Robert J. Sternberg, Karin Weis - The New Psychology of Love-Yale University Press (2006) PDF

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The New Psychology of Love
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EDITED BY ROBERT J. STERNBERG
AND KARIN WEIS
The New Psychology

of Love
Yale University Press

New Haven &
London
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Copyright 䉷 2006 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,

in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publishers.
Set in Sabon Roman type by

Westchester Book Services.
Printed in the United States of America by
Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, New York.
ISBN-13: 978-0-300-11697-7
ISBN-10: 0-300-11697-7
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
and the British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of
the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on Library Resources.
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Contents
Preface vii
1 Introduction 1
Karin Weis
Part I Biological Theories

2 A Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love 15
Douglas T. Kenrick
3 A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic Love
Relationships: Attachment, Caregiving, and Sex 35
Phillip R. Shaver and Mario Mikulincer
4 The Evolution of Love 65
David M. Buss
5 The Drive to Love: The Neural Mechanism for
Mate Selection 87
Helen Fisher
6 A Biobehavioral Model of Attachment and Bonding 116
James F. Leckman, Sarah B. Hrdy, Eric B. Keverne, and
C. Sue Carter
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vi Contents
Part II Taxonomies of Love

7 Styles of Romantic Love 149
Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick
8 Searching for the Meaning of “Love” 171
Ellen Berscheid
9 A Duplex Theory of Love 184
Robert J. Sternberg
10 Giving and Receiving Communal Responsiveness as Love 200
Margaret S. Clark and Joan K. Monin
Part III Implicit Theories of Love

11 A Prototype Approach to Studying Love 225
Beverley Fehr
Part IV Cultural Theories of Love

12 Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Love:
The Influence of Gender, Personality, and Local Ecology
on Emotional Investment in Romantic Relationships 249
David P. Schmitt
13 Passionate Love: Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary
Perspectives 274
Debra Lieberman and Elaine Hatfield
14 Individualism, Collectivism, and the Psychology of Love 298
Karen K. Dion and Kenneth L. Dion
15 Conclusion: The Nature and Interrelations of Theories

of Love 313
Karin Weis
Contributors 327
Index 329
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Preface
In the mid-1980s, the senior editor of this volume, Robert J. Sternberg,

thought that the field of love had become sufficiently advanced that there
was room for an edited volume to be published on the psychology of love.
In 1988, The Psychology of Love was published by Yale University Press.
The volume was edited by Robert J. Sternberg and Michael Barnes. It had
sixteen chapters, representing pretty much the full range of theories of love
available at the time. The volume has sold extremely well over the years,
and has been a useful reference for those readers wanting an overview of
the range of theories that attempt to capture the nature of love. The chapters
were written to provide not only theories but also the data that had been
collected to support them.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, The Psychology of Love was
out of date. New theories had been proposed, and some of the theories that
had existed in 1988 had been modified. Some of the old theories were no
longer attracting the same level of attention they once had. And the theories
that were attracting attention had been bolstered by new data that were not
available in 1988. Michael Barnes, who was a graduate student when The
Psychology of Love was conceived, has left the field of psychology, so Stern-
berg teamed up with a current graduate student at the University of Hei-
delberg, Karin Weis, to launch The New Psychology of Love. Together, they
vii
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viii Preface
decided on a plan for the book, selected authors for the various chapters,
and edited the chapters.
The editors are pleased to present The New Psychology of Love. Each
chapter addresses the following questions:
1. How would you define love?

2. What theory of love do you propose or utilize?
3. What evidence is there
a. favoring this theory?
b. disfavoring the theory?
4. How is your approach to love similar to and different from related ap-
proaches?
5. What do you view as the practical implications of your theory?
Because the questions are uniform, it is possible to compare the various

theories and the data that have been collected to test them.
Part I of the book, on biological theories, examines a “dynamical evolu-
tionary view of love” (Douglas T. Kenrick), a behavioral systems approach
to romantic love relationships (Phillip R. Shaver and Mario Mikulincer), the
evolution of love (David M. Buss), the drive to love (Helen Fisher), and a
biobehavioral model of attachment and bonding (James F. Leckman, Sarah
B. Hrdy, Eric B. Keverne, and C. Sue Carter). Part II, on taxonomies of love,
considers styles of romantic love (Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick),
searching for the meaning of “love” (Ellen Berscheid), a duplex theory of
love (Robert J. Sternberg), and giving and receiving communal responsive-
ness as love (Margaret S. Clark and Joan K. Monin). Part III, on implicit
theories of love, has a single chapter, which presents a prototype approach
to studying love (Beverley Fehr). Part IV, on cultural theories of love, deals
with evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives on love in terms of emo-
tional investment (David P. Schmitt), cross-cultural and evolutionary per-
spectives on passionate love (Debra Lieberman and Elaine Hatfield), and
individualism, collectivism, and the psychology of love (Karen K. Dion and
Kenneth L. Dion). The conclusion, by Karin Weis, provides a discussion of
the entire book.
We are grateful to Jonathan Brent for contracting the book, to Keith Con-
don for his support in seeing the book through the publication process, and
to Cheri Stahl for her editorial assistance throughout the project.
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1
Introduction
karin weis
Much of the universe of human interactions, as well as of people’s

perceptions and understandings of the world in general, is centered on
relations between couples. Coupling helps people to put order in their
world and to come to a better understanding of what is happening around
them.
When the United States did not yet exist, and Columbus had not yet
arrived in the Americas, people on the North American continent were al-
ready trying to make sense of their everyday lives and of the phenomena
they encountered. Such phenomena included thunderstorms, droughts, the
spectacular settings of their homes in the canyons of the Southwest, and
their relationships to each other, both within their tribe and with other
nations. They tried to organize their lives around construals of places and
events that gave them meaning. This is why, from the earliest age on, chil-
dren of the Pueblo Indians learned about the world in terms of contrasts.
They learned about pairings such as day and night, sun and moon, men and
women. Their world was ordered around such divisions (Iverson, 1992).
This book is also about pairs, in that it is concerned with the relationships
of humans to each other, and in particular with the dyadic relationships that
two humans form. It is about a special kind of relationship involving these
pairs of humans that in English is labeled with one word, love.
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2 Introduction
Let us return to the present and look at three different relationships be-
tween humans. Consider the following examples.
Maria and Linda have been friends for six years, ever since they started
to study together and both were new in town. Usually they see one another
once or twice a week to chat or go out at night. Maria has had problems
with depression for a long time. Sometimes during the past few years she
has had difficulties completing school assignments. She has always been
afraid of exams, but in general she has done well. Now it is time for final
exams, and Maria, confronted not only with the stress of showing her learn-
ing but also with the prospect of having to search for a job and move to a
town where she does not know anybody, feels severe depression coming on
again. She cannot sleep, has trouble preparing scripts for learning, and is
terribly afraid of failing the oral exam. She has already missed one exam,
because she was too panicked to show up. Although Linda has to learn the
material for her own exams, she helps Maria prepare her scripts, simulates
taking the exam with her, and goes to see her friend every day. The weekend
before the exam, Maria’s situation deteriorates; she is panicky and frightened
to be alone. Linda moves in with Maria for the weekend and stays until the
following Tuesday, when the exam is scheduled. To make sure Maria ac-
tually takes the exam, Linda goes there with her and waits until the exam
is over. Maria passes the exam with a B.
Jonnie, while playing, ran after his ball and did not see a car coming down
the street. The car hit him, and his right leg is broken; he needs to stay in
the hospital for a few days. He is a shy child and very frightened of the new
environment. His mother takes off from work while he is in the hospital
and remains with him more or less continually during his waking hours. She
makes sure he has his favorite toys to play with and that he gets some
distraction during the short time she spends at home. While she is at home,
she cooks his favorite meals, then takes them to the hospital so he does not
have to eat the food served there.
Martin and Julia attend the same college. They first meet during prepa-
rations for a student council meeting. Martin is immediately enchanted. He
loves Julia’s long black hair and could just sink into her dark brown eyes.
She has the most beautiful voice he has ever heard, and always makes smart
and entertaining contributions to their conversations. He starts inviting her
to go out with him and his friends. Martin spends a lot of time dreaming
of the life he wants to build with Julia and of the family they will have.
Julia, however, does not respond to his love. She finds he is increasingly
intrusive, and finally tries to avoid him whenever she can.
Thus, as we have seen, love is not a uniform phenomenon. There are
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Introduction 3
countless variations on the forms these relationships can take: the love the
mother feels for her child as she spends all the time possible with him in the
hospital, the love friends feel for one another that makes them go out of
their way to help in times of need, and the passionate love people feel when
they fall in love. There is also altruistic love, in which people help others
with whom they do not have a close relationship or whom they may not
even know. Just as diverse as the appearances of love are the theories of
love that try to fathom it. Some of them deal mainly with one aspect of
love, most often romantic love. Some of them expand their focus to kinds
of love that include eldercare or the affection between parents and their
children. Others deal with sexual behavior and with why most people do
not feel sexually attracted to close relatives.
There is one thing all these theories have in common: they have come a
long way. When The Psychology of Love was published in 1988, it was the
first book of its kind, in that it covered a broad spectrum of psychological
theories on love. At that time, the study of love was relatively new to the
field of psychology. In earlier times, psychologists had surrendered the study
of love to poets, songwriters, philosophers, and the like. Only recently had
the study of love begun to make its way from the status of a frivolous topic
to that of a suitable topic for behavioral-scientific study. One of the main
reasons for its having been largely ignored was that love was considered to
be too elusive for psychologists to study. It did not seem as though it could
be subjected to systematic measurement and analysis (Berscheid, 1988).
Since then, much has changed in the study of love. Researchers now have
a much broader spectrum of theories and the methods for assessing them.
New scales have been developed, such as the Perceptions of Love and Sex
Scale (Hendrick and Hendrick, 2002), the Love Stories Scale (Sternberg,
Hojjat, and Barnes, 2001), and the “Sexy Seven Measure” (Schmitt et al.,
2003). Biological methods of assessment also have greatly improved. As the
scientific study of love has become much more accepted, the number of
researchers and the number of studies conducted have increased many times
over. As a result, today there is much more empirical evidence at hand than
there was a decade or two ago. New aspects of love have been studied, and
the focus has shifted. Intercultural research and topics such as sexual desire
and mate selection have taken center stage. As a result, the time has come
for The New Psychology of Love, which keeps pace with the latest research
in the field of love.
This book consists of four parts that deal with the different theories of
love: biological theories, taxonomies, implicit theories, and cultural theories.
Part I, “Biological Theories,” concerns five theories that look at love on the
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4 Introduction
basis of biology and evolutionary theory. Part II, “Taxonomies of Love,”

consists of four theories that attempt to group the phenomenon of love into
different styles. Part III, “Implicit Theories of Love,” contains only one chap-
ter, which deals with laypeople’s conceptions of love. Part IV, “Cultural
Theories of Love,” puts love in the context of culture. Finally, the conclusion
integrates the theories of love introduced in the previous chapters.
Part I: Biological Theories

The biological theories constitute the largest group. In chapter 2, “A
Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love,” Douglas T. Kenrick proposes that
love is a set of decision biases that evolved to serve genetic interests, that is,
to facilitate reproduction. These biases influence people’s attention, memory,
and decision-making. For example, when one interacts with a stranger, al-
truistic behavior is less likely than when one interacts with relatives with
whom one shares genes. Kenrick emphasizes the dynamic aspect of love that
arises out of continual bidirectional interactions between partners that shape
the responses to each person’s actions and subsequent reactions. Therefore,
romantic love is an instinctive part of human nature. Humans encounter a
variety of different problems related to survival and reproduction such as
mate-seeking, mate retention, and parental care—and these problems require
various solutions, with different decision biases evolved for every goal sys-
tem. There are different kinds of love that are relevant to these various
domains. The love one feels for one’s partner is different from the love one
feels for one’s offspring. Kenrick acknowledges the existence of cultural dif-
ferences in love and corresponding behaviors. They arise, he believes, be-
cause of social variations and variations in the physical ecology. Behaviors
that are adaptive in one environment are not necessarily adaptive in a dif-
ferent environment.
In chapter 3, “A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic Love Rela-
tionships: Attachment, Caregiving, and Sex,” Phillip R. Shaver and Mario
Mikulincer assume that there are three behavioral systems: attachment, care-
giving, and sex. The goal of the attachment system is to ensure a person’s
safety by making him or her stay close to others who can provide support
and care. The attachment system is activated, for example, when proximity
is not maintained and threats are encountered. In this case, the proximity
of the caregiving person is sought again. The goals of the caregiving system
are altruistic in that it provides support and care to others in need. The
focus of this system is on another person’s well-being and development. The
sexual system has as its primary goal the passing on of genes to the next
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Introduction 5
generation. Therefore, one must be sensitive to signals of fertility and interest

in people of the opposite sex, be able to increase one’s own attractiveness
to these others, and have available strategies to arouse the interest of the
potential partner. These behavioral systems involve specific goals and a set
of strategies that include several behaviors that serve to attain the corre-
sponding goal. If goals repeatedly cannot be achieved, secondary strategies
(hyperactivation and deactivation) can come into play to cope with the re-
sulting distress. They enable the individual to try to reach the goal in another
way. “Hyperactivating strategies” consist of an intensification of the primary
strategy to force the partner to behave according to one’s own goals. For
example, if the partner does not do what one wishes, one can protest and
try to make the partner take care of one’s needs. “Deactivating strategies,”
on the contrary, consist of turning off the entire system to avoid frustration
and distress because one cannot reach one’s goals. One stops trying to make
the partner behave as one wishes. These strategies are used when a partner
does not respond, or even punishes the system’s primary strategy. For ex-
ample, if one partner frequently is rejected when seeking his or her partner’s
proximity, then at some point he or she no longer even tries to get close to
the partner, in order to avoid being rejected.
Chapter 4, “The Evolution of Love,” by David M. Buss, states that love
is an adaptation that evolved in the course of evolution to solve problems
of reproduction. It provides sexual access, signals sexual fidelity, and indi-
cates commitment, for example. Therefore, it is universal and not limited to
Western cultures. Experiences of love can differ, however, depending on the
circumstances. For example, a person never has to experience jealousy if his
or her partner never gives cause for it. Buss suggests that love is a device
for achieving commitment and appears primarily in the context of long-term
mating. Love is associated with several developments in human evolution.
Since males cannot detect female ovulation, they tend to stay with one
woman and to have sex with her throughout the menstrual cycle. Also,
males at some point started to invest intensely in their offspring and to guard
their partners from rivals, while females concentrated their reproductive re-
sources on only one man. According to Buss’s theory, men are more likely
than women to fall in love at first sight, and they are also more likely to
express themselves violently when they lose the love of their beloved one.
Women, on the contrary, are more likely to be jealous and to dismiss the
possibility of having sex without love.
Chapter 5, “The Drive to Love: The Neural Mechanism for Mate Selec-
tion,” by Helen Fisher, suggests that there are three interrelated motivation
systems: attachment, attraction (romantic love), and the sex drive. The sex
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6 Introduction
drive is associated with the desire to have sexual contact with others. It can
be directed at a number of potential partners. Attraction in mammals cor-
responds to what we label “romantic love” in humans. It is associated with
focusing on one particular mate, showing him or her one’s affiliation, and
trying to guard the partner from rivals. Attachment is characterized by feel-
ings of security and comfort as well as by seeking proximity. In humans, it
is also known as companionate love. Fisher puts the three systems into the
context of their neural correlates. The sex drive is related in particular to
testosterone; romantic love is related to norepinephrine and serotonin; and
attachment is related to oxytocin and vasopressin. There may even be a
general arousal component underlying all drives (involving the neurotrans-
mitters dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin) that produces motivation,
and a more specific constellation of brain systems that evokes the specific
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are connected with every biological
need related to love. This view implies that rejection, as well as monogamy
and adultery, for example, is associated with specific neural correlates. Ro-
mantic love is a mating drive similar to many other basic drives.
In Chapter 6, “A Biobehavioral Model of Attachment and Bonding,”
James F. Leckman, Sarah B. Hrdy, Eric B. Keverne, and C. Sue Carter refer
to the conscious subjective experience that arises from bonding and attach-
ment, and that also exerts an influence on them, rather than to the term
love. By observing various species of mammals, they find that humans ex-
hibit comparatively few universal fixed behaviors. They point out that there
is evidence of romantic love in most cultures and that parental love and
romantic love have many features in common. For example, both kinds of
love lead to an increased sense of responsibility for the well-being of the
beloved one and to the urge to behave according to the other person’s needs.
Furthermore, the importance of oxytocin and opioids for bonding in mam-
mals has been illustrated in various studies. Early life experiences are im-
portant for interactions between parents and their offspring; however, infant
responsiveness is also influenced by genetic determinants. The behavior
therefore is a result of the interaction of both genes and environmental in-
fluences. As a result, it is possible to design intervention programs to enhance
parental sensitivity and security of attachment in children.
Part II: Taxonomies of Love

Three of the theories presented in this volume are taxonomies that
categorize the various phenomena associated with love into different styles
or kinds of love. In chapter 7, “Styles of Romantic Love,” Clyde Hendrick
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Introduction 7
and Susan S. Hendrick follow the categorization of Lee (1973), who sug-
gested six types of love: eros (passionate love), ludus (game-playing, uncom-
mitted love), storge (friendship love), pragma (calculating love), agape (al-
truistic love), and mania (obsessional love). Each style consists of a certain
combination of attitudes and beliefs. It is possible to generate a profile of a
specific love style for any person at any given time, thereby making it pos-
sible to assess the extent to which the person exhibits each of the six love
styles. The love styles moderate the experience of falling in love and loving,
in that they influence, for example, how quickly or passionately someone
falls in love. They are related to several personality traits. Eros, for example,
is positively related to agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness,
and negatively related to neuroticism, whereas ludus is positively related to
neuroticism and negatively related to agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Furthermore, the love styles are also related to sexual attitudes such as per-
missiveness (ludus) and responsible sexuality (eros). Gender differences in
regard to the various love styles also were found, in that men seem to en-
dorse game-playing, uncommitted love more than women, who instead see
love as friendship or calculating love. The taxonomy can be used in couples
therapy to help people understand themselves and their partners by means
of their personal love styles.
Chapter 8, “Searching for the Meaning of ‘Love,’ ” by Ellen Berscheid,
suggests classifying love into four different kinds: attachment love, compas-
sionate love, companionate love/liking, and romantic love. Attachment love
seems to be unlearned, and serves the need for protection. The experience
of a threat causes the individual to seek proximity to another individual.
Attachment can then provide shelter. Compassionate love is concerned
about the other’s welfare and can also be labeled altruistic love. Bowlby’s
caregiving system is the basis of this kind of love. Companionate love can
also be labeled affection, liking, or pragmatic love. It is based on principles
of reward and punishment. That means that people who are rewarding are
liked, and people who are punishing are disliked. The fourth kind of love,
romantic love, incorporates sexual desire, and therefore also has been la-
beled passionate love or erotic love. It is proposed that each of these different
types of love is activated for different reasons and has different conse-
quences. It is possible to experience more than one type of love in an indi-
vidual relationship. Berscheid also elaborates on the difference between
“love” and “being in love.” To “be in love” refers to only one type of love,
and for a person to “be in love” with someone, that someone has to be both
liked and sexually attractive. The term love, on the contrary, is more uni-
versal and seems to refer to many different types of love.
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8 Introduction
Chapter 9, “A Duplex Theory of Love,” by Robert J. Sternberg, consists

of two subtheories, the triangular theory of love and the theory of love as
a story. The triangular theory suggests that love comprises three compo-
nents: intimacy, commitment, and passion, which together constitute the
vertices of a triangle. The geometry of a love triangle then depends on both
the amount of love (size of the triangle) and the balance of love (form of
the triangle). As a function of the existence of one or more of these com-
ponents in a specific relationship, one can distinguish eight different kinds
of love. For example, passionate love involves intimacy plus passion,
whereas companionate love involves intimacy plus commitment. There are
various kinds of love triangles, such as real triangles and ideal triangles, and
action and feeling triangles. The theory of love as a story suggests that the
interaction of our personal attributes with the environment gives rise to
stories about love. Every person has his or her own story of love, and seeks
to fulfill it in his or her life. Some examples of stories are the fairy tale,
involving a prince and a princess; the horror story, involving a terrorizer
and a victim; and the business story, involving two business partners. The
success of a relationship depends in part on the similarity or compatibility
of the stories of the two partners.
Chapter 10, “Giving and Receiving Communal Responsiveness as Love,”
by Margaret S. Clark and Joan K. Monin, centers on communal respon-
siveness, an unconditional reaction that focuses on the welfare of the part-
ner; attends to his or her expressed needs, desires, or goals; and does not
exploit his or her vulnerabilities. There are five forms of responsiveness: (1)
helping (for example, when a person is injured or is in need of a particular
object or action); (2) support for reaching future goals (for example, listen-
ing or providing advice); (3) creating something in collaboration with an-
other person (for example, dancing or playing a game together); (4) exhib-
iting caring behaviors when the other person has transgressed (for example,
being forgiving when the partner has forgotten a lunch appointment because
he or she is so busy); (5) symbolic, when there is no clear need apparent
and one nevertheless shows that one cares for the other. The processes
related to communal responsiveness are the same ones that are often men-
tioned when people describe a loving relationship. Communal responsive-
ness provides individuals with a feeling of security and comfort. Commu-
nicating needs and disclosing oneself contribute to the sense of being in a
loving relationship. At the same time, even seemingly acceptable behaviors
have the potential to undermine communal responsiveness. Communal re-
sponsiveness is not the only way in which love can be defined, but it is the
kind of love that can be distinguished from other kinds, in that it is not
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Introduction 9
associated with the anxiety and distress that arise, for example, from feelings
of intense passion.
Part III: Implicit Theories of Love

There is only one theory in this book that belongs to the category of
implicit theories: “A Prototype Approach to Studying Love” (chapter 11),
by Beverley Fehr. Fehr examines not how she, as a scientist, views love, but
what ordinary people believe love to be. She finds that companionate kinds
of love are considered a central part of love. There also seem to be some
gender differences as to how love is seen. Women in general subscribe to a
more companionate conception of love, whereas men hold a passionate con-
cept. Women have more of a friendship orientation in love and are also
more pragmatic; men report having fallen in love at first sight more often
and foster romantic beliefs, such as that true love lasts forever. These pro-
totypes—how people think love typically is—have implications for their re-
lationships. Studies have shown that when features of love that are very
prototypical are violated, love is perceived as more subverted than when less
prototypical features are violated. Couples who view love in a very proto-
typical way report greater relationship satisfaction and greater love for one
another. Prototypes are also used to analyze different kinds of love, sug-
gesting that all kinds of love have some core features in common.
Part IV: Cultural Theories of Love

Three more theories emphasize cultural aspects of love. In chapter 12,
“Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Love: The Influence of
Gender, Personality, and Local Ecology on Emotional Investment in Ro-
mantic Relationships,” David P. Schmitt introduces a general love dimension
labeled “emotional investment.” It comprises many core features of love,
including the intimacy, passion, and commitment components of Sternberg’s
duplex theory of love. The construct of emotional investment is positively
related to both extraversion and agreeableness, meaning that higher scores
on one dimension are associated with higher scores on the other dimension.
However, kinds of love differ in their degree of relatedness to personality
traits. Schmitt reports a study he and his colleageus conducted with fifteen
thousand participants from forty-eight nations. They found that the concept
of love is relatively similar across cultures. Emotional investment in a rela-
tionship is positively correlated with the level of development of a country,
secure attachment, and individualism, but also with short-term mating in-
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10 Introduction
terests and divorce rates. In cultures in which children are exposed to high
levels of stress, such as result from economic difficulties or a harsh physical
environment, the children tend to express lower levels of emotional invest-
ment. Another finding is that in most countries, there are gender differences
in emotional investment, with men usually scoring lower than women.
In Chapter 13, “Passionate Love: Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary Per-
spectives,” Debra Lieberman and Elaine Hatfield suggest that although pas-
sionate love is a cultural universal, cultural values influence the exact mean-
ing that is attributed to the term love. They state that the concept of
romantic love, for example, fits in well in individualistic American culture,
but less well in collectivistic Chinese culture, where people are expected to
consider not only their own feelings but also their obligations to other peo-
ple, such as their parents. For some traits, such as the importance of good
looks in mate preferences, however, gender has an even greater impact than
culture. The authors observe that the differences between Western and East-
ern cultures are diminishing because young people increasingly adopt pat-
terns typical of the West, such as endorsing gender equality in love and sex,
and marrying for love rather than entering into arranged marriages. They
also deal with mechanisms that serve to avoid inbreeding. In this context it
is important to be able to recognize who is related to oneself and who is
not (kin detection), in order to judge who is an appropriate sexual partner.
Furthermore, the emotion of disgust serves to avoid situations in which sex-
ual contact with close relatives could occur.
In chapter 14, “Individualism, Collectivism, and the Psychology of Love,”
Karen K. Dion and Kenneth L. Dion argue that the beliefs people of a given
culture have about the relation of the individual and the group influence the
understanding of love. In individualistic societies, marriage is based on love.
Individualism is associated with a relatively permissive view of love as well
as a lower likelihood of ever having been in love and a lower sense of
perceived success in one’s family life. Collectivist cultures view love as based
on friendship and altruistic goals, and emphasize caregiving rather than in-
tense affect. There are also cultural differences as to how intimacy in rela-
tionships develops. Couples in the United States try to maintain a high level
of intimacy during their marriage while at the same time trying to keep some
space for themselves to develop autonomously. In Japan, couples in the first
years of their marriage have to attend to the needs of others in their extended
family, and tend to develop greater intimacy later in their marriage. These
observations are expanded to eldercare. People in collectivist cultures see
affection and attachment as main reasons for the care of their elders. In
individualistic cultures, duty and the perception of eldercare as a burden
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Introduction 11
prevail. However, in individualistic cultures, parents try to maintain a higher

degree of independence from their adult children.
Conclusion
In chapter 15, “Conclusion: The Nature and Interrelations of Theories
of Love,” Karin Weis discusses the theories that are introduced in this book
and integrates them in various ways. For example, the chapter explores
whether the different kinds of love have a common denominator, or at least
whether parts of them do. Furthermore, it summarizes some of the findings
on the influence of context, personality, time, and culture on love. It also
takes another look at the various mechanisms proposed in this book to
achieve goals that are associated with love and relationship issues. Last,
some more open questions are pointed out and areas in which further re-
search is needed are described.
References
Berscheid, E. (1988). Some comments on love’s anatomy. In R. J. Sternberg and M. L.
Barnes (eds.), The Psychology of Love. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Hendrick, S. S., and Hendrick, C. (2002). Linking romantic love with sex: Development
of the Perceptions of Love and Sex Scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relation-
ships, 19, 361–378.
Iverson, P. (1992). Taking care of the earth and sky. In A. M. Josephy, Jr. (ed.),
America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus.
New York: Vintage Books.
Lee, J. A. (1973). The Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving. To-
ronto: New Press.
Schmitt, D. P., Alcalay, L., Allik, J., Ault, L., Austers, I., Bennett, K. L., et al. (2003).
Universal sex differences in the desire for sexual variety: Tests from 52 nations, 6
continents, and 13 islands. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 85–
104.
Sternberg, R. J., Hojjat, M., and Barnes, M. L. (2001). Empirical tests of aspects of a
theory of love as a story. European Journal of Personality, 15(3): 199–218.
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PART I
Biological Theories
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2
A Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love

douglas t. kenrick
The first step in scientific analysis—carefully describing the phenom-

enon of interest—has been a notoriously wobbly one for researchers inter-
ested in studying love. A big part of the problem is that “I love you” is a
sentence that can be spoken with utter sincerity by a mother to her newborn
infant, by a young man to a woman he met yesterday at a beach resort in
Mexico, and by a heterosexual woman to her best female friend. What, if
anything, does maternal love have to do with romantic infatuation, and
what might either have to do with platonic love between friends? Even
within the category of romantic love, when a woman and a man say “I love
you” to one another, does it mean the same thing?
Psychologists working to empirically and theoretically nail down exactly
what love is have come up with some consensus that it is more than one
thing, and may be half a dozen or more (e.g., Fehr and Russell, 1991; Hen-
drick and Hendrick, 1986; Sternberg, 1986). Most of the empirical work
has focused on the phenomenology of love, trying to dissect the inner feel-
ings that make up the experience of love. For example, some researchers
have asked how many different facets make up the feeling of love (e.g., Aron
and Westbay, 1996; Sternberg, 1986), and others have explored how those
various facets might combine into different kinds of love for different people
(e.g., Fehr and Russell, 1991; Sprecher and Regan, 1998). Some researchers
15
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16 Biological Theories
have tried to determine whether there are different physiological systems

undergirding different facets of love (e.g., Diamond, 2003).
In this chapter I will consider the different types of love from a dynamic
evolutionary perspective. The central assumptions of the dynamical evolu-
tionary model are the following:
1. Love is at base a set of evolved decision biases. This assumption incor-

porates a network of other assumptions based on the modern integration
of cognitive science and evolutionary psychology (e.g., Kenrick, 2001;
Kenrick, Sadalla, and Keefe, 1998; Lumsden and Wilson, 1981; Tooby
and Cosmides, 1992). The mind, on this view, is composed of a set of
innate biases that affect what we pay attention to, how we interpret
events, what we retrieve from memory, and how we make decisions.
Those biases are designed to promote behaviors that, on average, would
have served to enhance reproduction. Because powerful social bonds were
essential to our ancestors’ survival and reproduction, decision biases de-
signed to facilitate those bonds would have been highly adaptive.
2. The decision biases that drive loving relationships differ for men and
women. Female mammals are required to make a very high minimum
investment, whereas males are not, a very simple fact that makes the
mating game very different for men and women (Geary, 1998; Trivers,
1972). Although research on the phenomenology of love suggests similar
experiences for men and women, general evolutionary principles lead us
to expect key differences in the determinants and consequences of intense
social bonds in women as compared with men.
3. The mind is modular, with very different decision biases operating in
different domains of social life. Different problems need solving in dif-
ferent types of strongly bonded relationships. Finding a lover and keeping
that lover are two different problem sets involving very different decision
biases. The same can be said about caring for offspring and keeping
friendships. Thus, although different types of love have the surface sim-
ilarity of serving to promote social bonds, they may, from a functional
perspective, involve motivations as distinct and specialized as those dis-
tinguishing hunger, thirst, or fear.
4. Decision biases in one individual interact in a dynamic way with those
in other individuals. Each decision bias affecting loving bonds involves
an “if-then” contingency rule in which inputs from other people deter-
mine whether the actor picks one option or another. Any given person’s
responses change the inputs for other individuals, each operating on his
or her own decision rules, which in turn play out in the context of de-
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A Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love 17
cisions made by many others. Not only does it take two to tango, but
two rarely tango alone in a dark basement; instead, their carefully co-
ordinated maneuvers are typically executed within a larger ballroom
crowd who often change partners as they move in time to the same
rhythms.
5. Cultural norms surrounding love emerge out of interactions between dy-
namically connected individuals and features of the nonsocial environ-
ment. There is considerable cross-cultural variation in the expression of
powerful social bonds, with some societies being relatively more polyg-
ynous (multiple wives marrying the same man), some being somewhat
polyandrous (same woman, multiple husbands), and so on (e.g., Crook
and Crook, 1988). Cross-cultural variations are neither infinite nor ar-
bitrary, however, because our individual decision biases are ultimately
based on evolved mechanisms that were designed to solve recurrent prob-
lems faced by our ancestors. On this view, the human mind is a coloring
book rather than a blank slate—there is flexibility in the choice of pal-
ettes, but the overall pattern is constrained by some strongly suggestive
lines (Kenrick, Becker, Butner, Li, and Maner, 2003).
Instincts, Mental Modules, and Domain Specificity

Because loving relationships often involve powerful emotions, some of
which seem to override conscious decision-making, feelings of love seem like
an intuitively reasonable place to search for human instincts. Of course,
social scientists are rather suspicious of intuition as a form of scientific ev-
idence. If anything, psychologists favor viewpoints that violate intuition
(Krueger and Funder, 2004). Directly contradicting the intuition that ro-
mantic love might be an instinctive part of human nature, a popular view
in the social sciences held that love was a historically and culturally ephem-
eral construction. Many social scientists in fact believed that the particularly
powerful and consuming feelings of romantic love found in modern Western
societies were absent in other societies and other periods of history (see
Jankowiak and Fisher, 1992). Although that position was appealingly coun-
terintuitive to social scientists, cross-cultural research has combined with
physiological research to indicate that it was also quite wrong (Diamond,
2003; Jankowiak and Fischer, 1992). Feelings of love are universal across
our species, and they are based at least partly in innate mechanisms. Are we
therefore justified in calling them instinctive?
The word instinct historically had several meanings, with different impli-
cations for thinking about the varieties of love. William James (1890) viewed
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an instinct as an innate capacity to act “to produce certain ends, without

foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance”
(vol. 2, p. 383). The prototypical Jamesian instinct would be a sneeze—a
reflexive impulse automatically triggered by particular sensory inputs (nasal
irritation, in this case). James did expand his concept of instinct to include
more complex and cognitively involving social inclinations, as in his famous
query: “Why does the maiden interest the youth so that everything about
her seems more important and significant than anything else in the world?”
(vol. 2, p. 386).
William McDougall’s (1908) view of instinct was more similar to modern
concepts of emotion: “an inherited or innate psycho-physical disposition
which determines its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects
of a certain class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular
quality upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a par-
ticular manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such action” (p. 29).
McDougall viewed instincts as linked to seven powerful emotions: (1) fear,
(2) disgust, (3) wonder (linked to curiosity), (4) anger, (5) subjection (hu-
miliation or embarrassment), (6) elation (pride), and (7) parental instinct
(tenderness, empathy). To these seven, McDougall added two social moti-
vations without distinct emotions—the reproductive instinct and the gregar-
ious instinct.
Instincts were never presumed to be inflexible and/or insensitive to envi-
ronmental inputs. On the contrary, James believed that instincts are “not
always blind or invariable” (vol. 2, p. 389) and that, indeed, “every instinc-
tive act, in an animal with memory, must cease to be ‘blind’ after being once
repeated.” Indeed, an innate response system that operated without envi-
ronmental inputs, and without environmental calibration, would hardly be
functional. So, although many twentieth-century social scientists miscon-
ceived instinct as incompatible with learning, this was always a bad rap,
whether applied to humans or to other animals (Alcock, 2001).
Instinctive behavioral programs often involve more than a simple one-
step, stimulus-emotion-response link: rather, they involve a complex se-
quence that unfolds over time. For example, Lehrman (1965) noted that
ring dove courtship involved a series of stages, with one set of stimuli trig-
gering certain hormonal and behavioral responses early in courtship, fol-
lowed by physiological changes that led the birds to attend to different
stimuli and act in different ways later. Morris (1958) observed a similar
sequential series of lockstep behavioral escalations in the mating ritual of a
small fish called the stickleback. The view of instinctive behavior as involv-
ing multiple stages calibrated to responses by the opposite sex may better
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represent the sequential complexities of courtship in humans as well as other

animals (Kenrick and Trost, 1987).
MODERN VIEWS OF MODULARITY

Many modern evolutionary psychologists share with James the notion
that the human mind is composed of relatively independent modules. Ex-
amples include different memory systems for food location versus song
learning in birds, special mechanisms for different features of human lan-
guage, specialized learning mechanisms governing food aversion and fear as
opposed to other types of learning, and particularized logical abilities for
detecting cheaters on social contracts (e.g., Öhman and Mineka, 2001;
Pinker, 1994; Rozin and Kalat, 1971; Sherry and Schacter, 1987; Sugiyama,
Tooby, and Cosmides, 2002). McDougall’s view of instinct also persists in
modern evolutionary conceptions of emotions or motivations as goal-
oriented systems designed to facilitate adaptive responses to particular clas-
ses of recurring threats or opportunities faced by humans (e.g., Cottrell and
Neuberg, 2005; Plutchik, 1980).
Modern psychologists have come a long way since James and McDougall
in our understanding of innate behavioral mechanisms, but we have a long
way to go toward specifying the particulars. An especially interesting set of
questions concerns how many different sets of recurrent human problems
are governed by different evolved modules. These issues have particular rel-
evance to questions about the different forms of love.
DOMAINS OF SOCIAL LIFE

The dynamical evolutionary model posits a set of domains encom-
passing the various problems regularly confronted in human social life (Ken-
rick, Li, and Butner, 2003; Kenrick, Maner, and Li, 2005). Humans every-
where have repeatedly confronted several sets of problems involving the
following:
• Affiliation: Our ancestors always lived in small, highly interdependent
groups (Sedikides and Skowronski, 1997). To survive and eventually re-
produce, each individual human needed to cooperate with a group of
friends.
• Status: Humans everywhere want to know where their fellows stand in
the local dominance hierarchy (Goldberg, 1981). For both sexes, status
directly increases access to resources. For males, there are additional bio-
logical payoffs for attaining status, because females use status cues to help
decide which males they will select as mates (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, and Lin-
senmeier, 2002; Sadalla, Kenrick, and Vershure, 1987).
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• Self-protection: Ancestral humans frequently faced threats from members

of other groups (Baer and McEachron, 1982), as well as occasional harsh
competition from members of their own group (Daly and Wilson, 1988).
Any ability or inclination to recognize cues associated with such threats
would have been highly adaptive.
• Mate-seeking: Natural selection is centrally linked to differential repro-
duction, and we are here today not because our ancestors all lived long
and happy lives, but because they managed to reproduce. Because ancestral
males and females contributed different resources to their offspring, the
two sexes are presumed to use slightly different criteria to select mates
(e.g., Li et al., 2002).
• Mate retention: In most mammals, courtship is all over after mate selec-
tion, which usually involves males displaying and females choosing. But
because human offspring are helpless at birth and require substantial re-
sources to survive, modern humans are the descendants of ancestral pairs
in which males cooperated with females (Geary, 1998). Indeed, although
there are cultural variations in the shape and number of pair bonds, all
human societies have some form of long-term marital bonds between
males and females (Daly and Wilson, 1983).
• Parental care: The ultimate function of human parental bonds is offspring
care. Parents and children tend to bond to each other, but the constraints
on parent-to-parent and parent-to-child bonds, and the rules of exchange
associated with each, are very different.
Because solutions to problems in one domain are often inconsistent with

solutions to problems in another, humans are presumed to have a modular-
ized set of executive goal systems designed to deal with the separate problem
sets in particular ways. A domain-general model (e.g., do what is rewarding,
or what results in equitable benefit-to-cost ratios) is not specific enough to
work across different social domains (e.g., a passionate kiss is rewarding
from a lover, but may be punishing from a friend; a man might expect a
friend to share the bill in a restaurant [or pick up the next one], but be
disappointed if a woman did so in the early stages of courtship).
At the base of each social goal system is a set of evolved decision biases.
For example, inclusive fitness considerations lead to the assumption that the
rules for sharing resources differ for unrelated affiliates as opposed to off-
spring. Because a child shares half of one’s genes, whereas an unrelated
acquaintance does not, the costs of providing any resource for one’s child
are accordingly discounted. An abundance of evidence suggests that human
decision-making, just like decision-making in other species, is indeed highly
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influenced by kinship considerations (Alcock, 2001; Laham, Gonsalkorale,

and Von Hippel, 2005; Smith, Kish, and Crawford, 1987).
The model also assumes that decision rules vary predictably as a function
of interactions between particular individual differences and environmental
inputs. For example, because developing offspring are always highly costly
for a female to carry, deliver, and nurse, ancestral females, as compared
with ancestral males, were selected to have higher thresholds for considering
courtship offers from potential mates. There is abundant evidence consistent
with this assumption (e.g., Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Clark and Hatfield,
1989; Kenrick and Luce, 2000).
Where Does Love Fit into the Social Domains?

