Chapter 3Love

Chapter 3: LoveIntroduction

• Quote: “Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves a dark house and a whip as madmen do: an the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.”– William Shakespeare

• Discussion: What is love and is it still firmly entrenched in American culture? Explain.

Chapter 3: LoveIntroduction

• Introduction• Ways of Conceptualizing Love• Theories on the Origins of Love• Falling in Love• Love as a Context for Problems• Jealousy in Relationships• Compersion, Polyamory, and Open

Relationships• The Future of Love Relationships

Chapter 3: LoveIntroduction

• Food for thought…– A team of researchers surveyed 14,121 adolescents and found

that the romantic ideal continues regardless of gender or sexual identity…an overwhelming proportion of the respondents rated love, faithfulness, and lifelong commitment as extremely important for marriage or long term relationships.

– Demir (2008) emphasized that involvement in a romantic relationship moves one to a new level of happiness independent of one’s personality.

– Schoebi (2008) identified hard (angry) and soft (depressed) emotions and the degree to which the emotions of one spouse affected another. When one spouse was experiencing hard emotions, the partner tended to mirror those.

Ways of Conceptualizing Love

• What is love? The word love is polysemous; the meanings are numerous. – Hegi and Bergner (2010) defined love as an

“investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake.”

– Foster (2010) described love as being “about deep, abiding feelings with a focus on the long term.”

• Lust• Infatuation

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Love Styles

1. Ludic: Love as a game…

2. Pragma: Logical and rational…

3. Eros: Romantic love…

4. Mania: Out-of-control love…

5. Storge: Companionate love…

6. Agape: Compassionate love…

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Romantic vs. Realistic Love

• Romantic Love: an intense love whereby the lover believes in love at first sight, only one true love, and that love conquers all– Romantic love is said to have appeared in all

human groups at all times in human history.

• Conjugal Love: the love between married people characterized by companionship, calmness, comfort, and security

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Romantic vs. Realistic Love

• Food for thought…– Regarding the beliefs about romantic love, 21% of 2,922

undergrads reported that they had experienced love at first sight; over a quarter (27%) reported that they would marry someone they had known for only a short time if they were in love.

– Men were more likely than women to report having experienced love at first sight (38.3% vs. 32.7%).

– Another study by Dotson-Blake et al. (2008) found further evidence that males are more romantic than females in that men were significantly more likely (85% vs. 73%) than women to believe that they could solve any relationship problem as long as they were in love.

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Triangular View of Love

• Sternberg (1986) developed the “triangular” view of love, consisting of three basic elements: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

• The absence of these three elements creates various types of love experienced between individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. These various types include:1. Nonlove2. Liking3. Infatuation4. Romantic love5. Conjugal love6. Fatuous love7. Empty love8. Consummate love

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Why a Love Relationship Lasts

• Caryl Rusbult’s investment model of commitment has been used to identify why relationships last. While love is important, there are other factors involved…

– People become dependent on their relationships because they:

• Are satisfied with the relationship

• Believe their alternatives are poor

• Have invested many important resources in the relationship

– The model includes both internal and external factors in maintaining relationships.

Ways of Conceptualizing Love:Social Control of Love

• Parents inadvertently influence the mate choice of their children by moving to certain neighborhoods, joining certain churches, and enrolling their children in certain schools.

• Peers exert a similar influence on homogenous mating by approving or disapproving certain partners.

• Social approval of one’s partner is normally important for a love relationship to proceed on course.

• Arranged Marriages – parents actually select the spouse for their children.

• Individuals attracted to someone of the same sex quickly feel the social and cultural disapproval of this attraction.

Theories on the Origins of Love

• Evolutionary Theory

• Learning Theory

• Sociological Theory

• Psychosexual Theory

• Biochemical Theory

• Attachment Theory

Falling in Love

• Social Conditions for Love– Love is a social label given to an internal

feeling. Our society promotes love through various forms of mass media.

• Body Type Condition for Love– The probability of being involved in a love

relationship is influenced by approximating the cultural ideal of physical appearance.

Falling in Love

• Food for thought…– Madathill and Benshoff (2008) compared the importance attributed to

love of Asian and Indian couples living in the United States who had arranged marriages versus American couples who selected their own partners. The researchers found greater importance attributed to love by Asian and Indian couples than American couples. One explanation was the greater joy of Asian and Indian couples, who were experiencing freedom since they were not living in their home countries and being restricted by their culture, as compared to American couples, who took freedom to love and choice of their mate as a given.

– Ambawani and Strauss (2007) found that body image has an effect on sexual relations and that relationships affect their self-image. Hence, women who felt positively about their body were more likely to report having sexual relations with a partner.

