This post summarizes the latest research on emophilia. It is based on a paper by D. N. Jones, published in a 2024 issue of Personality and Individual Differences.
What is emophilia?
I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever lastMy heart should be well-schooled
Cause I’ve been fooled in the past
But still I fall in love so easily
I fall in love too fast
Do these lyrics from the song I Fall in Love Too Easily describe you? If so, you may be high in emophilia, which refers to developing romantic feelings quickly, easily, and frequently.

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It is unclear what causes emophilia. But since individuals high in emophilia often ignore red flags during the process of getting to know the person to whom they feel attracted, emophilia is likely associated with personality traits such as risk-taking and impulsivity, and cognitive tendencies such as attentional biases and memory distortions.
In terms of physiology, the answer may also involve the production of too much or hypersensitivity to oxytocin. Oxytocin, commonly called the love hormone, is associated with bonding, trust, and caregiving behavior.
How is emophilia measured?
Emophilia (previously known as emotional promiscuity) is measured with the 10-item Emotional Promiscuity Scale.
Respondents are instructed to indicate their level of agreement with each of the nine statements (the tenth item is a question). See below:
- I fall in love easily.
- For me, romantic feelings take a long time to develop.
- I feel romantic connections right away.
- I love the feeling of falling in love.
- I am not the type of person who falls in love.
- I often feel romantic connections to more than one person at a time.
- I have been in love with more than one person at the same time.
- I fall in love frequently.
- I tend to jump into relationships.
- During your entire life, with how many people have you fallen in love?
What emophilia is and is not?
To understand emophilia, one must grasp the difference between needing versus wanting a romantic relationship.
Those high in emophilia want to experience the rush of falling in love, an experience that they find very enjoyable, fun, and rewarding.
Those who need to be in a romantic relationship, in contrast, are more likely to be anxiously attached. These are individuals who use romantic relationships only to feel less lonely.
Despite these differences, emophilia is moderately correlated with anxious attachment. This makes sense, given how easy it can be to confuse what we want with what we like or need.
Similarly, emophilia is correlated with sociosexuality—the inclination toward having short-term sexual relationships (i.e., sex without love or commitment). A likely reason is that people tend to have sex with those they love (and vice versa).
Another distinction, Jones notes, is that emophilia differs from being a hopeless romantic or from believing in soul mates. Such romantic beliefs concern “meeting a soul mate and making it work regardless of the barriers,” not the ease or rapidity of falling in love.

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The good and the bad of emophilia
High levels of emophilia are associated with negative behaviors such as deception, engaging in unprotected sex, cheating (e.g., extramarital sex); and with ignoring relationship red flags (e.g., boundary violations, controlling behavior, gaslighting).
Furthermore, individuals high in emophilia are often attracted to people with Dark Triad traits, particularly narcissists.
This is not surprising given that in short-term acquaintances, narcissists appear charming, self-confident, and likable.
Having said that, low emophilia may be problematic, too. It can make recovery from infidelity, divorce, or the death of a spouse especially difficult.
Even getting over a breakup can feel like an insurmountable challenge if falling in love tends to take many years and many relationships.
So it may help to be a little like Romeo, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Romeo was initially smitten with Rosaline, but she did not feel the same toward him, which had made him depressed. Upon seeing Juliet, however, he fell head over heels in love with her. And she reciprocated his love, so they lived happily ever after…or something like that.