Love and RelationshipsHistory of Romantic Love

Friendships vs. Romantic LoveHow Do I Know If This Is Really Love?

Companionate LoveLove Without Sex

Prerequisites For LoveAttachment Theory Of Love

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory Of Love

John Lee’s “Many Colors Of Love”Jealousy

Maintaining A Relationship

History of Romantic Love• From culture to culture, and in different time periods, the

concept of romantic love has one thing in common—idealization of another.

• To an American in love, their emotions tend to overshadow everything else…To a Chinese in love, their love occupies a place among other considerations.

• Romantic love was considered to be a way for isolated individuals to achieve identity and meaning in a society that no longer provided meaning through a fixed social structure, religion, or family relations.

• In clanships and modern collective societies, marriages are arranged and romantic love is generally prohibited.

• Romantic marriages may not be universal, but love is apparently “a very primitive, basic human emotion, basic as fear, anger, or joy”—one that escapes all the restrictions and barriers imposed by numerous cultures.

• There are instances in antiquity in which romantic love and sexual desire were linked, such as the homoerotic love in classical Greece or between patrician men and slaves in imperial Rome.

• Romantic love as idealization of another really emerged in medieval times when men returning from the Crusades transformed the cult of the Virgin Mary into courtly love. Here, courtiers expressed their undying love for a beloved, whom they worshiped from afar. Sexual relations were never considered.

• It was not until the 16th or 17th centuries that romantic love began to be linked with marriage.

Friendship vs. Romantic Love

• Studies by Keith Davis revealed several characteristics that are essential for friendships:

• (1) enjoyment of each other’s company most of the time; • (2) acceptance of one and other as is; • (3) a mutual trust that each will act in his or her friend’s

best interests;• (4) a respect for each other; • (5)mutual assistance of one another during times of need;

• (6) confiding in one another;• (7) an understanding of each other’s behavior; and • (8) spontaneity. Generally speaking, men and women

experience friendship in the same way.• Research found that a large majority perceives a difference

between love and “being in love.”

• When they had people place their social relationships into categories, they found that people put far many more people in the “love” category than in the “in love” category, and that people placed in the “in love” category were also included within a “sexual attraction/desire” category.

• Davis and others report that most lovers find that their mood depends more on reciprocation of their feelings in romantic relationships than it does in friendships. Romantic relationships also rate much higher in ambivalence than friendships.

• Thus, while romantic relationships are generally more rewarding than friendships, they are also more volatile and frustrating than friendships.

How Do I Know If This Is Really Love?

• Researchers have found that feelings of romantic love are associated with an increase in three brain chemicals called dopamine, norepinephrine, and pheylethylamin and a decrease in brain levels of serotonin.

• Falling in love, with the release of these chemicals, literally gives the person a natural high.

• The problem is, of course, that almost any kind of excitement or stress will cause a pounding heart and other physiological responses.

• A cognitive component is necessary before one can interpret these responses as a particular type of emotion.

Companionate Love

• Companionate love has been defined as “the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined.”

• It is based on togetherness, trust, sharing, affection, and concern for the welfare of the other.

• The love between a parent and a child is usually the type we refer to as companionate love.

• Scientists have discovered that companionate love is associated with two neuropeptides, oxytocin and vasopressin.

• Oxytocin is the hormone released during breast-feeding, labor, and orgasm. Perhaps it is these substances that give long-term lovers a sense of calm, peace, and security.

• Passionate love is defined as “a state of intense longing for union with another… A state of profound physiological arousal.”

• Passionate love is more sexualized than companionate love and tends to decline with time.

• Passionate love, however, does not always come first in a relationship, for some people do not consider romance to be their most important goal when establishing a relationship. Some people desire companionship more than anything else.

• Companionate love very often includes a good, satisfying sexual relationship as well.

Love Without Sex

• Love and sex share many things in common, including the fact that both may be intensely exciting experiences involving physiological changes that may be expressed in many ways.

• Women in particular are apt to find sex unenjoyable unless it is within a loving relationship.

• Men on the other hand, are much more likely than women to enjoy sex without emotional involvement.

