PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF LOVE

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PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF LOVE

• Love is an intense feeling of deep affection for
  another.
• Psychologists distinguish between
• COMPANIONATE and
• ROMANTIC love

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RUBINS LOVE SCALE

• This measures 3 factors
• 1. Desire to help the other person
• 2. Dependent needs of the other person
• 3. Feelings of exclusiveness and absorption
• Rubin found that women find intimacy in a wider
  range of relationships, whereas men find it more
  in sexual relationships

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ROMANTIC AND COMPANIONATE LOVE

• Companionate is based on mutual rewards,
  familiarity, steady and positive emotions
• It deepens over time
• Romantic is an intense emotion of various types
  joy, anxiety, excitement, despair
• These emotions dilute with time

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STERNBERGS TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE

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THE 3 COMPONENTS OF LOVE

• INTIMACY bonding
• PASSION driven by physical attraction
• COMMITMENT the decision I love is made

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Passion
Intimacy Commitment
   
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EVALUATION OF STERNBERGS THEORY

• 1. It can be used to analyse similarities and
  differences in partners. They can then begin to
  work on these
• Components are vague and difficult to measure

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3 FACTOR THEORY OF LOVE

• HATFIELD AND WALSTER 81 approached love in a
  similar way to the emotions theorists. Does the
  feeling come first or the cognition?

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COGNITIVE LABELLING THEORY

• Schachter and Singer proposed that all emotional
  experiences are outcomes of
• 1. Being in a state of physiological arousal
• 2. Providing an appropriate label for the arousal
• So if we are surprised by a) a bear, or b) a
  halloween joke, the level of arousal is the same
  but there is a different cognitive label

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EVIDENCE FOR COGNITIVE LABELLING THEORY

• DUTTON AND ARON Love on a suspension bridge.
• Read blue box on p.81 do APFC
• AIM to find evidence for the 3 factor theory

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LOVE ON A SUSPENSION BRIDGE

• PROCEDURE attractive female interviewer stopped
  men on either
• 1. A high bridge (high arousal condition)
• 2. A low bridge (low arousal condition)

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THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST

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FINDINGS

• Mens sexual attraction was measured using TAT
• Control group were interviewed by a male
• RESULTS men on the high bridge had higher levels
  of sexual arousal (measured by the sexual content
  of the TAT ) than those on the low bridge of
  those interviewed by the male
• This supports the 3 Factor theory

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THE 3 FACTORS

• CULTURAL EXPOSURE
• PHYSIOLOGICAL AROUSAL
• APPROPRIATE LOVE OBJECT.
• These all need to be present for a person to fall
  in love
• Task find 4 evaluations of theory p.80