Webster’s ninth New Collegiate Dictionary offers the following as its
first three definitions of love: (1) “strong affection for another arising out
of kinship or personal ties” (e.g., maternal love); (2) “attraction based on
sexual desire”; and (3) “affection based on admiration, benevolence, or com-
mon interests.” This multiplicity of meanings is consistent with subsequent
research on the experience of love (e.g., Fehr and Russell, 1991; Sternberg,
1986). The different types of love may be more relevant to one social domain
than to another. Passionate love based on sexual desire is most likely to
arise in the mate search domain, for example, whereas the less intense af-
fection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests is more rel-
evant to mate retention, the strong affection arising out of kinship comes
into play in the parental care domain, and love between friends fits nicely
into the coalitional domain.
Does some common underlying physiological or phenomenological com-
ponent tie together the different types of love? This is an interesting question,
and possible answers have focused on hormones such as oxytocin and on
feelings of attachment (e.g., Zeifman and Hazan, 1997). Yet the differences
may be functionally more important than the similarities. For example, once
testosterone comes into play in romantic passion, the experience and its
behavioral consequences are entirely different from the pure effects of
oxytocin-induced attachment.
Is each type of love a separate emotion, in the sense of anger or fear, that
comes into play whenever a particular domain of problems is activated? For
example, is passionate love the motivational component of the mate search
executive system? This is an interesting question, but I am inclined to think
any such mapping will be inexact at best. For example, although passionate
love is largely confined to the mate search domain, the feelings (and under-
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lying hormonal states) associated with love of a child and love of a long-
term mate, and even love of a friend, may overlap considerably (though
perhaps less than perfectly). Furthermore, although testosterone-driven sex-
ual arousal plays a central motivational role in some of the most salient
phases of early courtship, it probably plays a minor role in many others
(e.g., the longing for a new lover during periods of separation; the intense
interest in everything the lover has to say at 3 a.m., after sexual urges have
been fully satisfied).
Finally, although psychological research, like the dictionary, has focused
on the positive affective experiences associated with love, negative affect
may also play an occasional role in maintaining strong social bonds. For
example, some behaviors associated with the maintenance of long-term
bonds may be motivated by the nasty and selfish emotion of sexual jealousy.
And besides the positive awe one feels in gazing on one’s infant, parental
love is defined perhaps as much by incessant worrying about the child’s
welfare as by feelings of parental rapture. Furthermore, an interesting fea-
ture of various types of love is the relative suppression of negative emotions.
Imagine if a friend or a lover spit out half the food you offered, then woke
you up by screaming in your ear at midnight, and kept up this barrage of
maltreatment for several months on end. Unless you are a candidate for
canonization, you would be inclined to scream back, and you might soon
terminate the relationship. However, most infants act the same way, yet
surprisingly few are left on the doorsteps of orphanages. Instead, their one-
sided and high-volume demands are more typically met with sympathetic
and cooing reassurances.
Thus the different social domains and the various affective and emotional
components of love do not map precisely onto one another, and such map-
ping may not provide the best way to understand the diverse functions en-
compassed by the various meanings of the term love.
LOVE AS AN ARRAY OF DECISION BIASES

From the perspective offered here, a fuller understanding of love in all
its forms can come from considering the decision biases that underlie strong
social bonds across the different domains. Table 2-1 suggests a set of pos-
sible biases that would serve to smooth interactions with closely bonded
others (aka the people we love). Note that the mechanisms underlying these
biases in social decision-making are not necessarily conscious, “rational,” or
complex. Instead, they are often based in simple predispositions to be selec-
tively attentive to certain features of the social environment (akin to the
inclination to rapidly notice emotion in other people’s faces), and to expe-
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Table 2-1 Functions of strong social bonds in different domains, and of
accompanying cognitive biases
Functions of Examples of
Social Domain Strong Bonds Cognitive Biases
Coalition To cement reciprocal Attention to commonalities over dif-

formation alliances ferences
To gain benefits of Dampened attention to short-term in-
group cooperation equity
Status To ride coattails of Dampened critical thinking for re-

successful associates spected authorities
To share benefits of Informational biases favoring own
backing the winning group, disfavoring other groups
team Attention to commonalities with win-
To inspire followers to ners, distance self from losers
follow
Self-protection To prevent loss of re- Biased perceptions of infractions by in-
sources to, and injury group vs. out-group members
by, out-group mem- Lowered thresholds for seeing nega-
bers or treacherous in- tive inclinations in out-group mem-
group members bers
Gaining mates To gain access to de- Males relatively more attentive to
sirable reproductive physical attractiveness and youth
partners Females more attentive to status
Males have lower thresholds for per-
ceiving interest by potential mates,
and for feeling passionate love
Females have higher thresholds for
trusting potential suitors
Retaining mates Maintain reproductive Attenuate inequity detection mecha-

bonds nisms
Hypervigilance to potential infideli-
ties, and to potential interlopers with
sex-linked desirable characteristics
Assume worst in potential interlopers
Familial care Nurture close kin Relatively lowest attention to inequity
in families as opposed to other rela-
tionships
Hyperattention to offspring’s well-
being
The table offers examples and is not meant to be exhaustive.
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rience certain feelings in response to those features (e.g., to feel fear when
we see an angry face on a large man who is walking toward us).
The biases suggested in table 2-1 have not all been empirically verified,
but there is some support for most of them. For example, subjects in one
study got feedback that their team had done quite well on a trivia game,
and were asked to assign relative responsibility for their success to them-
selves and their partner. When playing with strangers, people demonstrated
the typical “self-serving bias,” giving themselves the majority of the credit.
When playing with a close relative, on the other hand, they tended toward
an “other-serving bias,” giving relatively more credit to the other (Acker-
man, Ledlow, and Kenrick, 2003). In other studies, participants have played
various resource dilemma games with strangers, friends, or relatives (e.g.,
Ledlow and Linder, 2003). People who believe they are playing with kin are
more generous and cooperative than those playing with strangers. Friends
are generally treated less well than kin, but better than strangers. Given its
theoretical importance, there is surprisingly little social psychological re-
search on kin relationships (Daly, Salmon, and Wilson, 1997). However,
that picture is beginning to change (e.g., Laham et al., 2005; Park and
Schaller, 2003).
There is much more research examining how men and women think about
potential mates. For example, one series of studies explored responses to
attractive males and females at various levels of cognitive processing. Un-
surprisingly, attention measured via an eye tracker indicated that men look
more at beautiful women. Also unsurprisingly, men dedicate greater “down-
stream” processing to those women, as indicated by biased estimates of the
frequency of good-looking women in rapidly presented arrays (Maner, Ken-
rick, Becker, Robertson, Hofer, Neuberg, Delton, Butner, and Schaller,
2003). In a Concentration-type game, men show especially good abilities to
remember the locations of beautiful women (Becker, Kenrick, Guerin, and
Maner, 2005). Women also favor beautiful women at all levels of processing,
but show an interesting “disjunction” in processing handsome men. Women
visually attend to handsome male strangers for a few seconds, but seem to
quickly terminate further processing downstream (failing to remember hand-
some men any better than average-looking men, and failing to show the
frequency estimation bias that men show toward beautiful women).
Men asked to judge whether neutral faces are showing subtle signs of
emotion tend to project sexual arousal onto neutral facial expressions, but
only if the faces are attractive women and if the men have had a mating
motive activated (Maner et al., 2005). Another series of studies found
women to be more suspicious of a man’s professions of love, and men to be
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more likely to attribute sexual motivation to women—except in the case of

their own sisters (Haselton and Buss, 2000). These findings are all consistent
with a differential parental investment model, which posits that females have
more to lose from an ill-chosen mating decision than do males (e.g., Kenrick,
Groth, Trost, and Sadalla, 1993; Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth, and Trost, 1990).
We thus far have only a rough idea of the qualitative nature of several of
these decision biases. Additional research and theory could allow us to con-
vert those qualitative biases into quantitative decision weights. This would
allow more precise theory-driven predictions, as well as a better understand-
ing of how those biases play out in complex social dynamics, where small
differences in individual biases can have large effects at the group level (Ken-
rick, Becker, et al., 2003).
These decision biases are at base cold, hard economic rules designed to
serve selfish genetic interests. Yet they are accompanied by affective states
that may be warm and fuzzy or even hot and steamy. Why feelings some-
times accompany otherwise cold decision rules is an interesting question.
Presumably the experienced feeling is accompanied by hormonal changes,
which perhaps help keep attention on task until a goal is reached. Consider,
for example, that the central nervous system operates very rapidly and can
change the direction of conscious processing in milliseconds, whereas the
autonomic nervous system involves the secretion of hormones that linger for
a while despite momentary attentional shifts. Once sexual hormones enter
the bloodstream in sufficient quantities, for example, they will dissipate
slowly until copulation signals the release of other hormones, which termi-
nate that goal state (and the next higher executive priority can take over).
LOVE AND INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS

Understanding the inner experience of any one actor will not be suf-
ficient if we want to understand how love works. This is because all social
bonds involve a continual dynamic interaction. Consider parental love. As
I write this, my fifteen-month-old son has been playing in a nearby room
with his babysitter. When I pass by and hear his voice, I am strongly mo-
tivated to pick him up and play with him (his smile provides a reward whose
power I would not have predicted before I had children). If I try to return
to work on my overdue chapter, he becomes obviously and loudly upset.
His agony motivates me to stay and settle him with the babysitter before
sneaking out of his field of view. He prefers my company to that of his
babysitters, but if his mother is around, I take second priority. He prefers
the company of his grandmother over that of the babysitters, but not as
much as that of his parents. All of this, I would argue, is a function of
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interactions between evolved psychological decision rules and experience.

Experience is clearly critical—he did not know his grandmother until he
interacted with her, for example. But many of these experiences are them-
selves a function of decision biases built into the human species and leading
to reliable social dynamics. Grandma has been more motivated to win his
affections than are his babysitters, but not as motivated as his mother, who
cannot bear to be separated for more than a few hours.
Are these family dynamics merely a function of American culture? Even
assuming the remote possibility of an arbitrary culture unbiased by the pref-
erences of the biological organisms who constructed it, such an explanation
seems unlikely in this case. For one thing, cross-cultural research finds sim-
ilar family dynamics the world over (e.g., Geary, 1998; Hrdy, 1999). For
another, grandparental fondness follows the rules of inclusive fitness in ways
very likely invisible to the grandparents themselves (Laham et al., 2005).
Grandparental investment tends to go along more “certain” kinship lines.
That is, a mother’s mother is closer to her grandchildren than is a father’s
mother, and a father’s father is least likely to invest in the grandchildren.
Certainty in this case refers to the fact that, because of internal fertilization,
the mother is virtually always sure the baby has half her genes, whereas the
father cannot be completely sure. There are two steps at which paternity is
uncertain for a father’s father, but none for a mother’s mother. Most im-
portant, people were less close to their mother’s father and their father’s
father only when those grandparents had more “genetically certain” grand-
children (e.g., through daughters rather than sons). If they have no daugh-
ters, grandparents seem to invest more resources in their son’s children, tak-
ing the next best bet from an inclusive fitness standpoint.
The individual decision rules (as in table 2-1) take the form of “if-then”
statements contingent on inputs from other people. In turn, any individual’s
decisions become contingencies for the other people around him or her. The
different decision rules thus have important consequences for understanding
how social dynamics vary across different relationships. Consider the very
simple case of how interacting with kin versus non-kin might change the
dynamics of the classic prisoner’s dilemma (figure 2-1). The prisoner’s di-
lemma is a classic economic game modeled on the conflict of interest faced
by two prisoners being interrogated by the police. If the prisoners cooperate
with one another by remaining silent, they share a better outcome than if
both agree to testify for the prosecution (compare the upper left box in the
left figure with the lower right box in the same figure). The dilemma arises
because if prisoner A testifies, while B does not, A wins a bigger reward and
B gets the worse outcome, and vice versa. Thus, each will be inclined to
testify against the other to avoid this worst-case scenario. The same set of
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Prisoner A
C D C D
6A 7A 9A 8A
Prisoner B
C
6B 2B 9B 5.5B
2A 3A 5.5A 4.5A
D
7B 3B 8B 4.5B
A & B unrelated, A & B brothers,

r=0 r = .5
Figure 2-1. Considerations of inclusive fitness lead to
more positive outcomes in situations that would pose
dilemmas for unrelated associates. When the payoffs for
each player in a traditional prisoner’s dilemma (left) are
recalculated to be his own plus half of his brother’s,
cooperation (C) replaces defection (D) as the dominant
strategy (Kenrick and Sundie, in press). Reprinted by
permission of Guilford Press.
payoffs creating a difficult dilemma for a pair of unrelated individuals, how-

ever, may have a different outcome if the two players are first-degree kin
(who share, on average, 50 percent of their genes) (Kenrick and Sundie, in
press). Thus, from a genetic perspective, each brother gets to share in half
the other’s rewards, and the payoff matrix on the right reflects that each
now benefits from cooperation, regardless of what the other one does.
Hence, the temptation to testify, and the consequent dilemma, evaporate.
The fact that one person’s decision biases interact with those of the people
in his or her social network adds complexity to social life, but may also help
organize our relationships into meaningful patterns. Because I am making
decisions with you in mind, and vice versa, our interactions can harmonize.
Of course, both of us are interacting with many other people as well, and
those people all have their own decision biases. Rather than leading to a
hopelessly complex disorder, the result is often “self-organization”—the
emergence of order out of initial randomness. Computer simulations dem-
onstrate why this self-organization is likely to be found for cooperation, such
that some neighborhoods will become highly cooperative, and others highly
competitive, as people try to match the behaviors of their neighbors (Ken-
rick, Li, and Butner, 2003). The same kind of normative self-organization
can emerge for mating strategies. It will be difficult to behave in a sexually
unrestricted way if the majority of one’s neighbors are faithfully married,
and it will be harder to settle down into a monogamous marriage if most
04:50:44 UTC
of one’s neighbors are promiscuous partygoers. Although a neighborhood

may start out with a mix of mating strategies, small random variations in
frequencies may throw it slightly in one direction or the other, with the
eventual result being strong local norms that tend to become self-
maintaining (Kenrick, Li, and Butner, 2003).
Another consequence of the different decision rules used in the various
domains is that there will be different social geometries associated with each
domain. For example, long-term mateships tend to be more dyadic than
affiliative networks (a new friend may bring more benefits than costs for
your current friends, but a new mating partner usually brings more costs
than benefits for your current long-term mate).
SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND CULTURAL NORMS

The decision rules underlying behaviors in each domain are “if-then”
statements in which the “if” is provided by inputs from the social environ-
ment, and the “then” is presumed to be a variable strategic response de-
signed to result in behaviors better adapted to one contingency than another.
Regular variations in the social and physical ecology determine whether one
response or another will be adaptive. For example, when there is a relatively
high ratio of women to men, men are in a position to engage in more un-
restricted behaviors, and societal norms tend to become more promiscuous
(Guttentag and Secord, 1983). When the reverse occurs and there are rela-
tively many men competing for the attentions of relatively few mating-age
women, men are required to be more committal, and societal norms favor
long-term monogamous commitments.
There is evidence that such ecological factors have direct and immediate
impact on psychological judgments about relationships. For example, men
exposed to a large number of available and beautiful females report less
commitment to their current partner (Kenrick, Gutierres, and Goldberg,
1989; Kenrick, Neuberg, Zierk, and Krones, 1994). On the other hand,
women are unaffected by exposure to good-looking men, but do decrease
commitment to current partners after they are exposed to available success-
ful men (Kenrick, Neuberg, et al., 1994). Self-evaluations, on the other hand,
seem calibrated to information about one’s same-sex competitors. Men
lower their self-appraised mate value after exposure to highly successful
rather than attractive men, whereas women do the opposite, lowering their
self-assessments after exposure to other women who are beautiful rather
than successful (Gutierres, Kenrick, and Partch, 1999).
Cross-cultural variations in the norms surrounding love are often simple
extensions of these dynamic links between variable strategies and features
04:50:44 UTC
of the physical and social environment. For example, polyandry in animals

is rare, but is more likely to be found when resources are scarce. Polyandry
often involves cooperation between brothers, who have less to lose by raising
one another’s offspring (unrelated males in a polyandrous arrangement may
have no genetic relationship at all to the offspring). In humans, polyandry
is likewise rare, but also is found under circumstances of resource scarcity,
and also is likely to involve brothers as the polyandrous mates of the same
female (Crook and Crook, 1988). On the other hand, polygyny is more
common in animals, but tends to be correlated with different ecological
conditions than is polyandry, in this case variable distribution in the quality
of male resources (with some males controlling much richer territories than
others, for example) (Orians, 1969). In humans, polygyny is also associated
with high variance in male resources, and high-status wealthy males are
much more likely to attract multiple wives (Crook and Crook, 1988).
Cross-cultural variations in age differences between women and their hus-
bands are consistent with assumptions of an evolutionary life history model
that considers the interactions between human social ecology and sex dif-
ferences in resources contributed to offspring. In North American society,
women in their late teens and twenties commonly marry older men. This
has often been attributed to the particular norms of American society, but
this theory has difficulty explaining why the same pattern is found not only
in Germany and Holland but also in India, the Philippines, Africa, South
America, and small islands around the world (Harpending, 1992; Kenrick
and Keefe, 1992; Otta, Queiroz, Campos, Da Silva, and Silveira, 1998). The
evolutionary life history model suggests that this pattern is so widespread
because of the basic biological difference in resources invested in offspring.
Human females contribute bodily resources directly, but this ability lessens
in their mid-thirties, and terminates completely at menopause. Males, on the
other hand, contribute other resources, which generally continue to accu-
mulate as the male’s age increases.
The Tiwi of Australia provide a rare exception to this general pattern,
with young Tiwi men usually marrying much older women (often women
past menopause). This arrangement at first seems to go against any biolog-
ical model, evolutionary or otherwise, raising a question of how the mem-
bers of this society manage to reproduce themselves. The answer is that Tiwi
society actually shows hypertrophied versions of several other human ten-
dencies. The society is polygynous, so the first (older) wife is not usually the
woman who produces a man’s children. By marrying an older woman, a
young man cements alliances with powerful older men who control the mar-
riages of all their younger daughters. The control of Tiwi patriarchs is so
04:50:44 UTC
total that all young women are married to one of them (indeed, they are
betrothed at birth). The norms require that all women be married, including
the older widows, but older patriarchs with younger wives are not interested
in marrying widows. Instead, a young man who marries a patriarch’s aging
female relative puts himself in line to be given a young wife (Hart and Pillig,
1960). Thus, rather than canceling all the rules of human reproduction, Tiwi
society is one in which the normative rules have been shuffled slightly. Nev-
ertheless, the usual human sex differences manifest themselves, though in
another form. Most of the cultural variations in romantic relationships, for-
merly believed to be completely arbitrary, may instead involve biologically
sensible interactions of basic human evolved tendencies with local social and
physical ecological factors.
Conclusion
The dynamic evolutionary model of love presumes that powerful
bonds serve several distinct functions for human beings. The bonds with
lovers, friends, long-term mates, and family members are consequently as-
sociated with very different evolved decision biases. The effects of those
decision biases unfold in a dynamic way because the other players possess
decision biases of their own. Consequently, there are different social dynam-
ics and social geometries associated with the various kinds of love objects.
Because those decision biases are flexibly calibrated to recurrent ecological
factors, there will be biologically meaningful variations within and across
societies that are linked to features of the prevailing social and physical
environment. From this perspective, the key question is what the different
forms of love do, not what they feel like. Most of the key questions raised
by this perspective remain to be answered. Foremost among these are two:
What is the precise nature of the decision biases associated with each type
of social bond? Which features of the social and physical environment in-
teract with those biases to create the various forms of social relationships
found across human societies?
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Mark Schaller for helpful feedback on this chapter.
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3
A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic

Love Relationships: Attachment, Caregiving,
and Sex
phillip r. shaver and
mario mikulincer
In The Psychology of Love (Sternberg and Barnes, 1988), Shaver, Ha-

zan, and Bradshaw proposed that romantic love be conceptualized in terms
of three behavioral systems discussed by Bowlby (1969/1982) in his etho-
logical theory of attachment. Bowlby viewed attachment, caregiving, and
sex (along with affiliation, exploration, and a few others) as innate moti-
vational systems that had evolved over thousands of years because they
increased the likelihood that infants would survive to reproductive age and
be likely to contribute their genes to the next generation. In 1988, Bowlby’s
theory was unfamiliar to most personality and social psychologists. It was
so focused on infant-parent relationships, in which the infant’s attachment
system and the parent’s caregiving system serve complementary functions,
that most psychologists who studied adolescents and adults did not view it
as relevant to their work, even though Bowlby (1979, p. 129) claimed that
the attachment system is active “from the cradle to the grave.” If he had
said more about the caregiving and sexual systems, he undoubtedly would
have portrayed them as active across the life span as well.
The few personality-social psychologists who studied love in the 1980s
generally adopted a descriptive and atheoretical approach, attempting to
delineate different types of love, often viewing them as attitudes, while say-
ing relatively little about why these states exist (e.g., Hendrick and Hendrick,
35
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1989; Rubin, 1973). For example, Walster and Walster (1978) distinguished
passionate from compassionate love without providing a theory about their
developmental origins or adaptive functions. In one of the few theoretically
oriented approaches to romantic love, Berscheid and Walster (1974) applied
Schachter’s (1964) two-factor theory of emotion, noting that the experience
of romantic love consists of both diffuse physiological arousal and a cog-
nitive interpretation of what is causing it (usually something in the social
environment). This approach inadvertently robbed romantic love of an in-
dependent existence and function, viewing love, like anger or euphoria (two
emotions studied by Schachter), as just another case of mislabeled arousal.
Both the attitude approach and the two-factor approach to love fit well with
a belief common among social psychologists in the 1980s that romantic love
was a cultural invention of Western civilization (e.g., Averill, 1985; De Roug-
ement, 1940), which made appeals to biological or evolutionary concepts
seem misguided.
Times have changed. Today, “evolutionary psychology” (e.g., Buss, 1999;
Simpson, 1999) is a well-accepted approach to the study of cognition, emo-
tion, and social behavior. And attachment theory, which is an evolutionary
psychological theory, is central to both developmental and social psychol-
ogy. As attachment theory has become more familiar to social psychologists,
cultural anthropologists also have changed their tune with respect to the
cross-cultural universality of romantic love (e.g., Chisholm, 1999; Janko-
wiak, 1995). This intense emotion has been expressed in the literature, po-
etry, and everyday thoughts of the members of every culture that has been
well studied.
At the time when Shaver et al. (1988) were preparing their chapter for
the Sternberg and Barnes book, Hazan and Shaver (1987) published an ar-
ticle in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) that con-
tained the rudiments of a behavioral systems approach to romantic love as
well as a simple measure of attachment styles in romantic relationships. That
article became one of the ten most cited papers in JPSP’s thirty-five-year
history. Thus, our task in the present chapter is not to defend or argue for
attachment theory, or for behavioral systems theory more generally, as an
approach to love, but to summarize what has been learned about the theory’s
potential and limitations since 1988. We also want to explain what remains
to be done to conceptualize love in terms of innate behavioral systems and
the individual differences in parameters of these systems. Because there is
now abundant empirical information about the three behavioral systems, it
is possible to say something about their interrelations.
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A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic Love Relationships 37
We begin with a brief summary of Shaver et al.’s (1988) chapter. We then

explain Bowlby’s theory and its key motivational construct, the behavioral
system, and describe the normative and individual-difference components of
the attachment, caregiving, and sexual behavioral systems. At the same time
we introduce a model of behavioral system activation and suppression and
show how systematic individual differences in parameters of behavioral sys-
tems help to explain the dynamics of romantic love. Next, we summarize
what has been learned about how these individual differences affect the
quality of romantic relationships as well as the dynamic interplay among
the attachment, caregiving, and sexual systems within the context of these
relationships. Toward the end of the chapter we discuss the desirability of
theoretical integration, especially with the triangular theory of love (Stern-
berg, 1987) and interdependence theory (e.g., Holmes and Cameron, 2005;
Thibault and Kelley, 1959).
Love as Attachment
In his classic trilogy Attachment and Loss—one of the most cited
sources in contemporary psychology—Bowlby (1969/1982, 1973, 1980) at-
tempted to describe how and explain why infants become emotionally at-
tached to their primary caregivers and emotionally distressed when sepa-
rated from them. Bowlby (1969/1982), along with Harlow (1959), rejected
classical psychoanalytic and Pavlovian behavioral frameworks that por-
trayed emotional bonds as secondary effects of feeding. Instead, he viewed
human infants as naturally relationship-seeking, naturally oriented to what
Harlow called “contact comfort,” and naturally inclined to seek proximity
to comforting figures in times of need. On this basis, Bowlby reasoned that
the formation of an infant’s emotional tie to its primary caregiver depends
on this natural tendency to seek proximity, on the caregiver’s responsiveness
to the infant’s bids for proximity, and on the caregiver’s ability to provide
protection and comfort in times of need. Specifically, these caregiving “at-
tachment figures,” according to Bowlby, need to provide a “safe haven”
(protection, support, and relief) in times of need and a “secure base” that
allows the infant to engage in exploratory and play behaviors in a safe
environment.
In his writings, Bowlby (1979) also emphasized that the need for com-
forting figures and the emotional attachment to security providers are evi-
dent across the entire life span and can explain the experience of familial
emotions, including love. In his own words:
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Many of the most intense of all human emotions arise during the formation,
the maintenance, the disruption and the renewal of affectional bonds—
which for that reason are sometimes called emotional bonds. In terms of
subjective experience, the formation of a bond is described as falling in love,
maintaining a bond as loving someone, and losing a partner as grieving
over someone. Similarly, the threat of loss arouses anxiety and actual loss
causes sorrow, whilst both situations are likely to arouse anger. Finally, the
unchallenged maintenance of a bond is experienced as a source of security,
and the renewal as a source of joy. (Bowlby, 1979, p. 69)
Following Bowlby’s lead, Shaver et al. (1988) proposed that romantic

bonds in adulthood are emotional attachments and are conceptually parallel
to infants’ emotional bonds with their primary caregivers. In their terms,
“for every documented feature of attachment there is a parallel feature of
love, and for most documented features of love there is either a documented
or a plausible infant parallel” (p. 73). Love in both infancy and adulthood
includes eye contact, holding, touching, caressing, smiling, crying, clinging,
a desire to be comforted by the relationship partner (parent, romantic lover,
or spouse) when distressed, the experience of anger, anxiety, and sorrow
following separation or loss, and the experience of happiness and joy upon
reunion. Moreover, formation of a secure relationship with either a primary
caregiver or a romantic partner depends on the caregiver/partner’s sensitivity
and responsiveness to the increasingly attached person’s proximity bids. This
responsiveness causes the attached person to feel more confident and safe,
happier, more outgoing, and kinder to others. Furthermore, in both kinds
of relationships, when the partner is not available or not responsive to the
person’s proximity bids, the person can become anxious, preoccupied, and
hypersensitive to signs of love or its absence, to approval or rejection. Sep-
aration or nonresponsiveness, up to a point, can increase the intensity of
both an infant’s and an adult’s proximity-seeking behavior, but beyond some
point they can lead to defensive distancing from the caregiver or partner so
as to avoid the pain and distress caused by the frustrating relationship. All
of these parallels led Shaver et al. (1988) to conclude that infants’ bonds
with parents and romantic love in adulthood are variants of a single under-
lying process.
Shaver et al. (1988) took a further step and contended that the same three
attachment patterns or styles observed by Ainsworth et al. (1978) in their
classic studies of infants’ attachments to their parents—secure, anxious, avo-
idant—can be seen in the different ways adults relate to their romantic part-
ners. Hazan and Shaver (1987) developed a self-report measure of adult
attachment style suitable for use in experiments and surveys. In its original
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form, the measure consisted of three brief descriptions of feelings and be-
haviors in close relationships that were intended to characterize adult ro-
mantic analogues of the three infant attachment styles. Research participants
were asked to read the descriptions and place themselves into one of the
three attachment categories according to their predominant feelings and be-
haviors in romantic relationships. The three descriptions were worded as
follows:
Secure: I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable

depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry
about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.
Avoidant: I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it
difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend
on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others
want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being.
Anxious: I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I
often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to
stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this some-
times scares people away.
In both a newspaper survey of community members and a more typical

study of university students, Hazan and Shaver (1987) found that the fre-
quencies of the three attachment styles in adulthood were similar to those
found in infancy, and that participants’ accounts of their romantic love re-
lationships were systematically related to their attachment styles. People who
classified themselves as securely attached described their love relationships
as friendly, warm, trusting, and supportive. They emphasized intimacy as
the core feature of these relationships; and they believed in the existence of
romantic love and the possibility of maintaining intense love over an ex-
tended time period. People with an avoidant style described their romantic
relationships as low in warmth, lacking in friendly interactions, and low in
emotional involvement. They believed that love fades with time and that the
kind of romance depicted in novels and films does not really exist. In con-
trast, people who reported having an anxious style characterized their ro-
mantic relationships as involving obsession and passion, strong physical at-
traction, desire for union or merger with their partner, and proneness to fall
in love quickly and perhaps indiscriminately. They characterized their lovers
as untrustworthy and nonsupportive, and they reported intense bouts of
jealousy and anger toward romantic partners as well as worries about re-
jection and abandonment.
Hazan and Shaver’s seminal study was followed by hundreds of others
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that have examined the interpersonal and intrapersonal correlates of adult

attachment style (see reviews by Shaver and Hazan, 1993; Shaver and Mik-
ulincer, 2002). However, because Hazan and Shaver’s (1987) study focused
mainly on the conceptualization and assessment of individual differences in
attachment style, researchers subsequently conducted many studies focused
on these individual differences without paying much attention to central
issues in Bowlby’s theory, such as the dynamics of the attachment behavioral
system or the functioning of the other behavioral systems (sex and caregiv-
ing) involved in romantic love. More recently this imbalance has begun to
be corrected, and more studies have been directed at the normative func-
tioning of the attachment system in adulthood (see Shaver and Mikulincer,
2002, for a review) and the relations among the attachment, caregiving, and
sexual systems (e.g., Collins and Feeney, 2000; Kunce and Shaver, 1994;
Schachner and Shaver, 2004).
In the following section, we discuss Bowlby’s (1969/1982) key motiva-
tional construct, the behavioral system, and describe the operating para-
meters of the three major behavioral systems thought to be involved in ro-
mantic relationships: attachment, caregiving, and sex. In table 3-1, we
present a schematic summary of the normative and individual-difference par-
ameters of these three systems.
Operating Parameters of the Attachment, Caregiving, and

