Intimate

Relationships

Rowland S.Miller

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C H A P T E R 8

Love

A Brief History of Love ◆ Types of Love

◆ Individual and Cultural Differences in Love

◆ Does Love Last? ◆ For Your Consideration ◆ Chapter Summary

Here’s an interesting question: If someone had all the other qualities you desired in a spouse, would you marry that person if you were not in love with him or her? Most of us reading this book would say no. At the end of the twentieth century, huge majorities of American men and women consid- ered romantic love to be necessary for marriage (Simpson et al., 1986). Along with all the other characteristics people want in a spouse—such as warmth, good looks, and dependability—young adults in Western cultures insist on romance and passion as a condition for marriage. What makes this remarkable is that it’s such a new thing. Throughout history, the choice of a spouse has usually had little to do with romantic love (Ackerman, 1994); people married each other for political, economic, practical, and family reasons, but they did not marry because they were in love with each other. Even in North America, people began to consider love to be a requirement for marriage only a few decades ago. In 1967, 76 percent of women and 35 percent of men would have married an otherwise perfect partner whom they did not love (Kephart, 1967). These days, most people would refuse such a marriage.

In a sense, then, we have embarked on a bold experiment. Never before have people considered love to be an essential reason to marry (Coontz, 2005). People experience romantic passion all over the world, but there are still many places where it has little to do with their choice of a spouse. North Ame- ricans use romance as a reason to marry to an unprecedented degree (Hatfield & Rapson, 2008). Is this a good idea? If there are various overlapping types of “love” and different types of lovers—and worse, if passion and romance decline over time—marriages based on love may often be prone to confusion and, perhaps, disappointment.

Consideration of these possibilities lies ahead. I’ll start with a brief history of love and then ponder different varieties of love and different types of lovers. Then, I’ll finish with a key question: Does love last? (What do you think the answer is?)

8.1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF LOVE

Our modern belief that spouses should love one another is just one of many perspectives with which different cultures have viewed the experience of love (Hunt, 1959). Over the ages, attitudes toward love have varied on at least four dimensions:

• Cultural value. Is love a desirable or undesirable state?

• Sexuality. Should love be sexual or nonsexual?

• Sexual orientation. Should love involve heterosexual or same-sex partners?

• Marital status. Should we love our spouses, or is love reserved for others?

Different societies have drawn upon these dimensions to create some strikingly different patterns of what love is, or should be.

In ancient Greece, for instance, passionate attraction to another person was considered a form of madness that had nothing to do with marriage or family life. Instead, the Greeks admired platonic love, the nonsexual adoration of a beloved person that was epitomized by love between two men.

In ancient Egypt, people of royal blood often married their siblings, and in ancient Rome, “the purpose of marriage was to produce children, make favor- able alliances, and establish a bloodline . . . it was hoped that husband and wife would be friends and get on amiably. Happiness was not part of the deal, nor was pleasure. Sex was for creating babies” (Ackerman, 1994, p. 37).

Heterosexual love took on more positive connotations in the concept of “courtly love” in the twelfth century. Courtly love required knights to seek love as a noble quest, diligently devoting themselves to a lady of high social standing. It was very idealistic, very elegant, and—at least in theory—nonsexual. It was also explicitly adulterous. In courtly love, the male partner was expected to be unmarried and the female partner married to someone else! In the Middle Ages, marriage continued to have nothing to do with romance; in contrast, it was a deadly serious matter of politics and property. Indeed, passionate, erotic desire for someone was thought to be “dangerous, a trapdoor leading to hell, which was not even to be condoned between husband and wife” (Ackerman, 1994, p. 46).

Over the next 500 years, people came to believe that passionate love could be desirable and ennobling but that it was usually doomed. Either the lovers would be prevented from being with each other (often because they were mar- ried to other people), or death would overtake one or the other (or both) before their love could be fulfilled. It was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that Europeans, especially the English, began to believe that romantic passion could occasionally result in a happy ending. Still, the notion that one ought to feel passion and romance for one’s husband or wife was not a widespread idea; indeed, in the late 1700s, defenders of “traditional marriage” were generally horrified by the emergence of love as a reason for marriage (Coontz, 2013).

Even now, the assumption that romantic love should be linked to mar- riage is held only in some regions of the world (Merali, 2012). Nevertheless, you probably do think love and marriage go together. Why should your beliefs be different from those of most people throughout history? Why has the acceptance of and enthusiasm for marrying for love been most complete in North America (Hatfield & Rapson, 2008)? Probably because of America’s individualism and economic prosperity (which allow most young adults to live away from home and choose their own marital partners) and its lack of a caste system or ruling class. The notion that individuals (instead of families) should choose marriage partners because of emotional attachments (not economic concerns) makes more sense to Americans than it does to many other peoples of the world. In most regions of the world, the idea that a young adult should leave home, fall in love, decide to marry, and then bring the beloved home to meet the family seems com- pletely absurd (Buunk et al., 2010). This is slowly changing, as technology and socioeconomic development spread around the world (Allendorf, 2013), but for now, the marital practices of North Americans strike most folks as odd.

In any case, let’s consider all the different views of love we just encountered:

• Love is doomed.

• Love is madness.

• Love is a noble quest.

• Love need not involve sex.

• Love and marriage go together.

• Love can be happy and fulfilling.

• Love has little to do with marriage.

• The best love occurs among people of the same sex.

Some of these distinctions simply reflect ordinary cultural and historical varia- tions (Eastwick, 2013). However, these different views may also reflect an important fact: There may be diverse forms of love. Let’s ponder that possibility.

8.2 TYPES OF LOVE

Advice columnist Ann Landers was once contacted by a woman who was perplexed because her consuming passion for her lover fizzled soon after they were married. Ms. Landers suggested that what the woman had called “the love affair of the century” was “not love at all. It was one set of glands calling to another” (Landers, 1982, p. 2). There was a big distinction, Ms. Landers asserted, between horny infatuation and real love, which was deeper and richer than mere passion. Love was based in tolerance, care, and communication, Landers argued; it was “friendship that has caught fire” (p. 12).

Does that phrase characterize your experiences with romantic love? Is there a difference between romantic love and infatuation? According to a lead- ing theory of love experiences, the answer to both questions is probably “yes.”

The Triangular Theory of Love

Robert Sternberg (1987, 2006) proposed that three different building blocks combine to form different types of love. The first component of love is intimacy, which includes the feelings of warmth, understanding, trust, support, and sharing that often characterize loving relationships. The second component is passion, which is characterized by physical arousal and desire, excitement, and need. Passion often takes the form of sexual longing, but any strong emotional need that is satisfied by one’s partner fits this category. The final ingredient of love is commitment, which includes feelings of permanence, stability, and the decisions to devote oneself to a relationship and to work to maintain it. Com- mitment is mainly cognitive in nature, whereas intimacy is emotional and pas- sion is a motive, or drive. The “heat” in loving relationships is assumed to come from passion, and the warmth from intimacy; in contrast, commitment can be a cool-headed decision that is not emotional or temperamental at all.

