Origins & Lee's Love Styles

I. What is a romantic relationship?

1. Behavioral interdependence
2. Need fulfillment
3. Emotional attachment

Behavioral interdependence: the mutual impact that partners have on each other.

a. frequent: (partners often affect one another’s lives)
b. strong: (partners have a meaningful impact on each other)
c. enduring: (across a significant time period)

Need fulfillment: Weiss (1969) five needs that can only be met through romantic relationships:

a. need for intimacy—
b. need for social integration—
c. need for being nurturant—
d. need for assistance—
e. need for reassurance of our own self worth—

Emotional Attachment: people’s feelings of love and affection for each other.

II. Romantic relationships vary on such dimensions as:

a. Intensity
b. Commitment
c. Emotion
d. Sexuality
e. Gender

A Brief History of Love A. Ancient Greece:

Love was both frightening and passionate
Passion equated with madness
Platonic Love--

B. Roman Antecedents:

Early, love was seen as an undesirable torment that occurred outside of marriage.
Later, love was viewed as a game.

C. Courtly love: (12^th Century France)

Sustained through unfulfilled yearnings.
Viewed as adulterous

D. Passionate love:

Passionate/romantic Love is doomed.
English connect love with marriage (Arthurian Tradition)

The Origins of Love Four Categories:

1. Personality inadequacy
2. Personality adequacy or even superadequacy
3. The influence of societal norms,
4. Physiological arousal

1. Personality Inadequacy:

Need for love as a sign of inadequacy.

2. Personality Adequacy

Only the inadequate personality is unable to love.

3. Societal Norms:

Love functions to motivate individuals to marry and maintain the social system.

4. Physiological Arousal:

Individuals are said to experience passionate love when:

(1) they are intensely aroused physiologically

(2) given the context in which the arousal takes place, "love" seems an appropriate label for these feelings.

What is Love? 1. Love as a feeling:

Feelings are tremendously variable.
Love versus infatuation

2. Love as an attitude:

Love is "an attitude, or orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one object of love."

3. Love as behavior:

Behavior is variable
Who sets the criteria?

4. Love as a judgment:

Love is a cognitive decision by the individuals that they love one another. Lee's Love Styles Partnering love-- person looks for another to love as a partner for a period of time.

Based on a color analogy!
Proposed three primary love styles (eros, ludus, and storge).
Love Styles are learned through modeling/ modified via conditioning

Primary Love Styles:

1) Eros:

Physical appearance & attraction
Knows ideal type.

2) Storge:

Friendly love or affection that develops slowly over time!
High commitment

3) Ludus:

Playful in love and likes to play the field.
Resistant to making commitments

Secondary colors of love:

1) Mania:

"The madness from the gods"
Obsessive preoccupation, jealousy, and possessiveness.
Infatuation/ intense need for love
*Manic love tends to be the first love-style of teenagers.

2) Pragma:

"Shopping list" of practical desired qualities in compatible partner

3) Agape: