a large sample of 38,312 respondents representing the U.S. adult population to investigate the relationship among feeling loved by parents as a child, feeling loved by a divine source, showing love to others in life, and flourishing. We found that showing love to others is more important to flourishing than feeling loved by parents or by a divine source. The effect size for showing love is comparable to subjective feelings of income. Showing love also mediates the positive effects of feeling loved on flourishing. This study highlights the importance of everyday practices of showing love, which have often been overlooked by researchers.