In Sternberg’s theory, each of these three components is said to be one side of a triangle that describes the love two people share. Each component can vary in intensity from low to high, so triangles of various sizes and shapes are possible. In fact, countless numbers of shapes can occur, so to keep things simple, we’ll consider the relatively pure categories of love that result when one or more of the three ingredients is plentiful but the others are very low. As we proceed, you should remember that pure experiences that are this clearly defined may not be routine in real life.

Nonlove. If intimacy, passion, and commitment are all absent, love does not exist. Instead, you have a casual, superficial, uncommitted relationship between people who are probably just acquaintances, not friends.

Liking. Liking occurs when intimacy is high but passion and commitment are very low. Liking occurs in friendships with real closeness and warmth that do not arouse passion or the expectation that you will spend the rest of your life with that person. If a friend does arouse passion or is missed ter- ribly when he or she is gone, the relationship has gone beyond liking and has become something else.

Infatuation. Strong passion in the absence of intimacy or commitment is infatuation, which is what people experience when they are aroused by others they barely know. Sternberg (1987) admits that he pined away for a girl in his 10th-grade biology class whom he never got up the courage to get to know. This, he now acknowledges, was nothing but passion. He was infatuated with her.

Empty love. Commitment without intimacy or passion is empty love. In Western cultures, this type of love may occur in burned-out relationships in which the warmth and passion have died, and the decision to stay is the only thing that remains. However, in other cultures in which marriages are arranged, empty love may be the first, rather than final, stage in the spouses’ lives together.

None of the categories I’ve mentioned so far may seem much like love to you. That’s probably because each is missing some important ingredient that we associate with being in love—and that is precisely Sternberg’s point. Love is a multifaceted experience, and that becomes clear when we combine the three components of love to create more complex states.

Romantic love. When high intimacy and passion occur together, people experience romantic love. Thus, one way to think about romantic love is as a combination of liking and infatuation. People often become committed to their romances, but Sternberg argues that commitment is not a defining characteristic of romantic love. A summer love affair can be very romantic, for instance, even when both lovers know that it is going to end when the summer is over.

Companionate love. Intimacy and commitment combine to form love for a close companion, or companionate love. Here, closeness, communication, and sharing are coupled with substantial investment in the relationship as the partners work to maintain a deep, long-term friendship. This type of love is epitomized by a long, happy marriage in which the couple’s youth- ful passion has gradually died down.

Fatuous love. Passion and commitment in the absence of intimacy create a foolish experience called fatuous love. (“Fatuous” means “stupid” and “lacking substance.”) This type of love can occur in whirlwind courtships in which two partners marry quickly on the basis of overwhelming passion but don’t know (or necessarily like) each other very well. In a sense, such lovers invest a lot in an infatuation—and that’s a risky business.

Consummate love. Finally, when intimacy, passion, and commitment are all present to a substantial degree, people experience “complete,” or consum- mate, love. This is the type of love many people seek, but Sternberg (1987) suggests that it’s a lot like losing weight: easy to do for a while, but hard to maintain over time.

Thus, according to the triangular theory of love, diverse experiences can underlie the simple expression “I love you” (as you can see in Table 8.1). Another complication that makes love tricky is that the three components can change over time, so that people may encounter various types of love in a given relationship (Ahmetoglu et al., 2010). Of the three, however, passion is assumed to be the most variable by far. It is also the least controllable, so that we may find our desire for others soaring and then evaporating rapidly in changes we cannot consciously control (Sternberg, 1987).

Is the theory right? Are these assertions accurate? Consider that, if the triangular theory’s characterization of romantic love is correct, one of its major ingredients is a high level of passion that simply may not last. There’s much to consider in wondering whether love lasts, however, so I’ll put that off for a while. For now, I’ll note that the three components of intimacy, passion, and commitment do all appear to be important aspects of loving relationships (Aron & Westbay, 1996); in particular, each of the three components makes a loving relationship more satisfying, and the most rewarding romances contain big servings of all three ingredients (Sternberg, 2006).

A Physiological Perspective

Studies of the physical foundations of love also suggest that passion and intimacy are distinct experiences. The regions of the brain that regulate our sex- ual desire for others appear to be different from those that manage our feelings of attachment and commitment to our lovers (Diamond & Dickenson, 2012). In some state-of-the-art studies of love, researchers are using fMRI technology to examine the activity in people’s brains as they look at pictures of their lovers (as opposed to other people), and passion activates different areas of the brain than affection and commitment do, both in the United States (Acevedo & Aron, 2014) and in China (Xu et al., 2011). Thus, it really is possible to feel strong desire for those we do not love and to feel little passion for those to whom we are hap- pily attached (Diamond, 2013a). (But you probably already knew that.)

Indeed, theorist Helen Fisher (2006) argues that it makes evolutionary sense for there to be three interrelated but distinct biological systems that control components of love experiences. First, there’s lust, or the sex drive, which is regulated by the sex hormones. Lust drives successful reproduction by providing us the motivation to mate with others. Then there’s attraction, which promotes the pursuit of a particular preferred romantic partner. Attrac- tion drives pair-bonding by fueling romantic love, which is regulated by the neurotransmitter dopamine in specific regions of the brain that control feel- ings of reward (Acevedo & Aron, 2014). Increased levels of dopamine may be responsible for the excitement and exhilaration that occur when we fall in love, explaining “why lovers feel euphoric, rejuvenated, optimistic, and energized, happy to sit up talking all night or making love for hours on end” (Ackerman, 1994, p. 165). Indeed, when people have just fallen in love, a look at their lovers makes pain not hurt as much. Romantic love also activates the areas of the brain that are affected by pain-relieving drugs, and sure enough, when they see their sweethearts, young lovers can shrug off pain (produced by a computer-controlled heating pad attached to a hand) that would be quite troubling under other circumstances (Younger et al., 2010). Finally, there’s attachment, a term used here to describe the feelings of comfort, security, and connection to a long-term mate that keep a couple together long enough to protect and sustain their very young children. Attachment drives compan- ionate love, which is regulated by the neuropeptide oxytocin. (More on that later.)

Thus, we may be equipped with three different physiological systems that each evolved to facilitate some component of successful reproduction—and they support the triangular theory’s proposition that the related experiences of passion, intimacy, and commitment can be rather independent of each other, separately ranging from weak to strong at any given time. On the other hand, intimacy, passion, and commitment are clearly interrelated in many loving relationships (Whitley, 1993). For instance, if men become sexually aroused by inspecting porn, they report more love for their romantic partners than they do when they’re not turned on (Dermer & Pyszczynski, 1978).

