Chapter 6: Love and Loving

1. Chapter 6: Love and Loving

2. Love is a Cultural Experience • Collectivist Cultures • Goals of whole society are given priority over individual goals • Members strive to be equal • Behavior is driven by sense of obligation and duty • Latinos value interdependent relationships • Asians emphasize importance of collective whole

3. Love is a Cultural Experience • Individualist Cultures • Individual goals are promoted over group goals • People define their identity by personal attributes • Wealth • Social status • Education level • Promote the idea of autonomy and individuation

4. History of Love and Romance • Ancient History • Examples of love and romance • Adam and Eve • Gilgamesh – 2000 BCE • King Solomon – 970 BCE • Account of love and romance between bride and groom • Greeks – 450 BCE • Love was bittersweet emotion

5. History of Love and Romance • Middle Ages and Renaissance • True era of romance, courtship • 16th century love viewed as physical union • Coming to America • Puritans were romantic lovers • Expected sex within marriage

6. History of Love and Romance Back in Europe • Victorian Era (1837-1901) • Attitudes towards sexuality were stuffy • Ideal of love promoted couple togetherness • Romantic Love • 20th century saw social change • Emancipation of women • Romantic attraction became accepted

7. What is love? • Greek definitions • Eros: sexual, physical components • Philos: brotherly love • Agape: self sacrificing, spiritual

8. What is love? • Love as a prototype – Beverley Fehr • Prototype is a model • Twelve central features of love • Love maps – John Money • Present an ideal image of love • Shaped by experiences in infancy and childhood

9. Table 6.1: Fehr’s Twelve Central Features of Love

10. What is love? • Passionate love • Infatuation: intense, extravagant, short-lived passion for the other person • Simple infatuation: a physical attraction • Infatuation as Romance • Romantic infatuation: romantic love • Foolish, unreasoning passionate attraction

11. What is love? • Passionate love • Intense longing for the selected love object • Emotional manifestations • Idealizing the romantic partner • Intense sexual attraction • Surge of self confidence • Adoration of the love interest • Fatuous relationships end as quickly as they began

12. Table 6.2: The Passionate Love Scale

13. What is love? • Infatuation as Limerence • Similar to romantic love • Intrusive thoughts about love object • “Love sick” • Symptoms • Longing for reciprocation • Aching for the limerent object • Intense emotions

14. What is love? When limerence ends – three possibilities • Consummation • Feelings have been reciprocated or there is mutual, lasting love • Starvation • Limerence is starved out of existence • Transformation • Limerence is transferred to new object

15. Companionate Love • Deep, mature, affectionate attachment bonds • Less dominated by lust • Develops over time • Partners accept all of the failing, faults, shortcomings, etc • Liking – necessary ingredient

16. Expression of Love Triangular theory of love – Sternberg 8 different types of love relationships Love relationships consist of: • Passion • Intimacy • Commitment

17. Figure 7.1: Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love

18. Expression of Love • Intimacy • Feelings of closeness • Connectedness • Bondedness • Self-disclosure • Respect • Trust • Builds slowly over time

19. Expression of Love Commitment • Loving another person and making a conscious decision to maintain that love over time • A deliberate choice • Being loyal to another individual

20. Expression of Love • Passion • Physical attraction • Romantic feelings • Most intense and immediate component • Sexual consummation

21. Figure 6.2: Sternberg’s Love Types

22. Sternberg’s Eight Love Types • Nonlove – absence of intimacy, commitment and passion • Empty love – void of passion and intimacy, commitment is the only element • Liking – intimacy is the sole element in this type, no passion or commitment • Infatuated love – consists of passion only, idealized love, relationships begin and end quickly

23. Sternberg’s Eight Love Types • Companionate love – combines intimacy and commitment, intimacy builds • Fatuous love – combines passion and commitment, relationship lacks intimacy • Romantic love – intimacy and passion with sexual attraction and arousal • Consummate love – combines all three elements of love-intimacy, commitment and passion

24. Developing Love – First Experience • Altruistic love – love parents give their child, promotes the well being of one with no expectation of reciprocity • Intrinsic rewards – joy, satisfaction, contentment, pleasure, gratification

25. Reciprocity and Love • Interdependent love – love is a give and take process, requires give and take and changes over time • Attachment – emotional bond that binds a child to the parent, begins in infancy and influences personality

26. Attachment Types • Secure attachment – maintain close relationships with one another • Avoidant attachment – seldom find real love, uncomfortable when too emotionally or physically close to another person • Anxious/Ambivalent attachment – insecure, constantly afraid partner doesn’t love them

27. The Genogram • Used to understand the transmission of relational behaviors from one generation to the next • Diagrams with various figures are used to illustrate relationships between family members

28. Figure 6.4A: Basic Genogram Symbols

29. Figure 6.4B Genogram Symbols for Relationship Dynamics

30. Lee’s Six Types of Love Styles • Eros – erotic lovers are passionate and romantic and seek out passionately expressive lovers • Ludus – playful, carefree and casual lovers who do not care as much about commitment as they do about playing the game of love

31. Lee’s Six Types of Love Styles • Storge – love that is based on friendship or affection between friends, love grows over time • Manic – jealous lovers, everything is in chaos, highs are high and lows are low, relationships are like a roller coaster ride

32. Lee’s Six Types of Love Styles • Pragma – pragmatic, weigh the costs and benefits of the relationship • Agape – selfless, enduring, other-centered love, provides intrinsic satisfaction without reciprocity

33. Reiss’s Wheel Theory of Love Four Processes 1. rapport – establish rapport, usually with someone like us 2. self-revelation – self-disclosure about goals and dreams 3. mutual dependency – relationship deepens, and couple relies on one another 4. Personality need fulfillment – established pattern of exchange and support

34. Figure 6.5 Reiss’s Wheel Theory of Love

35. Love Economic Model • Based on the assumption that people are rational decision makers and as a result compare the costs and benefits of falling in love and being in love • Sex and commitment are the only differences between friendship and love

36. Table 6.3: Love Economics Translations

37. Benefits of Love • Emotional needs • Self esteem, social needs, spiritual needs • Entertainment needs • Social aspects of day-to-day living • Materialistic needs – • Required for survival and happiness, • Food shelter and clothing

38. Costs of Love • Search cost – ability to attract potential partners • Rejection costs – rejection sensitivity, immunity to rejections and emotional costs of rejections • Maintenance costs – emotional costs and time costs in finding right person

39. Costs of Love • Breakup risk includes determining the overall benefits with the partner • Breakup costs – emotional costs, financial costs and the search cost to find someone else