LOVE

Love represents a cognitive, behavioral, and

emotional stance towards others that takes
three prototypical forms

 1. love for people who are our primary

sources of protection, affection, & support
Make us feel safe
Were distressed at separation
Rely on them to make us a priority
Rely on them to be them when needed

 2. love for people who rely on us to make

them feel safe and protected
We comfort, protect, assist support, &
sacrifice for them
We put their needs ahead of our own
We are happy when they are happy

 3. love that involves passion

Deep desire for emotional, physical, &
sexual closeness
Mutual feelings of being special

 A relationship can involve more than one of

these types of love
The kind of love can change across a
relationship
Mate relationships are the only kind that
involve all 3

 Love is thought to have a good adaptive basis

We developed the emotions, cognitions, &
behaviors to negotiate at least 3 adaptive
challenges
Survive the longest period of immaturity
& dependency
Find & retain a mate long enough to
reproduce
Provide sufficient care for our offspring to
survive & reproduce

 Controversy over whether romantic love is a

basic part of being human or a cultural invention
The connection between passionate/romantic
love & marriage is new
In the West developed in the Middle Ages through the
concept of courtly love which evolved to be directed to
someone you marry
Nature of the perceived link is still changing
1945-85: increasing emphasis on romantic love &
marriage
From 1985: increasing emphasis on friendship & marriage

 Models of Love
Hard to categorize but can be grouped into 2
broad categories
Naturalistic/Biological: rooted in the body,
emotion, & evolution
Psychological/Social: cognition, social
motives, interaction, communication

 Naturalistic/Biological
Passionate & Companionate
Passionate love lasts 6-18 months
If couple stays together happily becomes
companionate love

 Attachment
3 attachment styles is kids
* secure: parents are responsive to childs
needs;
child feels secure & valued
* anxious-ambivalent: parents are loving
but
inconsistent in meeting childs
needs;
child feels insecure &
dependent
* avoidant: parents are distant &
unresponsive;
child is detached

 Adult attachment is continuous

Primarily reflects 2 underlying dimensions
Anxiety dimension: describes fear of
abandonment & rejection
Reflects low self-esteem & negative view
of the self

 Avoidance dimension describes the degree

of trust & comfort in becoming intimate with
others
High intimacy avoidance involves one of
two things
Usual: stems from viewing others with
mistrust
Less common: seeing intimate
relationships as unnecessary due to great
self-sufficiency

 People can be high or low on both

dimensions, creating 4 attachment styles
Secure Attachment: low on both anxiety &
avoidance
Capable of intimate and interdependent
relationships

 Preoccupied attachment: low on avoidance,

high on anxiety
Need approval of others to maintain selfesteem
needy & dependent
apparent sensitive & caring behaviors
derive from more self-centered needs then
real concern
Highly controlling

 Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: high in both

avoidance & anxiety
Fear of rejection blocks relationships
Low self-esteem
Feel relying on others is risky
Trouble supporting other people
Perceived as emotionally distant (even
hostile)

 Dismissing-Avoidant Attachment: high

avoidance 7 low anxiety
Confident &self-reliant
Take pride in their independence
View others as irrelevant

 Evolutionary: survival of the human species

necessitates and emotional bond b/w
members of the breeding pairs so that both
partners will attend to helpless infants

 Psychological/Social Models
Love is a prototype, defined by tis best or
most representative features
For romantic love, passion is a core feature
but people rank it lower than companionate
features

 Self-expansion theory: love creates a rapid

expansion of the boundaries of the self
People have an inherent need for this kind
of growth

 Loves Styles (Lee): there are 6 primary styles (colors)

of love; combinations create secondary styles
Eros: an intense, idealized, physical passion
Ludus: a game played for mutual enjoyment without commitment
Storge: friendship love
Pragma: searching for someone with a set of desired properties
Mania: stormy passion of someone who wants love but finds it
painful
Agape: the unselfish love where soemeone is only concerned for the
partner

 Sternberg: Triangle Theory

All love relationships consist of the
presence/absence of three factors
The quality of the relationship is influence d by
the degree to which the factor is present

*Intimacy: affection, sharing, communication,

and support
passion: physiological arousal
commitment: a decision to love the other
person, and to remain with them

*Intimacy: affection, sharing,

communication, and support
* Passion: physiological arousal
*Commitment: a decision to love the other
person, and to remain with them

 Forms of Love
liking: just intimacy
romantic love: intimacy and passion
fatuous love: commitment and passion
infatuation: just passion
companionate love: commitment and
intimacy
empty love: just commitment
consummate love: intimacy, passion, and
commitment

 Sternberg: Social Construction Theory

People have personal theories of love in the
form of a story
We form them starting in childhood based
on our personalities, early experiences, the
relationships we see in life and in media
As adults, we look to live these stories

 The most important factors for success in

romantic relationships are
A healthy story
Compatible stories
Complementary roles in a single story or
Sufficiently similar stories that they can
blend together

Communicating Love:
Love Languages (Chapman)
1. Words of affirmation
2. Quality time
3. Receiving gifts
4. Acts of service
5. Physical touch

Typology of love (Hecht)

* Collaborative: mutual support & negotiation
* Active: doing things together
* Intuitive: expressed non-verbally
* Committed: discussing the future, making
plans
* Secure: intimate discussions
* Expressive: verbal expression, doing things
for each other
* Traditional: planning for typical future roles

 Positive Illusions: seeing the partner in the

bets possible light
More predictive of relationship satisfaction
than the partners actual qualities

Relationship enhancing attributions:

* See positive behavior as stemming from personal
traits & concern for the relationship
* See negative behavior as stemming from the
situation, not the persons traits
* Characterizes happy marriages
Distress-Maintaining Attributions
* Negative behaviors are attributed to traits of the
partner
* Positive behaviors receive less emphasis
* Characterizes unhappy marriages

 Negative patterns of communication

Criticism:
high percentage of negative to positive comments

Defensiveness:
taking comments/criticism personally
responding to the feelings created by the comments not the
behaviors

Stonewalling:
punishing a partner by not talking
holding in anger/resentment/hurt and the real reasons for not
responding

Contempt:
showing scorn & rejection through verbal & non-verbal means
condemning the other person

 Negative patterns of communication are

very predictive of marital satisfaction
Most important is:
The ratio of positive to negative
interactions (5 positive to 1 negative seems
to be the lowest level for a successful
relationship)
The degree to which negative behaviors are
reciprocated

The development of a relationship:

Stage 1: Unilateral mutual awareness
Using surface clues to draw conclusions
about what a person is like

 Important factors
Proximity: one of the best predictors of who gets
involved
Similarity
Couples tend to be similar is background,
interests, social patterns
Tend to balance in personality & needs
Physical attractiveness
Main determinant of initial attraction
But we wind up with people at our own level
Halo effect: attractive people are assumed to
have other valuable attributes

 Stage 2: Surface Contact

Spending a lot of time together
Self-disclosure is critical
Depth: amount of private information
discussed
Breadth: number of areas of disclosure
Assessment of similarity
Assessment of potential for a deeper
relationship

Stage 3: Mutuality
* Development of interdependency
* mutual influence on each others actions,
thinking & feeling
* share each others emotional experiences
* mutual concern for the quality of the
relationship
* Deep & continuing self-disclosure leads to
greater feelings of intimacy
* basis for the rest of the relationship

 Qualities of good marriages

* High reciprocal levels of self-disclosure
* Perception that the relationship is equitable
* Complementary personal styles
* Genuine mutual liking
* Handling of anger
* Mutual trust
* Responsivity & mutuality
* Good sex life