As a result, as I warned you earlier, the clearly defined categories offered by the triangular theory may not seem so distinct in real life. People’s actual experiences of love are complex. For instance, a father’s love for his son is likely to resemble his love for his own father, but the two feelings are also likely to differ in meaningful ways that the triangular theory does not readily explain. Different types of love probably overlap in a messier, more confusing way than the theory implies (Fehr, 2013).

Nevertheless, the theory offers a very useful framework for addressing different types of love, and whether or not it is entirely correct, it identifies two types of love that may be especially likely to occur in most romantic relation- ships over the long haul. Let’s examine each of them more closely.

Romantic, Passionate Love

Has anyone ever told you, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you”? If so, it was probably bad news. As you probably knew, he or she was trying to say, “I like you, I care about you, I think you’re a marvelous person with wonderful qualities and so forth, but I don’t find you sexually desirable” (Myers & Berscheid, 1997, p. 360). Just as the triangular theory of love proposes, sex- ual attraction (or passion) appears to be one of the defining characteristics of romantic love (Regan, 2008). So, it’s disappointing if a romantic partner implies, “I just want us to be friends.”

The fact that romantic love involves passion is important. Passion involves activation and arousal, and remarkably, any form of strong arousal, good or bad, can influence our feelings of romantic love.

Arousal

A classic analysis of romantic love by Elaine Hatfield and Ellen Berscheid proposed that passionate attraction is rooted in two factors: (1) physiological arousal such as a fast heart beat that is coupled with (2) the belief that another person is the cause of your arousal (Berscheid & Walster, 1974). According to this two-factor perspective, romantic love is produced, or at least intensified, when feelings of arousal are associated with the presence of another attractive person.

Now, imagine this: You’re in a park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, starting across a long, narrow bridge made of wooden planks that are sus- pended by wire, hanging hundreds of feet over a deep gorge. The bridge bounces and tilts and sways as you walk across it, and it has a low wire railing that comes up only to your waist. Far, far below is a rocky creek, and (because you’re just like all the rest of us) you can’t help but feel some nervous excite- ment (or perhaps outright fear) as you make your way across. But, then, right in the middle of the precarious bridge, you encounter an attractive person of the other sex who asks you to answer a few questions. You’re shown a picture and asked to make up a story, and your interviewer thanks you warmly and invites you to call later if you have any questions. How attracted would you be to the person you met on the bridge?

This is just the question that was asked in a famous experiment by Dutton and Aron (1974), who sent attractive women to interview unaccompanied young men (between 19 and 35 years of age) either in the middle of the spooky suspension bridge or on another bridge that was stable and just a few feet off the ground in another part of the park. The stories that the men wrote were scored for sexual imagery, and Dutton and Aron found that the men on the swaying suspension bridge were thinking sexier thoughts than other men. In addition, those men were more likely to call the assistant later at her home. They were more attracted to her, and the arousal—or fear—caused by the dangerous bridge had evidently fueled their interest in her. Other men who encountered the same woman in a less dramatic place found her less compelling. On the precarious bridge, fear had apparently fueled attraction.

Or had it? Could nervous excitement caused by a shaky bridge really be mistaken, at least in part, for romantic attraction to a stranger? Well, try this procedure: You’re a young man who runs in place for either 2 minutes or 15 seconds, so your pulse rate is high and you’re breathing hard, or you’re just a little more aroused than normal. Flushed with high or low arousal, you move to another room and inspect a video of a young woman whom you think you’re about to meet. You and other men all see the same woman, but, through the wonders of makeup, she looks either quite becoming or rather unattract- ive. What do you think of her? When real research participants reported their reactions, it was clear that high arousal intensified the men’s responses to the woman (White et al., 1981). The attractive version of the woman was always preferred to the unattractive version, of course, but as you can see in Table 8.2, the men liked the attractive model even more—and liked the unattractive model even less—when they were aroused than when they were calm. High arousal magnified the guys’ responses, so that men who encountered an attrac- tive woman when their pulses were racing thought that she was really hot.

Moreover, the effects of arousal on attraction do not depend on the type of arousal that is produced. In another procedure (White et al., 1981), men listened to one of three tapes:

• Negatively arousing. A description of the brutal mutilation and killing of a missionary while his family watched.

• Positively arousing. Selections from Steve Martin’s comedy album, A Wild and Crazy Guy.1

1 You’ve probably never heard this. You should.

• Neutral. A boring description of the circulatory system of a frog.

Thereafter, as before, the men viewed a video of a lovely or plain woman and provided their impressions of her. Arousal again fueled attraction, and it didn’t matter what type of arousal it was. When the men had experienced either type of strong emotion—whether by laughing hard at the funny material or by being disgusted by the gory material—they were more attracted to the appealing woman and less attracted to the unappealing woman than they were when they had listened to the boring biology tape.

Taken together, these studies demonstrate that adrenaline fuels love. High arousal of various types, including simple exertion, and amusement, all seem to be able to enhance our feelings of romantic attraction to desirable potential partners. Consider the implications: Have you ever had a screaming argument with a lover and then found that it was especially sweet to “kiss and make up” a few minutes later? Might your anger have fueled your subsequent passion? Is that what being “in love” is like?

To some degree, it is. One useful measure of the passion component of romantic love is a Passionate Love Scale created by Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher (1986). The short form of the scale is reprinted in Table 8.3; as you can see, the scale assesses fascination and preoccupation with, high desire for, and strong emotions about the object of one’s love. Scores on the Passionate Love Scale increase as someone falls deeper and deeper into romantic love with someone else, only leveling off when the partners become engaged or start living together. (Note that—as I mentioned earlier—American couples decide to marry or live together when their passion is at a peak.) The vision of romantic love that emerges from the Passionate Love Scale is one of need and desire—ecstasy when one is loved in return and agony when one is not—and these are clearly responses that burn brighter when one is aroused than when one is calm and relaxed.

So, one aspect of romantic love is the exhilaration and euphoria of high arousal, and various events that excite us may increase our feelings of love for our partners. Romance is more than just passion, however. It also involves our thoughts.

Thought

The two-factor theory of passionate love emphasizes the role of our thoughts and beliefs in accounting for arousal. Our judgments are also linked to romance in other ways, with lovers thinking about each other in ways that differ from the ways they think about their friends. Some of these distinctions are apparent in the contents of a Love Scale and a Liking Scale created by Zick Rubin in 1973. Years before Hatfield and Sprecher created the Passionate Love Scale, Rubin created dozens of statements that reflected a wide range of inter- personal attitudes and asked people to use them to describe both a lover and a friend. The handful of items that epitomized people’s romances ended up on a Love Scale that gives a partial indication of what lovers are thinking.