• For most people in our culture, sex without love is a passing stage in relationships.

• The emphasis in the US of sex within a loving relationship is a culturally learned value.

• Love is a feeling, not an act.

Unconditional Love

• Romantic love tends to be considered conditional love, or what Maslow called deficiency love.

• We fall in love with someone and remain in love because he or she satisfies certain needs and fulfills desires, and because it is positively reinforcing to be with him or her.

Prerequisites For Love– Self-Acceptance

• In order to love another, it is first necessary that one be able to love oneself. The first prerequisite for a loving relationship, therefore, is a positive self-concept.

• People who feel positive about themselves are confident and self-sufficient—they do not require continual external validation.

• T accept oneself is to accept one’s shortcomings as well as one’s strengths.

Self-Disclosure• Self-acceptance and trust in ourselves give us the

potential to trust and love others, but for love to really develop, there must be self-disclosure by both parties, resulting in an exchange of vulnerabilities.

• For some people, emotional intimacy may be more difficult than sexual intimacy.

• Emotional intimacy is achieved only after a couple has shared a reasonable level of self-disclosure and each has accepted his or her partner’s state of awareness.

Attachment Theory of Love• Three styles of attachment: • (1) secure—children who learn that parents are a

source of security and trust; • (2) anxious-ambivalent—children whose parents are

inconsistent, which eventually leads to uncertainty; • (3) avoidant—children develop negative attitudes of

others because their parents neglect them or either under-stimulate them or over-stimulate them.

• Adults with a secure attachment style do not fear abandonment and find it easy to get close to others.

• They have positive views of themselves and others, are well liked by others, and strive for a balance of closeness and independence.

• Adults with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style generally have negative attitudes about themselves and are insecure in their relationships.

• They fear rejection and try desperately to get close to their partners, in the process giving up much of their independence.

• Avoidants have negative views of others and therefore have difficulties with feelings of intimacy and letting someone get close to them.

• They desire independence.

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory Of Love

• The triangular theory of love suggests that all the different positive emotions that people can have for other individuals can be understood by the combination of three components.

• The top vertex of the triangle is intimacy. • Intimacy refers to those feelings in a relationship

that promote closeness or bondedness and the experience or warmth.

• The right-hand vertex represents decision/commitment, which includes the decision to love another person and the commitment to maintain the relationship over time.

• When all three components are absent, the result is nonlove.

• This characterizes most of our casual relationships, where there is no love or friendship in any meaningful way.

• If the intimacy component is expressed alone without passion or decision/commitment, it results in liking.

• The word liking is not used in a trivial manner to refer to casual acquaintances, but instead refers to the feelings of closeness, bondedness, and warmth in true friendships. When passion is felt in the absence of the other two components, the result infatuated love, or what we call “love at first sight.”

• A person feeling passion alone is obsessed with the other person as an ideal, rather than as the individual he or she is in reality.

• The decision and commitment to love another person without intimacy or passion is experienced as empty love.

• In our society, empty love often occurs at the end of stagnant long-term relationships, but in other cultures where marriages are arranged, it may be the first stage in a long-term relationship.

John Lee’s “Many Colors Of Love”

– The Primary Colors

• Eros is a highly idealized love based on physical beauty. According to Lee, every erotic lover has specific ideal physical type that turns him or her on.

• The erotic lover is inclined to feel “love at fist sight” and wants to have an intimate relationship immediately.

• Erotic lovers are very affectionate and openly communicate with their idealized partners.

• Ludus is a self-centered type of love. The ludic lover avoids commitment and treats love like a game, often viewing the chase as more pleasurable than the prize.

• Ludic lovers have no romantic ideal and never see any one person often enough to become dependent on them, or vice versa.

• Storge is an affectionate type of love that develops from friendship slowly over time.

• The storgic lover does not have a physical ideal and does not go looking for love, but instead develops feelings of affection and commitment with a partner through experiencing activities that they both enjoy.

The Secondary Colors

• Pragma is a rational or practical style of loving resulting from combining ludus and storge.

• Pragmatic lovers have the manipulative confidence of ludic lovers and consciously look for a compatible mate.

