PSYC 215 Study Guide - Final Guide: Color Wheel Theory Of Love, Copyright Collective, Courtly Love
6 Aug 2015
School
Department
Course
Professor
12/01/2014
Section III: Intimate Relationship
Marriage
What is “love”?
Love in historical perspective
- Love is not something that we can look at across time and space and has the same
continual meaning
- Even contemporarily, in the Check republic, you only use the word “love” when you are
talking to your romantic other, however here, the word love is very overused
Ancient Greece - Plato’s 3 types: agape. eros. philos
•Highest perception of human virtue
- Women are unworthy of love
- Emphasis was on homosexual forms of love
- No link to marriage
- Agape : Selfless love
- Eros : Selfish love
- Philos : Deep friendship/brotherly love
Love in ancient Rome - heterosexual Love
- Love is towards heterosexual love
- Still not linked to marriage
Courtly Love (middle ages) - 3 Principles
2
SOCI-247
- Precursor to contemporary love
- Based on male chivalry
- Idealization of women
- Principle of sexual fidelity/faithfulness
- Notion of love as mutual (not including physical sexuality)
Rise of Capitalism
•Institutionalization of love+ marriage
“Love is a relatively enduring bond where a small number of people are affectionate and
emotionally committed to each other. People who love each other usually share physical contact;
they talk to each other frequently and cooperate in some routine tasks of daily life” -(Cancian
1993:203)
Is love universal?
•Anthropologists studied this and looked at 166 different societies to look at indicators of
romantic love
88% think it is a component of the foundation of relationships
- Psychologists argue that romantic love is much more important in individualistic societies
than collective societies
- When a society is based on individual freedom, they are more concentrated on individual
happiness and romantic love, which is not the same as collective societies
Theories of Love
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (1988)
Relationships have 3 elements
1. Intimacy: “refers to close, connected, and bonded feelings in a loving relationship. It includes
feelings that created the experience of warmth in a loving relationship…[such as] experiencing
happiness with the loved one,… sharing oneself and one’s possessions with the loved one;
receiving and giving emotional support to the loved one; [and] having intimate communication
with the loved one
- Extremely important
2. Passion: “refers to the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation,
and the like in a loving relationship”
- Comes the quickest and leaves the quickest
SOCI-247
3. Decision/Commitment: “the decision/commitment component of love [consists of] two
aspects, one short-term and one long-term; the short term one is the decision that one loves
someone. The long-term aspect is the commitment to maintain that love.”
Most important but takes the longest
- These 3 Components develop at different times
- Consummate love is the three of them (Intimacy + Passion + Commitment)
- We do not see consummate love in our loving relationships, reserved for the relationships
that are the closest to us
Intimacy Liking
Intimacy + Passion Romantic Love
Passion Infatuation
Passion + Commitment Fatuous Love
Decision/Commitment Empty Love
Intimacy + Commitment Companionate Love
Intimacy + Passion + Commitment Consummate Love
Lee’s Six Love Styles (1973)
- Study: 120 people 1/2 female 1/2 male
- All heterosexual, all white, all from North America
- Works for gay/lesbian relationships as well
- Not all relationships are generally loving
- Not all people can find themselves to one style than another
- They incorporate different styles and combine them in their relationships
- Ideal types to how we love people
- You can figure out where you are because scholars have operationalized this
- Love style can change based on your partner
- Tends to be more about couples (romantic love) and this typology would not have such a
range of styles in the love of a child
- Love styles - distinctive characteristics or personalities that loving or love-like
relationships can take