One theme in the items on the Love Scale is intimacy, just as the triangular theory of love defines it. Romance is characterized by openness, communica- tion, and trust (see item 1 in Table 8.4). A second theme is needy dependence (see item 2 in Table 8.4). The dependence items describe ardent longing for one’s partner that has much in common with the passion we’ve discussed. A last theme on the Love Scale, however, describes feelings that are not mentioned by the triangular theory: caring. Romantic lovers report concern for the welfare and well-being of their partners (see item 3). They want to take care of their partners and keep them happy.

Thus, like other efforts to characterize love (e.g., Fehr, 2013), the Love Scale portrays romantic love as a multifaceted experience that involves both giving (i.e., caring) and taking (i.e., dependence). If you’re in love with someone, it’s probably partly selfish—you love your partner because of how that person makes you feel—and partly generous; you genuinely care for your partner and will work to satisfy and protect him or her. (In fact, compassionate concern for those we love may define yet another type of love, as we’ll see on page 262.) In addition, these diverse sentiments are experienced with relative intensity and urgency: You’d do anything for your partner and be miserable without him or her.

Compare those thoughts and feelings to the sorts of things people say about their friends. As you can see in Table 8.4, the Liking Scale seems bland by comparison. People say they like their friends because their friends are nice, well-adjusted, likable people. But they love their lovers because they need them and would do anything the lover asks. There’s a fervor to the thoughts that characterize romantic love that is lacking when we just like someone.

The specific judgments people make of their partners are important, too. As we saw in chapter 4, people tend to hold rosy views of their relationship partners, and their tendency to idealize and glorify their lovers is probably at a peak when they are most in love. In fact, the moment romance enters the picture, people start ignoring or reinterpreting undesirable information about potential partners. Imagine that you’re a male college student who is asked to play the role of a restaurant owner who is evaluating the work of a woman who is pitching you an advertising campaign (Goodwin et al., 2002). You watch a video of her presentation, which is either coherent and clever or clumsy and inept. Would you be able to tell the difference between the competent and incompetent work? Of course you would. But what if you knew that you’d be going out on a date with the woman on Friday? Would the possibility of a romance influence your judgment? You may not think so, but when men really participated in a procedure like this, a romantic orientation had a big effect, as Figure 8.1 illustrates. The upcoming date obviously contaminated the men’s judgment, magically transforming a lousy performance into one of much higher quality. Any distinction between good and bad work disappeared entirely when the possibility of romance was in play.

As these results suggest, in a real way, “love is blind”: People underesti- mate or ignore their lovers’ faults. They hold idealized images of their lovers that may differ in meaningful ways from the concrete realities they face. In fact, a major difference between love and friendship may be our imaginations: Our lovers are fascinating, mysterious, and appealing in ways our friends are not (Aron et al., 2008).

Romantic love also makes it easier to put tempting alternatives to our pres- ent partners out of our minds. When we’re fascinated and preoccupied with a lover, we may have difficulty focusing and concentrating on anyone—or anything—else (van Steenbergen et al., 2014). Here’s another provocative pro- cedure: Imagine yourself inspecting photos of attractive members of the other sex, picking the best-looking one of the bunch, and then writing essays on (a) why that person is attractive and (b) what a perfect first meeting with that person would be like. Clearly, the researchers have you pondering a com- pelling alternative to your current romantic partner (Gonzaga et al., 2008). But the plot thickens; you’re now asked to put the fantasy alternative out of mind and to stop thinking about him or her while you write another essay about (a) your love for your partner, (b) your sexual desire for your partner, or (c) just your current stream of thought. Can you do it? You can if you’re men- tally rehearsing your love for your partner. People were better able to distract themselves from the alternative—and they remembered less about the alterna- tive’s looks—when they envisioned their love for their partners than in the other two conditions. Evidently, love keeps our attention on one preferred partner; rehearsing our romantic love for our partners even makes us less likely to notice other attractive people in the first place (Maner et al., 2008).

Finally, even our thoughts about ourselves can change when we fall in love. Arthur and Elaine Aron’s self-expansion model suggests that love causes our self-concepts to expand and change as our partners bring us new experiences and new roles, and we gradually learn things about ourselves that we didn’t know before (Aron et al., 2013). Indeed, a study that tracked young adults for 10 weeks while they fell in love found that their self-concepts become more diversified and their self-esteem went up, which were two reasons why falling in love was so delightful (Aron et al., 1995).

All of this is potent stuff. The arousal and cognition that characterize romantic, passionate love involve surging emotion, imagination and idealiza- tion, and occasional obsession (Aron et al., 2008). And it is the presence of this complex, hectic state that leads most North Americans to consider marriage. However, romantic passion may not be the reason they stay married in the years that follow. Whether or not a relationship lasts may have more to do with companionate love (Berscheid, 2010).

Companionate Love

Because it does not depend on passion, companionate love is a more settled state than romantic love is. The triangular theory suggests that it is a combi- nation of intimacy and commitment, but I can characterize it more fully as a “comfortable, affectionate, trusting love for a likable partner, based on a deep sense of friendship and involving companionship and the enjoyment of com- mon activities, mutual interests, and shared laughter” (Grote & Frieze, 1994, p. 275). It takes the form of a rich, committed friendship with someone with whom our lives are intertwined.

Sounds pleasant, but isn’t it a bit bland compared to the ecstasies of roman- tic passion? Perhaps so, but you may want to get used to it. When hundreds of couples who had been married at least 15 years were asked why their marriages had lasted, they didn’t say that they’d do anything for their spouses or be miser- able without them, like romantic lovers do (Lauer & Lauer, 1985). Instead, for both men and women, the two most frequent reasons were (a) “My spouse is my best friend,” and (b) “I like my spouse as a person.” Long-lasting, satisfying marriages seem to include a lot of companionate love.

A useful measure of companionate love is the Friendship-Based Love Scale created by Nancy Grote and Irene Frieze (1994). As you can see in Table 8.5, the feelings described by the scale are very different than those that accompany passionate love; friendship and companionship are much more in evidence on the Friendship-Based Love Scale than they are on measures of romantic love.

Of course, deep friendships also occur often in the context of romantic love. In one study, 44 percent of the young adults in premarital relationships reported that their romantic partners were also their closest friends (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1993). However, when they are a part of romantic love, friendships are combined (and sometimes confused) with sexual arousal and passion. The predominant importance of friendship in creating the experience is easier to detect in companionate love, when intimacy is paired with commitment, than in romantic love, when intimacy is paired with passion.

