Theories of Love - Coursework Example

? Theories of Love Submitted: Theories of Love Introduction Over the years various psychologists and scholars have tried to figure out what love actually is. They have done thorough research and have figured different aspects of love. For example: Zick Rubin differentiated between two aspects recognized as liking and loving someone and Berscheid and Walster proposed the theory of compassionate and romantic love. In this paper we will highlight and discuss in detail the different love theories proposed by different psychologist over the past years. Discussion During 1970s, a scale of love consisting of thirteen love items was created by Zick Rubin to conduct a research on the term he recognized as romantic love (ROECKELEIN, p.314, 1998). Rubin believes that love is an attitude that one individual has towards another and this attitude encourages one individual to exhibit certain behaviour, think in a certain way and have certain feelings for the other individual. Through his research, Rubin identified that there are four different kinds of feelings that one individual can have for another. These feelings include: caring, having the feel of need to have the other, enduring the other and having faith in them. Caring refers to an individual’s want to help another person in every way possible to solve the issues faced by them. Having the feel of need to have the other person refers to an individual’s desire to be present with the other person and to be cared for by the other individual. Enduring the other refers to an individual’s act of accepting all the positive and the negative sides of the other person and having faith in other refers to the act of having confidence in each other and expecting that one will stand up for another person at all times. Through his research he identified that the feel of caring was most important for romantic love as compared to enduring, trusting and needing the significant other (JAMES, p.200, 2008). Robin even identified that romantic love comprises of three elements including: care, intimacy and attachment. During 1987, Philip Shaver and Cindy Hazan conducted a research called love as attachment; they came up with the attachment theory (HOWE, p.40, 2012). In this study they conducted research on the similarities between the attachment that infants have with significant other and love that adults have with their significant others. According to Ainsworth, there are three different kinds of bond between the caretaker of an infant and the infant (MERCER, p. 40, 2006). First kind of infant-caretaker bond is one in which an infant gets easily attached to any caregiver and does not experience difficulty while detachment, in second kind of bond, an infant experiences severe issues while detachment with their caregivers and in the third kind of attachment, infants never get attached to any of their caregivers. Hazan and Shaver concluded that individuals love in the same pattern as they used to become attached to caregivers in early childhood. Their study showed that those adults, who had the first kind of attachment in their infancy stage, find relatively easy to get involved with others and their description of their attachment is of trust, those who experienced second kind of attachment had an expectation of rejection in adulthood and their description of their romantic love relationship was volatile and those who experienced the third kind of attachment in infancy, experienced difficulties in getting involved in any romantic love relationships and described their relationship as lacking trust and integrity. There are various faces of love, different kinds of love comes in different volumes and intensity. Two different kinds of love are recognized as romantic and compassionate love, romantic love is even recognized as passionate love. These two kinds of love were identified by Berschied and Walster during 1978 (COX, p.84, 1978). Romantic love is based on sexual attraction, infatuation. People involved in this kind of love idealize each other’s physical attributes, have a desire to be close to each other and expects the same kind of treatment from each other. On the other hand compassionate love is more related to a friendly relationship and not sexual one. In this kind of love, both the partners appreciate each other and have a sense of affection for each other, this kind of relationship takes time to develop and are much calmer if compared to passionate love. This kind of relationship is seen as more fixed than passionate love, as too many years are involved in the creation of this kind of love, plus the partners involved in this kind of love are more of best friends and true helpers of each other as they have spend years together helping each other. Hendrick and Hendrick and his colleagues came up with six types of love through their research. These six types of love includes eros, eros is a passionate kind of romantic love where the individuals involved gives greater importance to physical beauty and the relationship is very sexual oriented (STETS, p.394, 2006). Another type of Love is Ludus, this kind of love is like a game with ample amount of uncertainty. One partner does not show clear commitment for the other and keeps them guessing all the time whether they have a true romantic love relationship or not. Another kind of love is storge, in this type of love there is a friendly relationship between the partners and most of the time this type of love starts with friendship and elevates to love. People in this sort of relationship participate in different activities together and help each other, this types of love lacks the passion for sex and mostly takes place on long term basis. The fourth kind of love is pragma, this type of love is based on practical basis, in this kind of love