We’ve all heard of love, we have it in our lives in some type of shape or form. At some point in our lives, someone probably said “I love you”, but what does that mean? How can we explain what love is? Are there more types of love than we know about? Hendrick & Hendrick, (2017), answer these questions in The Oxford Handbook of Psychology touching on subjects such as “linking and loving” and “passionate and compassionate love”. They move on to explain theories such as attachment, triangular, self-expansion, and love styles. I will be expanding on these topics later in the paper, however, before talking about anything, we must see where love comes from and how it has changed over decades (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Ancient Concepts of Love and Modern Love MarriageHendrick & Hendrick, (2017), mention in their study that some people have questioned if love even existed before the last few centuries. If whether romantic love or passionate love was alive. In the Middle Ages, love was perceived as different than what it is perceived now. Courtly love was possible only for the nobility and not everyday people, which idealized the love between a woman and a man, who had little contact with each other and were not generally married. This love involved a stylized ritual and was associated with arranged marriages. This led slowly, to 'love marriages' and this link between love and marriage is still changing (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Modern BeginningsIn the 1960s, the beginnings of love were diverse, with a study starting then. Romantic love or at the least passion was 'suspected' by writers to have roots in evolutionary heritage. The next section looks at the evolution of love, attachment, loving and liking, and passionate and compassionate love (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Evolution of Love. The beginning of love was hypothesized to be an emotional bond between breeding partners. This bond would push the two partners to attend to their helpless children or infants. Now, if this emotional bond didn’t exist, the pairs lost the evolutionary race and had higher infant mortality. Themes regarding this subject have been further developed by evolutionary psychologists (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Attachment.Attachment initially was conceptualized as consisting of secure attachment, anxious/ambivalent attachment, and avoidant attachment. These types of attachment were observed in infants forming different types of relationships with their adult caregivers and are believed to be related to subsequent relationships (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Loving and Liking. Work was done previously on liking, where liking was used as a starting point for developing a liking scale and a parallel love scale. It was found that for couples who were highly romantic, their love could be predicted later in their relationship based on their level of love at the start of the relationship. This finding helped later research done on passionate love, to predict romantic partners staying together (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Passionate and Compassionate Love. The affection felt by two people who share their lives deeply is how companionate love is viewed. Passionate love, on the other hand, is viewed as a state of total absorption between two partners. This is characterized by mood swings, from a feeling of ecstasy to an opposite of anguish. This suggests that a relationship starts with the heat of passion cooling down with companionship (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Recent Love Theories and Their MeasurementPrototypes of Love. As mentioned before, there are different types of love ranging from maternal/paternal love and friendship to passionate and sexual love. A study was done to find what is the most typical love and the results showed that parental love and friendship scored higher than passionate and sexual love. The research was done in the hopes of finding a general concept of love. Companionship was found to be that general concept as it can be found in romantic love as well, which is a passion that goes along with companionate love (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Self-Expansion.Self-expansion, as stated in the title is all about the self. A rapid expansion of the self happens when people fall in love. It incorporates physical possessions, power, and influence. Hendrick & Hendrick, (2017), found that as self-expansion grows, so does the love. Once the love grows, as it is associated with self-expansion, the self-expansion grows too, and so on (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Love Triangles. A triangle refers to three things, commitment, passion, and intimacy. The relationship between the three can lead to eight types of love. The love can be measured using a scale designed specifically for this, which was used to explore other topics. The topics include the relationship between the three components mentioned before with attachment. This view also presents love as a personal 'story' that we create for ourselves by living it (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).
Adult Attachment. Linked to positive and negative emotions, attachment is still important in the love area. The attachment styles talked about previously were extended into four types. The four types are secure, fearful, dismissing, and preoccupied. It is also important to note that attachment may change, and it all depends on different things such as current relationship partners, recent relationships, etc. (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).Love Styles. The love styles can be divided into passionate love or “Eros”, commitment/”game of love” that can be referred to as “Ludus”, friendship or “Storge”, practical love or “Pragma', manic love or 'mania' as the name insinuates and last but not least a love that is concerned with the partner's welfare called 'agape'. These types of love can be divided into subscales and measures (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). A sampling of Research on LoveLove can be communicated in different ways. It has been found that love communicated through positive illusions can influence positive outcomes in a relationship. By doing this, and handling conflict constructively, relationship satisfaction was predicted (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).
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The six styles mentioned above have been used to explore the many aspects of love. It was found that some gender differences occur in most studies regarding love styles, however, the styles that have been found to resonate more with women were not related to the satisfaction of the relationship. At the start of the paper, I mentioned that through the research that Hendrick & Hendrick, (2017), have done, passionate love was a predictor of the satisfaction of a relationship. The gender differences can be found here as well (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).