A Physiological Foundation

Companionate love also has a physiological foundation that differs from that of romantic love. The neuropeptide oxytocin, which promotes relaxation and reduces stress, seems to be involved (Carter, 2014). Oxytocin is released by mothers during childbirth and breastfeeding (and in fact, a synthetic form of oxytocin, pitocin, is used to induce labor), and the more oxytocin a young mother has in her blood, the more she’ll cuddle and coo, look, and smile at her baby (Feldman et al., 2007). Among adults, a lot of it is produced during orgasm; oxytocin may be one of the causes of the relaxed lethargy that couples often experience after lovemaking (Floyd, 2006). Moreover, people who have higher levels of oxytocin in their blood tend to be warmer and kinder when they discuss touchy topics with their spouses (Gouin et al., 2010), and research participants who snort a spray of oxytocin start behaving more pleasantly during a disagreement with a lover (Ditzen et al., 2009). They also become more trusting toward strangers (Guastella & MacLeod, 2012). These patterns suggest that oxytocin promotes a soothing sense of well-being, and it may encourage enduring attachments to those who become associated with its presence in the bloodstream (Floyd, 2006). In short, the production of oxytocin may provide a biological basis for feelings of companionate love.

Still, even if dopamine is a key player in romantic love and oxytocin a central ingredient in companionate love, both agents are always present in the body in some amount, so we rarely encounter pure experiences of romantic and companionate love in which one is present and the other is not. Companionate lovers can and do experience passion, and romantic lovers can and do feel commitment. As we experience them, the distinctions between romantic and companionate love are much fuzzier than this discussion may have implied (Graham, 2011). Nevertheless, if we’re willing to tolerate some ambiguity, we can conclude that there appear to be at least two major types of love that frequently occur in American romance: a love that’s full of passion that leads people to pair off with each other, and a love that’s full of friendship that underlies relationships that last. Over time, companionate love is typically stronger in enduring relationships than romantic, passionate love is (Ahmetoglu et al., 2010), and it is more highly correlated with the satisfaction people enjoy (Langeslag et al., 2013). I’ll return to this point at the end of the chapter.

Compassionate Love

There’s a third type of love that occurs in successful romances (Berscheid, 2010) that is not delineated by the triangular theory of love because the theory does not assert that considerate caring for other people is a specific component of love. Perhaps it should. An altruistic care and concern for the well-being of one’s partner is a defining characteristic of compassionate love, a type of love that combines the trust and understanding of intimacy with compassion and caring that involves empathy, selflessness, and sacrifice on behalf of the beloved (Fehr & Sprecher, 2013). (Now before we go any further, let’s take a moment and examine the label “compassionate” love. It sounds like a combination of romantic, passionate love [which obviously involves passion] and companionate love [which includes the word “companion”], but it is different from either one. Compassion involves empathy for others and the benevolent wish to aid those who are need help. Don’t confuse companionate love with compassionate love.2)

2 And don’t blame me for the similarity of the terms. It’s not my fault.

People who feel compassionate love tend to share the pain or joy that their loved ones experience, and they would rather suffer themselves than to allow someone close to them to be hurt. They are empathic and generous, and their care and concern for their loved ones are evident in a Compassionate Love Scale created by Susan Sprecher and Beverley Fehr (2005). (See Table 8.6.) As you might expect, compassionate lovers provide their partners more support— and take more pleasure in doing so—than do those who are less compassionate (Sprecher et al., 2007).

The thoughtful, benevolent, and generous behaviors that compassionate lovers offer their partners are good for their relationships. Each night for two weeks, Harry Reis and his colleagues (2014) asked 175 newlywed couples from across the United States and Canada to report which of the specific behaviors in Table 8.7 had occurred that day. The young lovers did these things often, but not that often; on average, a new spouse performed at least one of these kind acts on only about 60 percent of all days. But when they did occur, both spouses were more satisfied with their relationship the next day. You probably won’t be surprised, then, to read that greater compassionate love for one’s partner, which is evident when compassionate acts like these occur often, is associated with more relationship satisfaction, too (Fehr & Sprecher, 2013).

Compassionate love is highly correlated with experiences of romantic love and companionate love—they all have intimacy in common—but there are still differences among them that are worth noting (Fehr, 2013). Whereas romantic love is “blind,” compassionate love is rooted in more accurate understanding of our partners’ strengths and weaknesses; we recognize their deficiencies, but we love them anyway (Neff & Karney, 2009). And the selfless concern that defines compas- sionate love may be invaluable in protecting and maintaining a relationship if the partners become infirm with age or if a “malevolent fate plunges one of the partners from ‘better’ to a permanent ‘worse’” (Berscheid, 2010, p. 17). Is compassionate love necessary for continued satisfaction in long-term rela- tionships? We don’t yet know: Those studies have yet to be done. Nevertheless, along with passion and friendship, compassionate caring for one’s partner may be another key ingredient in the very best experiences of love.

Styles of Loving

Another scheme for distinguishing different types of love experiences was offered by sociologist John Alan Lee (1988), who used Greek and Latin words to describe six styles of love that differ in the intensity of the loving experience, commitment to the beloved, desired characteristics of the beloved, and expecta- tions about being loved in return. (See Table 8.8.) One style is eros, from which the word erotic comes. Eros has a strong physical component, and erotic lovers are likely to be heavily influenced by physical appearance and to believe in love at first sight.

A second style, ludus (pronounced “loo-dus”), treats love as an uncom- mitted game. Ludic lovers are often fickle and (try to) have several different partners at once. In contrast, a third style, storge, (“store-gay”) leads people to de-emphasize strong emotion and to seek genuine friendships that gradually lead to real commitment.

A fourth style, mania, is demanding and possessive and full of vivid fan- tasy and obsession. A fifth style, agape (“ah-gaa-pay”), is giving, altruistic, and selfless, and treats love as a duty. Finally, the last style, pragma, is practical and pragmatic. Pragma leads people to dispassionately seek partners who will logically be a good match for them.

How useful are these distinctions? Instead of thinking of them as six addi- tional types of love, it makes more sense to consider them as six themes in love experiences that overlap and are differentially related to the types of love we’ve considered so far. In particular, storge, mania, and pragma have little in common with romantic love, companionate love, or compassionate love; the obsession of mania and the cool, friendly practicality of storge and pragma dif- fer noticeably from the loving intimacy at the heart of all three types of love (Graham, 2011). However, all of the components of love described by the triangular theory—that is, intimacy, passion, and commitment—are positively related to eros and agape (remember, love involves both giving and taking), and negatively related to ludus (which means that love is serious business) (Graham, 2011). So, some of the styles described by Lee (1988) are related to other widely studied types of love, but others of them are not. Susan and Clyde Hendrick have developed a Love Attitudes Scale to measure people’s endorse- ment of the six styles, and they have found that men score higher on ludus than women do, whereas women are more storgic and pragmatic than men (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2006). Other researchers have detected a tendency for people to pair off with others who share similar attitudes toward love (Morrow et al., 1995). In general, then, the love styles remind us of intriguing sources of individuality (such as practicality) that are sometimes overlooked.