steps are taken carefully and planning is put into action. People involved in this sort of relationship look for partners who work with them and they give less importance to producing children. The fifth sort of love is mania, people involved in this sort are very possessive about each other, they keep an eye on each other and jealousy and misunderstandings can easily become a part of partners who are involved in this sort of relationship. Agape is the sixth kind of love, in this kind of love, one individual cares more about the interest of the other individual and gives less importance to self interest. For example: the love mother Theresa had for humanity represents this kind of love. Hendrick and Hendrick figured out that men were more inclined to ludic sort of love where as women exhibited pragmatic or storgic kind of love. According to Sternberg, there are three parts of love including: commitment, passion and intimacy, and these parts contribute together to form a triangle due which this theory is recognized as Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (STERNBERG, p.184, 2006). The part recognized as intimacy is very emotional nature wise and the feeling included in this component are warmth and closeness. The part recognized as passion is related to motivational drives concerning physical attraction and phenomenon related to it. The commitment part reflects the long term and short term commitment that one individual have for another. The intensity of these three parts varies in all relationship due to the people involved in a relationship. People who are very closely related to each other have a very intimate and committed relationship, where as passion tend to have a smaller contribution in these relationships. In certain relationships, individuals involved have a higher degree of control over their commitment for each other and the intimacy involved in their relationship, where as they are unconscious and have less control in case of passion. In certain relationships, individuals involved have higher degree of control over passion and less degree of control over commitment and intimacy, the degree of control varies according to individuals involved in a relationship. Walster and Hatfield, came up with the three factor theory of love, they stated that an individual falls in love when he finds a suitable individual or lover, when he/she experiences physiological arousal in the presence of the lover and when one accepts and understands the concepts and theory related to romantic love (CRISP, p.364, 2007). For an individual to indulge in passionate love, he should have an expectation of the appropriate partner. When an individual is aroused due to the presence of his or her partner, the individual is said to be in romantic attraction state. Certain times, the same arousal is experienced by an individual when he she comes in contact with another person due to their physical attributes, this state is recognized as excitation transfer. A study conducted by Arthur Aron and Donald Dutton called Love on a suspension bridge, in this study a male or a female was asked to across a bridge that moved a lot and was not very stable and another bridge that was quite stable (CARDWELL, p.16, 2003). Each time any of the two genders crossed the bridge, they were approached by either a male or a female who presented themselves as psychological researchers and these psychological representatives asked them two write an imaginary story (MALAKH-PINES, p.19, 1999). The study helped figure out that whenever a male on the wobbling bridge was approached by a female attendant, males used to write a story which was highly sexual in nature and these men used to call the attendants for aid and most of the time, males used to ask for help from females rather than males and in case when males were attended by males they exhibited lower sigs of attraction. This clearly represents that physical appearance results in attraction. Conclusion Various psychological theorists have defined in numerous way, certain theorists have divided love into different types. Some have pointed out that love can be sexual of nature, where physical attraction and intimate relationship is more important than care for each other. On the other hand theorists have even stated that certain romantic love are friendly in nature, where the couples help each other throughout life and care for each other and listen to each other all the time. Theorists have concluded that love that is sexual in nature last lesser than love that is friendly in nature. Bibliography CARDWELL, M., & FLANAGAN, C. (2003). Psychology A2: the complete companion. Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes CRISP, R. J., & TURNER, R. N. (2007). Essential social psychology. London, SAGE. COX, F. D. (1978). Human intimacy: marriage, the family, and its meaning. St. Paul, West Pub. Co. HOWE, T. R. (2012). Marriages & families in the 21st century: a bioecological approach. Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell. JAMES, W., BURKHARDT, F., BOWERS, F., & SKRUPSKELIS, I. K. (2008). Principles of psychology. Volume I. Charlottesville, Va, InteLex Corp. http://pm.nlx.com/xtf/view?docId=jamesw/jamesw.08.xml. MALAKH-PINES, A. (1999). Falling in love: why we choose the lovers we choose. New York, Routledge. MERCER, J. (2006). Understanding attachment: parenting, child care, and emotional development. Westport, Conn, Praeger Publishers ROECKELEIN, J. E. (1998). Dictionary of theories, laws, and concepts in psychology. Westport, Conn, Greenwood Press STERNBERG, R. J., & WEIS, K. (2006). The new psychology of love. New Haven, CT, Yale University Press STETS, J. E., & TURNER, J. H. (2006). Handbook of the sociology of emotions. New York, NY, Springer. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=190338. Read More