Lecture §
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- Western history of love
- What are the 7 common attributes of love
PPPDJIC- Preoccupation
- Thinking a lot about the partner & having little control over when these thoughts occur
- Proximity
- Taking steps to maintain or restore physical closeness or emotional contact with the partner
- Prioritizing
- Giving the relationship more importance than other interest & responsibilities
- Desire
- Wanting to be united with the partner, physically & emotionally
- Why We Love
- Joy
- Experiencing very strong, extensive positive emotions
- Idealization
- Believing the partner is unique & special
- Caring
- Experiencing & expression feelings of empathy and compassion for the partner
- What are some different orientations (attitude dimensions) toward love
- Cultural value
- Desirable or undesirable state
- Sexuality
- Sexual orientation
- Heterosexual or homosexual
- Martial status
- Spouses only or reserved for others
- What are some important stages in the history of love & marriage
- Love being a prerequisite for marriage is new N. America
1967: 76% of women and 35% of men would marry a partner they did not love1995: Levine et al
- 50% of students from India & Pakistan would marry the other qualities you desired
- Vast majoirty of Americans said they would not
- Is there a universality of passionate love?
- Not always associated with marriage or monogamy
- Does not always have positive connotations
- Ancient Greece & Rome
- Values
- Valued rationality and stability to reason
- Thus passionate attraction to another person was considered a form of *madness
- Focus on platonic love, nonsexual love between two men
- Marriage
- Marriage was for political or economic gain and breeding children
- Ancient Egypt
- Members of royal blood often married their siblings
- Purpose of marriage
- Produce children
- Make favorable alliances
- Establish a bloodline
- 12th century Europe
- “Courtly love”
- Values
- Love as a noble quest
- Often seen in terms of devotion to a married aristocratic lady
- Nonsexual as well
- Middle Ages
- Value about marriage
- Not expected to be romantic
- About politics and property
- Passionate erotic desire are considered dangerous, a trap leading to hell
- Shift in value
- Passionate love could be desirable and ennobling but tragedy is inevitable (Romeo & Juliet)
- 17th & 18th century
- Passionate love could have a happy ending but
- Idea that one ought to feel passion and romance for one’s spouse was not a widespread idea
- 20th and 21st century
- Romantic love as basis for marriage held only in some regions of the world
- In places were focus on individualism, has economic prosperity, and lack of a ruling class or caste system
- Ex. North America
- What is love
- How is the definition of love relate to emotions
- Emotion: discrete, transient, neurophysiological reactions to events that have consequences for our welfare, and require an immediate behavioural response
- What are the 5 aspects of emotions
- Subjective feelings
- Appraisals
- Action tendencies
- Physiological responses
- Cognitive responses
- How does different theories of emotion emphasize different aspects of emotion
- What is the Self-expansion Model of Love?
- Love is a self-expansion motivation
- We can also expand the self by including others in the self
- Self disclosure is an initial opportunity for self expansion
- Ways for expand the self
- Bodily, cognitively, socially, existentially
- What is Attraction determined by based on this theory
- Perceived degree of potential expansion of self that is possible through a close relationship with that other person
- Perceived probability of actually obtaining that expansion with other
- Similarity vs. Complementarity: may lead to falling out due to decrease level of self exposure
- Types of love & loving styles
- Hatifeld & Berscheid (1969)
- Passionate
- Compassionate
- Involves altruistic care and concern for partner’s well-being
- Not the same as a combination of romantic love and companionate love
- Involves the benevolent wish to aid those who are in need
- Caring, concern & support of others are central
Men’s compassionate love for a female partner predicts her satisfactionWomen’s compassionate love for a male partner predicts his commitment
- Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of love
- The 3 components
- Are the 3 components really different from each other?