8.3 INDIVIDUAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN LOVE

Obviously, there are various feelings people may be experiencing when they say, “I love you.” To complicate things further, some people may be more likely than others to experience certain types of love. Several individual differences and cultural influences are linked to love, and I’ll begin our consideration of them by considering whether love differs from one culture to the next.

Culture

If you’re using fMRI, romantic love in China looks just like romantic love in the United States: The areas of the brain that are activated when people see photos of their romantic partners are generally the same in both cultures (Xu et al., 2011). This isn’t surprising because romantic love appears to be a uni- versal human experience that is found in all the peoples of the world (Hatfield et al., 2007). The distinction between romantic love and companionate love is also apparent in both Western and Eastern cultures (Fehr, 2013). Fundamen- tally, the various types of love seem to operate similarly in diverse cultures. Still, within these broad similarities lie some cultural nuances that make love a little different from place to place.

When they describe their experiences of falling in love, for instance, Americans emphasize the similarity and good looks of their partners more than Chinese people do, and the Chinese mention a desirable personality, others’ opinions, and their own physical arousal more than Americans do (Riela et al., 2010). (Which group do you think is falling in love for the better reasons?) Then, when they’re in love, married couples in the United States and China both feel a lot of compassionate caring and horny desire for their part- ners, but there are cultural differences, too. Romantic fantasies—thinking of love as a fairy tale, with expectations of living happily ever after—are more prominent in America, whereas acknowledgments that one’s partner is baffling and incomprehensible and that love itself is a mixed blessing are more common in China (Jackson et al., 2006). (Again, which culture do you think has it right?) Finally, people in individualistic Western nations such as the United States are more likely than those in Eastern countries that emphasize interdependence to insist on love as a reason to marry (Merali, 2012). In particular, college students in China are more likely than those in the United States to be guided by their parents’ wishes regarding whom they should marry (Zhang & Kline, 2009). Whereas marriage in China is often a family decision, young adults in America typically expect that their choice of a spouse will be entirely up to them. (Whom would your parents choose for you, if they could? See the box on the next page.)

Attachment Styles

Because they are rather subtle, cultural influences on love are less consequen- tial than some individual differences are. In particular, whatever one’s cul- ture, the attachment dimensions of anxiety over abandonment and avoidance of intimacy are enormously important because they are associated with all of the elements of love we’ve encountered: intimacy, passion, commitment, and caring.

• Intimacy. People with secure attachment styles generally have high regard for others, viewing them as trustworthy, dependable, and kind (Luke et al., 2004), and they tend to be more open with their partners, happily engaging in a lot of self-disclosure. Those who are insecure are more wary of others. In particular, people who are high in avoidance typically view others with suspicion, perceiving them to be dishonest and undependable (Collins & Allard, 2001). As a result, they tend to be close-mouthed, telling their part- ners relatively little about their feelings and desires (Feeney et al., 2000).

In general, then, secure people enjoy greater intimacy with their partners than insecure people do (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

• Passion. There’s a lot of drama in the lives of preoccupied people, but much of it isn’t pleasant. Their anxiety over abandonment often has them on edge, nervously experiencing apprehension rather than delight in their intimate interactions (Davis et al., 2004). Those who are avoidant of intimacy are more distant and detached, and their passion (such as it is) is more imper- sonal. So, the best, most fulfilling sex is enjoyed by people with secure attachment styles. Secure people have more frequent sex that involves more arousal, greater pleasure, more frequent orgasms, and greater satis- faction (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007).

• Commitment. Secure people also tend to be more committed to their part- nerships than insecure people are (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). This is also no surprise because day by day, secure people have more intimate, more positive, and more satisfying interactions with their lovers than insecure people do (Kafetsios & Nezlek, 2002).

• Caring and caregiving. Finally, when their partners are nervous and need support, insecure people are less effective caregivers, providing less reas- surance than secure people do and leaving their partners less at ease (Davila & Kashy, 2009). In particular, people who are high in avoidance behave more negatively and sometimes get angry when they are asked to provide comfort and consolation to a needy partner (Campbell et al., 2001). Anxious people often offer a lot of help, but they tend to do so for selfish reasons, hoping to gain approval from their partners. Overall, compassion- ate love for one’s partner is enhanced and increased by a secure attachment style and reduced by avoidance of intimacy (Sprecher & Fehr, 2011).

Thus, a secure style is positively related to all four of the building blocks that seem to create different love experiences, and sure enough, secure people expe- rience more intense romantic, companionate, and compassionate love than insecure people do (Hepper & Carnelley, 2012).

Importantly, however, all of us typically have several different partners, such as lovers, parents, and friends, who are important attachment figures at any one time, and we may be relatively secure in some of those relationships and somewhat insecure in others (Sibley & Overall, 2008). Lurking within the global orientations toward relationships that we label as attachment styles may be several different sets of feelings about specific partners, so that our attach- ment quality can vary from partner to partner (Fraley et al., 2011). Those of us who are anxiously attached to our mothers, for instance, may nevertheless trust our romantic partners wholeheartedly. So, attachment varies from relationship to relationship, making attachment styles in loving partnerships rather complex.

Still, the global attitudes I’ve described here are important. Varying levels of avoidance of intimacy and anxiety over abandonment characterize relation- ships all over the world (Schmitt, 2008). And they clearly set the stage for our dealings with others. Toddlers who are securely attached to their mothers tend to get along with others in elementary school and then to have close friendships in high school—and then, as a result of those successful friendships, they tend to have satisfying adult romances (Haydon & Roisman, 2013). The potent, last- ing influences of attachment styles demonstrate that not only are there different types of loves, there are different kinds of lovers.

Age

Another slowly changing personal characteristic that may affect love is one’s age. Most people mellow as they get older (Shallcross et al., 2013). When researchers compared spouses in their sixties to those in their forties, they found that the older couples interacted with more good cheer but less physi- cal arousal. Their emotions were less intense, but more positive on the whole, even in marriages that were not particularly happy at the time (Levenson et al., 1994). So, some of the burning, urgent, emotional intensity that leads young people to marry seems to dwindle with time to be replaced with a more genial and more mature outlook on love.

Men and Women

A potentially important individual difference that does not change with time is one’s sex. On the whole, men and women are more similar than different when it comes to love (Canary & Emmers-Sommer, 1997). They experience the various types of love similarly, and there are few differences in the propor- tions of men and women who have each attachment style; men tend to be more dismissing than women are, but the difference is rather small (Schmitt, 2008). Women do experience more intense and more volatile emotions than men do, on average (Brody & Hall, 2010); nevertheless, there are rarely any differences between men and women on measures of romantic feelings such as the Love Scale (Rubin, 1973) and the Passionate Love Scale (Galperin & Haselton, 2010). Evidently, as we have seen before, it’s just plain silly to think that men come from one planet and women come from another.