• They are not looking for an exciting romance or affair, but instead want love to grow out of friendship.

• Pragmatic lovers want their partners to reciprocate signs of thoughtfulness and commitment, but do not like excessive displays of emotion or jealousy.

• Sexual compatibility is not unimportant, but it is treated more as a technical skill that can be improved upon if need be rather than as the result of chemistry.

• Mania is a love-style characterized by an intense, obsessive emotional dependency on the attention and affection of one’s partner.

• The manic lover is intensely jealous and repeatedly needs to be assured of being loved.

• Agape is a selfless, altruistic love-style that puts the interest of the loved person ahead of the lover’s own interest, even if it means great sacrifice.

• This is the style of loving proposed by Saint Augustine as a goal for all Christians, and the kind of love to aspire to.

Jealousy• Shakespeare describes jealousy as “the green-eyed monster

which doth mock the meat it feeds on,” in Othello. • Jealousy is an emotional state “that is aroused by a perceived

threat to a valued relationship or position and motivates behavior aimed at countering the threat.”

• There are both cognitive and emotional components to jealousy. As an emotion, it is hard to describe, but it usually involves anger, humiliation, fear, depression, and a sense of helplessness.

• Research has shown that people with low self-esteem who are personally unhappy with their lives and those who place great value on things like popularity, wealth, fame, and physical attractiveness are more likely than others to be jealous individuals.

• Jealousy is most likely to occur in cultures that consider marriage as a means for guilt-free sex, security, and social recognition.

• Some researchers claim that men are much more likely to become jealous to the perception of a partner’s sexual infidelity, whereas women are much more likely to experience jealousy as a result of a partner’s emotional inexperience jealousy as a result of a partner’s emotional infidelity.

• Men, for example, may be likely to think that if a partner is emotionally involved, she is also having sex.

Maintaining A Relationship

• These include:

• (a) physical attractiveness—men generally attach more importance to this than women; (b) proximity—people are most likely to fall in love with someone they interact with often;

• (c) similarity—people tend to be attracted to others who have similar love-styles, interests, values, intellectual abilities, personality traits, and degrees of attractiveness;

• (d) reciprocity—we tend to like people who show that they like us.

• People who are similar are not only attracted to one another, they are also more likely to stay together.

• However, even when a couple is well matched, they are going to have to learn to deal with change.

The Decline of Passion• As the passion subsides and fantasy is replaced with

reality, the result is often disappointment. • In a study, it was found that the divorce rate peaked

around the fourth year of marriage. • The reason most frequently given by couples in the

process of divorce is that they had “fallen out of love” and were bored.

• The key to maintaining a relationship is replacing passion with those things that lead to companionate love.

Growing Together/Growing Apart: Will Companionate Love

Develop?• “The possibility of achieving a deep friendship

with a spouse represents the most exciting goal of marriage.”

• Growing apart- Having fewer common interests over time.

• Growing together- Maintaining common interests over time.

• Positive, instead of negative, interactions are often determined by how couples interact when there are disagreements.

• Gottman advises that wives do not express contempt, that husbands do not “stonewall,” and that both avoid facial expressions of disgust.

Coping With Breakups• One thing that everyone engages in during a breakup is

obsessive review, a “constant, absorbing, sometimes maddening preoccupation that refuses to accept any conclusion.”

• Emotionally, you feel isolated, missing your ex-partner and everything he or she brought to your life.

• But you can also end up socially isolated as well.

• Friends you had in common with your ex-partner may have to pick sides, or, because they fell awkward, may avoid both of you.

• The third, common experience that people often have to deal with is that their ex-partner is still around. If you are the one who was left, he or she is a constant reminder of the rejection.

Becoming More Intimate

• 1. Both individuals in a relationship need to accept themselves as they are. Learn to accept your ideas and feelings as legitimate.

• 2. Each individual in a relationship needs to recognize his or her partner for what that person is. It can only occur when one recognizes one’s mate for what he or she really is—weaknesses as well as strengths.

• 3. Each individual must feel comfortable to express himself or herself. People are often hesitant to express any doubts, irritation, or anger to their partners in a loving relationship.