- Intimacy & passion are different because:
- Passion: sexual passion promotes reproduction
- Intimacy: deepens connection to specific partner
- Thoughts of love vs. thoughts of lust (sexual passion) & gaze
- Nature of cognition differs
- Differences in neurological activity
- Passion: back of insula
- Love: front of insula
- Commitment & intimacy
- Test of commitment comes when partners begin to grow apart
- Important facts
- Loving Styles
- What are the different types based on?
- Intensity of the loving experience
- Commitment to the beloved
- Desired characteristics of the beloved
- Expectations about being loved in return
- Primary
- Biological & cognitive bases of love
- Why do one love
- Ex. Jankowiak & Fischer (1992) found that 88% of 166 cultures surveyed exhibited some form of romantic love
- Evolutionary explanation for romantic love (developmental immaturity)
- What are the 4 biological components of love
- Passion & lust
Motivates individual to mate with others- Sex hormones(Estrogen & Testosterone) + positive emotion(Opioids)
- Attraction
Motivates pair bonding- Reward(Dopamine), energizing(Serotonin), positive affect(opioids)
- Attachment
Motivates compoanionate love- Sense of closeness and emotion (Oxytocin)
- Physical arousal
- Arousal (Sympathetic nervous sytem, cortisol, epinephrine)
- Role of emotion (Schachter & Singer theory of emotion)
- Stimulus increases arousal & we look to the environment for the cause
- Our attribution determines the type of emotion we experience
- Attribution of arousal
- What are some cognitive basis of love
- Two factor theory of passionate love
- Passionate love involves both arousal and cognition (thoughts & beliefs)
- What are the 3 theme proposed by (Rubin,1973)
- Intimacy theme – romance involves openness, communication & trust
- Dependence theme – romance involves ardent longing for one’s partner
- Caring – romance as involves concern for the welfare & well-being of one’s partner
- How can romantic love influence cognition
- Idealize their loves
- Ignore or reinterpret undesirable information
- Facilitates ignoring potential alternatives (conditioned on current commitment and satisfaction)
- Changes ones’ self-concept
- Individual differences in love
- How did different type of attachment styles affect love
- Quality of attachment can vary from partner to partner
- Secure
- Open & trusting with partners, enjoy intimacy with partners & more committed
- More frequent sex that is pleasurable & satisfying
- Provide more sensitive & responsive care
- Fearful and dismissing
- Less self-disclosure
- Detached and distant
- Low commitment
- Less effective caregiving (less accepting their partner’s support as well)
- Preoccupied
- Apprehension vs. delight
- Levels largely vary
- Happy to maintain proximity, when separation start to worry intensively
- Provide care in order to receive care and approval (not sensitive to partner’s actual needs)
- How does age & gender affect love
- Age
- As one age, emotional intensity decreases
- More cheering along
- Less physical arousal
- Confounds (experience & history)
- Compared to women, men tend to
- Possess more romantic beliefs
- Fall in love faster
- Be less selective and discriminating
- More emphasis on passion (best predictor of satisfaction)
- More emphasis on intimacy on women (best predictor of satisfaction)
- How does cultural influence love
- Importance of love to long-term romantic relationship differ between culture
- Ting-Toomey (1991)
- Simmons, vom Kolke & Shimizu (1986)
- Individualist cultures vs collectivistic cultures
- Romantic love is more highly valued in cultures with few strong, extended family ties
- Less valued in cultures in which kinship networks influence and reinforce relationship between spouses
- Powerful feelings of romantic love irrelevant or even disruptive for marriages in cultures that emphasize strong extended family ties
- Interferes with people’s abilities to respect the wishes of family members
- Strong social pressures to stay together
- Emphasis on personal agency
- Idealization of romantic love
- Buffers against entertaining thought of unlovable characteristics
- How does time affect love
- Romantic love decreases after marriage
- Especially in cultures that emphasis romantic love in marriage
- Reason
- Cognition (fantasy)
- Novelty
- Arousal
- Adaptive (result is often children, shift in attention)
- Maintain long-lasting relationships
- Companionate love more enduring
- Intimacy is more stable than passion
- Creating opportunities for expansion within the relationships
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