Amor e psicologia: uma análise histórica dos discursos psicológicos e de suas relações com transformações sociais

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze discourses on love throughout the twentieth century to contemporary times, seeking to understand how such knowledge has been produced, transformed, and articulated within historical and social contexts. It is based on the assumption that love is not a universal and static phenomenon, but rather a social, historical, and polysemic construction whose meanings are produced through discursive practices. The research is characterized as a narrative literature review, with a temporal scope between 1987 and 2019, encompassing both national and international publications. The theoretical and methodological framework is grounded in social constructionism and the analysis of discursive practices, understanding language as a producer of meanings and reality as constructed through social interactions. Scientific articles were analyzed according to categories that enabled the identification of how love is named, described, and explained. In addition to examining the effects of these discourses on women, the study also explored the different psychological approaches underlying them. The results indicate the predominance of psychological discourses that tend to naturalize love, often associated with individualizing explanations, such as Attachment Theory and psychometric models. Furthermore, a movement toward the categorization and operationalization of the phenomenon was observed, contributing to the production of stabilized and decontextualized meanings. The study also identified a low incidence of analyses considering social markers such as race, class, generation, and, as the main focus of this study, gender, highlighting relevant gaps in scientific production. The analysis showed that the meanings attributed to love vary over time, being understood at different moments as “lack,” “attachment,” “functioning,” and “choice.” It is concluded that psychological discourses not only describe love, but also produce normative effects on the ways individuals feel, relate, and interpret affective experiences. Finally, the importance of critical approaches that understand love as a relational, historical phenomenon shaped by power relations is emphasized. Keywords: Love, Psychology, Discourses, Social Constructionism, Gender.