Falling in Love

• Discussion:– Halpern et al. (2005) analyzed data on a

nationally representative sample of 5,487 African American, white, and Hispanic adolescent females and found that, for each one-point increase in body mass index (BMI), the probability of involvement in a romantic relationship dropped by 6%.

– Do agree with the results of this study? Why or why not?

Falling in Love:Psychological Conditions for Love

• Perception of Reciprocal Liking• Personality Qualities• Self-Esteem: Having a high self-esteem provides the

following benefits:– Allows you to believe that others are capable of loving you– Allows one to be open and honest about strengths and

weaknesses and accepting them in oneself and others– Allows one to feel equal to others– Allows one to take responsibility of one’s own feelings– Allows one to validate oneself and not expect the partner

to do this– Permits one to feel empathy– Allows separateness and interdependence

Falling in Love:Psychological Conditions for Love

• Self-Disclosure

– Ross (2008) identified eight dimensions of self-disclosure:

1. Background and history

2. Feelings toward the partner

3. Feelings toward self

4. Feelings about one’s body

5. Attitudes toward social issues

6. Tastes and interests

7. Money and work

8. Feelings about friends

• Gratitude

Falling in Love

• Physiological and Cognitive Conditions for Love

• Other Factors Associated with Falling in Love

– Appearance

– Similarity

– Familiarity

– Social Influence

– Meeting one’s needs

– Specific cues

– Isolation

– Mysteriousness

Love as a Context for Problems

• Profound Sadness/Depression When a Love Relationship Ends

• Unrequited Love• Love Involving Risky, Dangerous, or

Questionable Behavior• Ending the Relationship with One’s Parents• Simultaneous Loves• Putting on Weight after Moving In• Abusive/Stalking Relationships

Love as a Context for Problems

• Food for thought…– What if you fall out of love with the person you had

planned to marry?• In a sample of 2,922 undergrad students, exactly half

agreed that, “I would divorce my spouse if I no longer loved him or her.”

– What if you are in love with two people at the same time?

• According to the text, just let the clock run. Most love relationships do not have a steady course. Time has a way of changing them. If you maintain both relationships, one is likely to emerge as more powerful and you’ll have your answer.

Jealousy in Relationships

• Jealousy– An emotional response to a perceived or real

threat to an important or valued relationship

• Types of Jealousy– Reactive Jealousy– Anxious Jealousy– Possessive Jealousy

Jealousy in Relationships

• Causes of Jealousy– External Causes– Internal Causes

1. Mistrust

2. Low Self-Esteem

3. Lack of Perceived Alternatives

4. Insecurity

5. Physiology

Jealousy in Relationships

• Consequences of Jealousy– Desirable Outcomes– Undesirable Outcomes

• Gender Differences in Coping with Jealousy– Analysis of the data on women’s and men’s reactions to

jealousy revealed four significant differences:• Food (30.3% women vs. 22% men turn to food)• Alcohol (46.9% men vs. 27.1% women turn to alcohol)• Friends (37.9% women vs. 13.5% men turn to friends)• Nonbelief that “Jealousy shows love” (63.2% of

women vs. 42.6% of men disagreed that “jealousy shows love”)

Compersion, Polyamory, and Open Relationships

• Compersion: sometimes thought of as the opposite of jealousy; the approval of a partner’s emotional and sexual involvement with another person

• Polyamory: a lifestyle in which two lovers embrace the idea of having multiple lovers – By agreement, each partner may have numerous emotional and

sexual relationships.

Compersion, Polyamory, and Open Relationships

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Polyamory• Rules of an Open Relationship:

1. Honesty

2. Recreational Sex

3. Condom

4. Approval

5. No Online Hunting

The Future of Love Relationships

• Love will continue to be one of the most treasured experiences in life.

• Love will be sought, treasured, and when lost or ended, will be met with despair and sadness.

Quick Quiz

1. Which one of the following is not one of the styles of love mentioned in the text?

a. Ludic

b. Pragma

c. Heart

d. Storge

Quick Quiz

2. A mate selection pattern whereby parents select the spouse of their offspring is known as:

a. parochial marriage

b. arranged marriage

c. patriarchal familism

d. non-consentual marriage

Quick Quiz

3. Which one of the following is not one of the eight dimensions of self-disclosure when falling in love?

a. Feelings toward his/her Parents

b. Feelings toward the partner

c. Background and history

d. Money and work

Quick Quiz

4. ____ is an emotional response to a perceived or real threat to an important or valued relationship.

a. Unrequited love

b. Anger

c. Amorous envy

d. Jealousy

Quick Quiz

5. Which of the following is true about the causes and consequences of jealousy?

a. The way that men and women respond are different.

b. All consequences of jealousy have undesirable outcomes.

c. Low self-esteem is rarely a cause of jealousy.

d. People who are insecure are rarely jealous.