On the other hand, men tend to possess more romantic attitudes than women do; they’re more likely than women to think that if you just love some- one enough, nothing else matters (Sprecher & Metts, 1999). They’re also more likely to believe that it’s possible to experience “love at first sight,” and they tend to fall in love faster than women do (Galperin & Haselton, 2010). Women are more cautious than men when it comes to love; they’re more selective about whom they love, feeling passion more slowly and limiting their affection to partners of higher mate value (N. Li et al., 2012). Men tend to be less discrimi- nating, a fact that is reflected by their greater acceptance, on average, of casual sex (Schmitt, 2005). Along those lines, I can report that, contrary to popular stereotypes, men are usually the first to say “I love you” in a new relationship, doing so 70 percent of the time (Ackerman et al., 2011). (All of these patterns, I should remind you, are consistent with an evolutionary perspective, which predicts that women should be cautious about whom they love because their parental investments in any offspring are so much greater than men’s [Buss, 2013]. In contrast, a sociocultural model attributes women’s greater selectivity to their traditionally lower status in many societies; according to this perspec- tive, careful selection of a high-status mate is one of the few means available to women to obtain resources that are more accessible to men [Eagly & Wood, 2013a]. Which explanation do you find more convincing?)

Men also seem to put more stock in passion. Men and women agree that love should be affectionate and committed, but men also think it should be more passionate than women do (Fehr & Broughton, 2001). Indeed, of the three components of love, passion is most highly associated with men’s satisfaction with their relationships, whereas commitment is the best predictor of satisfac- tion for women (Sternberg, 2006). This puts men in the position of relying on the component of love that, according to the triangular theory, is the least stable and reliable as time goes by.

8.4 DOES LOVE LAST?

So, how does the passage of time affect love? Does love last? This is a hard ques- tion to answer conclusively because, as we’ve seen, there are different types of loves and idiosyncratic types of lovers. Your experiences with love through the years may differ from those of others. Nevertheless, the prototypical North American marriage occurs when people in their twenties who are flushed with romantic passion pledge to spend the rest of their lives together, probably expecting their passion to last. Will it? Despite the couples’ good intentions, the best answer relationship science can provide is, probably not, at least not to the extent the partners expect.

The simple truth is that romantic love typically decreases after people marry (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). Scores on romantic and passionate love scales go down as the years go by (Tucker & Aron, 1993), and that’s among couples who manage to stay married! After several years, husbands and wives are no lon- ger claiming to the same degree that they’d do anything for each other or that they melt when they look into each other’s eyes. Figure 8.2 provides an interest- ing example of this in a study conducted in India that compared couples who chose to marry for love—like most North Americans do—to couples whose mar- riages were arranged for them by their families (Gupta & Singh, 1982). Romantic couples who were still married after 10 years reported much lower scores on Rubin’s (1973) Love Scale than did those who had been married only for a year or two. (Couples who divorced and were not married that long were not included in the data you see in Figure 8.2. What do you think their love scores would be?)

What’s more, the decrease in a couple’s romantic love may sometimes be quite rapid. After only two years of marriage, average spouses express affection for each other only half as often as they did when they were newlyweds (Huston & Chorost, 1994). Worldwide, divorces occur more frequently in the fourth year of marriage than at any other time (Fisher, 1995). Many, if not most, couples fail to maintain the urgent longing for each other that leads them to marry in the first place.

Why Doesn’t Romantic Love Last?

In fact, if we consider it carefully, there may be several reasons why we should expect romantic love to decline over time (Walster & Walster, 1978). First, fantasy enhances romance. As we’ve seen, love is blind to some degree. Flushed with passion, lovers tend to idealize their partners and minimize or ignore informa- tion that should give them pause. Imagination, hope, and flights of fancy can make people who are quite different from us seem appealing, at least temporar- ily. The problem, of course, is that fantasy erodes with time and experience. To the extent that romance is enhanced by idealized glorification of one’s partner, we should expect it to decline when people begin living together and reality slowly intrudes. “Ideals are easily tarnished, spells broken, sleights of hand exposed . . . romance fades over time because familiarity provides a more real- istic, ‘warts and all’ view of the other; the harsh sunlight of the morning after dispels the enchantment of the moonlight” (Mitchell, 2002, p. 94). Or, according to author Erica Jong (2003, p. 48), who became famous with her description of a “zipless” sexual encounter between two strangers,3 “since passion is about fantasy and marriage is about reality, passion and marriage are the oddest of odd bedfellows.”

3 Google it. I’m aiming for a PG-13, not an R, rating here.

In addition, sheer novelty adds excitement and energy to new loves. A first kiss is often much more thrilling than most of the thousands that follow, and when people are invigorated and fascinated by a new partner, they may be unable to appreciate how familiar and routine that same lover may seem 30 years later. Indeed, novelty causes sexual arousal in other species: If a male rat is caged with a female in estrus, he’ll mate with her repeatedly until he appears to be sexually exhausted; however, if the first female is then replaced with another receptive female, the male will mount her with renewed interest and vigor. By continuing to replace an old partner with a new one, research- ers can elicit two to three times as many ejaculations from the male as would have occurred with only the single female (Dewsbury, 1981). Researchers call this effect of novelty on arousal the Coolidge effect, referring to an old story that may or may not be true. Supposedly, President Calvin Coolidge and his wife were once touring a chicken farm when Mrs. Coolidge noticed a rooster covering one hen after another. Impressed with the bird’s prowess,she asked the guide to mention the rooster to the president. When he heard about the rooster’s stamina, Coolidge is said to have reflected a moment and then replied, “Please tell Mrs. Coolidge that there is more than one hen” (Walster & Walster, 1978).

Does novelty have similar effects on people? It might. Engaging in novel, arousing activities together gets romantic couples to feel more in love with each other (Strong & Aron, 2006). Furthermore, Roy Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky (1999) have suggested that romantic passion is directly related to changes in our relationships. When we’re falling in love, our selves are expanding, everything is new and intimacy is increasing, and passion is likely to be very high. However, once a relationship is established, and novelty is lost, passion slowly subsides; the longer a relationship lasts, the less passionate it becomes (Ahmetoglu et al., 2010). This pattern is apparent in the results of a broad survey of U.S. sexuality that showed that an average couple’s frequency of intercourse (one measure of their passion for each other) declines continually over the course of their marriage (Call et al., 1995). A similar pattern occurs in Germany, too (Klusmann, 2002). This decline is obviously confounded with age, as Figure 8.3 shows. However, people who remarry and change partners increase their frequency of sex, at least for a while, so aging does not seem to be wholly responsible for the decline of passion with time. Arguably, “romance thrives on novelty, mys- tery, and danger; it is dispersed by familiarity. Enduring romance is therefore a contradiction in terms” (Mitchell, 2002, p. 27).

