Falling in Love

Definition:

Love is the capacity that gradually develops from the infant's basic need for human contact. This need develops into a growing desire in childhood for contact with one's age mates or peers, and further develops into the inner need to know another intimately. Love means:
• to hold dear, to cherish
• to feel a lover's passion, devotion, or tenderness
• to like or desire acutely
• take pleasure in (i.e., love to play the violin)
• to thrive in (i.e., he loves this weather)
• to feel affection or experience desire.

• physical acts
• physiological changes
• emotional feelings
• motivation, or love readiness

Myths Surrounding the American Ideal of Romantic Love - Myths:

1. Love at First Sight - love is too deep an emotion to be so fickle!
2. Love is Blind - maybe at first. Mature love is accepting of faults, not blind.
3. Love Conquers All - but it doesn't pay the rent.
4. Love is Both Ecstasy and Agony - is the way we excuse mistreatment
5. Love is Always Passionate - nothing is always passionate

Romantic Love is, according to Zick Rubin, a three part phenomenon, with equal parts of:

• Attachment - a need for the physical presence and emotional support of the other person.
• Caring - a feeling of concern and responsibility for the other person.
• Intimacy - a close bond manifested in part by confidential communications.

Passion was NOT one of the components of love for Rubin.

Passionate Love - a wildly emotional state associated with strong physiological, arousal, confused feelings, intense absorption with and longing for the loved one, and strong desires for fulfillment through this person.

Limerence - Symptoms of Love Sickness

• intrusive thinking
• a deep and acute longing
• mood swings
• shyness and clumsiness
• idealize the loved one
• strong sexual attraction

Companionate Love - lower key emotions, but with deeper attachment, friendly affection, kindly preoccupation.

The Liking to Loving Continuum:

Components of Love:
• the Passion Cluster of Facination/Exclusiveness/Sexual Desire
• Affection
• Respect (including integrity, honesty, reliability)
• Erotic Feelings

Styles of Loving: (from the Greeks)

• Eros - erotic, worldly love
• Storge - romantic love
• Ludus - playful love
• Mania - obsessive, clingy love
• Pragma - goal oriented, functional love
• Agape - spiritual love

Males tend to trade affection and commitment for sexual intimacy and access.
Females tend to trade sexual intimacy for commitment and affection.

The Triangular Theory of Love: Commitment/Passion/Intimacy

1. Nonlove absence of all three
2. Liking intimacy only
3. Infatuation passion only
4. Empty love commitment only
5. Romantic love intimacy and passion
6. Fatuous love passion and commitment
7. Companionate love intimacy and commitment
8. Consummate love all three components in equal parts.  This is the one we all want to nurture!

• Separateness vs. Togetherness - love sometimes smothers
• Independence vs. Togetherness
• Ecstasy vs Despair
• Jealousy vs. Trust

Social Conditions
• ending school
• starting romance.
• special times of the year (Springtime, for example)
Personal Conditions
• expectation of falling in love
• high self-esteem
• coming from a loving family
• physical attractiveness
• money and other resources
Relationship Factors
• effective communication skills
• mutual self-disclosure
• conflict resolution abilities
• the communication of feelings!

Annotated References

Aube, J., & Koestner, R. (1995). Characteristics and relationship adjustment: Another look at similarity-complimentarity hypotheses. Journal of Personality, 63(4). Couples did not become more similar on gender characteristics over a 15 month period of cohabitation or marriage.

Bailey, R.C. & Czuchry, M. (1994). Psychological kinship fulfillment and dating attraction. Social Behavior and Personality, 22, 157-192. Fulfilling kinship needs with non-familial relationships may illicit a feeling that people have married their opposite sex parent. When both male and female subjects felt a high degree of kinship toward their dating partner, they also expressed more love and liking of their partner.

Buss, D.M. (1994). The stratgies of falling in love. American Scientist, 4(27), 238-240. World-wide, men and women do not differ in their need for long-term relationships. Men reported a significant greater interest in short-term relationships than are women. Men desired a greater number of sex partners (18 over a lifetime compared to 4-5 for women).

Felmlee, D.H. (1994). Who's on top? Power in romantic relationships. Sex Roles, 31, 275-295. 46% of the sample viewed the power distribution in their relationships as being equal. When inequalities in the power distribution were admitted, both genders were more likely to attribute the upper hand to men. While less than half saw their relationships as equal, the majority thought their relationships were fair, assuming some degree of male dominance to be preferred.

McElhaney, L.J., (1992). Dating and courtship in the later years. Generations, 16(3), 21-23. Activity level and energy is important in the ability to meet new partners, as is general health ability to drive, organization membership, and sibling contact.

Murstein, B.I., and Brust, R.G. (1985). Humor and interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49 (6), 637-640. Humor is more associated with general affiliative attraction than romantic attraction. Compatibility in sense of humor, rather than character of humor, is more important here.

Stets, J.E. (1003). Control in dating relationships. JMF, 55, 673-685. Control over one's dating partner is more common under conditions of low perspective taking and high conflict. Perspective taking increases in later stages of relationships due to greater familiarity with the other.

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