Positive emotions have been found between love and sex, as sexual desires are fundamental to romantic love. Different themes have risen from a study done on love and sexuality where love was found to be the most significant thing coming before sex. Respect has also been associated with positive behavioral influences (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Emerging Research and Theory on LoveA major theme was found about love and how it can be studied, and that is the physical aspect of the 'body in love'. This theme talks about the physical changes love can have on someone and how it can be measured. The things that can be observed when the 'body is in love' are a flushed face, smiling, extreme happiness, high energy, and facial expression due to the happiness. Love is considered to be a very important factor in positive psychology as it is a positive force in mental health, however, negative effects can be observed as well such as 'too much' intense romance. This can be observed in the love style called 'mania', thus love is a very important aspect of positive psychology, having to consider this by therapists (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). Future Directions The research done on love will lead to more cross-cultural/racial work. The paper looks at love from the perspective of a heterosexual view on love, however, GLBT communities are becoming more visible and gaining acceptance on the matters that I have talked about so far. So, broadening the views on this topic also means extending the knowledge of these communities as well. Overall, love is important in a human connection, a physical and mental well-being connection. It should be studied as a central concept linking it to other positive psychology concepts (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). A Link to the TextbookTo links the chapter called 'Love' from The Handbook of Positive Psychology to the course textbook I chose to look at chapter two 'Understanding Emotions'. In this chapter, the key psychological and social aspects of emotions are considered concerning positive emotions. Love is part of Fredrickson’s top ten positive emotions; however, it emerges as unique and comprises all other nine emotions. The nine emotions that love comprises are joy, serenity, interest, hope, pride, gratitude, inspiration, amusement, and awe (Boniwell & Tunariu, (2019). It is considered the most experienced and powerful human emotion. In the chapter from The Handbook of Positive Psychology, we saw how powerful love can be and how it is associated with positive emotions, from satisfaction to happiness. To see the changes in someone that is in love we can look at the physical changes one has such as in the case of the “body in love”. When the “body is in love” we can see changes such as a flushed face, smiling, extreme happiness, high energy, and facial expression due to happiness (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). The chapter 'Love' also states that love is the most powerful emotion linking it to the coursebook chapter where love emerges as the most powerful human emotion (Boniwell & Tunariu, (2019). This links the coursebook to the chapter of The Handbook of Positive Psychology. A New ExperienceAs a new experience, to understand what love is and to measure the impact it has on someone’s life I decided to use an exercise called “Exciting Activities for Couples” from the website Greater Good in Action. The exercise promotes a sense of self-expansion, a term mentioned at the start of this paper where I explained that if self-expansion increases so does the love, and if the love increases so does the self-expansion (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017). The exercise also helps the couple “take on new experiences, discover new strengths, and confront new challenges” (Exciting Activities for Couples (Greater Good in Action), n.d.). Positive emotions from the new experiences are associated with the person, which in turn makes the relationship itself more exhilarating and fun, but also gives a greater feeling of connection, which is what love is about (Exciting Activities for Couples (Greater Good in Action), n.d.).
The time suggested for the exercise is 90 minutes per week for four weeks, however, people should adapt it to their schedule and what works best for them. It starts with compiling a list of 10 exciting activities such as dancing, horse riding, playing sports, etc. to be adventurous, spontaneous, playful, romantic intimate, and role play. All these subjects are important for a relationship, so once the couple has the 10 new ideas comprising of these subjects they must draw up a plan to make time for the activities they found. The couple should do at least one activity every week as generating excitement takes a bit of time (Exciting Activities for Couples (Greater Good in Action), n.d.).
To measure compassionate love, a quiz from the same website specifically for this will be taken before and after the four weeks. The quiz was developed by researchers Susan Sprecher and Beverley Fehr. The quiz lets you learn about the benefits of compassionate love, as well as letting you find resources for bringing more compassion into the relationship (Exciting Activities for Couples (Greater Good in Action), n.d.). After the quiz is taken the second time, the results can show improvement or not in compassionate love letting me measure the changes between the relationship the couple had before the exercise and their relationship after. A Creative Supplement For my creative supplement, I decided to use a poem I wrote two years ago after falling in love with my current partner/girlfriend. The poem, in my opinion, relates well with my subject as it is about love, and what love taught me in just a few months of dating her. I was struggling before meeting her and I was going through some tough things and meeting her was what saved me. The love I felt back then is the same love I feel for her now, which I believe is translated into this poem. To put it in better words, by allowing myself to fall in love with her, and relating it to the chapter I allowed myself to expand letting me feel so many positive emotions. My self-expansion was greater than before, and with every day my self-expansion grew, my love for her grew even more. To conclude, falling in love helped me in more ways than I can explain, from bringing more positive emotions into my life to being more social, and more connected to people to grow as a person. Love changed my life, and no matter how long it's been since I wrote the poem, it still feels just as alive as it felt writing it two years ago.
In conclusion, in my opinion, love is an emotion that can be found with almost every other emotion, with different styles, different cultures, and genders. Love can be a powerful thing, taking over one's being positively or negatively, is correlated with positive psychology. It has its roots in history becoming a more important aspect of psychology (Hendrick & Hendrick, 2017).
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