Finally, as Figure 8.3 also implies, arousal fades as time goes by. As we’ve seen, there’s no question that physical arousal—such as a rapid pulse rate and fast, shallow breathing—fuels passion. But it’s impossible to stay keyed up forever! In the case of romantic love, the brain may simply not produce as much dopamine when a partner becomes familiar, so that even if your partner is as wonderful as ever, you’re not as aroused. In any case, for whatever reason, the passion compo- nent of love is less lasting than either intimacy or commitment (Ahmetoglu et al., 2010), and that means that romantic love is less durable as well.

So, What Does the Future Hold?

Because three important influences on romantic passion—fantasy, novelty, and arousal—tend to dwindle over the years, romantic love decreases, too (Walster & Walster, 1978). Now, let’s be clear: Some couples do continue to feel lots of romantic love for each other after decades together; 40 percent of a random sample of Americans who had been married for 10 years or more reported that they were “very intensely in love” with their spouses. But even their love was less intense, on average, than it had been when they married (O’Leary et al., 2012). So, it’s fair to conclude that almost everybody’s loving feelings change somewhat over time. When they see photos of their beloved spouses, people who are still very much in love after 10 years of marriage still experience activation of the dopamine-rich reward centers in their brains, just as they did when they had just fallen in love—but other areas that are associ- ated with monogamy and commitment in mammals become more active, too (Acevedo et al., 2012). The obsessive preoccupation with one’s beloved that characterizes new love also tends to fade, even when desire and caring remain (Acevedo & Aron, 2009). The bottom line is that the burning love that gets people to marry tends not to stay the same, and that’s one likely reason that the U.S. divorce rate is so high: A common complaint is that the “magic” has died (see chapter 13).

However, I really don’t want this news to be depressing! To the contrary, I think it offers important advice about how long-term romances can succeed. Often, the love that encourages people to marry is not the love that keeps them together decades later. Passion declines, but intimacy and commitment both increase as we age (Ahmetoglu et al., 2010). Thus, companionate love may be more stable than romantic love is (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). And, as we saw earlier, people who have been happily married for a long time typically express a lot of companionate love for their spouses (Lauer & Lauer, 1985). Such people are often genuinely happy, too: Although it does not rely on passion, companionate love is very satisfying to those who experience it (Hecht et al., 1994). And because intimacy and passion are correlated (Whitley, 1993), being good friends may help to keep your passion alive.

So, you should commit yourself only to a lover who is also a good friend. You can also purposefully and creatively strive to forestall any boredom that would undermine your contentment. Relationships become stagnant when they become repetitive and monotonous, and as we saw in chapter 6, boredom occurs not when bad things happen but when nothing interesting, exciting, or challenging occurs (Harasymchuk & Fehr, 2013). And because boredom is anti- thetical to love and satisfaction, it’s very bad news (Tsapelas et al., 2009). When novelty is lost, create some more. Don’t stop seeking out new and engaging ways to have fun together.

So, there’s your game plan. Enjoy passion, but don’t make it the founda- tion of the relationships that you hope will last. Nurture friendship with your lover. Try to stay fresh; grab every opportunity to enjoy novel adventures with your spouse (Strong & Aron, 2006). And don’t be surprised or disappointed if your urgent desires gradually resolve into placid but deep affection for your beloved. That happy result is likely to make you a lucky lover.

8.5 FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Before Daniel and Catherine met, neither of them had been in love, so they were both excited when their dating relationship gradually developed into a more intimate love affair. Each was the other’s first lover, and they found sex to be both awkward and thrilling, and, within a few weeks, flushed with more romantic feelings than either of them had known, they decided to marry. But Daniel soon became annoyed by Catherine’s apparent desire to know every- thing about his day. She would call him every morning and afternoon when he was at work, just to “be in touch,” and she would start to fret if he met clients over lunch or was out of the office running errands. For her part, Catherine was troubled by Daniel’s apparent reluctance to tell her what was on his mind. He prided himself on his self-sufficiency and didn’t feel that it was necessary to tell her everything, and he began to feel crowded by her insistent probing.

Having read this chapter, what do you think the future holds for Daniel and Catherine? Why?

8.6 CHAPTER SUMMARY

A Brief History of Love

Different societies have held very different perspectives on love, and only recently has love been associated with marriage.

Types of Love

The Triangular Theory of Love. Intimacy, passion, and commitment are thought to combine to produce eight different types of love.

Romantic, Passionate Love. Intimacy and passion, which increases when a person becomes aroused for any reason, combine to form romantic love. It is characterized by idealized evaluations of one’s partner.

Companionate Love. Intimacy and commitment combine to form companionate love, a deep friendship with someone with whom one’s life is intertwined. Happy spouses usually say that they are good friends.

Compassionate Love. Intimacy combines with selfless caring for the beloved to form compassionate love. Compassionate acts enhance relationships.

Styles of Loving. Six themes in love experiences that are differentially correlated with the various types of love have also been identified.

Individual and Cultural Differences in Love

Culture. Love is much the same around the world, but cultural nuances exist.

Attachment Styles. Secure people enjoy stronger experiences of romantic, companionate, and compassionate love than insecure people do.

Age. People mellow with age, experiencing less intense love as time goes by.

Men and Women. Men and women are more similar than different when it comes to love. However, women pick their lovers more carefully and fall in love less quickly than men do.

Does Love Last?

In most—but not all—cases, romantic love decreases after people marry, sometimes quite rapidly.

Why Doesn’t Romantic Love Last? Romance and passion involve fantasy, novelty, and arousal, and each fades with time.

So, What Does the Future Hold? Companionate love is very satisfying and is more stable than romantic love is. If lovers are good friends and work to battle boredom, they may improve their chances for a long, contented relationship.

未完待续，持续更新中

The series continues to be updated...

Chapter 1 The Building Blocks of Relationships （I）【121777】

Chapter 1 The Building Blocks of Relationships （II）【152979】

Chapter 2 Research Methods 【596719】

Chapter 3 Attraction （I）【431743】

Chapter 3 Attraction （II）【213329】

Chapter 4 Social Cognition（I）【607185】

Chapter 4 Social Cognition（II）【388771】

Chapter 5 Communication (I) 【261909】

Chapter 5 Communication (II) 【230707】

Chapter 6 Interdependency 【228653】

Chapter 7 Friendship 【166249】

Chapter 8 Love 【240092】

Chapter 9 Sexuality 【598969】

Chapter 10 Stresses and Strains

Chapter 11 Conflict

Chapter 12 Power and Violence

Chapter 13 The Dissolution and Loss of Relationships

Chapter 14 Maintaining and Repairing Relationships