Sexual Behavioral Systems
In explaining the motivational basis of proximity-seeking, caregiving,
and sexual behaviors, Bowlby (1969/1982) borrowed from ethology the con-
cept behavioral system—a species-universal neural program that governs the
choice, activation, and termination of behavioral sequences so as to produce
a functional change in the person-environment relationship that has adaptive
advantages for survival and reproduction. Each behavioral system involves
a specific set-goal (e.g., attaining a sense of safety and security, relieving
others’ distress and promoting their welfare, passing one’s genes to the next
generation by becoming pregnant or impregnating a partner) and a set of
interchangeable, functionally equivalent behaviors that constitute the pri-
mary strategy of the system for attaining its particular goal state (e.g., at-
taining safety and security through proximity-seeking, protecting or com-
forting another person, sexually seducing another person). These behaviors
are automatically “activated” by certain stimuli or kinds of situations that
make a particular set-goal salient (e.g., loud noises that signal danger, an
encounter with a distressed or needy person, the appearance in one’s life of
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Table 3-1 Schematic summary of the normative and individual-difference parameters of
the attachment, caregiving, and sexual behavioral systems
Parameter Attachment System Caregiving System Sexual System
Biological function Protection from danger by Provision of protec- Passing one’s genes to
maintaining proximity to tion and support of the next generation
supportive others others in times of
need
Set-goal Safety from danger and Reduction of others’ Having sex (and, usually
threats; alleviation of one’s suffering; fostering indirectly, achieving
own distress their growth and de- pregnancy)
velopment
Contextual triggers Actual or symbolic threats; Others’ attachment Encounters with an at-
unavailability of suppor- behaviors or signals tractive, sexually
tive figures of need aroused or fertile part-
ner
Primary strategy Seeking actual or symbolic Empathic responsive- Sexual approach, sexual
proximity to external or ness; perspective- attraction, and sexual
internal supportive figures taking; and sensitive persuasion
and effective helping
Relational support or Availability of sensitive Willingness and abil- Ability to sexually at-
constraint of optimal and supportive others in ity to help; others’ ac- tract others; others’ ac-
functioning times of need ceptance of caregiving ceptance of sexual bids
bids
Emotional benefits of Sense of security and be- Sense of generativity, Joy, vitality, potency,
optimal functioning ing loved; effective affect love, and communion; and feelings of love and
regulation compassionate love intimacy
Hyperactivating Intense demands for part- Exaggeration of oth- Intrusive and coercive
strategies ner’s attention and care; ers’ needs; hypervigil- sexual attempts; hyper-
hypervigilance regarding ance toward others’ vigilance toward part-
threats and signs of rejec- distress; intrusive and ner’s signals of sexual
tion coercive styles of attraction or rejection
caregiving
Deactivating Denial of attachment Inhibition of empathic Dismissal of sexual

strategies needs; avoidance of close- help; dismissal of oth- needs; distancing from a
ness and intimacy; com- ers’ distress; distanc- sexually aroused partner;
pulsive self-reliance ing from needy others sexual promiscuity as a
form of self-
aggrandizement
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an attractive potential sex partner), and “deactivated” or “terminated” by

other stimuli or situations that signal attainment of the desired goal state
(Bowlby, 1969/1982). Since each behavioral system was evolutionarily “de-
signed” to increase the likelihood of adaptation to environmental demands,
its optimal functioning has important implications for mental health and
adjustment.
Bowlby (1969/1982) also assumed that behavioral systems include “on-
togenetically learned” adjustments reflecting a person’s history of transac-
tions with the environment in which a behavioral system was activated and
either succeeded or failed to attain the desired goal state. Since the ability
of a behavioral system to achieve its set-goal depends on a person’s actual
transactions with the world, each system includes cognitive-behavioral
mechanisms, such as monitoring and appraising the effectiveness of behav-
iors emitted in a particular context, that allow flexible, goal-corrected ad-
justment of the system’s “programming” when necessary to put the individ-
ual back on the track of goal attainment. Over time, after operating
repeatedly in certain environments, a person’s behavioral systems become
molded by social encounters, “programming” the neural/behavioral capac-
ities so that they fit the behavior of important relationship partners (e.g.,
parents) and yield effective action in that relational environment. Through
this process, a person learns to conform his or her behavioral systems to
contextual demands and forms reliable expectations about possible access
routes and barriers to goal attainment. These expectations (which Bowlby,
1973, called “internal working models of self and others”) become part of
a behavioral system’s programming and are the bases of both individual
differences and within-person continuity of the system.
Changes in a behavioral system’s programming can also include disen-
gagement from the primary strategy following recurrent failure to attain the
system’s set-goal. These failures are a major source of frustration, pain, and
distress; they create negative working models of self and others (e.g., “I don’t
have the resources necessary to help my partner,” “I cannot trust my partner
in times of need”) and signal that the primary strategy should be replaced
by alternative (secondary) strategies. Attachment theorists (e.g., Cassidy and
Kobak, 1988; Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003) have emphasized two such sec-
ondary strategies: hyperactivation and deactivation of the system. Hyper-
activating strategies are “fight” (or “persist” or “protest”) responses that
intensify the primary strategy of a system in order to coerce a relationship
partner to behave in accordance with the system’s goals (e.g., to provide
greater support, accept more of one’s help, have sex or have it more often
or in a more satisfying way); they keep a behavioral system chronically
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activated until its set-goal is achieved. These responses are learned in social
environments that place (or placed, in the person’s developmental history) a
person on a partial reinforcement schedule for persistence or insistence
(through sporadic experiences of goal attainment). They are based on what
a person interprets to be rewards for energetic, even strident, applications
of the primary strategy, because these applications seem, at least sometimes,
to succeed (or to have succeeded in the past). Unfortunately, while some-
times successful with at least some interaction partners, these responses de-
pend on a heightening of distress and a persistence of worries about one’s
own efficacy and social value. They can easily encourage intrusive, control-
ling, and aggressive responses that lead to relationship dysfunction, partner
dissatisfaction, and eventual rejection or abandonment—ironically and trag-
ically, the outcomes most dreaded by the hyperactivating person.
In contrast, deactivating strategies are “flight” (or avoidance) responses
that require turning off or (to use Bowlby’s term) terminating a behavioral
system in an effort to avoid the frustration, pain, and distress caused by
rebuffed efforts to attain the system’s goal. These responses are thought to
develop during interactions with relationship partners who disapprove of
and even punish expressions of a system’s primary strategy (e.g., proximity-
seeking, caring or helping, or showing sexual interest). In such social en-
counters, an individual learns to expect better outcomes if signs of the pri-
mary strategy are hidden or suppressed, and the behavioral system in ques-
tion is deactivated despite not having attained its goal. The problem with
these strategies is that they require a narrowing of interpersonal activities
(e.g., being intimate, providing care, or engaging in enjoyable sexual inter-
course), frequently result in failure to achieve important goals, and deter a
person from realizing that not all new relationship partners make the same
dysfunctional demands as previous partners did on a particular behavioral
system. In short, some of life’s most rewarding experiences are forgone in
an attempt to avoid certain kinds of frustration, disappointment, and pun-
ishment.
THE ATTACHMENT BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM

The presumed biological function of the attachment system is to pro-
tect a person (especially during infancy and early childhood) from danger
by assuring that he or she maintains proximity to caring and supportive
others (attachment figures). The goal of the system is objective protection
or support, and the concomitant subjective sense of safety or security (which
Sroufe and Waters, 1977, called “felt security”). The negative emotions ex-
perienced by a person in relation to this behavioral system are especially
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intense when he or she encounters actual or symbolic threats and notices

that an attachment figure is not sufficiently near, interested, or responsive
(Bowlby, 1969/1982). In such cases, the attachment system is activated and
the individual is driven to seek and reestablish actual or symbolic proximity
to an external or internalized attachment figure (the system’s primary strat-
egy) until the set-goal of felt security is attained. Bowlby (1969/1982, 1988)
assumed that although the effects of attachment system activation are most
easily observed during infancy, the system continues to function throughout
life, as indicated by adults’ needs for proximity, support, and security (Ha-
zan and Zeifman, 1999).
Smooth functioning of the attachment system requires that an attachment
figure be available in times of need, sensitive and responsive to the individ-
ual’s bids for proximity, and effective in alleviating the individual’s distress.
Such positive interactions promote an inner sense of attachment security
(based on expectations that key people will be available and supportive in
times of need) and lead to the consolidation of security-based strategies of
affect regulation (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003). These strategies are aimed
at alleviating distress; forming comfortable, supportive intimate relation-
ships; and increasing personal adjustment without generating negative side
effects (strategies that Epstein and Meier, 1989, called “constructive ways
of coping”). Security-based strategies consist of optimistic beliefs about dis-
tress management; faith in others’ goodwill; a sense of being loved, es-
teemed, understood, and accepted by relationship partners; and a sense of
self-efficacy with respect to gaining proximity to a loving partner when
support is needed. These strategies also involve acknowledging and express-
ing feelings of distress or vulnerability and seeking emotional support in
order to downregulate distress in the service of problem-focused coping
(Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003).
When a person’s attachment figures are not reliably available and sup-
portive, a sense of attachment security is not attained, and the distress that
activated the system is compounded by serious doubts and fears about the
feasibility of attaining a sense of security: “Is the world a safe place or not?”
“Can I trust my relationship partner in times of need or not?” “Do I have
the resources necessary to bring my partner close to me?” These worries
about self and relationship partners can cause a person’s mind to be pre-
occupied with threats and the need for protection, and can drastically inter-
fere with the functioning of other behavioral systems.
Negative attachment interactions indicate that the primary attachment
strategy, proximity and support-seeking, has to be replaced by either hyper-
activating or deactivating strategies. Hyperactivation of the attachment sys-
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tem (which Bowlby, 1969/1982, called “protest”) is manifested in energetic,

insistent attempts to get a relationship partner, viewed as insufficiently avail-
able or responsive, to pay attention and provide care and support. The strat-
egies include clinging and controlling responses, cognitive and behavioral
efforts to establish not only physical contact but also perceived self-other
similarity and “oneness,” and overdependence on relationship partners as a
source of protection (Shaver and Mikulincer, 2002). Hyperactivation keeps
the attachment system chronically activated, constantly on the alert for
threats, separations, and betrayals, thereby exacerbating relational distress
and conflicts (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003). This strategy interferes with
good communication, emotional tranquillity, and mature personal devel-
opment.
Deactivation of the attachment system includes inhibition of proximity-
seeking and cultivation of what Bowlby (1980) called “compulsive self-
reliance” and “detachment.” These strategies require denial of attachment
needs; avoidance of closeness, intimacy, and dependence in close relation-
ships; maximization of cognitive, emotional, and physical distance from oth-
ers; and striving for self-reliance and independence (Shaver and Mikulincer,
2002). They also involve active inattention to threatening events and per-
sonal vulnerabilities, as well as inhibition and suppression of thoughts and
memories that evoke distress and feelings of vulnerability, because such
thoughts can cause unwanted activation of the attachment system, which
the person believes will not result in desirable outcomes (Fraley, Davis, and
Shaver, 1998).
The Caregiving Behavioral System

According to Bowlby (1969/1982), the caregiving system was crafted
by evolution to provide protection and support to others who are either
chronically dependent or temporarily in need. Its goal is truly altruistic, and
it responds to signals of need emitted by another person’s attachment system.
The set-goal of the caregiving system is the reduction of another person’s
suffering (which Bowlby, 1969/1982, called providing a “safe haven”) or
fostering another person’s growth and development (which Bowlby, 1969/
1982, called providing a “secure base for exploration”). The primary strat-
egy for achieving these goals is to adopt what Batson (1991) called an em-
pathic attitude—for example, taking the perspective of a relationship partner
in order to sensitively and effectively help the partner reduce distress or
encourage positive growth and development. The caregiving system is fo-
cused on another person’s welfare, and therefore directs attention to the
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other’s needs, wishes, emotions, and intentions rather than to one’s own
emotional state. In the realm of romantic relationships, one partner’s care-
giving system is automatically activated by the other partner’s attachment
behaviors or signals of need, and the goal is to alter the needy partner’s
condition until signs of increased safety, well-being, and security are evident.
Smooth functioning of the caregiving system depends on an individual’s
ability and willingness to empathically and effectively help a needy partner,
and also on the partner’s responsiveness to the individual’s caregiving bids.
These positive interactions promote an inner sense of what Erikson (1950)
called “generativity”—a sense that one is more than an encapsulated self
and is able to contribute importantly to others’ welfare. It is a truly altruistic,
compassionate form of love (which Lee, 1977, called “agape”) aimed at
alleviating distress and benefiting others. The sense of generativity includes
feeling that one has good qualities and is able to perform good deeds; strong
feelings of self-efficacy for being helpful when needed; confidence in one’s
interpersonal skills; and heightened feelings of love, communion, and con-
nectedness with respect to a relationship partner. In other words, as with
the other behavioral systems, smooth functioning of the caregiving system
leads to positive feelings toward the self, even though its primary goal is to
benefit others.
As in the case of the attachment system, dysfunctions of the caregiving
system can trigger either hyperactivating or deactivating strategies. Hyper-
activated caregiving strategies are intrusive, poorly timed, and effortful; they
are intended to make one indispensable to a partner and feel competent as
a caregiver. These goals can be achieved by exaggerating appraisals of oth-
ers’ needs, adopting a hypervigilant attitude toward others’ distress, per-
forming actions aimed at coercing others to accept one’s caregiving bids,
and focusing on others’ needs to the neglect of one’s own. On the other
hand, deactivating strategies result in inhibition of empathy and effective
caregiving, combined with increased interpersonal distance precisely when a
partner seeks proximity. Consequently, a deactivated caregiving system en-
tails less sensitivity and responsiveness to others’ needs, dismissal or down-
playing of others’ distress, suppression of thoughts related to others’ needs
and vulnerability, and inhibition of sympathy and compassion.
The Sexual Behavioral System

From an evolutionary perspective, the major function of the sexual
system is to pass genes from one generation to the next (Buss and Kenrick,
1998). The set-goal of the system is to have sexual intercourse with an
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opposite-sex partner and either become pregnant oneself (in the case of
women) or impregnate the partner (in the case of men). The goal often
becomes particularly salient when a person encounters an attractive, sexually
interested or aroused, or fertile opposite-sex partner. The primary strategy
for achieving the set-goal is to approach such a partner, persuade him or
her to have sex, and engage in genital intercourse. That is, the primary
strategy of the sexual system consists of bringing fertile partners together to
have sex by heightening sensitivity to signals of fertility and interest in
opposite-sex partners, increasing one’s attractiveness as a potential sexual
partner, and using effective persuasive techniques to seduce a potential part-
ner. From this perspective, sexual attraction is a motivating force that drives
individuals to look for either short-term or long-term mating opportunities
with potential sex partners (e.g., Buss, 1999). (The less common case of
homosexual attraction is beyond the scope of the present chapter, but it has
been insightfully discussed in relation to attachment theory by Diamond,
2006.)
Smooth functioning of the sexual system requires coordination of two
partners’ motives and responses. It depends on one’s ability to attract a
partner and convince him or her to have sex, and on the partner’s avail-
ability, sensitivity, and responsiveness to one’s sexual bids. These mutually
coordinated interactions can lead to encounters in which both partners grat-
ify their sexual needs and have enjoyable, orgasmic experiences. Moreover,
they produce feelings of vitality and energy (which Ryan and Frederick,
1997, called “subjective vitality”); perception of oneself as attractive and
potent; a strong sense of self-efficacy for attracting relationship partners and
having sex when desired; feelings of being loved and esteemed; and enhanced
feelings of love, gratitude, intimacy, and communion toward a particular
relationship partner.
Dysfunctions of the sexual behavioral system, like dysfunctions of the
other systems, can be conceptualized in terms of hyperactivating and deac-
tivating strategies. Hyperactivating strategies involve effortful, mentally pre-
occupying, sometimes intrusive, and even coercive attempts to persuade a
partner to have sex. In the process, a person can overemphasize the impor-
tance of sexual activities within a relationship, exaggerate appraisals of a
partner’s sexual needs, and adopt a hypervigilant stance toward a partner’s
signals of sexual arousal, attraction, or rejection. In contrast, deactivating
strategies are characterized either by inhibition of sexual desire and an ero-
tophobic, avoidant attitude toward sex or a superficial approach to sex that
divorces it from other considerations, such as kindness and intimacy. De-
activating sexual strategies include dismissal of sexual needs, distancing
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from or disparaging a partner when he or she expresses interest in sex,

suppression of sex-related thoughts and fantasies, repression of sex-related
memories, and inhibition of sexual arousal and orgasmic joy. They can also,
paradoxically, promote sexual promiscuity driven by narcissism or self-
enhancement without an intense sexual drive or even much enjoyment of
sex per se (Schachner and Shaver, 2004).
Measurement Issues
As explained earlier, Shaver et al.’s (1988) chapter in The Psychology
of Love focused mainly on the conceptualization and measurement of in-
dividual differences in the attachment system. As a result, an enormous body
of research has grown up around these individual differences without any-
one paying much attention to variations in the other behavioral systems
involved in romantic love: caregiving and sex. That is, we have highly reli-
able and construct-valid instruments for assessing hyperactivation and de-
activation of the attachment system, but less programmatic and less theo-
retically sound assessment tools for studying individual differences in the
caregiving and sexual systems.
In the attachment realm, Hazan and Shaver’s (1987) initial three-category
measure of adult attachment style was elaborated in several sophisticated
psychometric studies (e.g., Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991; Brennan,
Clark, and Shaver, 1998; Fraley and Waller, 1998), which indicated that
attachment styles are best conceptualized as regions in a continuous two-
dimensional space. The first dimension, attachment avoidance, reflects the
extent to which a person distrusts relationship partners’ goodwill, deacti-
vates the attachment system, and strives to maintain behavioral indepen-
dence and emotional distance from partners. The second dimension, attach-
ment anxiety, reflects the degree to which a person worries that a partner
will not be available in times of need, and engages in hyperactivating strat-
egies. People who score low on both dimensions are said to be secure or
securely attached. The two dimensions can be measured with reliable and
valid self-report scales, such as the Experience in Close Relationships scale
(ECR; Brennan, Wu, and Loev, 1998), and they are associated in theoreti-
cally predictable ways with affect regulation, self-esteem, psychological well-
being, and interpersonal functioning (see Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003;
Shaver and Clark, 1994; Shaver and Hazan, 1993, for reviews).
In the caregiving domain, no assessment device has been constructed to
assess hyperactivating and deactivating strategies. However, an item analysis
of the existing self-report measures of caregiving responses reveals that they
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do tap aspects of these dysfunctions. For example, M. H. Davis’s (1983)

Interpersonal Reactivity Index includes an Empathic Concern subscale that
taps variations (mostly on the low end) of the deactivating dimension (e.g.,
“I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me”)
and a Personal Distress subscale that taps the self-focused aspects of the
hyperactivating dimension (e.g., “Being in a tense emotional situation scares
me”). Kunce and Shaver’s (1994) measure of caregiving within romantic
relationships includes items gauging distance from a suffering partner and
lack of sensitivity to signals of need (e.g., “I sometimes push my partner
away even though s/he seems to need me,” “I sometimes miss the subtle
signs that show how my partner is feeling”), as well as items tapping anx-
ious, compulsive caregiving (e.g., “I tend to get overinvolved in my partner’s
problems and difficulties”). However, relationship researchers still lack a
reliable and valid measure that, like the ECR scale in the attachment do-
main, is explicitly designed to assess variations in hyperactivating and de-
activating caregiving strategies.
As in the caregiving domain, no research instrument has been designed to
assess hyperactivation and deactivation of the sexual behavioral system. Still,
we can gain important insights from scales designed to assess sexual atti-
tudes and behaviors. For example, the erotophilia-erotophobia scale (Fisher,
Byrne, White, and Kelley, 1988) assesses the tendency to respond to sexual
stimuli in approach or avoidance terms, and this comes close to our under-
standing of the deactivation dimension (e.g., “I feel no pleasure during sex-
ual fantasies”). The Revised Mosher Guilt Inventory (Mosher, 1988), the
Sex Anxiety Inventory (Janda and O’Grady, 1980), and the Experience of
Heterosexual Intercourse scale (Birnbaum and Laser-Brandt, 2002) assess
some of the worry-related aspects of sexual system hyperactivation (e.g.,
“Bothersome thoughts disturb my concentration during sexual inter-
course”).
Attachment, Caregiving, and Sex Within

Romantic Relationships
In this section, we present ideas and research concerning how individ-
ual variations in the parameters of the attachment, caregiving, and sexual
systems affect the quality of romantic love. In our view, individual differ-
ences in these three systems are important for understanding romantic love,
because the systems’ smooth functioning brings relationship partners to-
gether, increases physical and emotional closeness, and heightens feelings of
love and gratitude toward the partner as well as feelings of being loved and
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esteemed by the partner. The smooth operation of these three systems is

crucial for forming and maintaining intimate, satisfying, and long-lasting
romantic relationships.
With respect to Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love, optimal func-
tioning of the attachment, caregiving, and sexual systems enlarges the area
of the “love triangle” by increasing the intensity of its three components:
intimacy, commitment, and passion. As explained earlier, smooth function-
ing of the three behavioral systems tends to create feelings of communion,
connectedness, and togetherness with a relationship partner, thereby sus-
taining the “intimacy” component of romantic love. The attachment and
caregiving systems strengthen the “commitment” component of romantic
love as conceptualized by Sternberg. Positive interactions with a partner who
is available and responsive in times of need generate not only a sense of
security but also feelings of gratitude and love, which in turn motivate the
secure person to stay in the relationship and commit himself or herself to
maintain it and promote the partner’s welfare. Moreover, positive interac-
tions in which a person effectively promotes a partner’s welfare strengthen
the caregiver’s emotional involvement in the relationship as well as his or
her feelings of responsibility for the partner’s condition, thereby sustaining
the “commitment” component of romantic love. Finally, the “passion” com-
ponent of romantic love is closely related to the activation and functioning
of the sexual behavioral system, which creates feelings of attraction, arousal,
vitality, and excitement within the relationship.
Attachment researchers have been successful in generating a large body
of theory-consistent findings showing that secure attachment is associated
with higher levels of relationship stability and satisfaction in both dating
and married couples (see Mikulincer, Florian, Cowan, and Cowan, 2002;
Shaver and Mikulincer, in press, for extensive reviews). Studies have also
linked secure attachment with higher scores on measures of relationship
intimacy and commitment (e.g., Collins and Read, 1990; Mikulincer and
Erev, 1991; Shaver and Brennan, 1992; Simpson, 1990), as well as relation-
ship-enhancing patterns of emotional reactions to partner behaviors and
adaptive strategies of conflict resolution (e.g., Rholes, Simpson, and Orina,
1999; Scharfe and Bartholomew, 1995). There is also extensive evidence that
secure attachment is associated with both positive expectations about a part-
ner’s behavior (e.g., Baldwin, Fehr, Keedian, Seidel, and Thomson, 1993;
Mikulincer and Arad, 1999) and relationship-enhancing explanations of a
partner’s negative behaviors (e.g., Collins, 1996; Mikulincer, 1998). In the
domain of caregiving, evidence is rapidly accumulating that relational epi-
sodes in which an individual sensitively attends to and empathically responds
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to a romantic partner’s attachment behaviors and signals of need lead to

heightened feelings of intimacy and love (Reis and Patrick, 1996), and en-
hanced relationship satisfaction in both the caregiver and his or her partner
(e.g., Collins and Feeney, 2000; B. Feeney, 2004; B. Feeney and Collins,
2003). There is also growing evidence that sexual interactions in which both
partners gratify their needs contribute to relationship satisfaction and sta-
bility (see Sprecher and Cate, 2004, for an extensive review) and heighten
feelings of love and commitment (e.g., Pinney, Gerrard, and Denney, 1987;
Sprecher and Regan, 1998; Waite and Joyner, 2001).
We believe that dysfunctions of the attachment, caregiving, and sexual
systems, viewed in terms of the hyperactivation and deactivation dimensions,
are crucial for understanding pathologies of romantic love, relational ten-
sions and conflicts, and erosion of affectional bonds. In the domain of at-
tachment, hyperactivating strategies lead anxiously attached people to feel
chronically frustrated because of their unfulfilled need for demonstrations
of love and support, to catastrophically appraise interpersonal conflicts, to
exaggerate relational worries and doubts about a partner’s goodwill, and to
intensify emotional and behavioral reactions to even minimal signs of a part-
ner’s unavailability or disinterest (e.g., Collins, 1996; Shaver and Brennan,
1992; Simpson, Ickes, and Grich, 1999). As a result, these strategies may
cause a partner to feel poorly served by the anxiously attached person’s
frequent suspicions and demands for security; engulfed by his or her desire
for merger; and controlled by his or her clinging behavior and hypervigil-
ance. These negative feelings may cause partners to distance themselves from
an anxiously attached person, which in turn is likely to intensify his or her
insecurity. In this way, a self-amplifying dyadic cycle of dissatisfaction can
be created that eventually destroys a romantic relationship.
Deactivation of the attachment system also has negative effects on rela-
tionship quality and stability. It reduces a person’s emotional involvement,
commitment, and intimacy (e.g., Collins and Read, 1990; J. A. Feeney and
Noller, 1990; Shaver and Brennan, 1992), and can cause partners to feel
frustrated because their bids for intimacy and affection are rebuffed and
their signals of need and distress are dismissed or ignored. Moreover, avoid-
ant individuals’ tendency to evade discussions of relational problems (e.g.,
Gaines, Reis, Summers, Rusbult, Cox, Wexler, Marelich, and Kurland,
1997; Scharfe and Bartholomew, 1995) may leave conflicts unresolved and
increase a partner’s irritation and anger. As a result, relationship satisfaction
erodes and the likelihood of dissolution increases.
Dysfunctions of the caregiving system—failure to respond empathically to
a partner’s needs and refusal to help the partner alleviate distress—are also
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an important source of relational tensions and conflicts that can reduce in-
timacy and commitment and evoke a host of relationship-damaging worries,
attitudes, and behaviors (e.g., Collins and Feeney, 2000; B. Feeney, 2004;
B. Feeney and Collins, 2003). Hyperactivating strategies are accompanied
by heightened personal distress and doubts about caregiving efficacy when
a partner needs help, which in turn impairs the effectiveness of caregiving
responses and leaves the partner frustrated and overwhelmed by unresolved
distress and frustration about one’s helplessness to deal with it. These strat-
egies foster intrusive and controlling behaviors aimed at coercing others to
accept one’s caregiving bids, which in turn result in rejection by the partner,
increased relational distress, and acceleration of dysfunctional “caregiving”
responses (Kunce and Shaver, 1994). Deactivating strategies involve dis-
tancing from a partner every time he or she expresses signs of vulnerability
or distress, which in turn increases the needy partner’s attachment insecur-
ities and strengthens negative representations of the avoidant person as una-
vailable, cold, and rejecting (Collins and Feeney, 2000). These insecurities
and negative beliefs can erode a needy partner’s feelings of romantic love
and decrease the likelihood of staying in a frustrating relationship.
Hyperactivation of the sexual system within a romantic relationship can
also have negative effects on romantic love and relationship satisfaction and
stability. Chronic sexual system activation is accompanied by heightened
anxieties and worries about one’s sexual attractiveness, the extent to which
one is able to gratify one’s partner, and the partner’s responses to one’s
sexual appeals (Birnbaum and Laser-Brandt, 2002). These anxieties and
worries may encourage intrusive or aggressive responses aimed at coercing
the partner to have sex, which in turn can heighten the frequency of sex-
related conflicts, thereby leading to relationship dissatisfaction (Long, Cate,
Fehsenfeld, and Williams, 1996). Adoption of a distancing attitude every
time a partner expresses sexual interest combined with inhibition of sexual
arousal and orgasmic joy—all being common features of deactivating sexual
strategies—can leave a partner sexually frustrated, heighten doubts about
being attractive and loved, and encourage interest in alternative partners
(e.g., Hurlbert, Apt, Hurlbert, and Pierce, 2000).
Interplay Among the Attachment, Caregiving,

and Sexual Systems
In The Psychology of Love, Shaver et al. (1988) formulated explicit
hypotheses about how individual variations in the functioning of the attach-
ment system might bias the functioning of the caregiving and sexual systems.
04:50:50 UTC
Since the attachment system appears first in development (during the first
year of life), its pattern of functioning and specific forms of dysfunction,
either hyperactivation or deactivation, can affect the other two systems,
which appear later in development. (Empathic reactions to a suffering or
needy person appear as early as two or three years of age [e.g., Kestenbaum,
Farber, and Sroufe, (1989)], and overt genital sexuality appears at puberty.)
Although Shaver et al.’s (1988) rationale was based on Bowlby’s theoretical
writings about the interplay of behavioral systems, there was no empirical
evidence for their hypotheses about the ways in which attachment anxiety
and avoidance might affect caregiving and sex. With the progress of research
on adult attachment processes, however, this empirical gap is beginning to
be filled (e.g., Collins and Feeney, 2000; Kunce and Shaver, 1994; Schachner
and Shaver, 2004). In this section, we present a brief review of the accu-
mulating evidence.
ATTACHMENT AND CAREGIVING

According to Bowlby (1969/1982), activation of the attachment system
interferes with nonattachment activities, which are conceptualized as prod-
ucts of other behavioral systems. This process was demonstrated in Ains-
worth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall’s (1978) research on the inhibition of chil-
dren’s exploration in a laboratory “strange situation” when an attachment
figure was asked to leave the room. The same kind of inhibition often occurs
in romantic relationships (Kunce and Shaver, 1994) when a person who is
asked to act as a caregiver for his or her needy partner feels insecure, dis-
tressed, or in need of support and comfort. Under such conditions, the care-
giver generally turns to others for support rather than thinking first about
providing support for a partner. Only when the caregiver restores his or her
sense of attachment security and repairs his or her negative mood, can he
or she easily direct attention and energy to caregiving and perceive a partner
as someone who needs and deserves comfort and support.
Reasoning along these lines, Shaver et al. (1988) hypothesized that se-
curely attached people would be more likely than insecure people to provide
effective care to a needy partner, because experiencing a sense of security is
related to holding optimistic beliefs about distress management and main-
taining a sense of self-efficacy when coping with distress. Furthermore,
Shaver et al. (1988) hypothesized that attachment anxiety and avoidance
would lead to different problems in caregiving. Specifically, avoidant people,
who distance themselves from emotional partners and dismiss signals of
need, should be less willing to feel compassionate toward a needy partner
and less willing to provide care. In contrast, anxiously attached people, who
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seek closeness to romantic partners and are often preoccupied with their
own needs, should react to others’ suffering with personal distress rather
than empathy, which is likely to produce insensitive, intrusive, ineffective
care.
There is now considerable evidence that attachment security is associated
with responsive and sensitive caring for romantic partners. For example,
several studies have used self-report measures of caregiving responses and
found that secure individuals describe themselves as more likely than inse-
cure ones to provide emotional support to their distressed partners (e.g.,
Carnelley, Pietromonaco, and Jaffe, 1996; J. Feeney, 1996; J. Feeney and
Hohaus, 2001; Kunce and Shaver, 1994). In addition, whereas avoidant
people maintain distance from a needy partner, anxious ones get overly
involved with their partner’s problems and exhibit compulsive, intrusive
caregiving. These findings have been consistent across both self-reports and
partner reports.
Self-report findings on the link between attachment security and sensitive
caregiving have been bolstered by observational studies in which dating cou-
ples were videotaped while one partner waited to undergo a stressful ex-
perience (e.g., B. Feeney and Collins, 2001; Simpson, Rholes, and Nelligan,
1992; Simpson, Rholes, Orina, and Grich, 2002). Overall, secure partici-
pants in these studies spontaneously offered more support to their distressed
partners. Moreover, participants who were relatively secure and whose dat-
ing partners sought more support responded appropriately and provided
more support, whereas secure participants whose partners sought less sup-
port actually provided less. In contrast, more avoidant people provided less
support, regardless of how much support their partner sought. Similar find-
ings were reported by Collins and Feeney (2000), who videotaped dating
couples while one member disclosed a personal problem to a partner.
ATTACHMENT AND SEX

Following Bowlby’s (1969/1982) ideas about the interference among
behavioral systems, especially the attachment system’s apparently dominant
influence in many cases of intersystem conflict, Shaver et al. (1988) hypoth-
esized that anxiously attached people, who mainly seek their own protection
and security, would have trouble attending accurately to their partner’s sex-
ual needs and preferences. Anxious people were expected to have difficulty
maintaining the relatively relaxed and secure state of mind that fosters mu-
tual sexual satisfaction (Shaver et al., 1988). Avoidant attachment was also
expected to interfere with or distort the sexual system (Shaver et al., 1988),
but in this case the interference would derive from lack of care or emotional
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closeness. Avoidant attachment encourages emotional distance, whereas

lovers’ mutual exploration of sexual needs and pleasures often requires or
encourages psychological intimacy and a degree of openness (hence of vul-
nerability). This heightened closeness can cause avoidant people to feel un-
comfortable during sexual intercourse.
Evidence is accumulating that attachment processes shape sexual motives,
experiences, and behaviors. Compared with insecure people, secure ones
(i.e., those who are low on anxiety and avoidance) are more motivated to
show love for their partner during sex, more open to sexual exploration,
more likely to have a positive sexual self-schema, and less likely to experi-
ence negative emotions during sexual encounters (e.g., Brennan et al., 1998;
Cyranowski and Andersen, 1998; Davis, Shaver, and Vernon, 2004; Hazan
and Zeifman, 1994; Tracy, Shaver, Albino, and Cooper, 2003). There is also
evidence that people scoring high on avoidance are less likely to have and
enjoy mutually intimate sex, and are more likely to engage in sex to manip-
ulate or control their partner, protect themselves from the partner’s negative
feelings, or achieve other nonromantic goals, such as reducing stress or in-
creasing their prestige among their peers (Davis et al., 2004; Tracy et al.,
2003; Schachner and Shaver, 2004). Anxiously attached people tend to use
sex as a means of achieving personal reassurance and avoiding abandon-
ment, even when particular sex acts are otherwise unwanted (Davis et al.,
2004; Tracy et al., 2003; Schachner and Shaver, 2004).
A Behavioral System Perspective on Relational

Interdependence
Our analysis of romantic love in terms of attachment, caregiving, and
sex has much in common with interdependence theories of close relation-
ships (e.g., Holmes and Cameron, 2005; Thibault and Kelley, 1959), which
focus on interpersonal interactions as the units of analysis and emphasize
the influence of one person’s responses on another person’s cognitions, emo-
tions, and behaviors. As mentioned earlier, behavioral systems produce re-
lational behavior (proximity-seeking, caregiving, or sexual bids), and are
sensitive to the relational context in general and to the relationship partner’s
particular responses on a specific occasion. In fact, the optimal functioning
of the attachment, caregiving, and sexual systems depends on a partner’s
availability, sensitivity, and acceptance (see table 3-1). Moreover, the quality
of this functioning has important effects on a partner’s relational feelings
and behaviors as well as one’s own behavioral system activation and func-
tioning. In other words, the operation of each partner’s behavioral system
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is affected by his or her own working models, his or her partner’s working
models, and the specific pattern of interaction that emerges between the two
partners within a particular relational context.
Unlike interdependence theory, however, our perspective on romantic love
is not exclusively relational. Every person enters a particular relationship
with a history of behavioral system functioning and with internal working
models that shape relational feelings and behaviors, and that bias appraisals
and interpretations of a partner’s emotions and behaviors. As a result, the
power of a specific partner’s responses to modify one’s habitual pattern of
behavioral system functioning is dramatically tempered by subjective ap-
praisal biases induced by one’s own working models. In the domain of at-
tachment, for example, anxious people’s hyperactivating strategies intensify
the vigilant monitoring of attachment figure behaviors and slant perceptions
in the direction of noticing or imagining insufficient interest, availability,
and responsiveness. Avoidant individuals’ deactivating strategies interfere
with the monitoring of cues concerning the availability or unavailability of
an attachment figure, thus increasing the likelihood that genuine signals of
attachment figure availability will be missed (Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003).
As a result, partner responses are interpreted in ways that make them fit
with and reinforce internal working models and habitual patterns of behav-
ioral system functioning, thereby minimizing the power of these responses
to change the operation of the behavioral system in question.
Our analysis of behavioral system functioning is sensitive to both context
and personality (as explained and demonstrated in our several reviews of
the literature concerning the attachment-theory approach to love; e.g., Mik-
ulincer and Shaver, 2003). On one hand, behavioral system activation and
functioning can be affected by specific partner responses, which initiate a
bottom-up process in the hierarchy of a person’s working models, activating
congruent mental representations and producing immediate changes in be-
havioral system functioning. On the other hand, this functioning is affected
by chronically accessible working models, which bias the appraisals of a
partner’s intentions and responses. These biases are part of a top-down pro-
cess by which a behavioral system functions in accordance with chronic
working models. Overall, we acknowledge the importance of both the re-
lational context in which a behavioral system is activated and person-specific
variations resulting from relationship experiences and chronically accessible
working models.
The differences between interdependence theory and our behavioral sys-
tem perspective on romantic love are specific cases of the general tension
between “person” and “situation” emphases in personality and social psy-
04:50:50 UTC
chology (e.g., Mischel and Shoda, 1995). No one doubts that securely at-
tached people, for example, can be more or less secure, depending on rela-
tional context, but across such contexts (especially ones a particular person
has chosen to enter) they are, on average, more secure than insecure. Thus,
if a researcher wants to know how people will react in various relational
contexts, it makes sense to characterize the contexts in terms of their shaping
influence on behavioral system functioning and to understand the effects
they have on up- or downregulating proximity, intimacy, caring, sexuality,
and love. If one wishes to know, instead, how typical secure people’s brains
or behavioral reactions differ on average from the brains and behavioral
reactions of insecurely attached people (e.g., Gillath, Bunge, Shaver, Wen-
delken, and Mikulincer, 2005; Mikulincer, Gillath, and Shaver, 2002), a
fairly generic lab situation may be adequate to reveal the differences. We
have repeatedly found theoretically predictable effects of attachment style
across a wide range of situations.
This raises important questions about the specificity versus generality of
individual differences in behavioral system functioning that researchers
might wish to conceptualize and measure. In the personality field, going back
to the time of Allport (1961) and early Eysenck (1947), there has been
considerable discussion of the hierarchy of “habits” or “traits” one encoun-
ters when studying personality. Eysenck (1947) talked about a personality
hierarchy that includes, from the bottom up, particular situation-specific
behaviors, habitual kinds of behavior, aggregates of types of behavior, traits,
and megatraits. The current “big five” personality scales (e.g., Costa and
McCrae, 1982) include “facets,” which are lower-level traits, and each facet
scale contains items that refer to even more specific proclivities and behav-
iors. Similarly, on the situational side, one can talk about my relationship
with “Margaret,” my relationships with women, my relationships with peers
of both genders, my relationships with people of all ages and genders, and
even my relationships with “all sentient beings” (commonly mentioned in
the literature of Buddhism). No doubt, in both the trait hierarchy and the
hierarchy of relational situations there are many different levels of specificity
or abstraction. When we look at things abstractly, we miss many particulars,
and when we look at specific behaviors in specific situations, we miss many
of a person’s general tendencies or traits. We think particular research ques-
tions should determine which phenomena, and at which levels, we decide to
focus on. When studying the “secure” versus “insecure” mind, for example,
we doubt that much will be gained by measuring specific working models
concerning a specific relational context. However, when examining inter-
personal interactions in a specific romantic relationship or a specific rela-
04:50:50 UTC
tional context, we will reap benefits by measuring both generic and

relationship-specific cognitions and emotions concerning attachment,
caregiving, and sex.
Concluding Remarks
Shaver et al. (1988) proposed that romantic love could be fruitfully
conceptualized in terms of three behavioral systems identified by Bowlby
(1969/1982): attachment, caregiving, and sex. This approach to romantic
love was unique at the time in its placing of romantic love within an evo-
lutionary and developmental framework, viewing it as a human universal
rather than a culturally constructed artifact, and measuring some of its as-
pects in terms of individual differences noted by Ainsworth and her col-
leagues (1978) in studies of infant-caregiver attachment. Over the years, this
formerly speculative approach to love has generated a large body of empir-
ical evidence and has made contact with the expanding literature on evo-
lutionary psychology.
There is still a great deal of work to be done. We need parallel measures
of behavioral system hyperactivation and deactivation for all of the behav-
ioral systems discussed by Bowlby: attachment, caregiving, sex, exploration,
affiliation, and anger/aggression. We need to learn more about how and why
these systems develop either optimally or nonoptimally. We need to explore
ways to intervene clinically or educationally to correct nonoptimal devel-
opment. We need more studies, using more methods, at the interfaces of the
attachment, caregiving, and sexual systems, including studies of physiolog-
ical and neurological underpinnings. We need to do more to integrate our
approach to love, caregiving, and sex with other insightful and well-
validated approaches to these phenomena. In the present chapter we have
provided a small example of integration by addressing points of tension and
possible overlap among the attachment, triangular, and interdependence ap-
proaches to love. Hopefully, as we continue to explore love’s complexities,
we will generate more useful ideas for a broader, more humane, and more
applicable psychology of relationships, one that pays adequate attention to
both persons and situations.
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4
The Evolution of Love

david m. buss
“Love is blind,” according to a common saying. “Love is a recent

invention, a mere few hundred years old,” some social scientists have ar-
gued. “Love is limited to Western cultures,” according to others. This chap-
ter explains why all these beliefs are radically wrong. From an evolutionary
perspective, love is an adaptation, or more accurately a complex suite of
adaptations, designed to solve specific problems of survival and reproduc-
tion. It is an exquisitely honed set of psychological devices that for humans
has served critical utilitarian functions in highly specific contexts. These
functions are sufficiently numerous to give credence to another aphorism
that gets closer to the truth: “Love is a many-splendored thing.”
Solitary creatures such as giant pandas and porcupines have little need for
love. They live alone and survive alone, coming together only briefly to mate
before parting ways. Humans, in contrast, are “the social animal” (Aronson,
2004). Group living is what we do. Other humans are the “vehicles” on
which our survival and genetic legacy depend. Some of those vehicles are so
critical that we bestow upon them our psychological, emotional, and ma-
terial investments. Some are so essential to our reproduction that we will-
ingly sacrifice our lives so that they can thrive.
Natural selection, the driving engine of the evolutionary process, favors
the creation of adaptations. Adaptations are anatomical, physiological, or
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psychological solutions to recurrent problems of survival and reproduction,

defined in the modern inclusive fitness formulation (Hamilton, 1964). A
strict requirement for the evolution of adaptations is the cross-time statistical
recurrence of an environmental structure. Statistical regularities can be of
many sorts—a link between abrasive surfaces and damage to the skin; a
correlation between a discrepancy in mate value and the odds of infidelity;
a correlation between prolonged eye gaze and sexual interest; a correlation
between symmetrical features and absence of environmental insults.
When these statistical regularities recur generation after generation, and
when they afford information that contributes to reproductive success, se-
lection can exploit these statistical regularities to create adaptations designed
to detect and act upon them. Thus, a callus-producing adaptation can solve
the problem of damage due to repeated exposure to abrasive surfaces. A
jealousy adaptation can alert an individual to an increased risk of a partner’s
infidelity (Buss, 2000). Courtship initiation adaptations can be designed to
respond to signals of sexual interest (Greer and Buss, 1994). And standards
of attractiveness can form around cues recurrently associated with physical
health (Sugiyama, 2005; Symons, 1979).
Could the complex psychological state we call love, which includes emo-
tional states, information-processing devices, and manifest acts of love, be
an adaptation that evolved to solve problems of reproduction (Buss, 1988b)?
This chapter explores several hypotheses about the adaptive functions of
love. According to an earlier evolutionary analysis, love evolved to serve
several functions (Buss, 1988b):
• Displaying reproductively relevant resources

• Providing sexual access
• Signaling sexual fidelity
• Promoting relationship exclusivity through mate-guarding
• Displaying commitment
• Promoting actions that lead to successful reproductive outcomes
• Providing signals of parental investment.
This chapter expands this evolutionary theory by postulating, and provid-

ing empirical evidence for, additional adaptive functions of love. Although
conclusive proof does not yet exist to support any one of these hypotheses,
enough empirical evidence exists to support the notion that a complete un-
derstanding of the psychology of love cannot be attained without under-
standing its functions—the adaptive problems it was designed to solve.
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The Evolution of Love 67
The Universality of Love

One straightforward prediction from the evolutionary theory proposed
here is that the psychological circuits dedicated to love should be universal,
not limited to Western cultures. Universality of psychological adaptation, of
course, does not mean universality of manifest experience. Just as a person
could go through life without ever having his or her jealousy circuit acti-
vated—if a partner never displayed cues for infidelity or defection, for ex-
ample—so a person could go through life without experiencing love. None-
theless, most humans should possess the psychological circuitry, and hence
love should be experienced by some people in every single culture around
the world—a testable prediction not generated by nonevolutionary theories
of love.
One testament to the universality of love and its obstinate refusal to be
extinguished can be found in societies that have attempted to banish it (Jan-
kowiak, 1995). In the nineteenth century, the Oneida Society articulated the
view that romantic love was merely disguised sexual lust, and saw no reason
to encourage such deceit. The Shakers, to take another example, declared
romantic love undignified and threatening to the goals of the larger com-
munity, and thus sought to banish it. The Mormons in the nineteenth cen-
tury also viewed romantic love as disruptive, and sought to discourage it.
In all three societies, however, romantic love persisted among individuals,
sometimes underground, refusing banishment, hidden from the harsh eyes
of the group’s elders. Within cultures, as the story of Romeo and Juliet
declares with universal resonance, love can be fueled by the efforts of others
to suppress it. Lovers have no choice; they can quell their feelings tempo-
rarily or muffle their expression, but they cannot exorcise them entirely.
Cultures that impose arranged marriage and permit polygyny provide a
test case, for what system could be better designed to undermine love? Does
love have any place within a mating system where a man’s first wife is chosen
for him? Even when his elders choose a man’s first wife for him, such as in
polygynous Arabic cultures, men often marry a second wife for love. Taita
women, in fact, state that they prefer to be the second or third wife, not the
first. They feel that they are more likely to be married for love, and hence
anticipate that they will receive more favorable treatment from their hus-
band and experience more emotional closeness (Jankowiak, 1995, p. 11).
Another testament to the universality of love comes from studies that
simply ask men and women whether they are currently in love. Susan
Sprecher and her colleagues interviewed 1,667 women and men from three
different cultures (Sprecher, Aron, Hatfield, Cortese, Potapova, and Levit-
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skaya, 1994). Seventy-three percent of the Russian women and 61 percent

of the Russian men confessed to being currently in love. The comparable
figures from Japan were 63 percent for women and 41 percent for men.
Americans reported roughly the same levels, with 63 percent of the women
and 53 percent of the men admitting that they were currently in love. An-
other study of ethnographies across cultures revealed that the overwhelming
majority contained explicit references to the experience of love—observed
declarations of love, love songs, expressions of pain upon unrequited love,
and many others (Jankowiak and Fisher, 1992).
Finally, in the most massive study ever conducted of mate preferences—
in thirty-seven cultures located on six continents and five islands, consisting
of 10,047 participants—“mutual attraction and love” proved to be at or
near the top in every single culture (Buss, 1989; Buss, Abbott, Angleitner,
Ashrian, Biaggio, et al., 1990). If the experience and expression of love were
limited only to some cultures, the evolutionary theory of love would be a
nonstarter. Available evidence suggests that love indeed is a universal ex-
perience; no cultures have been shown to lack the experience of love. Uni-
versality of love, however, does not imply that the psychological design of
love adaptations is identical in women and men.
Sex Differences in the Psychological Design of Love

Among the half-dozen or so most replicable findings in the human
mating literature is that men place a greater premium than women on phys-
ical appearance in their selection of a long-term mate (Buss, 1989, 2003). It
is not because men are superficial or brainlessly judge a book by its cover.
Physical appearance provides a wealth of information about a woman’s
youth and health, and hence her fecundity (probability that an act of sexual
intercourse would lead to conception, barring use of modern birth control)
and reproductive value (future reproductive potential). It is not that women
do not value physical appearance. They do, and physical cues to health are
important in women’s mate selection as well (Buss, 2003). But physical ap-
pearance provides additional cues to youth, a strong correlate of fecundity,
which is more central to men’s than to women’s mate selection.
The features of physical appearance that embody standards of female at-
tractiveness all support the attractiveness-fertility link: clear skin, smooth
skin, lustrous hair, long hair, symmetrical features, absence of open sores,
pustules, or lesions, relatively small waist, relatively large breasts, and a low
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waist-to-hip ratio (see Sugiyama, 2005, for a recent comprehensive summary

of the empirical evidence).
Many of the qualities critical to women’s selection of a long-term mate
are not readily assessed through physical appearance. These include a man’s
ambition, industriousness, drive, and status trajectory—qualities linked with
resource acquisition (Buss, 1989, 2003; Buss and Schmitt, 1993). These con-
trast with what women want in a short-term mate, such as signals of good
genes, which can be evaluated partly through physical appearance (Ganges-
tad and Thornhill, 1997; Sugiyama, 2005). Love, however, is not an emotion
typically linked with casual sex. It emerges mainly in the context of long-
term mating.
Because love is an emotion tethered to long-term mating; because fecund-
ity and reproductive value is so critical to men in selecting a long-term mate;
and because physical appearance provides an abundance of cues to a
woman’s fecundity and reproductive value, we can predict that men will
experience “love at first sight” more often than women. The empirical evi-
dence supports this prediction. Men, more than women, report falling in
love at first sight (Brantley, Knox, and Zusman, 2002; Kanin, Davidson,
and Scheck, 1970). This evidence supports one hypothesized sex difference
in the design of the psychological circuitry of love. Other evidence centers
on commitment.
Short-term mating, on average, tends to be more costly and less beneficial
for women than for men (Buss and Schmitt, 1993). By engaging in short-
term mating, women historically risked conceiving with a less than ideal
man—perhaps one with inferior genes or one who would not stay to invest
in her and her children. Although women can benefit from short-term mat-
ing in some circumstances (Greiling and Buss, 2000), casual sex historically
did not translate into direct linear increments in reproductive success, as it
did for men. Because men can reproduce with as little investment as a single
act of sex, whereas women require an obligatory nine-month pregnancy to
reproduce, selection has favored a more powerful motivation to desire and
seek casual sex in men.
Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: “Sex without
love is OK”? If you are a man, the chances are that you would agree with
this statement. Women, on average, disagree. Indeed, attitudes toward casual
sex without love remain one of the largest sex differences in the sexual
domain, as revealed by meta-analyses (Oliver and Hyde, 1993) and the
cross-cultural evidence (Buss, 2003; Schmitt 2005).
These findings support a critical hypothesis about sex differences in the
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psychological design of love. For women, love and sex are typically closely
linked. Men find it easier to have sex without love. This brings us to another
hypothesis anchored in an evolutionary theory of love: the emotional ex-
perience of love as a means to increase the odds of commitment.
LOVE AS A COMMITMENT DEVICE

If love is a universal human emotion, why did evolution install it in
the human brain to begin with? Keys to the mystery come from three unique
departures of humans from their most recent primate ancestors: (1) the evo-
lution of long-term mating, (2) the concealment of female ovulation, and (3)
the heavy investment by men in their children. Chimpanzees, our closest
primate relatives, mate primarily when the female enters estrus. Her bright
red genital swellings and olfactory scents send males into a sexual frenzy.
Outside of estrus, males are largely indifferent to females. Among humans,
ovulation is concealed or cryptic, at least for the most part. Although there
might be subtle physical changes in women—a slight glowing of the skin or
an almost imperceptible increase in her sexual desire—there is no solid ev-
idence that men can actually detect when women ovulate (Buss, 2003).
The concealment of ovulation coincided with several other critical
changes. Men and women started having sex throughout the menstrual cy-
cle, not just around ovulation. Men and women engaged in long-term pair-
bonded mating over the expanse of years or decades. And men, unlike their
chimpanzee cousins, began investing heavily in offspring. Meat from the
hunt went to provision the children, not just the mate and kin.
It requires taking a step back to realize how extraordinary these changes
are. Some females began allocating their entire reproductive careers to a
single male, rather than to whomever happened to be the reigning alpha
male when they happened to be ovulating. Males began to guard their part-
ners against rival males who might be tempted to lure their mates. Surplus
resources that in many species go to the female as a specific inducement to
copulation now were channeled to the wife and children. Indeed, males now
had added incentive to acquire surplus resources, mostly in the form of
hunted meat. Long-term mating, in short, involved the allocation of repro-
ductively relevant resources to a single mate over a virtually unprecedented
span of time.
Elementary economics tells us that those who hold valuable resources do
not give them away indiscriminately. Indeed, evolution would ruthlessly se-
lect against those who frittered away reproductively valuable resources in
long-term mateships that had no payoff. The evolution of long-term mating
required installing in the human psychological architecture a set of circuits
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designed to ensure a reasonable reproductive payoff to allocating all of one’s

resources to a single partner. It required some means for determining that
one particular mate, above all other potential mates, would be there through
thick and thin, through sickness and health. It required a solution to the
problem of commitment.
My own initial outline of an evolutionary theory of love (Buss, 1988b)
accords with that of the evolutionary economist Robert Frank: that the emo-
tion we call love is, in part, an evolved solution to the problem of commit-
ment (Frank, 1988). If a partner chooses you for rational reasons, he or she
might leave you for the same rational reasons: finding someone slightly more
desirable on all of the “rational” criteria. This creates a commitment prob-
lem: How can you be sure that a person will stay with you? If your partner
is blinded by an uncontrollable love that cannot be helped and cannot be
chosen, a love for only you and no other, then commitment will not waver
when you are in sickness rather than in health, when you are poorer rather
than richer. Love overrides rationality. It is the emotion that ensures that
you will not leave when someone more desirable comes along. Love, in
short, may be a solution to the commitment problem, providing a signal to
the partner of strong long-term intent and resolve.
The causal arrow almost certainly also runs in reverse. Love may be the
psychological reward we experience when the problem of commitment is
successfully being solved. It is a mind/body opium that signals that the adap-
tive problems of mate selection, sexual congress, devotion, and loyalty have
been met with triumph (Fisher, 2004). The scientific explanation is that
evolution has installed in the human brain reward mechanisms that keep us
performing activities that lead to successful reproduction. The downside is
that the drug sometimes wears off (Fisher, 2004). Nothing in life comes with
a guarantee. And after the drug wears off, we may leave a relationship that
has outlasted its warrant, and fall in love with someone new. Commitment
does not necessarily mean commitment for life.
Love is both a solution to the commitment problem and an intoxicating
reward for successfully solving it. The astonishingly intricate entwinement
of love was first revealed in my own study (Buss, 1988b). I started by asking
several hundred women and men to describe the behaviors that signal that
a person is in love. A separate sample then diagnosed each of the 115 love
acts on how much it indicated being in the thrall of love.
Signals of commitment emerged as most diagnostic, but commitment can
take many forms. A partner can commit resources such as food, shelter, and
physical protection to a lover over the long term. A lover can commit sexual
resources by remaining sexually faithful and by making love with wild aban-
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don. Lovers commit reproductive resources to their beloved, as in concep-

tion, pregnancy, and childbirth. And it follows that lovers commit parental
resources to their children, the natural result of the love union.
Many of these acts conveyed self-sacrifice: putting one’s own interests
aside for the greater needs of the loved one, making a sacrifice of great
importance for the partner, and giving up large amounts of free time to be
with the partner. Other signals involved a sexual openness and trust that
may be lacking in lesser relationships: trying out different sexual positions
or acting out the lover’s deepest sexual fantasies.
Emotional commitment emerged throughout the acts of love, including
listening to problems with real attention and interest, giving up fun activities
to be with the lover when he or she really needed it, and showing great
concern for a partner’s problems. Several lovers described how their partner
provided hope during their darkest hours of need, reaching down to pull
them out of a pit of depression when the walls of life seemed steep and
unscalable.
These findings support another critical set of design features hypothesized
to be linked to love—specialized forms of commitment.
SNAKES IN THE GARDEN OF LOVE

Unfortunately that is not the happy end to the evolutionary love story.
There are snakes in the garden, troubles in emotional paradise. One sort of
trouble comes from the dual strategies in the human menu of mating. Once
the desire for love exists, it can be exploited and manipulated ruthlessly.
Men deceive women about the depth of their loving feelings, for example,
to gain short-term sexual access (Haselton, Buss, Oubaid, and Angleitner,
2005). As Ovid noted hundreds of years ago, “love is . . . a sexual behavior
sport in which duplicity is used in order that a man might win his way into
a woman’s heart and subsequently into her boudoir.” Women, in turn, have
evolved defenses against being sexually exploited by imposing a longer
courtship process before consenting to sex, attempting to detect deception,
and evolving superior ability to decode nonverbal signals (Buss, 2003).
Women, too, engage in deception, but of a different sort. Whereas men
are more likely to feign love in order to get sex, women are more likely to
use sex as a means of getting love (Buss, 2003). One strategy is the “bait
and switch” tactic, whereby a woman might offer what appears to be “cost-
less sex” in the context of short-term mating, and then intercalate herself
into a man’s mind, transforming the relationship into one of long-term love.
Just as women have evolved defenses against false declarations of love at
the hands of men, so it is reasonable to assume that men have evolved
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defenses against being lured into long-term love when it is against their
fitness interests to do so. The arms race of deception and detection of de-
ception, of strategies and counterstrategies, continues with no end in sight.
Because the reproductive interests of a man and a woman are rarely perfectly
aligned, evolution has favored strategies in each sex that can be carried out
only at the expense of the other sex. One of the most important domains
of intersexual conflict centers around the dangerous emotion of jealousy.
The Dangerous Passion

Jealousy poses a paradox. Consider these findings: 46 percent of a
community sample stated that jealousy was an inevitable consequence of
true love (Mullen and Martin, 1994). St. Augustine noted this link when he
declared that “He that is not jealous, is not in love” (Claypool and Sheets,
1996). Shakespeare’s tormented Othello “dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet
strongly loves.” Women and men typically interpret a partner’s jealousy as
a sign of the depth of his or her love; a partner’s absence of jealousy, as lack
of love.
Mathes (1986) asked a sample of unmarried, but romantically involved,
men and women to complete a jealousy test. Seven years later, he contacted
the participants and asked them about the current status of their relation-
ship. Roughly 25 percent of the participants had married, while 75 percent
had broken up. The jealousy scores from seven years earlier for those who
married averaged 168, whereas the scores for those who broke up registered
significantly lower, at 142. These results must be interpreted cautiously; it
is one study with a small sample. Nonetheless, it points to the possibility
that jealousy might be inexorably linked with long-term love.
Contrast this with another finding: in a sample of 651 university students
who were actively dating, more than 33 percent reported that jealousy posed
a significant problem in their current relationship (Riggs, 1993). The prob-
lems ranged from the loss of self-esteem to verbal abuse, from rage-ridden
arguments to the terror of being stalked.
Jealousy, paradoxically, flows from deep and abiding love, but can shatter
the most harmonious relationships. The paradox was reflected in O. J. Simp-
son’s statement: “Let’s say I committed this crime [the slaying of his ex-wife,
Nicole Brown Simpson]. Even if I did do this, it would have to have been
because I loved her very much, right?” (Newsweek, December 28, 1998, p.
116). The emotion of jealousy, designed to shelter a relationship from in-
truders, “turns homes that might be sanctuaries of love into hells of discord
and hate” (E. Gillard, quoted in Ellis, 1928).
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Jealousy is one of the most commonly found correlates of being in love

(Mathes, 1991). It evolved to protect love not merely from the threat of loss,
but also and more profoundly, from the threat of loss to a rival. Consider
the following scenarios that would make you most jealous:
Loss due to fate: Your [partner], with whom you are deeply in love, is killed
in an automobile accident.
Loss due to partner’s destiny: Your [partner], with whom you are deeply in
love, obtains a promotion and moves to a faraway city. You know
that you will never see him (her) again.
Loss due to rejection: Your [partner], with whom you are deeply in love,
explains that he (she) does not love you anymore and ends the rela-
tionship. You know that you will never see him (her) again.
Loss due to a rival: Your [partner], with whom you are deeply in love, falls
in love with another and ends his (her) relationship with you. You
know that you will never see him (her) again. (Mathes, 1991, pp. 93–
94)
In an experiment, Mathes asked men and women, “If this happened to

you, would you feel jealous?” Out of a possible range of 4 to 28, loss of a
love due to fate scored only 7 on the jealousy scale. Loss due to destiny
scored nearly double, at 13. Loss due to rejection came out at 16. But loss
to a rival provoked the greatest jealousy score, at 22. Evolution designed
jealousy not just to protect against the loss of love. Because evolution is an
inherently competitive process, jealousy evolved to prevent the “double
whammy” of the loss of love to a same-sex rival.
In my studies, I discovered that signs of jealousy are accurately interpreted
as acts of love (Buss, 1988a). When a man unexpectedly drops by to see
what his partner is doing, this mode of jealous vigilance functions to preserve
the safe haven of exclusivity while simultaneously communicating love.
When a woman loses sleep thinking about her partner and wondering
whether he’s with someone else, it simultaneously indicates the depth of her
love and the intensity of her jealousy. When a man tells his friends that he
is madly in love with a woman, it serves the two purposes of conveying love
and communicating to potential rivals that they must keep their hands off.
The failure of “open marriages” that became popular in the late 1960s
and early 1970s is stark testament to the failure of experiments to expunge
jealousy from the lives of lovers. Few marriages can endure third-party in-
truders. One of the positive benefits of jealousy is to preserve that inner
sanctum, protecting it from interlopers who have hidden agendas. According
to Pines, protecting love is the primary function of jealousy: “jealousy aims
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to protect romantic relationships. It is not a useless flight of irrationality,

but a useful signal people can learn to interpret correctly. . . . Jealousy makes
people examine their relationship. . . . It teaches couples not to take each
other for granted . . . ensures that they continue to value each other and . . .
indicates that people value the love relationship it protects” (Pines, 1998,
pp. 205–206).
Safe havens, however, are rarely possible in the modern world. As the
journalist Judith Viorst noted, “Unfortunately there is an endless supply of
women out there in the big world—secretaries and dental assistants and
waitresses and women executives. . . . And wives with traveling husbands
have an even wider selection of potential temptations to get aggravated
over—TWA stewardesses, San Francisco topless dancers, old flames in Min-
neapolis, new models in Detroit” (Viorst, 1998, p. 24).
The maintenance of love, ironically, may hinge on the ever-present threat
of rivals and the jealousy they evoke. “On those days when I happen to be
feeling mature and secure,” Viorst observes, “I’m also going to admit that
a man who wasn’t attractive to other women, a man who wasn’t alive
enough to enjoy other women, a man who was incapable of making me
jealous, would never be the kind of man I’d love” (Viorst, 1998, p. 24).
When Love Kills

Another problem is that what comes up, often comes down. People
fall out of love as crashingly as they fall in love. We cannot predict with
certainty who will fall out of love, but recent studies provide some critical
clues. Just as the fulfillment of desire looms large when falling in love, vio-
lations of desire portend conflict and dissolution. A man who was chosen
in part for his kindness and drive may be rejected when he turns cruel or
lazy. A woman chosen in part for her youth and beauty may lose out when
a newer model beckons her partner. An initially considerate partner may
turn condescending. And a couple’s infertility after repeated episodes of sex
prompts each to seek a more fruitful union elsewhere (Betzig, 1989).
The most crushing blow to long-term love comes from the harsh metric
of the mating market. A mated couple initially equivalent on overall desir-
ability may experience a widening gap over time. Consider an entry-level
professional couple. If the woman’s career skyrockets and the man gets fired,
it puts a strain on both because their market values now differ. Sudden
increases in status open up new mating opportunities. A “9” who was pre-
viously out of reach now becomes available. In the evolutionary jungle of
mating, we may admire a woman who stands by her loser husband. But few
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of those who did are our ancestors. Modern humans descended from those
who traded up when the increment was sufficient to outweigh the manifold
costs people experience as a consequence of breaking up (Buss, 2000).
Falling out of love has many dark sides. “Love’s pleasure lasts but a mo-
ment; love’s sorrow lasts all through life” (Celestine, a French writer of
fables). The crash can be physically dangerous for women and psychologi-
cally traumatic for both sexes. Hearts broken from love lost rate among the
most stressful life events a person can experience, exceeded in psychological
pain only by horrific events such as a child dying. Men who are rejected by
the women with whom they are in love abuse them, often emotionally and
sometimes physically. Some men start stalking their exes with repeated
phone calls, unexpected visits, and threats of violence. Victims of stalking
experience psychological terror, disruption of work, and interference with
new mateships. In our recent studies, we found that an alarming number of
men who are unceremoniously dumped begin to have homicidal fantasies
(Buss, 2005). Unfortunately, these fantasies sometimes turn into reality.
The loss of love is enough to make a man homicidal. The following case,
from a systematic compilation of all homicides that occurred within one
year in the city of Houston, Texas, illustrates the centrality of the power of
love and its loss.
Case No. 191 begins as a domestic quarrel. A 37-year-old . . . woman
and her 42-year-old husband were drinking and quarreling. The woman
first ran next door to her sister’s apartment but only found her 11-year-old
nephew awake. She left her sister’s house to seek assistance from a neighbor.
Her husband intercepted her as she crossed their driveway, a further ar-
gument ensued, and the woman shouted for help as she walked away from
her husband. The neighbors found the woman lying bleeding on the side-
walk and called an ambulance. The husband told police that the whole thing
started because his wife did not love him anymore . . . [this] led him to pull
out a pocketknife and stab his wife in the chest. (Lundsgaarde, 1977)
Losing love, in short, remains traumatic, both for the rejecter and for the
rejectee. Just as evolution has installed serotonin reward mechanisms that
flood our brains with pleasure when we mate successfully, so it has also
equipped us with brain circuits that deliver searing psychological pain when
we experience mating failure. The many failures of love can bring cata-
strophic costs, creating adaptive problems of great moment.
On the evening of July 24, 2002, in Houston, Texas, Clara Harris, age
forty-four, got into her Mercedes Benz and killed her husband, David Harris,
a forty-four-year-old orthodontist, in the parking lot of a hotel (Austin
American Statesman, January 24, 2003, p. 1). Using her car as her weapon,
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she ran into him once. Her anger still not calmed, she circled the lot and
ran over him again. Videotape from the hotel security cameras revealed that
she hit him three times. When she finally stopped, the Mercedes was on top
of him. Some think that Clara Harris is evil and deserves to rot in jail for
the remainder of her life. But some view the homicide as justifiable, or at
least understandable.
David Harris had been having a torrid sexual affair with Gail Bridges, his
former office coworker. Clara Harris discovered the infidelity through a pri-
vate detective agency she hired when she initially became suspicious. She
confronted David, who on the morning of his death, swore to Clara that he
would end the affair. Later that night, Clara, with her stepdaughter Lindsey,
began to search for David Harris. When they finally tracked him down at
a hotel, according to Lindsey, “She said she could kill him and get away
with it for what she’s been through.” Indeed, Clara had gone to great efforts
to win her husband back after she discovered his affair. Clara had been a
beauty queen, and after the affair was discovered, David made point-by-
point comparisons between Clara and his lover. He described his wife as
overweight; his mistress, as petite and having “the perfect fit to sleep with,
holding her all night” (Austin American Stateman, February 8, 2003, p. A4).
David seemed obsessed with the ample size of his mistress’s breasts, and
described her has having a “perfect body,” although he conceded that
Clara’s hands, feet, and eyes were prettier. Clara vowed to make herself
“real pretty so Dad would want her and not Gail [the mistress],” Lindsey
said. During the week before the murder, Clara Harris joined a fitness club,
spent time at a tanning salon, and went daily to a hairdresser. She also
consulted a plastic surgeon and agreed to pay a $5,000 deposit for liposuc-
tion and breast implants. By the day of the murder, Clara had lost fifteen
pounds, had had her hair lightened, and had begun wearing more sexually
provocative clothing.
What might have aggravated Clara’s jealous rage was that the hotel was
the one where she and David had been married a decade earlier. When she
saw her husband emerge from the hotel elevator hand in hand with his
mistress, Clara went “ballistic.” She screamed at her rival: “You . . . ! He’s
my husband!” She ripped the blouse off her rival’s body, and wrestled her
to the ground. Her husband pulled Clara off his mistress. Hotel clerks es-
corted Clara out of the hotel. As she left the lobby, David shouted to her,
“It’s over! It’s over! It’s over!”
It was then that Clara Harris became strangely calm, according to her
stepdaughter. She silently stepped into her Mercedes. Her tears had stopped
flowing. David Harris walked toward his Chevrolet Suburban, and everyone
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thought the conflict was over. Clara suddenly stomped on the accelerator
and, with tires squealing, rammed her car into her husband. She then circled
the parking lot and ran over him again. And then circled and ran over him
yet again. “You killed my Dad,” Lindsey said, when the car finally stopped.
As David Harris lay pinned under the front tire, Clara got out of the car
and apologized, and told him that she loved him. During her trial, Clara
continued to maintain that she still loved her husband. In light of the cir-
cumstances, many in Texas do not judge Clara’s horrific deed as evil. Some
think that David Harris got exactly what he deserved. The judge and jury
did not agree. They went with the prosecutor, who argued that “If the man
is cheating on you, you do what every other woman in this country does—
you take him to the cleaners. You don’t get to kill him” (Madigan, 2003).
They sentenced her to twenty years in prison and fined her $10,000.
The jealous emotions that drove Clara Harris to attack her sexual rival
in the hotel lobby are not unusual. Nor was her experience of a murderous
rage toward her husband upon the discovery of his betrayal. Nor was the
fact that the couple lived an upper-middle-class life in a house valued at
more than $600,000. Women of all classes react with jealous rage when they
discover a cheating husband. What is unusual in this case is that most
women do not act on their homicidal passions upon discovering a partner’s
infidelity. Far more men do.
In the United States between 1976 and 1984, 4,507 women were mur-
dered annually, on average (Campbell, 1992). Race was no barrier to being
murdered. Just over a third of the victims were African-American women;
two-thirds were women of European descent. The majority were killed by
men who loved them deeply. One study of women murder victims in Day-
ton, Ohio, reveals proportions similar to those of most studies: 19 percent
were murdered by their husbands, 8 percent by a current boyfriend, 17
percent by an estranged husband, and 8 percent by a prior sex partner. These
figures total to an astonishing 52 percent of the women killed in Dayton. In
sharp contrast, in a typical year, only 3 percent of men murder victims die
at the hands of a female lover.
Dayton is not unique. A massive study of homicides committed within the
United States between 1976 and 1998 revealed that more than a third of
the women were killed by an intimate partner, whereas only 4 percent of
the men were killed by a wife or lover (Greenfield, Rand, Craven, Klaus,
Perkins, Ringel, Warchol, Maston, and Fox, 1998). Similar statistics show
up worldwide, from the Australian aborigines to murder among the Munda
of India (Easteal, 1993; Saran, 1974).
It may seem strange to have the warm fuzzy emotion of love lead to
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vicious and bloody death. After all, love is what leads to romance. Love
leads to passion. Love leads to the birth of new life. Killing seems the op-
posite—destruction, demolition, and final demise. How can these apparent
opposites be fused in the human mind, in a jarring tangle of paradoxical
emotions? Consider the following case.
Then she said that since she came back in April she had fucked this other
man about ten times. I told her how can you talk about love and marriage
and you been fucking this other man. I was really mad. I went to the kitchen
and got the knife. I went back to our room and asked: Were you serious
when you told me that? She said yes. We fought on the bed, I was stabbing
her. Her grandfather came up and tried to take the knife out of my hand.
I told him to go and call the cops for me. I don’t know why I killed the
woman, I loved her. (Confession of a thirty-one-year-old man to police after
he stabbed his twenty-year-old wife to death, following their reunion after
a six-month separation)
The killing of a mate, however, poses a more serious puzzle. How could
this bizarre form of behavior possibly have evolved? Killing a mate destroys
a key reproductive resource. Evolution by selection should favor preserving,
not destroying, vital reproductive resources. Mate-killing seems outrageously
counter to self-interested reproductive survival.
The solution to this mystery requires delving into the underlying partic-
ulars of mating market logic (Buss, 2005). First, in most cases, killing a mate
who has been unfaithful usually would have been detrimental to the killer.
An unfaithful woman might still be a valuable reproductive resource to her
husband. If she continued to be his sexual resource, then killing her would
be damaging his own fitness, an instance of futile, vengeful spite. As Wilson
and Daly correctly observe, “murdered women are costly to replace” (1998).
If the woman has borne a man children, then killing her dramatically hurts
his children’s chances to survive and thrive. Finally, by killing her, the cuck-
olded man risks retribution. The woman’s brother or father might be mo-
tivated to exact vengeance. For all these reasons, killing a mate is usually a
remarkably ineffective solution to the problem of cuckoldry.
But sometimes the elements in the cost-benefit equation become rear-
ranged. An act of infidelity might signal the man’s permanent loss of sexual
access to his mate, not just a temporary or fractional loss. She might not
have children by him, and hence killing her would not impair his existing
children’s survival. She might lack a father or brothers in the vicinity, some-
thing quite common in traditional societies where marriage is usually ex-
ogamous (women migrate away from their own kin group and move in with
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the husband’s kin group when they marry). Furthermore, a man’s social
reputation might be severely damaged by his wife’s infidelity unless he took
dramatic action to halt the slide. Status loss cascades into a decline in mate
value, undermining the man’s ability to attract another mate. Finally, the
man’s sexual loss might become a rival’s sexual gain, a valuable reproductive
resource flowing to an archenemy.
Consider for a moment the logic of the argument outside the context of
mating. If you have just killed a game animal to feed yourself and your
hungry family, and a scavenger comes along and steals it before you can eat
it, you suffer a loss. But if your rival steals the meat, the loss becomes
compounded in the currency of evolutionary fitness, since selection operates
on the principle of relative reproductive success. Your loss becomes a gain
for your immediate rival, whose children survive and thrive while yours go
hungry or perish.
The same logic applies to mating. If your mating loss bestows a sexual
gain on your immediate rival, then the fitness costs of being cuckolded be-
come compounded. This theory leads to a counterintuitive prediction: the
younger, healthier, and more attractive the woman, the greater the loss to
the cuckolded man and the greater the gain for the rival who now sleeps in
her bed. This leads to a disturbing prediction of the theory: that the more
appealing, healthy, and fertile the woman, the more motivated the man will
be to kill her upon discovering a sexual infidelity.
What is extraordinary is that roughly half of the 3,400 women who are
murdered in America every year are killed by the ones who presumably love
them—their husbands, boyfriends, ex-husbands, or ex-boyfriends—in cir-
cumstances that are remarkably similar. The permanent loss of love some-
times activates evolved homicidal circuits in men.
In our own studies, we found that aside from outright estrangement and
leaving the relationship, a woman’s infidelity is one of the two most powerful
predictors of when men have recurrent, persistent thoughts about killing
their romantic partner. Here is one example:
She accused me of cheating on her, I got mad and broke off the relation-
ship, even though I still loved her. She then decided to start fucking my best
friend. I was pissed off because she said I was the only one for her. She is
a bitch, and unfortunately has to be pretty. I want her to be gone and I
want my best friend to die, too. . . . We are on her boat and I start talking
to her. She asks me to leave and starts getting nervous, so I tie her hands
and feet together and strap her to the steering wheel, where I proceed to
fuck her brains out. Then I make her drink a lot of alcohol so she can’t
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think straight. I jam the steering wheel so that she is on a one-way push to
the cliffs that are in front of her house. That’s where I jump off and watch
the boat explode. [What prevented you from killing her?] I’m a sane human
being and I realize that she is just a stupid bitch, and hopefully will become
fat and ugly when she gets older. [What would have pushed you over the
edge to kill her?] If I would have caught her fucking around with my best
friend while we were still going out.
Two elements in this fantasy warrant note. First, the victim is both young
and pretty, signifying that she is highly reproductively valuable. Second, she
has sex with the man’s best friend, who has now become a rival. In research
conducted by evolutionary psychologists Bleske and Shackelford, the most
bitter sexual rivals can lurk among one’s closest friends (2001). Friends can
be more effective mate poachers than strangers because they have special
knowledge of our mates, know when we are present and absent, and have
an intimate understanding about when rifts in our relationships might
widen. Fully 29 percent of women and 18 percent of men reported that a
same-sex friend had sometimes flirted with their romantic partner, figures
that undoubtedly underestimate incidence, since most mate poachers initiate
overtures surreptitiously. Bleske and Shackelford discovered that same-sex
friends deceived their “friends” about these issues. Deception about en-
croaching on a friend’s mate was the most frequently mentioned form of
deception in same-sex friendships. Women are especially apt to misinform
their same-sex friends about the extent of their prior promiscuity and the
number of sex partners they have had, presumably in an attempt to minimize
the perceived threat of mate-poaching.
The intensity of love a man feels for a woman is often mirrored in the
intensity of his homicidal thoughts, as shown in the next case.
Case #145: I knew her for five years and shared the best times of my life
with her. . . . I screamed and yelled and broke all the pictures of her and
beat the shit out of the guy she cheated on me with. . . . My girlfriend of
1 1/2 years, who I had been friends with for over 5 years, started hanging
out with some cocaine addicts and started calling me less and less. Now
she is a “coke head” and having sex with these fucks that she met. I tried
everything I could to help her out but I eventually gave up. . . . I wanted to
grab her by the throat and lift her in the air and just scream into her face
all the horrible acts she had committed and how I felt about it. I then
wanted to shoot her and the assholes that got her hooked. . . . Sometimes
my bare fists, sometimes a gun. . . . [what prevented you?]: My conscience
and my being connected to reality. I know that there is really no reason to
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take a loved one’s life. I realize that there is a consequence to every one of
my actions. . . . The fact that I loved this girl more than anything I had ever
loved in my entire life. I would have happily died for her and would have
married her in a heartbeat. Because of this she hurt me more than I had
ever been hurt in my life. I didn’t want to live and I didn’t want her to live.
The volatile mix of love and infidelity was revealed in a study of seventeen
cases of mate murder from a Canadian study conducted by Wilson and Daly.
Six of these cases were attributed to “psychiatric disorders.” Of the remain-
ing eleven cases, however, “all professed that they were deeply in love with
their victims” (Wilson and Daly, 1992). Furthermore, “in all 11 cases, the
victim was engaged in an affair with another man or had led the offender
to believe that she was unfaithful to him. In 10 of the cases, the victim made
no attempt to conceal her other relationships.”
Our studies discovered a close correspondence between thought and deed.
Just as a woman’s sexual infidelity powerfully evokes homicidal fantasies in
her mate, so it drives some men to carry out the deadly deed.
The cross-cultural record supports the contention that sexual infidelity by
the woman is one of the two leading motives for men murdering their mates.
Among the Yapese, the man cuckolded “had the right to kill her and the
adulterer or to burn them in the house” (Muller, 1917, p. 229). In Mela-
nesia, the law specifies that the rage a man experiences when his wife is
found having sex with another man is both predictable and excusable. The
islanders say “he is like a man whose pig has been stolen,” but with anger
justifiably amplified (Hogbin, 1938, 236–237).
Conclusions
The evolutionary theory of love proposed here contains key features
lacking in nonevolutionary theories of love: hypotheses about the function-
ality of love in solving specific adaptive problems that have recurrently faced
humans over deep time in the quest for mating success. It also contains
testable (hence falsifiable) predictions about the psychological design of love,
including critical sex differences in design features. Although this evolution-
ary theory requires more extensive empirical tests, the available evidence
supports several of its key predictions.
First, the evidence suggests that the experience of love is a human uni-
versal, not something limited to Western cultures. Second, the evidence sup-
ports the hypothesis that love emerges primarily in the context of long-term
mating, and rarely in the context of short-term mating. Third, men
experience “love at first sight” more than women, a design feature that
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supports the notion that physical appearance and physical attractiveness are
more central to the activation of men’s than to women’s love circuits. Fourth,
women, more than men, disagree with the attitude statement “sex without
love is OK,” supporting the hypothesis that love and sex are more closely
linked in the minds of women than of men.
Fifth, jealousy shows links to love in ways precisely predicted by the ev-
olutionary theory, including the proposition that women experience more
intense jealousy than men when a partner falls in love with someone else,
whereas men experience more intense jealousy than women at signals of
sexual infidelity (despite recent claims to the contrary, the sex difference in
the design of jealousy is extremely robust across methods—see Buss and
Haselton, 2005; Pietzrak, Laird, Stevens, and Thompson, 2003; Sagarin,
2005; Schutzwohl and Koch, 2004). Sixth, several lines of evidence support
the hypothesis that the psychology of love is in part a commitment device
signaling the devotion of reproductively valuable resources to a partner over
time.
Tragically, loss of love, particularly when a woman permanently leaves a
man who loves her, places a woman in peril of violence, stalking, and mur-
der—findings that support the hypothesis that men’s psychology of love con-
tains design features that motivate them to keep a woman they love and go
to desperate measures to prevent male rivals from possessing her.
Love permeates all aspects of human mating. People place a premium on
love in their selection of a mate. They use acts of love to attract a mate.
They use love acts to retain a mate. Loss of love, or its redirection to another
person, triggers jealousy, conflict, violence, and relationship dissolution.
Love leads to the greatest peaks of personal ecstasy. Its loss leads to the
darkest horrors of human nature.
Acknowledgment
The author thanks Robert Sternberg and Karin Weis for helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this chapter.
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199–230. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
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5
The Drive to Love: The Neural Mechanism for

Mate Selection
helen fisher
“Since the heaven and earth were created, you were made for me and
I was made for you and I will not let you go,” declared Chang Po to his
beloved Meilan (Yutang, 1954, p. 73). The Chinese still cry over this twelfth-
century Chinese fable, “The Jade Goddess,” their version of Romeo and
Juliet. “My beloved, the delight of my eyes,” exclaimed Inanna of her be-
loved Dumuzi in a Sumerian poem recorded some four thousand years ago
(Wolkstein, 1991, p. 51). An anonymous Kwakiutl Indian of southern
Alaska recited these words in 1896: “Fires run through my body—the pain
of loving you” (Hamill, 1996).
Paris and Helen, Orpheus and Eurydice, Abelard and Eloise, Troilus and
Cressida, Tristan and Iseult, Shiva and Sati, Layla and Majnun: thousands
of romantic poems, songs, and stories come across the centuries from Eu-
rope, the Middle East, Japan, China, India, and every other society that has
left written or oral records. In a survey of 166 varied cultures, anthropol-
ogists found evidence of romantic love in 147 (Jankowiak and Fischer,
1992). There were no negative data; in the remaining nineteen societies,
scholars had simply failed to examine this aspect of people’s lives.
“What ’tis to Love?” Shakespeare asked in As You Like It. From the
ancient Greeks to contemporary scholars, hundreds have offered theories
about the components of love and styles of loving (Lee, 1988; Fehr, 1988;
87
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Aron and Westbay, 1996; Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986; Critelli, Myers, and
Loos, 1986; Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986; Zick, 1970; Hazan and Shaver,
1987; Sternberg, 1986). And for good reason: love has myriad variations.
Nevertheless, neuroscientists believe that the basic human emotions and mo-
tivations arise from distinct systems of neural activity, networks that derive
from mammalian precursors (Davidson, 1994; Panksepp, 1998). This article
takes the neurological approach. It does not attempt to define one’s idiosyn-
cratic ways of loving that develop in childhood, nor why an individual
chooses one person rather than another. Instead, it explores the underlying
neural mechanisms associated with love, specifically romantic love.
Psychological studies indicate that romantic love is associated with a dis-
crete constellation of emotions, motivations, and behaviors (Liebowitz,
1983; Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986; Tennov, 1979; Harris, 1995). Romantic
love begins as an individual comes to regard another as special, even unique.
The lover then intensely focuses his or her attention on this preferred indi-
vidual, aggrandizing the beloved’s better traits and overlooking or minimiz-
ing his or her flaws. Lovers experience extreme energy, hyperactivity, sleep-
lessness, impulsivity, euphoria, and mood swings. They are goal-oriented
and strongly motivated to win the beloved. Adversity heightens their pas-
sion, in what is known as the Romeo and Juliet effect or “frustration at-
traction” (Fisher, 2004). Lovers become emotionally dependent on the re-
lationship. They reorder their daily priorities to remain in contact with their
sweetheart, and experience separation anxiety when apart. And most feel
powerful empathy for their amour; many report they would die for their
beloved.
A striking property of romantic love is “intrusive thinking.” The lover
thinks obsessively about the beloved. And, perhaps most central to this ex-
perience, the lover craves emotional union with his or her sweetheart. Plato
wrote of this in The Symposium some twenty-five hundred years ago, saying
the God of Love “lives in a state of need.” Love-smitten individuals feel
intense sexual desire, as well as extreme possessiveness of the beloved. Yet
their craving for emotional union supersedes their longing for sexual contact.
As a result, rejected lovers often go to extraordinary, inappropriate, even
dangerous efforts to win back their sweetheart. Many spurned lovers suffer
“abandonment rage” and depression as well, culminating in feelings of
hopelessness, lethargy, resignation, and despair (Fisher, 2004). Last, roman-
tic love is involuntary, difficult to control, and impermanent (Tennov, 1979;
Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986; Harris, 1995). As Violetta sings in La Traviata,
Verdi’s tragic opera, “Let’s live for pleasure alone, since love, like flowers,
swiftly fades.”
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The Drive to Love 89
To further establish that the above assemblage of characteristics is accu-

rate, I used these traits as domains in a questionnaire on romantic passion;
437 Americans and 402 Japanese filled out my questionnaire. The results
indicate that romantic love does not vary considerably with age, gender,
sexual orientiation, or ethnic group. For example, people over age forty-five
and those under age twenty-five showed no significant statistical differences
on 82 percent of the statements. On 87 percent of the queries, American
men and women responded virtually alike. Heterosexuals and homosexuals
gave statistically similar responses on 86 percent of the questions. American
“whites” and “others” responded similarily on 82 percent of the questions.
And where the above groups showed statistically significant differences in
their responses, one group was usually just a little more passionate than the
other. The greatest differences were between the Americans and the Japa-
nese. On most of the forty-three questions where they showed statistically
significant variations, these differences were small, however. And the twelve
queries showing dramatic variance appeared to have cultural explanations
(Fisher, 2004).
World poetry, myths and legends, many anthropological and psycholog-
ical reports, and this questionnaire suggest that romantic love is a human
universal (Jankowiak and Fischer, 1992; Fisher, 1998; Hatfield and Rapson,
1996). In fact, I have come to believe that romantic love is one of three
discrete, interrelated emotion/motivation systems that all birds and mam-
mals have evolved to direct courtship, mating, reproduction, and parenting.
The other two are the sex drive and attachment. Each brain system is as-
sociated with different feelings and behaviors; each is associated with a dif-
ferent (and dynamic) constellation of neural correlates; each evolved to di-
rect a different aspect of reproduction; and each interacts with the other two
in myriad combinations to produce the range of emotions, motivations, and
behaviors associated with all types of love (Fisher, 2004).
Lust, Attraction, Attachment: Three Brain Systems for Love

The sex drive (libido or lust) is characterized by the craving for sexual
gratification; it is often directed toward many partners. In mammals, the sex
drive is associated primarily with the estrogens and androgens; in humans,
the androgens, particularly testosterone, are central to sexual desire in both
men and women (Sherwin, 1994; Van Goozen, Wiegant, Endert, Helmond,
and Van de Poll, 1997). Studies (fMRI) of human sexual arousal show that
specific networks of brain activation are associated with the sex drive (Ar-
now, Desmond, Banner, Glover, Solomon, Polan, Lue, and Atlas, 2002;
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Beauregard, Levesque, and Bourgouin, 2001; Karama, Lecours, Leroux,

Bourgouin, Joubert, and Beauregard, 2002; Tiihonen et al., 1994). These
vary; but among them are the hypothalamus (Arnow et al., 2002; Beaure-
gard et al., 2001; Karama et al., 2002) and the amygdala (Beauregard et al.,
2001; Karama et al., 2002).
Attraction (the mammalian/avian counterpart to human romantic love) is
characterized by increased energy, focused attention on a specific mate, ob-
sessive following, affiliative gestures, possessive mate-guarding, and moti-
vation to win a preferred mating partner (Fisher, Aron, Mashek, Strong, Li,
and Brown, 2002, 2002a; Fisher, 2004). In humans, the developed form of
animal attraction is known as romantic love, obsessive love, passionate love,
or being in love. Recent data suggest this brain system is primarily associated
with elevated activity of dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain.
Most likely it is also associated with elevated activity of central norepineph-
rine and suppressed activity of central serotonin, as well as other brain sys-
tems acting together to produce the range of emotions, motivations, cogni-
tions, and behaviors common to romantic love (Fisher, 1998, 2004; Fisher
et al., 2002, 2002a).
Attachment is characterized in birds and mammals by mutual territory
defense and/or nest-building, mutual feeding and grooming, maintenance of
close proximity, separation anxiety, shared parental chores, and affiliative
behaviors (Carter, DeVries, Taymans, Roberts, Williams, and Getz, 1997;
Lim, Murphy, and Young, 2004; Lim and Young, 2004). In humans, partner
attachment is known as companionate love (Hatfield, 1988, p. 191). Human
attachment is associated with the above mammalian traits, as well as feelings
of calm, security, social comfort, and emotional union with a long-term
mate. Animal studies suggest this brain system is associated primarily with
oxytocin and vasopressin in the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum,
respectively (Lim et al., 2004; Lim and Young, 2004).
Each of these primary brain systems evolved to play a different role in
courtship, mating, reproduction, and parenting (Fisher, 1998, 2004; Fisher
et al., 2002, 2002a). The sex drive evolved to motivate our ancestors to seek
coitus with a range of appropriate partners. Attraction (and its developed
human form, romantic love) evolved to motivate individuals to select among
potential mates, prefer a particular individual, and focus courtship attention
on this favored mating partner, thereby conserving courtship time and en-
ergy. Attachment evolved primarily to motivate individuals to sustain an
affiliative connection with this reproductive partner at least long enough to
complete species-specific parental duties. Moreover, these three brain sys-
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tems interact in myriad ways to direct many behaviors, emotions, and mo-
tivations associated with human reproduction.
fMRI Studies of Romantic Love

To investigate the biology of romantic love in humans, I and my col-
leagues Lucy L. Brown of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Arthur
Aron of SUNY Stony Brook, and Stony Brook graduate students Greg
Strong and Debra Mashek embarked on a neuroimaging study of men and
women who had “just fallen madly in love” (Fisher et al., 2003; Aron,
Fisher, Mashek, Strong, Li, and Brown, 2005). My hypothesis was that this
phenomenon was associated with elevated activity of central dopamine and/
or norepinephrine and low activity of central serotonin (Fisher, 1998).
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we collected data
on ten women and seven men who reported being in love an average of 7.4
months (median 7; range 1–17 months); they ranged in age from eighteen
to twenty-six. Each subject looked at a photograph of his or her beloved as
well as a photograph of an emotionally neutral acquaintance, each viewing
followed by a distraction task to cleanse the mind of strong emotion. This
distraction task consisted of mentally counting backward from a large num-
ber, such as 9,471, in increments of seven. The protocol consisted of (1)
positive stimulus (thirty seconds); (2) counting task (forty seconds); (3) neu-
tral stimulus (thirty seconds); (4) counting task (twenty seconds). This pro-
cess (or its reverse) was repeated six times; the experiment lasted about
twelve minutes.
Group activation specific to the beloved occurred in several regions. Most
significant was activity in the right ventral tegmental area (VTA) and right
postero-dorsal body and dorsal tail of the caudate nucleus (Fisher, Aron,
Mashek, Strong, Li, and Brown, 2003; Aron et al., 2005). The region acti-
vated in the VTA is rich in cells that produce and distribute dopamine to
many brain regions, including the caudate nucleus. Moreover, the VTA is
central to the brain’s “reward system” (Schultz, 2000; Martin-Soelch, Leen-
ders, Chevalley, Missimer, Kunig, Magyar, Mino, and Schultz, 2001; Breiter,
Gollub, Weisskoff, Kennedy, Makris, Berke, Goodman, Kantor, Gastfriend,
Riorden, Mathew, Rosen, and Hyman, 1997), the neural network associated
with sensations of pleasure, general arousal, focused attention, and moti-
vation to pursue and acquire rewards (Schultz, 2000; Delgado, Nystrom,
Fissel, Noll, and Fiez, 2000; Elliott, Newman, Longe, and Deakin, 2003).
The caudate nucleus is also associated with motivation and goal-oriented
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behaviors; it, too, is central to the dopaminergic reward system (Martin-

Soelch et al., 2001; Schultz, 2000).
Using fMRI, Bartels and Zeki also investigated brain activity in seventeen
men and women who reported being “truly, deeply, and madly in love”
(2000, p. 3829). However, in this study, individuals reported being in love
an average of 28.8 months, considerably longer. These subjects were less
intensely in love. This was established (serendipitously) because both our
participants and Bartels and Zeki’s participants were administered the same
questionnaire, the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986), prior
to scanning. Bartels and Zeki (2000, 2004) also found activation in a region
of the dorsal caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental area.
The above data suggest that the focused attention, motivation, and goal-
oriented behaviors characteristic of romantic love are associated with ele-
vated activity of central dopamine. Because specific activities of dopamine
are also associated with ecstasy, intense energy, sleeplessness, mood swings,
emotional dependence, and craving (see Fisher, 1998), dopamine most likely
also contributes to these aspects of romantic love.
Elevated activity of norepinephrine and low activity of central serotonin
may also be involved, although I have only corollary evidence at present.
Norepinephrine is associated with a pounding heart, elevated blood pres-
sure, and other physiological responses of the sympathetic nervous system,
phenomena common to romantic love (Fisher, 1998, 2004). And scientists
have recently studied concentrations of serotonin transporter in blood plate-
lets of sixty individuals: twenty had fallen in love in the previous six months;
twenty suffered from unmedicated obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD);
twenty normal (control) individuals were not in love (Marazziti, Akiskal,
Rossi, and Cassano, 1999). Both the in-love participants and those suffering
from OCD showed significantly lower concentations of the platelet serotonin
transporter. Thus decreased activity of bodily (and perhaps also brain) se-
rotonin most likely contributes to the lover’s obsessive thinking and impul-
sivity.
The Drive to Love

Psychologists distinguish between emotions and motivations, which
are brain systems oriented around planning and pursuit of a specific want
or need. Arthur Aron had proposed that romantic love is not an emotion
but a motivation system designed to enable suitors to build and maintain
an intimate relationship with a preferred mating partner (Aron and Aron,
1991; Aron et al., 1995). Because the above-mentioned experiments indicate
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that this passion is associated with activity in the VTA and caudate nucleus,
Aron’s hypothesis is most likely correct: motivation and goal-oriented be-
haviors form the core of romantic love. These findings then suggested to me
that romantic love is a primary motivation system—a fundamental mating
drive (Fisher, 2004).
Donald Pfaff defines a drive as a neural state that energizes and directs
behavior to acquire a particular biological need to survive or reproduce
(Pfaff, 1999, pp. 7, 40). Romantic love shares many traits with basic drives:
(1) Like all drives, romantic attraction is tenacious; emotions dissipate or
change far more rapidly. (2) Romantic love is focused on a specific reward
(the beloved); emotions, such as joy and disgust, are focused on a range of
phenomena instead. (3) This passion is not associated with any particular
facial expression, while all of the primary emotions have characteristic facial
poses. (4) Like all drives, romantic love is exceedingly difficult to control; it
is harder to curb thirst, for example, than anger. (5) And, like all of the
basic drives (Pfaff, 1999), romantic love is associated with elevated activity
of central dopamine.
Drives lie along a continuum (Fisher, 2004). Some, such as thirst and the
need for warmth, can rarely be extinguished until satisfied, while the sex
drive and the maternal instinct can often be redirected. Falling in love ap-
pears to be near the base of this continuum. For example, romantic love is
considerably stronger than the sex drive. Few people whose sexual advances
are rejected proceed to kill themselves or someone else, whereas rejected
lovers in cultures around the world commit suicide or homicide; many more
become depressed. In a study of 114 Americans who had been romantically
rejected in the past eight weeks, 40 percent were clinically depressed; 12
percent suffered moderate to severe depression (Mearns, 1991). Since ro-
mantic love is a universal and powerful human mating drive, it must have
evolved.
Evolution of Romantic Love: The Brain Network for

“Mate Choice”
Ever since Darwin (1859, 1871) proposed the concept of sexual selec-
tion to explain patterns of sexual dimorphism in birds and mammals, sci-
entists have been describing physical and behavioral traits that birds and
mammals have evolved to attract potential mates (Andersson, 1994; Miller,
2000). The peacock’s tail feathers are the standard example. But the corre-
sponding brain mechanism by which the display chooser responds to these
traits, comes to prefer a specific individual, and focuses his or her courtship
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time and energy on this particular conspecific has not been defined (Fisher
et al., 2002, 2002a; Fisher, 2004).
Yet all birds and mammals express mate preferences; none copulate in-
discriminately. The phenomenon of mate choice is so common in nature
that the ethological literature regularly uses several terms to describe it, in-
cluding “individual preference,” “favoritism,” “female choice,” “sexual
choice,” “selective proceptivity,” and “attraction.” In most mammalian and
avian species this mate preference is brief. In rats, for example, courtship
attraction often lasts seconds; among elephants, it lasts three to five days;
among foxes, it lasts about two weeks (Fisher, 2004). But all species display
similar characteristics of attraction. Among these traits, attracted individuals
focus their attention on a preferred mating partner and express heightened
energy, obsessive following, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, possessive mate-
guarding, affiliative courtship gestures such as patting, stroking, and nuz-
zling, goal-oriented courtship behaviors, and intense motivation to win this
particular individual (see Fisher, 2004). All these traits are also characteristic
of human romantic love. Moreover, many creatures express this attraction
instantly, what may be the forerunner of human “love at first sight.”
Animal studies indicate that this mate preference (or attraction) is asso-
ciated with elevated activities of central dopamine, another similarity with
human romantic love. When a female lab-raised prairie vole is mated with
a male, she forms a distinct preference for him associated with a 50 percent
increase of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain’s re-
ward system (Gingrich, Liu, Cascio, Wang, and Insel, 2000). When a do-
pamine antagonist is injected into the accumbens, the female no longer pre-
fers this partner. And when a female is injected with a dopamine agonist,
she begins to prefer the conspecific who is present at the time of infusion,
even if she has not mated with this male (Gingrich et al., 2000; Wang, Yu,
Cascio, Liu, Gingrich, and Insel, 1999). An increase in central dopamine is
also associated with mate attraction in female sheep (Fabre-Nys, 1998).
This mammalian (and avian) attraction system most likely evolved for the
same adaptive reason it evolved in humans: to enable individuals to prefer
specific mating partners, thereby conserving valuable courtship time and en-
ergy (Fisher, 1998, 2004; Fisher et al., 2002, 2002a). Then, at some point
in hominid evolution, this mammalian neural mechanism for mate prefer-
ence developed into human romantic love. Perhaps this process initially be-
gan as early as 3.5 million years ago, along with the evolution of hominid
pair-bonding (Fisher, 1992; Reno, Meindl, McCollum, and Lovejoy, 2003),
then started to take its developed human form some two million years ago
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as the brain began to exhibit some characteristically human traits (Fisher,

2004).
Biology of Romantic Rejection

To understand the range of emotions, motivations, and behaviors as-
sociated with human romantic love, my colleagues and I conducted a second
fMRI study, this one of romantic rejection. We used functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to study ten women and five men who were still
very much in love but had recently been rejected by their romantic partner
(Fisher et al., 2005). We employed the same protocol as with our happily
in love subjects. Rejected participants alternately viewed a photograph of
their abandoning beloved and a photograph of a familiar, emotionally neu-
tral individual, interspersed with a distraction attention task.
Preliminary analysis of the positive-neutral contrast showed significant
group effects in the right nucleus accumbens/ventral putamen/pallidum, lat-
eral orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior insular/operculum cortex (Fisher et
al., 2005).
Other studies have shown that the nucleus accumbens/ventral pallidum/
putamen region where we found activity becomes more active as an indi-
vidual chooses a high-risk investment associated with big gains or big losses
(Kuhnen and Knutson, 2005) or anticipates a monetary reward (Zald, Boil-
eau, El-Dearedy, Gunn, McGlone, Dichter, and Dagher, 2004). This region
is also part of the dopaminergic reward system (Gingrich, Liu, Cascio,
Wang, and Insel, 2000). The region of the anterior insula/operculum cortex
where we found activity has been associated with skin and muscle pain and
anxiety (Schreckenberger, Siessmeier, Viertmann, Landvogt, Buchholz,
Rolke, Treede, and Bartenstein, 2005). The region of the orbitofrontal cor-
tex where we found activity hasbeen associated with “theory of mind”
(Vollm, Taylor, Richardson, Corcoran, Stirling, McKie, Deakin, and Elliott,
2006), the human ability to muse on the thoughts and intentions of others;
this brain region is also associated with evaluating punishers (Kringelbach
and Rolls, 2004), implementing appropriate adjustments in behavior (Rid-
derinkhof, Van den Wildenberg, Segalowitz, and Carter, 2004), obsessive/
compulsive behaviors (Evans, Lewis, and Iobst, 2004), and controlling anger
(Goldstein, Alai-Klein, Leskovjan, Fowler, Wang, Gur, Hitzemann, and Vol-
kow, 2005).
These results suggest that the dopaminergic reward system remains active
in recently romantically rejected men and women, but the precise location
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of activity differs. These preliminary results also suggest that neural regions
associated with taking risks for big gains or losses, physical pain, obsessive/
compulsive behaviors, ruminating on the intentions and actions of the re-
jecter, evaluating options, and emotion regulation increase their activity
when someone is rejected by a beloved.
Ours is the second investigation of romantic rejection. Najib and col-
leagues (2004) studied nine women who were “actively grieving” a recent
romantic breakup. Preliminary comparisons uncovered no commonalities;
in fact, in several regions where we found activations, they found deacti-
vations. Because our subjects regularly reported anger and hope for recon-
ciliation, while the subjects in the Najib et al. study more regularly reported
acceptance of the situation, I suspect that our participants were in the initial
stage of romantic rejection, the protest phase, while their participants were
in the subsequent resignation/despair phase.
Protest: The Initial Stage of Romantic Rejection

Lewis, Amini, and Lannon divide romantic rejection into two general
phases: protest and resignation/despair (2000). During the protest phase,
abandoned lovers express intense energy, heightened alertness, and extreme
motivation to win back their beloved. These psychiatrists theorize that this
“protest response” evolved from a basic mammalian reaction to the rupture
of any social tie. Moreover, they suggest that this protest response is asso-
ciated with elevated activity of dopamine and norepinephrine, reasoning that
these neurotransmitters most likely produce the heightened alertness, energy,
and motivation that abandoned creatures exhibit as they call for help and
search for their abandoner, generally their mother.
Our data on rejected lovers is preliminary evidence that the hypothesis of
Lewis, Amini, and Lannon is correct: elevated activity in dopaminergic re-
ward pathways are likely to be involved in the initial protest phase of ro-
mantic rejection. Our results may also help explain “frustration attrac-
tion”—why disappointed lovers begin to love their rejecting partner even
more passionately (Fisher 2004). When a reward is delayed in coming,
reward-expecting neurons prolong their activity (Schultz, 2000) and activity
of the dopaminergic reward system is associated with feelings of intense
romantic love. This phenomenon of frustration attraction appears to be mal-
adaptive, but the intense energy, focused attention, extreme motivation, and
goal-oriented behaviors that dopamine produce are useful biological tools
for regaining a beloved (Fisher, 2004).
During the protest stage, rejected lovers often also experience “abandon-
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ment rage” (Meloy, 1998, 1999), another trait that may be linked to the
dopaminergic reward system. The primary rage system has pathways to
regions in the prefrontal cortex that anticipate rewards (Panksepp, 1998),
and animal studies indicate that these reward and rage circuits are closely
connected. For example, when you pet a cat, it expresses pleasure; when
you withdraw the stimulation, it often bites (Panksepp, 1998), a response
to unfulfilled expectations known as “frustration aggression.” The data on
our rejected lovers suggests one of the neural regions linked to this rage
response, a region of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex associated with con-
trolling anger.
These fMRI data on romantic rejection also suggest that the brain mech-
anisms for abandonment rage and romantic love can operate in tandem,
biological data that corroborates current behavioral research. Ellis and
Malamuth (2000) report that rejected men and women can be furious at a
rejecting partner, while still being very much in love with him or her. More-
over, love and hate/rage have several behavioral similarities, including fo-
cused attention, obsessive thinking, heightened energy, and intense emotion,
motivation, and craving (Fisher, 2004). So these data indicate that the op-
posite of love is not hate; more likely it is indifference. Like frustration
attraction, abandonment rage appears to be maladaptive. It stresses the
heart, raises blood pressure, and suppresses the immune system (Dozier,
2002). But it probably evolved to enable jilted lovers to depart a dead-end
relationship faster; this way they could renew courtship sooner, a reproduc-
tive advantage (Fisher, 2004). Abandonment rage also motivates people to
fight for the welfare of their offspring, as seen so often during divorce pro-
ceedings (Fisher, 2004).
Resignation/Despair: The Second Stage

of Romantic Rejection
The second general phase of romantic rejection, resignation/despair,
may be associated with reduced activity in subcortical dopaminergic path-
ways. I hypothesize this for three reasons. First, a primate study indicates
that when a monkey realizes an expected reward will never come,
dopamine-making cells in the midbrain decrease their activity (Schultz,
2000). Second, the other recent fMRI investigation, of women suffering
from a recent romantic breakup (Najib et al., 2004, p. 2253), reports de-
creased activity in parts of the dorsal caudate, a brain region rich in recep-
tor sites for dopamine. Last, long-term stress suppresses the activity of do-
pamine and other monoamines, producing lethargy, despondency, and
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depression (Panksepp, 1998), which are traits of resigned and despondent

lovers.
This despair response also seems counterproductive. But scientists argue
that the high metabolic costs of depression are actually its benefits. They
reason that depression is an honest, believable signal that something is des-
perately wrong, so it galvanizes friends and relatives to support the rejected
person during his or her time of intense need (Hagen, Watson, and Thom-
son, in press). Depression also stimulates insight (Watson and Andrews,
2002), mental clarity that may spur the rejected lover to make difficult de-
cisions that promote reproductive success (Nesse, 1991).
Love hurts. A recent neuroimaging study indicates that emotional pain
induced by social exclusion affects some of the same brain regions that be-
come active during physical pain (Eisenberger, Lieberman, and Williams,
2003). Some broken-hearted lovers even die from a heart attack or stroke
caused by their depression (Rosenthal, 2002). Not everyone suffers from
romantic rejection to the same degree, of course. Across the life course,
individuals develop different feelings of competence or incompetence, dif-
ferent expectations of love, different sensitivities to rejection, and different
coping strategies that predispose them to romantic rejection in different ways
(Downey and Feldman 1996; Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, and Khouri, 1998;
Leary, 2001). Moreover, some have more mating opportunities, options that
mitigate feelings of protest, rage, and despair.
Men and women tend to express some differences in how they handle rejec-
tion, too (Baumeister, Wotman, and Stillwell, 1993; Buss, 1994; Hatfield and
Rapson, 1996). Men are three to four times more likely to commit suicide af-
ter being rejected (Hatfield and Rapson, 1996) and are more likely to stalk a
rejecting partner, as well as batter or kill her (Meloy, 2001; Meloy and Fisher,
2005). Rejected women report more severe feelings of depression (Mearns,
1991; Hatfield and Rapson, 1996), and more chronic strain and rumination
after being rejected (Nolen-Hoeksema, Larson, and Grayson, 1999). Women
are more likely to talk about their trauma as well, sometimes inadvertently re-
traumatizing themselves in the process (Hatfield and Rapson, 1996).
But few people avoid the pain of romantic rejection. In one college com-
munity, 93 percent of both sexes queried reported that they had been
spurned by someone they passionately loved; and 95 percent reported they
had rejected someone who was deeply in love with them (Baumeister et al.,
1993). These rejected lovers suffer for important evolutionary reasons. Dis-
carded sweethearts have wasted precious courtship time and metabolic en-
ergy; and their reproductive future has been jeopardized, along with their
social alliances, self-esteem, and happiness.
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Romantic Love: A Combination of Brain Systems

The above data suggest that central dopamine, norepinephrine, and
serotonin, in various changing ratios and in conjunction with other neural
systems, contribute to multiple aspects of romantic love. But these neuro-
transmitters also contribute to many other emotions and motivations; they
are not specific to romantic love. This is to be expected. Pfaff (1999) pro-
poses that all drives have two components: a generalized arousal system in
the brain produces the energy and motivation to acquire any biological need;
and a specific constellation of brain systems produces the feelings, thoughts,
and behaviors associated with each particular biological need. The general
arousal component of all drives, Pfaff reports, is associated with the actions
of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, as well as several other brain
chemicals. The specific constellation of brain systems associated with each
particular drive varies. Our fMRI study may have uncovered only the “gen-
eral arousal” component of romantic love.
We found activations and deactivations in many other brain regions and
pathways, however, and some particular combination of these is probably
specific to romantic love. Among them may be a region of the right antero-
medial caudate body (Aron et al., 2005), because our happily in love subjects
who scored higher on one of the questionnaires we administered prior to
scanning, the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986), also
showed more activity in this brain region. Deactivation of the amygdala may
also be central to the experience of being in love (Aron et al., 2005; Bartels
and Zeki, 2000), as well as activations and deactivations in other limbic and
cortical regions. But the thoughts, emotions, and motivations associated
with romantic love may be so varied across individuals, as well as across
time within each individual, that the full set of dynamic, parallel neural
systems involved may be impossible to record by group analysis.
Can Love Last?

Nevertheless, these fMRI experiments indicate some of the primary
neurotransmitter systems involved in romantic love. They also suggest some
things about the duration of intense, early stage romantic love.
Nisa, a !Kung woman of the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, summed up
love’s trajectory succinctly: “When two people are first together, their hearts
are on fire and their passion is very great. After a while, the fire cools and
that’s how it stays. They continue to love each other, but it’s in a different
way—warm and dependable” (Shostak, 1981, p. 268). Romantic love can
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be sustained in a long-term relationship, but it generally becomes less intense

(Traupmann and Hatfield, 1981; Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1995). And the
characteristic impermanence of early-stage, intense romantic love is most
likely an adaptive mechanism. Romantic love is metabolically expensive. So
this brain system probably evolved primarily to enable our forebears to focus
their courtship and mating energy on a preferred individual only long
enough to conceive a child. Then this intense passion gradually subsided as
most couples shifted into feelings of attachment so they could more calmly
rear their child through infancy together (Fisher, 2004).
Two studies have explored the trajectory of intense, early stage romantic
love. One investigation of blood platelet density of serotonin transporter
indicates that intense romantic love lasts between twelve and eighteen
months (Marazziti et al., 1999). And our between-subject analysis of happily
in love individuals in longer relationships (eight to seventeen months) sug-
gests how this passion changes across time. We initiated this secondary in-
vestigation because our group of happily in love subjects showed some dif-
ferent patterns of brain activation than did those of the Bartels and Zeki
study. But, as mentioned earlier, our subjects were in love an average du-
ration of 7.4 months, while those in the Bartels and Zeki study were in love
an average duration of 28.8 months. So we separately analyzed only our
happily in love participants who were in longer relationships. The results
showed that these men and women exhibited brain activation patterns more
closely resembling those of the subjects in the Bartels and Zeki study (Aron
et al., 2005), specifically, activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and insular
cortex. These data indicate that changes in cognition and emotion occur as
love proceeds.
Romantic Love: An Addiction?

These fMRI studies of human romantic love have several implications
for the medical and legal communities, as well as for individuals. Among
them, romantic love is most likely highly addictive. Indeed, because romantic
love is associated with focused attention, euphoria, craving, obsession, com-
pulsion, distortion of reality, personality changes, emotional and physical
dependence, inappropriate (even dangerous) behaviors, tolerance, with-
drawal symptoms, relapse, and loss of self-control, psychologists have long
regarded it as an addiction (Peele, 1975; Carnes, 1983; Halpern, 1982; Ten-
nov, 1979; Hunter, Nitschke, and Hogan, 1981; Mellody, Miller, and Mil-
ler, 1992; Griffin-Shelley, 1991; Schaef, 1989; Findling, 1999). The above
fMRI data on romantic love support this hypothesis. Those who are happily
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in love express neural activity in a region associated with the “rush” of co-
caine, and those who are rejected in love appear to have neural activity in
common with those who gamble for money, risking big gains and big losses.
Other studies also support the possible parallel between romantic love
and addiction. When Bartels and Zeki compared the brain scans of their
happily in love subjects with those of men and women who had injected
cocaine or opioids, they found that some of the same brain regions became
active (Bartels and Zeki, 2000). In addition, studies of cocaine addiction in
animals (David, Segu, Buhot, Ichaye, and Cazala, 2004; Kalivas and Duffy,
1998; Wise and Hoffman, 1992) and humans (fMRI) (Breiter et al., 1997)
indicate that the VTA is involved in addiction, as it is in romantic love. Last,
the decreasing desire for more chocolate (aversion) is associated with de-
creasing activity in the VTA (Small, Zatorre, Dagher, Evans, and Jones-
Gotman, 2001). Laymen generally consider that there are five major phys-
iological addictions: food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, and nicotine. Romantic
love may be another.
Individual Variations in Romantic Love

These fMRI data also suggest why some people fall in love more reg-
ularly and/or more passionately than others. Childhood, adolescent, and
adult experiences unquestionably play a role. But baseline levels of dopamine
and serotonin are directed by specific genes, and these genes are polymor-
phic; they produce individual variations in these neurotransmitter systems
(Gibbons, 2004; Lesch, Bengel, Heils, Sabol, Greenberg, Petri, Benjamin,
Muller, Hamer, and Murphy, 1996). Hence some men and women can po-
tentially inherit the biological proclivity to fall in love more often and/or
more intensely than others.
One’s habits and diseases can also affect one’s biological susceptibility to
romantic love. For example, daily drug use can alter the structure and func-
tion of the brain’s reward system for weeks, months, or years (Nestler,
2001). Moreover, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and other ailments al-
ter dopaminergic pathways. Even environmental and social circumstances
potentially contribute to one’s romantic receptiveness. Novel situations, for
example, can stimulate romantic feelings (Norman and Aron, 1995; Aron
and Aron, 1996; Dutton and Aron, 1974), most likely because novelty (and
danger) raise the activity of central dopamine (Fisher, 2004).
But the above fMRI studies can contribute nothing to the question of why
we fall in love with one person rather than another. Who triggers this brain
system is a different issue, directed largely by environmental and social
04:50:58 UTC
forces. Timing plays a role; people tend to fall in love when they are ready
(Hatfield, 1988). Proximity can spark this rapture (Pines, 1999). As the poet
Ezra Pound wrote of this, “Ah, I have picked up magic in her nearness.”
Most men and women fall in love with individuals of the same ethnic, social,
religious, educational, and economic background, those of similar physical
attractiveness, a comparable intelligence, similar attitudes, expectations, val-
ues, interests, and those with similar social and communication skills (Rush-
ton, 1989; Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels, 1994; Pines, 1999;
Buston and Emlen, 2003). People also gravitate toward those who fit within
what I refer to as their love template or love map (Fisher, 2004) and Zentner
(2005) refers to as an individual’s ideal mate personality concept. This love
template is an unconscious list of traits that an individual is looking for in
an ideal partner; it develops as he or she grows up and then becomes refined
as the person moves through life.
Biology also plays a role in whom we find attractive. People fall in love
with individuals who are somewhat mysterious, perhaps in part because
novelty elevates the activity of dopamine and norepinephrine. Women are
more attracted to men with a different immune system (Wedekind et al.,
1995), an evolutionary mechanism that may have evolved to rear more var-
ied young. Like many creatures, humans also tend to be attracted to those
who are symmetrical (Gangestad and Thornhill, 1997). When scientists re-
corded the brain activity of heterosexual men ages twenty-one to thirty-five
as they looked at women with symmetrical faces, the ventral tegmental area
became active (Aharon et al., 2001). I suspect that scientists will find many
more biological mechanisms that contribute to attraction to a specific indi-
vidual.
But whether all these environmental and biological stimuli trigger the
brain circuitry associated with romance, or the brain circuitry of romance
somehow sparks one’s interest in a particular individual, is undetermined.
The above fMRI data cannot solve the metaphysical issue of cause and effect
between brain and mind.
Lust, Romance, and Attachment: Interactions

However, data collected from these fMRI studies can help to explain
some of the psychobiological interactions among the three basic mating
drives: lust, romantic love, and attachment. And they suggest at least one of
the dangers of tampering with these three delicately balanced systems.
People who have fallen madly in love generally begin to find their beloved
enormously sexually attractive, and biological interactions between romantic
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love and the sex drive may contribute. Increasing dopamine associated with
romantic love can stimulate a cascade of reactions, including the release of
testosterone, the hormone of sexual desire (Wenkstern, Pfaus, and Fibiger,
1993; Wersinger and Rissman, 2000; Szezypka, Zhou, and Palmiter, 1998;
Hull, Du, Lorrain, and Matuszewick, 1997). In fact, elevated activity of
dopamine generally increases sex drive, sexual arousal, and sexual perfor-
mance in humans (Clayton, McGarvey, Warnock, et al., 2000; Heaton,
2000; Walker, Cole, Gardner, Hughes, et al., 1993; Coleman, Cunningham,
Foster, Batey, Donahue, Houser, and Ascher, 1999; Ascher, Cole, Colin,
Feighner, Ferris, Fibiger, Golden, Martin, Potter, Richelson, and Sulser,
1995). This chemical connection between romantic love and lust makes ev-
olutionary sense: if romantic love evolved to stimulate courtship with a pre-
ferred individual, it should also trigger the drive for sex, in order to start
the mating process.
But can casual sex trigger feelings of romantic love? Most liberated adults
have had sex with a friend or acquaintance and never fallen in love with
him or her. But it can happen. The natives of rural Nepal say of this, “Naso
pasyo, maya basyo,” or “the penis entered and love arrived” (Ahearn,
2001). Perhaps this occurs because sexual activity increases the activities of
dopamine in the brain (Damsma, Pfaus, Wenkstern, Phillips, and Fibiger,
1992; Pleim, Matochik, Barfield, and Auerbach, 1990; Yang, Pau, Hess, and
Spies, 1996). In fact, women may be particularly vulnerable to falling in
love with a casual sex partner because seminal fluid contains dopamine and
tyrosine, a building block of dopamine (Burch and Gallup, in press). Sexual
activity can also stimulate feelings of attachment via orgasm. Orgasm pro-
duces a flood of oxytocin and vasopressin, the neuropeptides associated with
attachment in women and men (Carmichael, Humbert, Dixen, Palmisano,
Greenleaf, and Davidson, 1987).
Because of the complex interactions among these three primary mating
drives, the psychiatrist J. Anderson Thomson and I have proposed that
serotonin-enhancing antidepressants (SSRIs) can jeopardize one’s ability to
feel romantic passion for a new partner or a deep attachment for a long-
term mate (Fisher, 2004; Fisher and Thomson, in press). These medications
suppress dopaminergic pathways; they also dull the emotions and curb ob-
sessive thinking: All are associated with early-stage, intense romantic love.
As many as 70 percent of patients taking these medications experience a
decline in sexual desire, sexual arousal, and orgasm (anorgasmia). This an-
orgasmia may jeopardize the lover’s feelings of attachment to a long-term
partner too.
The negative biological effects of serotonin-enhancing antidepressants on
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feelings of romantic love and attachment were reported by a patient, who

wrote: “After two bouts of depression in ten years, my therapist recom-
mended I stay on serotonin-enhancing antidepressants indefinitely. As ap-
preciative as I was to have regained my health, I found that my usual
enthusiasm for life was replaced with blandness. My romantic feelings for
my wife declined drastically. With the approval of my therapist, I gradually
discontinued my medication. My enthusiasm returned and our romance is
now as strong as ever. I am prepared to deal with another bout of depression
if need be, but in my case the long-term side effects of antidepressants render
them off limits” (Frankel, 2004).
The complex and dynamic interactions among these three brain systems
suggest that any medication that changes their chemical checks and balances
is likely to alter an individual’s courting, mating, and parenting tactics, ul-
timately affecting fertility and one’s genetic future.
Biological Underpinnings of Serial Monogamy and Adultery

The above fMRI data also bring understanding to the human tendency
for serial monogamy and clandestine adultery. But to discuss the significance
of these data, it is necessary to review the central elements of the human
reproductive strategy.
Only 3 percent of mammals pair up to rear their young. Homo sapiens
is among them. Today some 90 percent of women and men marry by age
fifty in all but a few countries (Bruce et al., 1995), and cross-cultural data
confirm that humans primarily practice social monogamy, forming a socially
recognized pair-bond with a single mate at a time (Fisher, 1992). Although
polygyny is permitted in 84 percent of human societies, in the vast majority
of these cultures only about 10 percent of men actually maintain two or
more wives simultaneously (Fisher, 1992). Moreover, because polygyny in
humans is regularly associated with rank and wealth, Daly and Wilson pro-
pose that monogamy was even more prevalent in prehorticultural, unstrat-
ified societies (1983). In fact, anthropologists recently remeasured Austral-
opithecus afarensis fossils for skeletal size, and reported that by 3.5 million
years ago men and women exhibited roughly the same degree of sexual
dimporphism as the sexes do today. Thus they propose that hominids lived
in the same sorts of social units as modern Homo sapiens; these ancestral
men and women were “principally monogamous” (Reno et al., 2003, p.
1073).
Humans are also adulterous. The National Opinion Research Center in
Chicago reports that approximately 25 percent of men and 15 percent of
04:50:58 UTC
women cheat at some point during marriage (Laumann et al., 1994). Other
studies indicate that from 30 percent to 50 percent of married men and
women philander (Gangestad and Thornhill, 1997). Scholars may never es-
tablish the true frequency of adultery in either sex, due to reporting bias.
Nevertheless, studies of American adultery from the 1920s through the
1990s report its occurrence (Fisher, 1992). Extra-pair copulations occur fre-
quently in every other society for which data are available (Frayser, 1985),
as well as in many other socially monogamous species (Fisher, 1992, 1999).
And human testes size, which varies according to a species’ predominant
reproductive strategy, suggests that adultery by both sexes was common in
hominid prehistory (Miller, 2000).
Human divorce and remarriage, as well, and biological (as well as cul-
tural) forces may be involved. Data on fifty-eight human societies, taken
from the Demographic Yearbook of the United Nations between 1947 and
1989, indicate a worldwide divorce peak during and around the fourth year
of marriage (Fisher, 1992). Because four years is the characteristic duration
of birth spacing in hunting/gathering societies, and because many other so-
cially monogamous avian and mammalian species form pair-bonds that last
only long enough to rear the young through infancy, I have hypothesized
that this human cross-cultural divorce peak represents the remains of a spe-
cific ancestral hominid reproductive strategy to remain together at least long
enough to raise a single child through infancy (Fisher, 1992).
Children in hunting/gathering societies join a multiage play group soon
after being weaned, becoming the responsibility of older siblings and other
relatives in the band. So the ecological pressure on couples to remain pair-
bonded was reduced after the weaning of a child, unless they had conceived
another. Moreover, divorce most likely had an adaptive payoff in ancestral
times: those who practiced serial monogamy in association with offspring
weaning would have created healthy genetic variety in their lineages (Fisher,
1992).
Evolutionary hypotheses such as this are often regarded with skepticism
by those unfamiliar with human ethology. I find this attitude shortsighted.
Anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, primatologists,
zoologists, and many other scholars have painstakingly accumulated a
wealth of data on aspects of human behavior and its counterparts in many
other species. Integrating these disparate facts with logical, scientific reason-
ing can add understanding, stimulate discourse, and initiate new inquiry into
this difficult puzzle: human nature.
But regardless of the reasons for the evolution of human serial monogamy,
or the myriad biological and social forces that contribute to human divorce
04:50:58 UTC
(Fisher, 1992), everywhere in the world that men and women have the eco-
nomic resources to divorce, divorce and remarriage are common.
So clandestine adultery and serial monogamy are primary aspects of this
“dual” human reproductive strategy. And the above MRI data on romantic
love add insight to these human patterns.
Foremost, these fMRI data show that the brain circuitry for romantic love
is distinct from that of the sex drive and that of attachment. Anecdotal data
support this finding: one can feel deep attachment for one individual while
feeling romantic passion for someone else while feeling the sex drive for a
range of others. The relative biological independence of these three mating
drives may have evolved to enable ancestral men and women to opportun-
istically engage in monogamy and adultery simultaneously and/or sequen-
tially (Fisher, 2004). But the relative neurological independence of these
three mating drives helps to explain contemporary cross-cultural patterns of
philandering, sexual jealousy, stalking, spousal abuse, love homicide, love
suicide, and the clinical depression associated with unstable and disbanded
partnerships.
Love’s Fickle but Eternal Nature

Wild is love. This passion can trigger the reward system in the brain
at almost any time of life; even four-year-old children and senior citizens
report this craving (Hatfield, Schmitz, Cornelius, and Rapson, 1988; Hat-
field and Rapson, 1987; Purdy, 1995, Fisher 2004). Perhaps romantic love
in children evolved to motivate them to practice at life’s most essential task,
choosing an appropriate mating partner. And romance in one’s elder years
keeps the body toned and the mind alert, and provides lovers with compan-
ionship, optimism, and energy.
As fMRI and other research techniques become more sophisticated, sci-
entists will establish more about romantic love in children and the aging.
Future research may also establish specifically how serotonin-enhancing an-
tidepressants affect the brain activity of romantic passion; how diseases such
as schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and various addictions affect this cir-
cuitry; why certain personality types fall in love more regularly than others;
why some people suffer less from romantic rejection; how “talking thera-
pies” or “twelve-step” programs affect brain circuitry in disappointed lovers;
how the brain mechanisms for romantic love change across time; how this
passion transforms into feelings of attachment for a long-term partner; how
some couples sustain romantic love in long-term partnerships; and how
novel situations, vacations, adultery, divorce, and childhood experiences and
04:50:58 UTC
other life circumstances interact with brain mechanisms to affect whom we

love, when we love, and how we express love. Future investigations may
even help to explain the prevalence of some modern diseases that appear to
be unrelated to romantic passion. For example, as the brain system for in-
tense romantic love evolved, it may have contributed to the development of
several obsessive-compulsive disorders and addictions as well.
The ancient Greeks called romantic love the “madness of the gods.” It is
important to investigate the biology of this passion in all its variations—
because this madness is central to our lives. In a study of thirty-seven soci-
eties, men and women ranked love, or mutual attraction, as the first criterion
for choosing a spouse (Buss, 1994). Everywhere people sing for love, pray
for love, work for love, live for love, kill for love, and die for love. Even
where marriages are arranged, spouses often fall in love. Nothing will ex-
tinguish the human drive to love.
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6
A Biobehavioral Model of Attachment

and Bonding
james f. leckman, sarah b. hrdy,
eric b. keverne, and c. sue carter
Every variety of love . . . is born, lives, dies, or attains immortality in

accordance with the same laws.
Henri Marie Beyle (Stendhal), 1822
The human brain is a remarkable product of evolution. While the basic

machinery of the vertebrate brain has been in place for more than 450
million years, the appearance of our subspecies (Homo sapiens sapiens)
emerged between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand years
ago. In the struggle for life, certain traits have come to predominate. We
might surmise that elements in our mental and behavioral repertoire related
to successful reproduction have been the focus of intense selective pressures
ever since the first lactating protomammals emerged some three hundred
million years ago. The selection of a mate, the bearing of viable offspring,
and the formation of parental commitments that will sustain an infant
through varying periods of dependency (especially lengthy for humans) are
just a few of the crucial complex, interdependent processes needed for in-
dividual survival and, hence, species viability. Many of our biological and
behavioral potentialities serve these goals, including some that are highly
conserved, brain-based systems specifically activated at developmentally ap-
propriate moments. We hypothesize that a thorough understanding of these
116
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A Biobehavioral Model of Attachment and Bonding 117
ancient adapted processes will lead to deeper insights into our vulnerability
to develop a range of psychopathological outcomes.
In this chapter, the term bond typically refers to biological processes that
mediate parental behaviors and infant responsiveness, while the term at-
tachment has a stronger psychological (and consequently human) connota-
tion, although some overlap in the use of these terms is inevitable. Initial
bond formation in mammals is marked by the selective recognition of an
individual or individuals associated with proximity-seeking, separation dis-
tress, and altered autonomic and behavioral responsivity conditioned by the
absence, presence, or cues of the other(s). Affiliative bond formation alters
in a fundamental and profound fashion what is important in the world.
Attachments embellish bonds and refer to a complex developmental process
between human beings that is dependent on learning and memory, and is
based on specific histories of emotionally charged interactions that include
caretaking, care-receiving, communication, negotiation of affection, protec-
tion, and commitment, and the creation of metacognitive domains. These
attachments and bonds often serve to enhance security and a sense of well-
being, as well as to reduce the impact of potentially stressful future events.
Indeed, bonds may be seen as a means by which the individual is prepared
for an uncertain future. However, the loss or threatened loss of such bonds
and attachments can have catastrophic consequences. The word love ap-
pears rarely in this chapter, and when it does, it refers simply to the con-
scious subjective experience that arises from, and that can influence, all as-
pects of bonding and attachment within our species.
Mammalian Behavior in the Formation and Maintenance

of Bonds
PARENTAL CARE
Adaptive parental behavior can be defined as any response toward a
reproductively immature, genetically related, member of the same species
that increases the probability of the survival and eventual reproductive suc-
cess of one or more of the recipients. Parental care can be either uniparental
(limited to one parent in the caretaking role) or biparental (both parents
serve as caregivers). Among mammals, uniparental care systems are the
norm, with the mother being the sole provider in about 90 percent of the
species (Eisenberg and Kleiman, 1983). In some species, other individuals in
addition to the biological parents (alloparents), provide care (Hrdy, 1999).
In such species, alloparental care may be critical for the survival of the
offspring.
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MATERNAL BEHAVIOR
Maternal behavior is a highly conserved set of behavioral capacities
that are crucial for reproductive success. Most mammals have distinctive
and stereotyped behavioral repertoires as they prepare to give birth. Mice
build nests; dogs furiously scratch the dirt or any other substrate to hollow
out a birthing place. Birth is followed by a series of fixed action patterns,
including biting and licking off the amniotic sac, eating the placenta, biting
the umbilical cord, sniffing and licking the newborn clean, often (as in sheep)
olfactorily imprinting on the baby’s smell, or, as in some rodents and dogs,
collecting pups into the nest and huddling over them to permit suckling.
Nonhuman primates exhibit some of these same behaviors—licking the baby
clean and grooming it with their hands; inspecting the infant, perhaps es-
pecially the genitals; and eating the placenta. After birth and during the first
months of life, patterns of care of the newborn vary across species. Newborn
rodents, such as rats and mice, virtually immobile and incapable of body
temperature maintenance, are dependent for their survival on the initiation
of a specific set of maternal behaviors (Rosenblatt and Lehrman, 1963).
Maternal behavior in these rodents involves a complex set of activities, in-
cluding nest repair, sniffing and exploration of pups, mouthing, pup re-
trieval, licking, grooming, and various forms of nursing (arched-back nurs-
ing, prone nursing, blanket nursing) (Pryce, Bettschen, and Feldon, 2001).
In addition to caring for their own pups, recently parturient females avidly
display retrieving, licking, and nursing behavior toward foster pups intro-
duced into the cage. In contrast, adult virgin female rats do not show ma-
ternal behavior when first presented with foster pups; however, if virgin
female rats cohabit with young pups, they will eventually display maternal
behavior after a period of four to seven days (Rosenblatt, 1967). This ex-
perimental paradigm is referred to as sensitization, and has served as a useful
tool in the assessment of maternal behavior.
Among New World common marmosets, mothers may seek a tree cavity
or other safe place to give birth. Once born, the baby (or babies, since twins
are the common rule in marmosets) crawl up the mother, under her arm,
and onto her back. In Old World monkeys and the great apes, exclusive
maternal care of singleton young, who cling to the mother and are carried
by her, is the rule, and only the mother eats the placenta (Kraemer, Ebert,
Schmidt, and McKinney, 1991; Kraemer, 1992). In one of the few births
observed among wild gorillas, the female set the infant on the ground while
she ate the placenta. Only then did she pick up and adjust her infant to her
breast. Among some Old World monkeys, mothers attempt to give birth
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unmolested by others. In many species mothers remain extremely possessive

of their infants, while in others, mothers permit other group members to
hold and carry the baby from the first day of life. In the wild, day-old
newborns spend up to 50 percent of daylight hours being carried by female
kin other than the mother. Mothers retrieve their babies at night, and typ-
ically babies suckle only from their own mothers.
In contrast to mammals generally, human mothers exhibit relatively few
universal fixed behaviors apart from the labor experience itself. Universals
observed across cultures include inspecting the infant, noting its condition.
Like other primates, humans pay special attention to the genitals and other
anatomical features. Humans are unique among primates, but not unique
among mammals generally, in discriminating on the basis of such attrib-
utes—for example, abandoning an infant with real or perceived defects
(Hrdy, 1999). Universally, the mother and/or her companions clean off the
newborn, but the means by which this practical task is accomplished depend
on available methods and customs. Typically, following a close visual and
tactile inspection, newborns are washed with water or oil, and perhaps pow-
dered with dust, dye, charcoal, cornmeal, or even dried dung. Treatment of
the placenta is quite variable (it may be discarded or ceremonially buried,
but cross-culturally it is the exception rather than the rule for placentas to
be eaten). Many, but not all, mothers hold the baby close immediately and
encourage nursing. Others do so later. Colostrum (the first milk secreted by
the mother as she begins to breast-feed) may be offered to the baby or (as
in many African and Haitian societies) expressed onto the ground. Usually
the baby suckles first from the mother, but in some Central Africa pgymy
groups a newborn may first suckle from a lactating allomother (an individual
who takes care of an infant who is not her own). The picture emerging for
humans is of mothers for whom cognitive processes play a more important
role (Keverne, 2005), although physiological changes in the mother during
pregnancy and the birth process clearly prime mothers for responding ma-
ternally, and after-birth cues from the infant play a role in sustaining ma-
ternal commitment (Fleming, 2005) as do physiological processes linked to
lactation.
DIFFERENCES ACROSS MAMMALIAN SPECIES

The most striking differences across species concern the perceptual
means by which the offspring are identified. In virtually all mammalian spe-
cies studied, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, auditory, and visual systems are
engaged, although the relative contribution of each is species-dependent. For
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rodents and sheep, olfactory systems are key, but are less important for
humans and other primates, for which visual discrimination is preeminent.
Biparental caretaking
While biparental care is commonplace among avian species, it is pres-
ent in only about 10 percent of mammals. Although some form of paternal
care (often as rudimentary as generalized protection of young in the group)
is found in many primate species, exclusive and costly male care of young
(as in the father carrying the baby most of the time) is seen only in pair-
bonded species with high male certainty of paternity. Across human cultures,
fathers may play important roles in defending and provisioning, and even
caring for the young, but the composition of families tends to fluctuate
through time. The identity of caretakers may change, and an array of kin
and other group members may be drawn into these roles.
In the absence of baby bottles, mammalian infants need to be suckled,
and lactating mothers are uniquely equipped for this task. Women describe
breast-feeding as a uniquely close, very physical, at times sensual experience,
one that brings a particular unity between the mother and her infant. Clean-
ing, grooming, and dressing behaviors, providing for close inspection of the
baby’s body and appearance, can be undertaken by a broader cast of char-
acters, and such behaviors may carry a special valence inasmuch as they
permit closeness to infants, which among all primates tend to be perceived
as highly attractive.
Whereas behavioral fixed-action patterns in humans are minimal, at a
mental level birth is often viewed as a potentially dangerous, often super-
naturally charged event. Mortal dangers to mother and infant are widely
recognized, and may require ritual intervention. These rituals include acts
of purification and supplication as well as special events surrounding the
naming of the child and acknowledgment by the social group that a viable
new member has been born safely and is in need of their guidance and
support.
At a cross-cultural level, little is known about the mental preoccupations
of postpartum mothers, but Leckman et al. (1999) have begun to catalog
various postpartum preoccupations with care and well-being of the infant
that are characteristic of Western (mostly middle-class) mothers. In this cul-
ture, the peripartum period is associated with intense parental preoccupa-
tions (Leckman and Mayes, 1999; Leckman et al., 1999; Winnicott, 1956).
As presented in table 6-1, the content of these preoccupations includes in-
trusive worries concerning the parents’ adequacy as parents and the infant’s
safety and well-being. These thoughts, and the harm-avoidant behavior they
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Table 6-1 Comparison of prominent features of early parental love, infant
responsiveness, and romantic love
Early
Parental Infant Romantic
Feature Love Responsiveness Love
Selective recognition—exclusivity of focus +++/++++ +++ +++/++++

Altered mental state—altered autonomic and be- +++/++++ +++ a
+++
havioral responsivity conditioned by the absence,
presence, or merely cues of the other(s)
Clear onset—hedonic transformation +++ ++ +++
Intrusive thoughts and images (preoccupations):
—Longing for reciprocity ++* +++a ++++*
—Idealization of the other +++* +++a ++++*
—Heightened awareness of the other ++++ +++a +++
—Heightened sense of responsibility and worries ++++ ++a +++
about the well-being of the other
—Upsetting, aggressive thoughts focused on the +* +++a ++b*
self or the other
Altered repetitive behaviors:
—Proximity-seeking, physical contact, and sepa- ++++ +++ +++
ration distress
—Emotionally charged caring: talking, singing, ++++ +++ ++
feeding and grooming
—Need for things to be safe, secure, “just right” ++++* ++ ++*
—Aggressive behavior in defense of child/partner ++++ ++ ++++b
Dichotomous resolution, either: +++ +++ +++
—Establishment of intimate, mutually satisfying
reciprocal patterns of interaction, usually
marked by a culturally defined ritual as well as
the reorganization and ongoing development of
metacognitive representations or
—Rejection +* + +++*
a
Initially the mental processes of the infant are ineffable and out of conscious awareness.
b
May be sexually dimorphic with males ⬎ females.
*p ⬎ .01 Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test.
Note: Ratings based on the judgments of twenty-one experts on bond formation and attachment (seven
females and fourteen males) following a weeklong Dalhem conference in Berlin (2003). Ratings were
on a five-point ordinal scale (0–4). Mean values rounded to the nearest integer except for midrange
values that are presented as the two closest integers (for example, 3.5 +++/++++). Male and female
raters showed no differences.
Using a Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test (p ⬎ .01), romantic love was rated as having more longing for
reciprocity, a greater tendency to idealize the other, more likely to entertain aggressive thoughts toward
the other, and a greater likelihood that the relationship would end with rejection, compared with early
parental love. Early parental love, however, was rated as being more focused on things being “just
right” for the infant. Differences between infant responsiveness and the other two forms of love were
not subjected to statistical tests, because less than half of the raters completed those ratings. Visual
inspection, however, suggests that the participating raters considered infants to harbor more aggressive
thoughts toward their caretakers.
Source: Adapted from Leckman and Mayes (1999) and Leckman et al. (2005).
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engender, resemble those encountered in obsessive-compulsive disorder

(OCD). Even before the child is born, parents preoccupy themselves with
creating a safe and secure environment for the infant. Major cleaning and
renovation projects are commonplace as the human form of nest-building
unfolds. Uppermost among parental concerns are safety and unimpeded ac-
cess. Safety issues include the cleanliness of the infant’s immediate environ-
ment. After birth this same sense of heightened responsibility will compel
parents to check on the baby frequently, even at times when they know he
or she is fine.
In contrast to these anxious, intrusive thoughts and harm-avoidant be-
haviors, human parents also regularly report their infant as being “perfect.”
For example, Leckman et al. (1999) reported that this experience peaked at
three months of age, with 73 percent of the mothers and 88 percent of the
fathers endorsing this experience. Exquisite and prolonged attention to phys-
ical details and similarities to one or both parents occupies considerable
amounts of time.
While human parents will typically prepare a special location (the nursery,
in middle-class Western societies) in anticipation of the baby’s arrival, no
monkey or ape mother has been observed making any kind of nest in prep-
aration for birth, nor is this customary among nomadic foragers. What hu-
mans colloquially refer to as “nesting instincts” may be more convincingly
explained as outgrowths of maternal preoccupations with the infant’s phys-
ical environment, safety, and well-being.
Infant responsiveness
Critical to the formation of social bonds between infant and parent is
some form of social engagement. At the time of birth, mammalian young
exhibit behaviors that either bring the infant into contact with the mother
or serve to bring the mother into contact with her newborn. The exact
behaviors exhibited differ dramatically across species, and also vary with
the usual conditions at the time of birth. As a rule, infants that are born in
a mature state exhibit such behaviors as clinging (e.g., some primate species)
or approach (e.g., sheep, guinea pigs). In species in which infants are born
less well-developed, characteristics of the young, including their vocaliza-
tions, typically serve to attract the mother to the infant. However, even in
these species, subtle infant proximity-seeking behaviors can be apparent. For
instance, the newborn rat pup attempts to direct the snout in the direction
of the familiar odor of amniotic fluid (Teicher and Blass, 1977). Because the
mother consumes birth fluids, and then licks her underside, this behavior by
the pup brings it into contact with the nipple.
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It is also clear that infants’ awareness of caretakers begins very early in

life and is closely related to the maintenance of physiological homeostasis
with regard to warmth, feeding, and fluid and water balance. The human
infant’s capacity to attend to the caregiver’s face, gestures, voice, and re-
sponsiveness appears relatively early (Trevarthen, 2005), and provides the
stimuli needed for human language-processing to develop normally. For ex-
ample, Tzourio-Mazoyer, De Schonen, Crivello, Reutter, Aujard, and Ma-
zoyer (2002) observed that two-month-old human infants, when shown a
woman’s face, activate a distributed network of cortical areas that includes
the areas, which in adults, are involved in facial recognition (fusiform gyrus)
and language-processing (left superior temporal gyrus), suggesting the close
linkage between the formation of social relationships and language acqui-
sition. It is likely that our ancestors were cooperative breeders among whom
maternal commitment was contingent on social support; consequently, hu-
man infants have a greater need to monitor and interpret the moods and
intentions of others than other primates do (Hrdy, 1999, 2005). Infants who
could engage their mothers right from birth would have an advantage over
those who could not. Beyond the discomfort and separation cries character-
istic of all infant apes, human infants were under greater selection pressure
to appeal to both mothers and allomothers. Perhaps not surprisingly, then,
right from birth human infants seek out human faces and initiate contact
with others. Remarkably early in development, babies imitate faces, smiling
and laughing in ways that no other ape living in the wild (to our present
knowledge) does (Meltzoff and Prinz, 2002; Papousek et al. 1992; Toma-
sello, 1999).
Over the course of development, most human children become experts on
other people, particularly their caretakers. While the debate continues over
just how different chimps and humans are in this respect, it is clear that
human infants develop the capacity to read intentions far better than infant
apes (Tomasello, 1999). By age two or three years, human children have
developed the capacity to begin to intuit what someone else is trying to do,
and why. Understanding how someone else is thinking about a task im-
proves our ability to learn through observation, and makes humans espe-
cially prone to accumulate and transmit new knowledge (Trevarthen, 2005).
Hrdy (2005) argues that our cooperative heritage is partly responsible for
the emergence and enhancement of mind-reading abilities in infants, leading
to the evolution over time of human communicators par excellence.
In considering the mother-infant dyad, it is important to include disrup-
tions and challenges to this tie once it has been established. One prominent
example concerns mother-infant separation, especially in primates. Mother-
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infant separation can be catastrophic. Multiparous rhesus mothers are al-

ways upset and agitated, and “whoo” call, if their infant is taken away from
them. This response is initially intense, and tapers off over about two to
three days. The response of infants to separation depends largely on their
age at the time of separation, duration of the separation, and whether they
encounter an appropriate alternative. All separations involve “protest” (vo-
calizing and agitation). This can be followed by the “despair” phase. Despair
marks the “severe” response that is characterized by dramatic reductions in
eating, drinking, and motor activity. This can be lethal. In general, early
separations (up to three months of age), and separations beyond five months
of age have less chance of producing a severe despair response and its con-
sequences. In rhesus monkeys the period between three and four months of
age is the “danger zone” in which the most severe despair responses to
separation can occur (Harlow, Harlow, and Suomi, 1971; Kraemer et al.,
1991). The long-lasting effects of early separations can include tendencies
to become aggressive or withdrawn, in comparison with conciliatory or pro-
social behavior exhibited by monkeys who did not experience early sepa-
ration(s). These adverse effects of very early separations persist even if the
animals are returned to their mothers.
Adult-adult pair bonds and romantic love

The social behaviors and temporal parameters that lead to pair bond
formation vary among species. In socially monogamous rodent species, a
comparatively short period of time may be required for the formation of a
pair bond. In prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), olfactory, gustatory, and
tactile exploration combined with sexual behavior, often occurring within a
few hours or less, is sufficient to produce a lifelong bond characterized by
selective proximity-seeking and place preference, defense of mate and the
nest, and biparental care of the young. If reinforced by association/cohabi-
tation, these bonds may be maintained for the life of the animal (Carter,
DeVries, and Getz, 1995).
Of particular interest here are human pair bonds, since humans are unique
in the capacity to communicate the cognitive and emotional processes as-
sociated with the formation of social bonds. Jankowiak and Fischer (1992),
in a cross-cultural study, found direct evidence of romantic love in 87 per-
cent of the 168 cultures studied. Prominent features include the perception
of an altered mental state; the sudden and frequent intrusion into conscious-
ness of a characteristic set of thoughts, images, and moods; state-specific
behaviors; a predictable course; and a particular range of outcomes. In this
period, actual and would-be lovers are deeply focused on their partner, to
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the apparent conscious exclusion of all else. This preoccupation leads to a

growing ability to anticipate the other’s signals, actions, and desires. If sus-
tained and reciprocated, this process may lead to pair bonding and the for-
mation of a new family unit. Since antiquity and from a diverse set of cul-
tural traditions, authors have described romantic love as a malady or a form
of madness. The Song of Solomon (5:8) records the lament, “I am sick of
love,” while the Ramayana depicts the romantic love between Rama and
Sita as a reflection of a preexisting union in a heavenly realm. Tennov (1979)
characterized romantic love or “limerence” as being associated with a gen-
eral intensity of feelings that leaves other concerns in the background. Based
on her interviews with approximately four hundred individuals, she reports
that this altered mental state usually has a clear beginning that can be later
recalled. She also characterizes this state as “an essentially involuntary pro-
cess” during the initial phase of which you “feel buoyant, elated, and iron-
ically . . . free.” This state is subjectively experienced as a distinct period
during which the usual course of mental life is disrupted by alterations in
perception, a broad range of intrusive thoughts, and unstable emotions rang-
ing from elation to anxious insecurity and despair.
A core feature of romantic love, at least in the Western cultural tradition,
is the emergence of time-consuming intrusive thoughts. The terms most fre-
quently used to describe these thoughts include preoccupations, obsessions,
reveries, and brooding. Shea and Adams (1984) reported that the most po-
tent predictor of reported romantic love in a sample of 656 college students
was the degree to which they were preoccupied (how often and how much
time) with thoughts about their dating partner. These thoughts of the other
are frequently described as coming from nowhere—out of the blue—but it
is clear that perceptual triggers play a role as well (e.g., if the person’s name
is mentioned or if one were to pass by the street on which the beloved lives
or see a person or place associated in some way with the beloved person).
Although there is abundant evidence for the presence of these intrusive
thoughts in private journals, poems, fiction, theater, and popular songs, em-
pirical thematic analysis is scant. Anecdotal accounts suggest that these rev-
eries are focused exclusively on the beloved and predictably contain a range
of sentiments, longings, and doubts. A consistent theme from antiquity con-
cerns the importance of feelings of closeness and intimacy, and the desire
for reciprocity with a particular other person. Most descriptions include a
longing for intimate reciprocity, the tender harmony that is anticipated if
and when the beloved loves in return, and feelings of relief and ecstatic bliss
if reciprocation seems likely (Stendhal, 1975; Tennov, 1979). In one of the
few descriptive empirical studies, Horton (1957) reports an analysis of the
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lyrics of 235 popular songs published in 1955. Among the 196 songs (83
percent) that were conversational songs about love, 23 contained lyrics fo-
cused on questioning or offering reassurances concerning mutual commit-
ment. This, however, is likely to be an underestimate, given the mutually
exclusive categories used in the study.
The preoccupations of the lover focus on minute and “objectively trivial”
aspects of the other. According to Stendhal, “a person in love is unremit-
tingly and uninterruptedly occupied with the image of [the] beloved.” He
further suggests that this image of the beloved is distorted, and has more to
do with the “the wonderful inner vision . . . [that has been] . . . created”
within the eye of the beholder. This process of idealization was called “crys-
tallization” by Stendhal; a process by which each aspect of the beloved
comes to be admired as beautiful. In this process, “ugliness must not present
an obstacle . . . the lover will see beauty, whatever [he or she] looks like,
without giving a thought to real beauty.” These idealizing thoughts and
euphoric feelings typically are balanced by feelings of “frightful calamity”
when doubts are raised that one’s love will be returned, and these doubts
can give way to fears of rejection, jealousy, hatred, vilification, revenge,
murderous rage, or suicidal despair “when all is not well between you and
your beloved.” In addition to the mental states described above, there are a
number of patterns of behaviors that are typically associated with this pe-
riod. Partners and potential partners show a heightened responsiveness to
one another. Feelings of attraction and the wish to be joined with the be-
loved person often result in behavior that diminishes the physical distance
between the two (Givens, 1983; Perper, 1985). As pointed out by Tennov
(1979), you either want to be with the beloved person or you want to be
where the beloved person is likely to be (place preference).
Typically, the periods of self-doubt that accompany being “in love” are
associated with efforts to alter one’s appearance and potentially increase
one’s desirability to the beloved person. Grooming and dressing behaviors
are heightened in the hope of attracting the beloved. Perfumes, colognes,
lotions, and salves gain wider use. Music and song also seem to play a
special role when individuals are overtaken by limerent feelings. Stendhal
asserted that “perfect music has the same effect on the heart as the presence
of the beloved,” and Shakespeare has the Duke in Twelfth Night reflect that
“music be the food of love.” As heightened reciprocity and pair bonding
occur, preferences for places, activities, and such things as shared songs may
develop.
Initial success often results in a series of reciprocal behaviors including
mutual gaze; “grooming talk,” in which there is a distinctive change in the
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pitch, prosody, and content of speech; touching; and periods of synchrony

when each mirrors the other in tandem movement (Givens, 1983; Morris,
1967; Perper, 1985). Although sexual behaviors are often seen as the cul-
mination of this process, it is also clear that sex increasingly has a place in
the early phases of falling in love.
Stendhal and Tennov offer complementary views on the early course of
being in love. The process often begins at a particular point in time that can
later be recalled. Sexual attraction per se need not be experienced, although
the person is typically viewed as a possible sexual partner and the initial
“admiration” may be, or seem to be, primarily based on an attraction to
certain aspects of the other’s appearance or behavior (e.g., how he or she
looks, walks, or talks). An initial pleasurable phase is characterized by feel-
ings of buoyancy, elation, hope, and freedom, “free not only from the usual
restraints of gravity, but emotionally unburdened” (Stendahl, 1822/1975).
The individual’s mental life is increasingly occupied with considering and
reconsidering what is attractive about the person and replaying precious
memories of being together.
At any point in the process, if reciprocation occurs, ranging from mutual
gaze to sexual coupling, the anxiety and distress of being “in love” dimin-
ishes. Over time, according to Stendhal, “what love loses in intensity—its
fears, that is—it makes up for by the charm of complete abandon and in-
finite trust, becoming a gentle habit which softens the hardships of life and
gives new interest to its enjoyment.” As with early parental attachments, the
elation, distress, and confusion of romantic love give way to predictable
habits of intimate reciprocity. In adjusting to the rhythms and expectations
of the other, outcomes include “affectional bonding,” in which the preoc-
cupation subsides and is replaced by a more secure attachment and genuine
love. These developments often have a significant impact on the immediate
social environment, including cohabitation and the eventual formation of a
new family unit, that are marked in most cultures with a marriage ritual.
An element of marriage ceremonies in most cultures is an explicit statement
of commitment and shared responsibility for one another. Several investi-
gators have emphasized the role of commitment in love relationships. For
example, Kelley (1983) emphasizes that commitment concerns the stability
of forces that affect an ongoing relationship, while Sternberg (1986) focuses
on the cognitive appraisal and determination to maintain one’s connection
with the partner.
The other common outcome is a rejection of the suitor and the attendant
fantasies of reciprocity. This can occur at many points along the path—from
an outright rejection at the first indication of interest to rejections that occur
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after some mutuality has been established. Rejection is often painfully one-
sided, with one party still hoping while the other is adamant in his or her
rejection: “he [or she] was not the person I thought he [or she] was.” The
emotional and behavioral trajectory for the rejected suitor or mate covers
an enormous range, from despair and recovery to persistent, mind-
dominating obsessions that in a small minority of cases lead to stalking or
other extreme behaviors, such as suicide and/or homicide (Buteau, Lesage,
and Kiely, 1993; Easteal, 1994).
At the level of subjective experience, the early phases of romantic love
and early parental love share much in common: an altered mental state,
intrusive thoughts and images associated with a heightened awareness of the
other, and a complex behavioral repertoire aimed at eliciting a reciprocal
response. In many instances these altered mental states lead to the same
outcome: the formation of intimate interpersonal ties.
Similarities between early parental love and romantic love

One of the landmarks of contemporary developmental psychology has
been its focus on attachment between infant and parent (Ainsworth, 1973;
Bowlby, 1969, 1973). It may be reasonable to apply the same conceptual
framework in judging the nature and quality of the romantic attachments
formed in adulthood, as proposed by Hazen and Shaver (1987, 1994). Both
romantic love and the early phases of parental love are characterized, at
least in most Western cultures, by an altered mental and emotional state.
Although it is difficult, some would say impossible, to compare intrapsychic
states across individuals or within the same individual at different points in
time, there is some evidence to suggest that these altered states have much
in common. For example, in both instances there is an anxious tension be-
tween the joyous reveries of being “at one” with one another and intrusive
worries that something terrible will happen, which places the desired out-
come in jeopardy. Although there have not been studies that carefully quan-
tify the frequency and intensity of these preoccupations, many parents anec-
dotally report the feeling is the same: “No one told me it was like falling in
love.” Other clear thematic parallels include the tendency to be preoccupied
with small details of the other’s appearance and the tendency to see the lover
or the new infant as “perfect.” Or, as one mother said after her baby was
born, “I just can’t believe it, here she is and she’s so perfect. I can’t believe
she’s really mine.”
The similarities with regard to the behavioral repertoires of romantic love
and early parental love are striking. In both instances there is a compelling
urge to shape one’s behavior to the perceived needs of the other. Frequently,
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these behavioral responses have a “just right” character, so that they exactly
fit the needs of the other. The heightened sense of responsibility that usually
accompanies both states leads to an increased level of vigilance and behav-
iors aimed at ensuring the safety of infant or lover. Beyond the intimacies
of the home environment, it is also worth noting that both states are marked
by culturally defined rituals (Leckman and Mayes, 1999, table 1).
Many of the behaviors seen in courtship are borrowed from the repertoire
of the early parent-child relationship or vice versa (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1972,
1989). Specific examples include parental care actions such as comforting
embraces, caressing, grooming, kissing, feeding, mutual gaze, and the use of
such terms of endearment as “baby” in referring to a lover. Similarly, needy
infantlike appeals by gesture or whimper are not uncommon elements of the
lover’s behavioral repertoire. Neotenous features (prominent eyes and a
larger head relative to body size) are often considered sources of feminine
allure. The literature on human ethology documents such preferences across
cultures. Examples of infantile traits used as appealing signals (e.g., in beg-
ging for food) can be found in other species, including birds and mammals.
Vicissitudes of bond formation and loss

The changes in the interpersonal landscape that occur as we make
room in our lives for someone new (lover, spouse, or child) or cope with
the loss of a close attachment figure demand a remarkable degree of psy-
chological and biological flexibility as new cognitive, emotional, and ho-
meostatic equilibria are achieved. Although a full exploration of the scientific
literature on this topic is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is notable that
most empirical studies have focused on the formation or loss of one bond
to the exclusion of others, without examining the complex dynamics of how
the formation or loss of one relationship affects the course and quality of
other close relationships. For example, in both romantic love and early pa-
rental love, there is an exclusivity that develops, other concerns diminish in
importance, and there is a focusing of mental and emotional energy. While
this exclusivity is highly adaptive during courtship and early parenting, it
may pose certain difficulties for the spouse or older siblings. For example,
such a deepening sense of an exclusive relationship between mother and
child may contribute to increased tension between mother and father as both
alter the amount of time they spend with one another and focus more on
the baby (Entwisle and Doering, 1981). In several studies, mothers have
reported diminished marital satisfaction following the birth of an infant (Bel-
sky, Spanier, and Rovine, 1983).
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Biology of Mammalian Bonding

BRAIN CIRCUITS AND HORMONAL INFLUENCES
Although the central nervous system events that accompany parental
care and pair-bonding in humans are largely unknown, it is likely that there
is a substantial degree of overlap and conservation across mammalian spe-
cies. Classical lesion studies done in rodent model systems (rats, mice, and
voles) have implicated a number of brain regions in the regulation of ma-
ternal behavior and adult pair-bonding (Carter, Ahnert, Grossmann, Hrdy,
Lamb, Porges, and Sachser, 2005; Keverne, 2005; Leckman, Carter, Hen-
nessey, Hrdy, Kervene, Klann-Delius, Schradin, Todt, and Von Holst, 2005;
Numan and Insel, 2003). In vivo brain imaging studies provide a window
on the human brain. Lorberbaum, Newman, Horwitz, Dubno, Lydiard,
Hamner, Bohning, and George (2002) found increased levels of activity in
a number of brain areas in response to hearing standard baby cries. Several
other groups are working in this area, using different experimental para-
digms and populations (Bartels and Zeki, 2000, 2004; Nitschke, Nelson,
Rusch, Fox, Oakes, and Davidson, 2004; Ranote, Elliott, Abel, Mitchell,
Deakin, and Appleby, 2004; Seifritz, Esposito, Neuhoff, Luthi, Mustovic,
Von Bardeleben, Radue, Cirillo, Tedeschi, and Di Salle, 2003; Swain, Leck-
man, Mayes, Feldman, and Schultz, 2004). These imaging studies hold the
promise of identifying brain regions associated with parent-infant attach-
ment and romantic love. For example Bartels and Zeki (2000) studied ac-
tivity in the brains of seventeen subjects who were deeply in love as they
viewed pictures of their partners, and compared it with the activity produced
by viewing pictures of three friends of similar age, sex, and duration of
friendship as their partners. The activity was restricted to specific brain
regions, many of which were identical with those seen in parents when they
viewed pictures of their children, again reinforcing the idea that overlapping
brain circuits are involved. In summary, the initiation and maintenance of
maternal behavior and pair-bonding between adults involve specific neural
circuits. Remarkably, many of the same cell groups implicated in the control
of maternal behavior have been implicated in the control of ingestive (eating
and drinking) behavior, thermoregulatory (energy homeostasis), and social
(defensive and sexual) behaviors, as well as in general exploratory or for-
aging behaviors (with movement and orienting components). Many of these
same structures are also intimately involved in stress response. Indeed, affi-
liative behaviors are likely to have been highly adaptive during periods of
stress, and the converse is also true: that the loss or disruption of affiliative
ties can be extremely stressful.
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A number of peptides, including oxytocin, can act on these brain regions

to promote maternal behavior and promote pair-bonding. Oxytocin is a
nine-amino acid neuropeptide that is primarily synthesized in the hypothal-
amus (the part of the brain that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and energy
homeostasis, among many other functions) and released into the blood-
stream from the posterior portion of the pituitary gland. Oxytocin’s release
from the pituitary results in uterine contractions during labor and in milk
ejection during breast-feeding. It has also been shown that other oxytocin-
containing fibers, which arise from a nearby part of the hypothalamus, pro-
ject widely to other areas of the brain and spinal cord, and play an important
role in several other aspects of mammalian reproduction, including sexual
behavior and pair-bonding, as well as the induction of maternal behavior
(Numan and Insel, 2003). Consequently, some authors refer to oxytocin as
the “affiliative neuropeptide.”
Data on the role of oxytocin in maternal behavior in humans are scarce.
Mother-infant touch and contact have been shown to stimulate oxytocin
release. Newborn infants placed on the mother’s chest stimulate oxytocin
release by hand movement and suckling (Matthiesen, Ransjo-Arvidson, and
Nissen, 2001), and mother-infant skin-to-skin contact immediately after
birth elevates maternal oxytocin levels (Nissen, Lilja, Widstrom, and Uvnas-
Moberg, 1995). Data on the role of oxytocin in human sexual behavior are
even more limited (Meston and Frohlich, 2000). Examples of what is known
include that circulating levels of oxytocin increase during sexual arousal and
orgasm in both men and women, and that there is a positive correlation
between oxytocin levels and the intensity, but not the duration, of orgasmic
contractions in male and female young adults (Carmichael, Warburton,
Dixen, and Davidson, 1994).
Another class of brain neurotransmitters called opioids appear to play a
crucial role in facilitating affiliative behavior. Opioids are naturally occur-
ring compounds that act in the brain much like opium or heroin. One might
reasonably ask why our brains should have evolved receptors that respond
to addictive drugs when addiction is maladaptive and potentially lethal. The
proximate explanation is that this opioid system can effectively block phys-
ical pain. However, it has recently been shown from both animal and human
studies that the release of endogenous opioids together with oxytocin occurs
during parturition and suckling, and this event is highly conserved across
mammalian species.
The function of endogenous opioids in the brain is hypothesized to pro-
mote the positive affect arising from birth and suckling that reinforces ma-
ternal care. It is certainly the case that blocking the action of the endogenous
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opioids in rhesus monkey mothers impairs the quality of their interaction

with offspring (Martel, Nevison, Rayment, Simpson, and Kaverne, 1993).
The infant is not rejected from suckling, but the mother’s usual possessive
preoccupation with the infant declines. Mothers do not develop the usual
strong grooming relationship with their infant, and they permit other fe-
males to groom and handle the baby at leisure. Mother is not the normal
attentive caregiver, and mother-infant interactions are invariably infant-
initiated.
If the endogenous opioid system in the monkey is positively linked to
mother-infant bonding, then heroin addiction, which chronically downreg-
ulates the opioid receptor, might be predicted to have severe consequences
for human maternal bonding. Women who are heroin-addicted have many
aspects of their social and economic life disrupted, making the data difficult
to disentangle. Nevertheless, the facts are that by one year of age, nearly 50
percent of children of addict mothers are living away from their biological
mother, and by school age only 12 percent remain with the biological
mother (Mayes, 1995). These infants have been abandoned for adoption or
are taken into the care of their grandparents or of other female kin. More-
over, in a follow-up of fifty-seven methadone-maintained mothers compared
with controls matched for ethnicity, socioeconomic status, infant birth
weight, and gestational age, opiate-addicted mothers were far less likely to
have remained the child’s primary parent, and the children were significantly
more likely to have been referred to child protective service agencies because
of neglect, abandonment, or abuse. Likewise, mothers who use cocaine, an
addictive drug that acts via the same “reward” substrate of the brain (the
ventral striatum), tend to hold their babies less often at home, and to ex-
perience greater hostility and lower levels of oxytocin (Light, Grewen,
Amico, Boccia, Brownley, and Johns, 2004).
A question of some importance to understanding the biology of mother-
infant bonding is where in the brain endogenous opioids have their effect,
and how this relates to the pathological condition of addiction. The opioid
system has long been known to act on receptors in the ventral striatum, a
phylogenetically ancient part of the brain concerned with “reward” (Koob
and Le Moal, 1997). This part of the brain receives other neurotransmitters,
including dopamine projections, that serve to detect contexts in which re-
wards occur differently from prediction, in order to enable “updating” of
the stimulus (Schultz and Dickinson, 2000). The mother-infant bonding pro-
cess entails obsessive grooming, which brings about the release of endoge-
nous opioids in the brain (Keverne, Martinez, and Tuite, 1989). This groom-
ing by mothers is focused on face, hands, and genitalia, and these are the
phenotypic features of infant monkeys that show the greatest changes during
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early development. Because primates show extended postpartum care, off-

spring recognition requires the continual updating of changes in these mor-
phological features and in the behavioral development of the infant. This
updating of infant recognition involves visual and emotional pathways in
the brain that are linked to the ventral striatal “reward” area. The positive
emotional responses that infants can so effectively elicit thus enable parental
care to occur without the continual hormonal priming by pregnancy and
parturition. Interestingly, areas of the human brain that, using MRI, have
been shown to be responsive to babies crying or to pictures of a romantic
partner include many of the brain structures involved in reward and addic-
tion (Bartels and Zeki, 2000, 2004; Lorberbaum et al., 2002).
Living in large social communities requires a “social glue” that extends
beyond the biological life events of mating, pregnancy, and parturition that
release oxytocin and endogenous opioids, which are sufficient for bonding
in mammals with small brains. The development of larger brains has, to
some extent, emancipated social decision-making from the exclusivity of
contexts determined by the hormones of pregnancy and mating (Keverne,
Martel, and Nevison, 1996). Women do not have to undertake pregnancy
and parturition in order to be good mothers, or to take decisions that make
them good mothers. These evolutionary transitions to large brains and hor-
monal emancipation have had significant consequences for interactions be-
tween the sexes and for female-infant interactions in the matriline. In hu-
mans, sexual bonding fulfills more than a reproduction role, while
female-infant bonding is neither restricted by the hormones of pregnancy
nor limited to the postpartum period. Parenting and alloparenting are con-
tinuous lifetime occupations for female primates living in social groups, an
evolutionary development that has impacted significantly on brain evolution.
Brain growth is costly in terms of energy, and postponing the greater part
of this to the postpartum period not only has reduced the energy demands
of pregnancy on the mother, but also has ensured that the infant’s brain
develops in an environment that promotes social skills integral to achieving
adult social cohesion. Evolution of the human brain has further enhanced
cognitive skills and invention, including the invention of synthetic drugs that
usurp the brain’s phylogenetically old neural circuitry for reward. So re-
warding are these drugs that they become self-fulfilling, substituting for so-
cially valued relationships as a consequence of addiction.
GENETIC DETERMINANTS AND EARLY ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES

Gene-targeting experiments to induce mutations (gene “knockout”
studies) have demonstrated that at least ten specific genes are necessary for
the development of maternal behavior (Leckman and Herman, 2002). Many
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of these genes are linked to the same brain regions and to the same hormones
and neurotransmitters, such as oxytocin and dopamine. In contrast, only
one gene has thus far been identified as being essential for normal infant
responsiveness, the mu-opioid receptor gene. In that study, Moles, Kieffer,
and d’Amato (2004) reported that the “knockout” mouse pups, compared
with “normal” pups, emitted fewer ultrasonic vocalizations when removed
from their mothers, but they emitted the same number of ultrasonic vocal-
izations when they were exposed to the cold. These “knockout” pups also
failed to show a preference toward their mothers’ cues, and did not emit
ultrasonic calls after brief maternal exposure.
Genes are important but are not the whole story. A growing body of work
indicates that the future maternal behavior of newborn animals (as assessed
when they begin to reproduce as adult animals) can be dramatically influ-
enced by the care received in the days following birth. Further, some aspects
of the pup’s stress response throughout life appear to be established early in
life. One particularly compelling set of studies concerns the differential out-
comes associated with the naturally occurring variations that rodent mothers
display in maternal licking/grooming (Francis, Diorio, Liu, and Meaney,
1999). In a subsequent cross-fostering study, investigators determined that
the amount of licking and grooming that a female pup receives in infancy
is associated with how much licking and grooming she provides to her off-
spring as a new mother. Most impressively, they also found that the female
offspring of the low licking and grooming dams became high licking and
grooming mothers if they had been cross-fostered by high licking and
grooming dams. The converse was also true. The molecular basis of these
changes in behavior is now beginning to be understood. For example, Wea-
ver, Cervoni, Champagne, D’Alessio, Sharma, Seckl, Dymov, Szyf, and Mea-
ney (2004) have recently clarified that the individual differences are due to
enduring changes in gene expression, which are due in part to highly specific
differential patterns of adorning DNA with molecules called methyl groups
in the first days of life. This complex programming also appears to influence
aspects of learning and memory.
Evidence from investigations of social primates also highlights the impor-
tance of early mothering in determining how the daughters will ultimately
mother (Harlow, 1963; Suomi and Ripp, 1983). It is also clear that the
effects of early maternal deprivation in primates may be difficult to reverse;
many maternally deprived monkeys, as adults, are able to function normally
under usual conditions but are unable to cope with psychosocial stressors
(Kraemer et al., 1991; Suomi, Delizio, and Harlow, 1976). On the other
hand, in rodent models, environmental enrichment in the peripubertal period
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appears to compensate for the effects of early maternal separation (Francis

et al., 2002). In sum, despite genetic constraints, early caregiving experiences
can have enduring consequences on individual differences in subsequent ma-
ternal behavior, anxiety regulation, and patterns of stress response. Data
from animal studies indicate that the interval surrounding the birth of the
rat pup or the rhesus infant is a critical period, which likely has enduring,
but not immutable, neurobiological and behavioral consequences.
Early Life Experience, Risk, and Resiliency in Humans

Building on the early work of Bowlby (1969, 1973), efforts to char-
acterize the reciprocal interaction in the early caregiver-infant dyad and to
assess its impact have provided a powerful theoretical and empirical frame-
work in the fields of social and emotional development (Cassidy and Shaver,
1999; Leckman et al., 2005). Since the mid-1970s, clear evidence has
emerged that significant disturbances in the early parent-child relationship
(reflected in such things as child abuse and neglect or insecure attachments)
contribute to an increased risk for developing both internalizing and exter-
nalizing disorders (Sroufe, Carlson, Levy, and Egeland, 1999). While early
adversity and insecure attachment may not be a proximal cause of later
psychopathology, they appear to confer risk. Conversely, longitudinal stud-
ies of high-risk infants suggest that the formation of a special relationship
with a caring adult in the perinatal period confers a degree of resiliency
against the development of psychopathology later in life (Werner and Smith,
2001). It is likely that in addition to affecting the key elements in the neural
circuitry of affiliative behaviors, these early interactions have a profound
effect on the individual’s view of the world and the multiplicity of the social
relationships it contains.
A growing body of evidence indicates that human caregivers’ levels of
responsivity to their children can be traced in part to the caregivers’ own
child-rearing histories and attachment-related experiences (Miller, Kramer,
Warner, Wickramaratne, and Weissman, 1997). Caregivers’ attachment-
related experiences are hypothesized to be encoded as “internal working
models” of self and others that establish styles of emotional communication
that either buffer the individual in times of stress or contribute to maladap-
tive patterns of affect regulation and behavior (Belsky, 2005; Bretherton and
Munholland, 1999). For example, adult attachment interviews about moth-
ers’ attachment-related memories were searched for indications of traumatic
experiences, such as separations (e.g., hospitalization, evacuation from war-
endangered cities into children’s camps) or loss of family members (fathers,
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grandparents, etc.). Then their children were observed in the Ainsworth

Strange Situation Procedure in order to classify their strategies of reestablish-
ing contact with the mother after two brief separations—no longer than
three minutes each. Indications of disturbance/disorganization attachment
strategies were observed more frequently among the infants whose mothers
had indicated the presence of such traumatic experiences in their past
(Grossmann, personal communication, 2003).
It is also important to recognize that some behaviors typically viewed as
psychopathological may indeed be adaptive under certain living situations.
For example, an aggressive, insecurely attached infant (perhaps later to be-
come conduct-disordered or remorseless) may receive more support in a
neglectful environment and survive, while a meek sibling would not survive
under the same circumstances (Belsky, 2005).
Of special interest in this context is recent theoretical and empirical work
on the role of secure attachment relationship in shaping the experience and
expectations of the infant (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, and Target, 2002). By
entering into a synchronous affective communication with the infant, the
caregiver provides an external support for the infant’s developing bioregu-
latory abilities, and thereby conveys resilience to stress-coping capacities
throughout life. The experience of caregiver’s and child’s microlevel match-
ing of affective states and level of arousal during face-to-face interactions,
beginning around the second month of life, provides the basis for children’s
social development, empathy, and moral internalization (Feldman, Green-
baum, and Yirmiya, 1999; Feldman, Weller, Leckman, et al., 1999). Mater-
nal gaze-matching, facial expressions, vocalizations, and regulation of
arousal states during face-to-face play provide critical environmental inputs
during the maturation of the visual cortex. Furthermore, by synchronizing
with infant arousal state, mothers entrain the infant’s biological rhythms
(Lester, Hoffman, and Brazelton, 1985; Feldman, Weller, Sirota, and Eidel-
man, 2003), providing a “resonance” (Trevarthan, 1993) of internal and
external experience, self and other, brain and behavior. Work on the detailed
nature of these developmentally sensitive periods of risks or resiliency en-
hancement for affect regulation may inform intervention programs after
trauma (Heim and Nemeroff, 2001), or with high-risk families (see below).
Early Interventions Enhance Parental Sensitivity and Child

Attachment Security
Attachment security is a resiliency factor across the life span. In a
recent meta-analysis of eighty-eight intervention studies, Bakermans-
04:51:03 UTC
Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, and Juffer (2003) found that, overall, inter-
ventions were effective in enhancing parental sensitivity and child attach-
ment security. Interventions focused on parenting skills, social supports, or
maternal well-being were significantly more successful. So were interventions
that included both mother and father. Thus, the body of research on early
interventions underscores the importance of devising clear-cut, short-term,
behavioral interventions for a variety of at-risk populations. One caveat of
this important study is that the time since the termination of treatment was
not systematically evaluated. It is thus impossible to determine whether the
improvement observed immediately after treatment was short-lived or had
a long-term impact on risk and resiliency to later psychopathology.
Thus far there have been at least three selective intervention studies with
random assignment and prenatal initiation, and at least one-year duration,
focused on child behavioral adjustment (Leckman et al., 2004). The first set
of studies was based on an intervention model that included home visits,
parent meetings, and medical care (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, Liaw, and Spi-
ker, 1993; McCarton, Brooks-Gunn, and Wallace, 1997). This intervention
showed early effects at two and three years of age that attenuated by five
years of age. A second intervention that included home visits by nurses,
parent meetings, and medical care showed less of an effect at four years of
age that became significant at five and six years of age (Gutelius et al., 1972,
1977). A third set of studies that relied on home visits by nurses and focused
on low-income, unmarried mothers (that began prenatally and continued for
thirty months) has shown a remarkable number of positive outcomes as late
as fifteen years of age, including fewer subsequent pregnancies, reduced use
of welfare, lower rates of child abuse and neglect, and fewer arrests for
criminal behavior among the offspring (Olds, Eckenrode, et al., 1997; Olds,
Henderson, et al., 1998, 1999; Olds, Robinson, et al., 2002, 2004). These
studies by Olds and colleagues provide some of the strongest evidence to
date that early intervention can make a difference in the lives of high-risk
children. Although the mechanism by which these effects are achieved is
unknown, Olds and colleagues argue that one key element is the length of
time between the first and second pregnancies of the mothers participating
in the home visitation program. On average, the time to the second preg-
nancy was more than sixty months in the experimental group that partici-
pated in the home visitation program, versus less than forty months in the
comparison group. This suggests that there was the potential for a greater
maternal investment in the children who were in the Nurse Home Visitation
Program, compared with the children born to the comparison mothers. A
recent study based in Denver, by the same group of investigators, docu-
04:51:03 UTC
mented that new mothers visited by nurses had fewer subsequent pregnan-
cies (29 percent vs. 41 percent) and births (12 percent vs. 19 percent); they
delayed subsequent pregnancies for longer intervals; and during the second
year after the birth of their first child, they worked more than women in
the control group (6.83 vs. 5.65 months). Nurse-visited mother-child pairs
interacted more responsively than those in the comparison group. At six
months of age, nurse-visited infants were less likely to exhibit emotional
vulnerability in response to fearful stimuli (16 percent vs. 25 percent). Re-
markably, at twenty-one months, nurse-visited children born to women with
low psychological resources were less likely to exhibit language delays (7
percent vs. 18 percent); and at twenty-four months, they exhibited mental
development superior to their control group counterparts. In sum, data from
selective early intervention programs indicate that the period surrounding
the birth of the infant is a critical one that likely has enduring behavioral
consequences. The most compelling data suggest that these early interven-
tion programs reduce a variety of maladaptive outcomes, such as early in-
volvement in the juvenile justice system. Less clear is the impact of these
early interventions on the later rates of depression and anxiety disorders as
these children reach maturity. Nor is it clear what effect these early inter-
vention programs have on an individual’s stress responsivity, susceptibility
to drug abuse, or capacity as a parental caregiver. It is also worth noting
that none of these selective early intervention programs has monitored ma-
ternal preoccupations as a possible proximal predictor of individual differ-
ences in outcome (table 6-1). Nonetheless, this program (now called the
Nurse-Family Partnership Program) may reflect a form of alloparental care
that is making a real difference.
Conclusions
Behavioral, genetic, and neurobiological studies in model mammalian
systems have the potential to inform biomedical research, clinical practice,
and, particularly, early intervention programs for high-risk expectant par-
ents. “Good enough” genes combined with “good enough” parental care
are needed to ensure positive outcomes in childhood and beyond. Among
these positive outcomes are a resiliency to subsequent adversities in life and
the capacity to be a good enough parent for the next generation, and pos-
sibly improved physical health. Consequently, it is possible that effective
early intervention programs may have positive consequences for generations
to come. Measures of “primary parental preoccupations” may be useful in
04:51:03 UTC
future early intervention programs as an index of change within a key do-

main of functioning.
Close collaborations between clinicians and the designers of model inter-
vention programs have been long-standing. These collaborations are now
beginning to include neuroimagers, developmental and behavioral neuro-
scientists, geneticists, and immunologists. Our capacity to study genes, the
development of the brain, and the determinants of immunological health
has never been stronger. Future studies should permit the examination
of how successful early intervention programs influence brain development,
problem-solving abilities, and stress responses, as well as alter vulnerability
to later mental and physical illnesses.
Acknowledgments
In preparing this chapter we have benefited tremendously from the opportunity pro-
vided by a Dahlem Workshop that took place in the fall of 2003 in Berlin. We are
grateful for our discussions with Michael B. Hennessy, Gisela Klann-Delius, Carsten
Schradin, Dietmar Todt, and Dietrich von Holst, as well those with other colleagues
during the course of the workshop, including Lieselotte Ahnert, Jay Belsky, Alison S.
Fleming, Klaus E. Grossmann, Megan R. Gunnar, Gray W. Kraemer, Michael E. Lamb,
Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Thomas G. O’Conner, Cort A. Pedersen, Miriam Steele, Colwyn
Trevarthen, and Larry J. Young. Other investigators have also made important con-
tributions to this formulation, including Linda C. Mayes, Ruth Feldman, and James
E. Swain. Portions of this chapter are adapted from a chapter that originally appeared
in Attachment and Bonding: A New Synthesis, edited by C. S. Carter, L. Ahnert, K. E.
Grossmann, S. B. Hrdy, M. E. Lamb, S. W. Porges, and N. Sachser, Dahlem Workshop
Report 92 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), pp. 303–349.
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PART II
Taxonomies of Love
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7
Styles of Romantic Love

clyde hendrick and susan s. hendrick
John Alan Lee’s The Colours of Love (1973) stimulated considerable

research interest following its publication. The volume offered a broad tax-
onomy of romantic love that was intuitively appealing, was based on exten-
sive historical analysis of romantic literature, and was supported empirically
by a complex interview procedure Lee called the Love Story Card Sort.
This methodology was very labor-intensive, as described in a fifty-page
appendix to Lee’s book. The card sort consisted of approximately 170
phrases, each on a green card. Examples included “The night after I met
X . . .” and “During the time I was most deeply in love, some of the things
I did. . . .” Each green card had matching white cards with multiple possible
answers, ranging from a half-dozen to over fifteen alternatives. As an ex-
ample, the sort 43 green card read, “The night after I met X,” and some of
the possible responses included “I could hardly get to sleep,” “I dreamed
about X,” and “I wrote a letter to X.” Multiple alternatives could be selected
by an individual. The way an individual worked his or her way through the
Card Sort basically told the story of one particular love in that individual’s
life. Needless to say, data analytic procedures were quite difficult.
In his chapter in The Psychology of Love, Lee (1988) was less than thrilled
with most of the research based on his ideas. He complained about the
ahistorical nature of this research and the limited information that he felt
149
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150 Taxonomies of Love
could be derived from a rating scale: “There are no satisfactory shortcuts

to an adequate analysis of so complex an experience as love. Only elaborate
instruments such as the Love Story Card Sort can distinguish between ide-
ologies that are rich in historical variation and overlapping in cultural ex-
pression” (Lee, 1988, p. 63). Needless to say, Lee lost his argument against
the use of rating scales. Nearly all research based on his theory has used
them. This chapter details our own successful research program on the love
styles, using a set of rating items we call the Love Attitudes Scale. Sometime
after completing the writing of his chapter for The Psychology of Love, but
before its publication, Lee apparently accepted the ubiquity of rating scales,
as witnessed by a gracious and complimentary letter to us (J. A. Lee, per-
sonal communication, November 25, 1987) on our first empirical article on
the love styles (C. Hendrick, Hendrick, Foote, and Slapion-Foote, 1984).
Defining Love as the Love Styles

In the quote in the preceding section, Lee (1988) defined the compo-
nents extracted from his card sorts as ideologies of love. He has also referred
to the components as styles of loving, a label popularized in a book by
Lasswell and Lobsenz (1980). “Styles” probably is a better label than “ide-
ology” because styles can easily be construed as interactional; and, as Lee
noted, someone may simultaneously engage in two different love styles with
two different romantic partners.
We have construed the love styles as attitude/belief systems that include a
variable emotional core, and possibly some linkage to personality traits.
Thus “love styles” appears to be a suitable label for a set of constructs that
are partially attitudes/beliefs, partially facets of personality, and are related,
at least loosely, to patterns of romantic social behavior.
Lee (1973) used an analogy of a color wheel as the conceptual scaffold
to build his typology of love. There were three primary “colors” mapped
onto three primary love styles: eros, ludus, and storge. Judicious mixture of
the three primaries yielded three secondaries: pragma, mania, and agape.
Other derivative mixtures are possible, but Lee and succeeding researchers
have focused overwhelmingly on these six types of love. It takes a paragraph
to adequately describe the content of each of the six types of love. However,
a snapshot summary yields the following descriptions: eros (passionate,
erotic), ludus (game-playing, uncommitted), storge (friendship), pragma
(practical, calculating), agape (altruistic, giving), and mania (obsessional).
The love styles were appealing to us as an approach to romantic love
because they allow wide latitude in personal definitions of love, and they
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Styles of Romantic Love 151
mostly match commonsense views of what romantic love might be. As one
might expect from a taxonomy, the love styles are based on the content of
categories. Most behavioral scientists are trained to study processes, and
believe that not much scientific progress can be made with taxonomies. But
pure, abstracted process is no panacea. Our goal was to retain the content
while transforming that content into variables that could be scaled and
quantified. That became our approach to transforming Lee’s taxonomy of
love into a theory of love.
The Love Styles as a Theory of Love

When we began our research program, our explicit goal was to trans-
form the six categories of love into six dimensions that might (hopefully) be
independent of each other. Six dimensions of love would allow for strong
hypothesis testing of the love styles vis-à-vis many other relationship varia-
bles.
CONCEPTUALIZING THE THEORY

Conceptualizing the love styles as six dimensions required that we con-
strue each love style as a continuous variable. Measurement techniques are
discussed in the next section. We construed the six love styles as a six-
dimensional matrix located within an individual’s cognitive space. At any
given moment, the individual can be assigned a measurement point on each
of the six dimensions. This approach creates a love style profile for each
individual. The “amount” of each love style that an individual manifests can
literally be plotted on a graph. The shape of the profile, its change over time,
and its relationship to other variables become potential empirical questions
to be answered by research guided by hypotheses. To date, our research has
not dealt with profiles per se, but with each of the six dimensions individ-
ually and the relationships of the individual dimensions to other variables.
Questions concerning stability of individual love styles, and correlations
with other variables, needed to be answered before more integrative but
complex analyses, such as profile analyses, could be attempted.
It is easy to see the advantages of this approach. The very first question
was whether the six love styles were independent of each other. The answer
was mostly “yes,” as described below. Second, the love styles can easily be
linked to other relational constructs, such as respect, communication style,
intimacy, and the like. Some of the love styles may be more stable than
others, suggesting a relationship to personality traits. This possibility is easily
assessed, given personality traits that are construed as variables. Finally, the
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love styles can readily be related to other theories of love when construed
as dimensional.
A few commentators have claimed that the love styles do not constitute
a theory. This claim reflects the process-oriented ideology of quantitative
social science. We believe that even in its pure taxonomy form, Lee’s ap-
proach is one legitimate type of theory. Our quantification of the six cate-
gories preserved a strong element of the content of the taxonomy but trans-
formed the approach into a process theory. Thus we classify our approach
to the love styles as a strong content/process theory of romantic love. How
well the theory fares depends on its record of empirical results. And those
results depend on the quality of measurement of the six dimensions.
MEASURING THE LOVE STYLES

Our initial attempt at quantification of the love styles (C. Hendrick,
Hendrick, Foote, and Slapion-Foote, 1984) used a set of fifty true/false items
developed by Lasswell and Lasswell (1976), plus four other items. We trans-
formed all items to five-point rating scales. Many items showed gender dif-
ferences, but factor analyses were only partially supportive of the six styles
proposed by Lee. In our next attempt at scale construction (C. Hendrick
and Hendrick, 1986), we revised and standardized a set of forty-two items
(seven items to assess each of the six love styles). In two studies at two
different universities, factor analysis yielded six orthogonal factors that
matched expectations almost perfectly. Alphas and test-retest correlations
were adequate, and correlations among the six love scales were modest. We
concluded that Lee’s taxonomy could be dimensionalized. On the basis of
this initial validation of the Love Attitudes Scale (LAS), we launched a fruit-
ful research program.
Over the years, there were some criticisms of the LAS. Johnson (1987)
noted that the items were a mix of general and specific relationship state-
ments and that the relative proportions of such items differed across the six
scales of the LAS. In response, we rewrote nineteen general items to create
a completely relationship-specific version of the LAS (C. Hendrick and Hen-
drick, 1990). Results with the new version were completely consistent with
the original version, and because of the substantial number of studies already
completed, we continued to use the 1986 version.
Over time, we noticed that other researchers were “borrowing” subsets
of the seven-item scales to create even briefer scales. We finally decided we
had no choice but to join the revisionists, so we set to work to extract the
best four-item version from each seven-item scale. The results exceeded our
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expectations (C. Hendrick, Hendrick, and Dicke, 1998). The psychometrics

for this twenty-four-item version of the LAS were excellent, and in some
respects even better than for the longer version.
WHAT THE LOVE ATTITUDES SCALE MEASURES

We believe that the brief scales of the LAS capture the essence of the
six constructs that Lee discovered through long and intensive efforts.
Eros. Strong physical attraction, emotional intensity, a preferred physical
appearance, and a sense of inevitability of the relationship define the
central core of eros.
Ludus. Love is a game to be played with a diverse set of partners over time.
Deception of the partner and lack of disclosure about self and other
partners are prime attributes of ludus. Because of ludus’s lack of hon-
esty, college students disagree with items for this love style. However,
Lee (1973) noted that this approach reflects a desirable reality for
many people. In fact, substantial numbers of college students behave
ludically during some phases of their mate selection process.
Storge. This style is love as friendship. It is quiet and companionate. The
fire of eros is alien to storge. Storge has sometimes been dubbed “love
by evolution” rather than “love by revolution.”
Pragma. With this style, love is a shopping list of desired attributes (e.g.,
fitting into the family, good parent, etc.). Computer dating is a good
metaphor to describe pragma.
Mania. This style might be called “symptom” love. Mania is intense, alter-
nating between ecstasy and agony. Manic love, when strongly felt,
usually does not end well.
Agape. This style is sacrificial, placing the loved person’s welfare above one’s
own. In romantic love, pure agape is manifested only sporadically. In
settled relationships, agape is ordinarily reduced by the demands of
equity in long-term relationships and increased by life events such as
one partner’s illness.
Research with the Love Styles

Along with other researchers, we have studied the six love styles with
respect to many other relationship variables. This section provides a selective
overview of this research. First, however, we need to discuss the issue of
how the love styles might be related to the cultural phenomenon known as
“falling in love.”
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THE LOVE STYLES AND FALLING IN LOVE

“Falling in love” is a widely recognized cultural phenomenon. It is
also complex. Shaver, Morgan, and Wu (1996) argued that love is a basic
emotion. We have also argued that love in general has a strong emotional
component (C. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2003b). Perhaps Hatfield’s (1988)
concept of passionate love most closely reflects “falling in love.”
A side issue involves whether or not passionate love involves sexual desire.
Some (e.g., Regan, 1998; Regan and Berscheid, 1999) view sexual desire as
an important component of romantic love. Hatfield (1988) is more wary of
such an automatic linkage. For example, young children may fall passion-
ately in love even before they have any understanding of sexual love. We
tend to agree with Hatfield, and we also subscribe to Fisher’s (2000) view
that sex and passionate love evolved as separate, but loosely linked, emotion
systems. We will return to this issue again in the context of a critique of the
love styles from an attachment approach.
So how is the intense emotional experience of falling in love related to
the love styles? Each of the six love styles is, at minimum, an attitude/belief
complex. The degree of emotion and “traitness” attached to each complex
should depend on the content of the beliefs. For example, eros and mania
have a strong “emotion switch,” whereas storge, pragma, and ludus appear
to be relatively lacking in emotion. People high on the latter three love styles
may not experience the emotional rush of “falling in love.” Those high on
mania, especially, may experience it all too easily.
This approach is converging on the notion of falling in love as an “emo-
tional storm” leading to at least temporary changes in a range of beliefs and
attributes, including the love styles, as well as changes in underlying hormonal
and brain chemistry (e.g., Hatfield and Rapson, 1987; Liebowitz, 1983).
Such thinking led us to predict wide-ranging differences on many rela-
tional variables for college students “in love” versus students “not in love.”
Our general prediction was that “lovers wear rose colored glasses” (C. Hen-
drick and Hendrick, 1988). Indeed, we found differences on many variables
that supported our predictions. Students in love were less permissive and
instrumental in their sexual attitudes than students not in love. Being in love
also gave a boost to self-esteem ratings, and lowered self-monitoring. Stu-
dents in love were also lower in sensation-seeking. They were more com-
mitted, invested, and self-disclosing than students not in love. With regard
to the love styles, college students who were in love were more erotic and
agapic, and less ludic, than students who were not in love. Further results
also implicated the manic system.
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We concluded that the six love styles are relatively independent attitude/
belief systems about love that have developed over the last two thousand
years (e.g., see Singer, 1984). Falling in love is best construed as a global
emotional phenomenon that has wide-ranging attitudinal and bodily effects,
including at least temporary changes in three of the six love styles. The love
styles and falling in love are thus related, but are conceptually distinct con-
structs. Falling in love may well be experienced differently, depending on
whether an individual is high on a single love style, and which one, or
moderate on several of them. For example, someone high on eros should
experience the classic full-blown syndrome of falling in love, as should some-
one high on mania. In contrast, someone high on pragma would probably
have only a mild experience of falling love. Someone high on ludus would
not fall in love. Thus the love styles, along with other variables, undoubtedly
moderate the experience of falling in love.
Clearly, multiple factors influence (and are influenced by) falling in love
and the mean level of some of the love styles themselves (C. Hendrick and
Hendrick, 1988). We expect that because love styles are substantially
attitude-based, they are subject to change depending on type of relationship
and life stage. The individual, the partner, and the interaction between the
two, as well as social network and sociodemographic factors, could all be
expected to influence some of the love styles to some extent. Although, as
noted, we have not conducted profile analyses of the love styles as a set, it
is possible that such an approach in future research will offer valuable in-
formation concerning the relative strength and stability of love styles across
the life span.
RESEARCH WITH THE LOVE STYLES: INTRAPERSONAL,

INTERPERSONAL, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURAL FACTORS
If the love styles are not the same as the “emotional storm” character-
istic of falling in love, then how might they be similar to or different from the
less emotionally volatile weather pattern called friendship? Both love and
friendship are voluntary relationships consisting of affectional bonds and
varying degrees of interrelatedness. In fact, although romantic love and pla-
tonic friendship typically differ in sexual involvement and emotional intensity,
love relationships often contain elements of deep friendship. In written ac-
counts of their romantic relationships, college students expressed themes of
friendship (storge) more often than of any of the other love styles (S. Hendrick
and Hendrick, 1993). In this same research, when asked to name their best
friend, nearly half of the students named their romantic partner.
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Humans are products of both nature and nurture, and although we may
all have an innate “need to belong” in interpersonal relationships (Bau-
meister and Leary, 1995), that need is expressed differently by different
people in different situations. Human orientation to love is a product of
temperament and personality as well as of interactions with romantic part-
ners and expressions of where someone fits in the social structure. Research
detailing these aspects of the love styles is presented in the following sections.
The individual: Love styles and personality

Early in the research program, we found self-esteem, which can be
considered an aspect of personality, to be related to two of the love styles:
positively to eros (more passionate love equals greater self-esteem) and neg-
atively to mania (more possessive, dependent love equals lower self-esteem)
(C. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986). Self-disclosure, which can also be
thought of as an expression of personality, has been related to the love styles
(for example, positively to eros and negatively to ludus; see S. Hendrick and
Hendrick, 1987b). Sensation-seeking also appears to be part of personality,
and ludus was positively related to several components of sensation-seeking
(S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1987b). This latter finding, especially, is not
surprising, considering the game-playing lover’s need for variety (see also
Richardson, Medvin, and Hammock, 1988, for similar results).
Exploring links between the love styles and more traditional aspects of
personality, White, Hendrick, and Hendrick (2004) found the love attitudes
to be related to several personality dimensions as measured by the NEO
Personality Inventory—Revised (Form S; Costa and McCrae, 1985, 1992).
The NEOPI-R measures the personality factors of agreeableness, conscien-
tiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience (informally
known as the Big Five). Several of these factors were related to the love
styles. Passionate eros was positively related to agreeableness, conscientious-
ness, and extraversion, and negatively related to neuroticism. Friendship-
oriented storge was not related to agreeableness, but was otherwise similar
to eros in its relationships with personality variables. Game-playing ludus
showed almost the opposite pattern, relating negatively to agreeableness and
conscientiousness, and positively to neuroticism. Practical pragma was re-
lated positively to conscientiousness, and negatively to openness to experi-
ence, while possessive mania and neuroticism were positively related. Altru-
istic agape was not related to the five factors.
In research similar to that of White et al. (2004), Heaven, Da Silva, Carey,
and Holen (2004) explored personality, attachment, and love styles, and also
found extensive relationships between the Big Five domains and the love
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styles. Their results were fairly consistent with those of White et al. For
example, eros was positively related to extraversion and conscientiousness,
and negatively related to neuroticism. They also found that anxious attach-
ment mediated the relationship between neuroticism and the love styles to
which it was related. White et al. found that mania mediated the relationship
between neuroticism and relationship satisfaction, so it appears that neu-
roticism, in particular, is complexly related to relational constructs such as
the love styles.
Just as love styles are related to individual phenomena, so they are also
related to interpersonal factors.
The interpersonal factors: Love styles and sexuality

Although romantic love and sexuality are not the same, we have pos-
ited that they “are inextricably linked, with love as the basis for much of
our sexual interaction, and sex as the medium of expression for much of
our loving” (S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1987a, p. 159).
To explore love styles in conjunction with sexuality, specifically sexual
attitudes, we developed the Sexual Attitudes Scale (S. Hendrick and Hen-
drick, 1987c), a forty-three-item Likert scale with subscales measuring per-
missiveness (casual sexuality); sexual practices (responsible, tolerant sexu-
ality); communion (idealistic sexuality); and instrumentality (biological
sexuality). We correlated the Sexual Attitudes Scale and the Love Attitudes
Scale (as well as factored them together) across several studies, finding some
consistent relationships between the subscales of the two measures. Casual
sexuality (permissiveness) and game-playing love were positively related—a
logical finding for a lover who likes a variety of partners, not wanting to
get too close to any single one. In addition, passionate love was consistently
related to both idealized sexuality (communion) and responsible sexuality
(sexual practices) (S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1987a). We continued to as-
sess the sexual attitudes and love styles in research, exploring such variables
as gender, culture/ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and relationship satis-
faction, detailed below.
In one multi-method attempt to link sex with love, we asked respondents
to write narrative accounts of how love and sexuality (the latter construed
broadly) were linked in their close, romantic relationships. Their responses
were content-analyzed and then developed into the Perceptions of Love and
Sex Scale (S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2002), a seventeen-item scale reflecting
the dimensions Love Is Most Important, Sex Demonstrates Love, Love
Comes Before Sex, and Sex Is Declining. Results of research employing this
new measure substantiated our proposition that romantic love and sexuality
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are deeply intertwined and can neither subsume each other nor escape each
other.
The social structural factors: Love styles and demographic

characteristics
Gender is one characteristic of the individual that has tremendous re-
percussions in the social structure. Gender is a master status variable (e.g.,
Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, and Michaels, 1994), perhaps even more pow-
erful than race/ethnicity. Very early in the love styles research, we found a
number of gender differences in several of the love styles (C. Hendrick,
Hendrick, Foote, and Slapion-Foote, 1984), causing us to question whether
women and men might actually “love differently.” For example, men are
consistently more endorsing of (or at least less in disagreement with) game-
playing love, whereas women, more than men, agree with friendship and
practical love. Using the newer short form of the scale (C. Hendrick et al.,
1998), men also appear to very consistently endorse agape or altruistic love
more than women do. However, although the genders may differ in average
scores on some of the love styles, when the love scales are correlated with
other relationship constructs, women’s and men’s correlation patterns are
very similar (S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1995).
Culture/ethnicity is another demographic variable that has relevance to
the love styles. Love is neither a recent nor a peculiarly Western phenome-
non. Basing their discussion on Chinese literature up to three thousand years
old, Cho and Cross (1995) proposed that forms of love such as passionate
love, obsessive love, devoted love, and casual love, as well as free mate
choice, were known in earlier time periods. Using the Love Attitudes Scale,
these authors assessed the love styles of Taiwanese students currently living
in the United States, and found that while the six factors they obtained did
not map exactly onto the six subscales of the LAS, there were many simi-
larities. Consistent with these findings, Sprecher, Aron, Hatfield, Cortese,
Potapova, and Levitskaya (1994) explored Russian, Japanese, and American
love styles. Although these groups differed on certain dimensions (e.g., Jap-
anese were less endorsing of romantic beliefs), “the young adults from the
three countries were similar in many love attitudes and experiences”
(Sprecher et al., 1994, p. 363). Murstein, Merighi, and Vyse (1991) found
French college students more endorsing of agape, and American students
reporting more storgic and manic love attitudes. Finally, Contreras, Hen-
drick, and Hendrick (1996) found that Mexican American and Anglo mar-
ried couples differed only modestly on love attitudes (showing no differences
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on passionate, friendship, or altruistic love) and sexual attitudes. As with

the findings for gender, similarities across groups appear to be more pro-
nounced than differences.
Although most love styles research has been conducted with young cou-
ples, love exists across the life span. A modest amount of research has ex-
plored love and love styles in mature couples. For example, Grote and Frieze
(1994) assessed love predictors of relationship satisfaction for middle-aged
married couples, finding that passionate love and friendship love were pos-
itive predictors of satisfaction, while game-playing love was a negative pre-
dictor. Such findings are consistent with those for younger couples and with
those of Contreras et al. (1996), who found passionate love to be the strong-
est predictor of marital satisfaction for a group of couples varying widely
in age.
A direct comparison between college students and their parents (Inman-
Amos, Hendrick, and Hendrick, 1994) found no similarities in love styles
between students and their own parents. When comparing means for the
student group with those of the parent group, however, love styles were very
similar for both generations. Montgomery and Sorell (1997) looked at love
styles and relationship constructs in four separate groups: (a) young, non-
married adults of college age, (b) married adults under thirty without chil-
dren, (c) married persons age twenty-four to fifty with children in the home,
and (d) married persons fifty to seventy with no children at home. The
greatest differences between the groups occurred between the married and
nonmarried persons, whereas the other groups differed little. Montgomery
and Sorell noted that “Individuals throughout the life-stages of marriage
consistently endorse the love attitudes involving passion, romance, friend-
ship, and self-giving love” (1997, p. 61). Based on this research, although
age does not seem to be a great demarcation factor for love attitudes, marital
status may be more important, and should be explored further.
Sexual orientation is also a demographic characteristic of interest in re-
lationships. Although little research has been conducted assessing love styles
and sexual orientation, one study (Adler, Hendrick, and Hendrick, 1986)
speaks to that question. Gay males and heterosexual males in New York
and West Texas were asked about their love attitudes (and other relationship
variables), and for the most part, no sexual orientation differences emerged.
For location, however, New York respondents were less manic than were
Texas respondents, and gay men in New York endorsed altruistic love sig-
nificantly less than did gay men in Texas or heterosexual men in either
location. As Peplau and Spaulding (2000) concluded, “Efforts to apply basic
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relationship theories to same-sex couples have been largely successful. There

is much commonality among the issues facing all close relationships, re-
gardless of the sexual orientation of the partners” (p. 123).
Overall, considering the demographics of gender, culture/ethnicity, age,
and sexual orientation, we might agree with Jankowiak and Fischer (1992)
that passionate love (and perhaps other facets of romantic love ) are nearly
universal. Whether truly universal or not, however, romantic love is impor-
tant to partnered relationships. One measure of importance is its connection
with relationship satisfaction, a significant component of general relation-
ship quality (Fletcher, Simpson, and Thomas, 2000).
LOVE AND SATISFACTION

An aspect of our focus on love has been an intense interest in how
love correlates with relationship satisfaction. In some of our earliest couple
research (S. Hendrick, Hendrick, and Adler, 1988), we focused on two main
themes: partner similarity and the prediction of both satisfaction and staying
together/breaking up. Assessing fifty-seven college dating couples, we found
relationship partners to be significantly similar on eros, storge, mania, and
agape. We also found eros to be a positive predictor, and ludus a negative
predictor, of relationship satisfaction for both women and men, with mania
an additional negative predictor for women. After two months, we recon-
tacted a subsample of thirty couples to determine which ones were still to-
gether. Some twenty-three couples were still intact, while seven had broken
up. Based on their earlier responses to the relationship measures, we deter-
mined that the intact couples had been more passionate and less game-
playing in their love styles than had the breakup couples. The similarity
findings of this study were replicated by Morrow, Clark, and Brock (1995),
who found partners to be similar in love styles. They also found correlations
between love styles and several positive relationship qualities (e.g., invest-
ment, commitment).
The findings that love styles predicted relationship satisfaction fueled ad-
ditional couple research. As noted earlier (Contreras et al., 1996), research
with Mexican American and Anglo couples revealed a number of significant
relationships between love styles and satisfaction, with passionate love “the
most consistent predictor of marital satisfaction for both wives and hus-
bands, across all ethnic categories” (p. 412).
In a study of relational quality in the context of dual-career and family
work issues, Sokolski and Hendrick (1999) surveyed 160 married couples
in which one or both spouses were law, medical, or graduate students.
Spouses showed significant similarity on the love styles of eros, ludus, storge,
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and pragma; and eros, storge, and agape were positively associated with
satisfaction for both wives and husbands (ludus was negatively associated
for both).
Meeks, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1998) surveyed love styles and several
other relationship variables in 140 dating college couples. Partners were
significantly similar on four of the six love styles (as well as a number of
other relevant constructs), and in the final regression analysis, positive love
(a combination of agape, storge, and eros) was one of the positive predictors
of relationship satisfaction, while game-playing love was one of the negative
predictors.
Thus, based on a variety of research findings from young dating couples,
young married couples, and older married couples, partners are typically
similar on several of the love styles, and several of the love styles are sig-
nificantly related to relationship satisfaction, with eros always a positive
predictor of satisfaction and ludus always a negative one.
Although the focus of most of our research is on love and its many facets,
our most recent work has broadened out from love and its influence on
satisfaction to include a relationship construct that is both understudied and
intriguing: respect.
RESPECT, LOVE, AND RELATIONSHIPS

Our research on respect arose in response to the narrative biographical
work of Lawrence-Lightfoot (2000). In her volume on respect, she details
accounts of persons whom she believes live their lives in such a way as to
exemplify varied aspects of the totality of respect. Her accounts profile a
nurse-midwife, pediatrician, high school teacher, photographer, law profes-
sor, and chaplain/counselor to dying patients; these persons cross gender
and racial/ethnic lines. The elements of respect that they exemplify include
empowerment, healing, dialogue, attention, curiosity, and self-respect. Based
on these concepts, we developed a brief measure of respect (S. Hendrick and
Hendrick, 2004) used to assess persons’ respect for their romantic partner.
The brief (six-item, unifactorial) measure is psychometrically solid and is
related in a predictable fashion to several relationship variables, including
the love styles. Second only to passionate love in its power to predict rela-
tionship satisfaction, the respect scale also shows potential as a generic mea-
sure of respect for others. Since respect was also found by Feeney, Noller,
and Ward (1997) to be a consistent element of marital quality, and since we
believe that a truly mature love—a consummate love, if you will (Sternberg,
1986)—has mutual respect as one of its foundational properties, the study
of respect seems to us to be a logical extension of our study of love.
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As described above, a large amount of research supports the theory of the

love styles. However, it may be interesting to conclude this section with an
overview of another theory that seriously questioned the love styles’ viabil-
ity.
AN ATTACHMENT CRITIQUE OF THE LOVE STYLES

Most criticisms of the love styles research have been relatively minor,
focusing largely on scaling issues involving the LAS. Shaver and Hazan
(1988; see also Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw, 1988), however, proposed
that attachment theory could “subsume” the love styles and other love the-
ories. “Romantic love, viewed from an attachment perspective, involves the
integration of three behavioral systems: attachment, caregiving, and sexual
mating” (Shaver and Hazan, 1988, p. 482). At that time, adult attachment
was conceptualized as three types: secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent.
Shaver and Hazan argued that attachment styles and love styles matched as
follows: secure (eros), avoidant (ludus), anxious/ambivalent (mania). They
believed the other three love styles did not represent love at all, stating that
“Storge is interesting primarily because in some ways it is not a romantic
style at all. . . . Pragmatic lovers are not lovers at all in an emotional sense.
. . . Agape, or ‘self-sacrificing’ love, seems to be related to what we have
called the caregiving component of love. It is not a style of love in its own
right” (1988, pp. 496–497).
We clearly do not agree with such an approach, and we, along with other
scholars, have concerns about adult attachment and the way it has devel-
oped. The concept of attachment was originally quite narrow in meaning:
“a biobehavioral safety-regulating system in which the parent is the child’s
primary protector and haven of safety” (Goldberg, Grusec, and Jenkins,
1999, p. 476). Goldberg et al. complained that the narrow definition has
been broadened so much that attachment now simply means “parent-child
relationships.” Adult attachment was necessarily such a broadened concept
from the onset. Hazan and Zeifman (1999) made a strong case for adult
romantic bonds as attachment bonds. Kirkpatrick (1998) rebutted this ar-
gument, however, by pointing out that the attachment system is not centrally
involved in romantic relations of adults, and that adult bonding differs in a
wide variety of ways from infant attachment. Berman and Sperling (1994)
argued that attachment and caregiving collapse into a single system in adult-
hood, a position we find congenial because it seems veridical with the adult
world as we know it.
Thus, romantic love is not attachment, but, we would argue, the two are
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separate systems in adulthood (see C. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2004, for a

more detailed explication). In fact, attachment/caregiving, sexuality, and
love become the three loosely linked, evolved structures that Fisher (1998)
identified as attachment, lust, and attraction, respectively. These three sys-
tems presumably evolved independently but became linked over time be-
cause of their adaptive value (see C. Hendrick, 2005, for an overview of the
relevance of evolutionary theory for psychology).
Love Styles and Other Theories of Love

Though space precludes an exhaustive comparison of the many theo-
ries of love (see S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2000, for a review), the question
naturally arises as to how the theory of the love styles compares with the
other theories. A few examples are discussed briefly below, along with men-
tion of the measurement of love.
COMPARISON OF THEORIES
From the many theories available, we compare four that share some
commonalities with the love styles.
Passionate vs. companionate love

Berscheid and Walster (1978) provided this classic formulation in de-
tail. This theory construes love in two stages. First, there is the fire of pas-
sionate attraction that over time morphs into the quiet satisfaction of com-
panionate love, if the relationship survives the initial stage of passionate
love. In its original form, this approach was an “either/or theory” of love;
either passion or companionship, but not both at the same time (C. Hendrick
and Hendrick, 2003a). Hatfield (1988) has softened that position, noting
that people are capable of both kinds of love at the same time, but that it
is difficult to maintain. In our research, as noted previously, it is currently
quite common for young lovers to claim that their partner is their best
friend. There may have been a cultural change over the last few generations.
When courtship and marriage were more formal role relationships, friend-
ship was perhaps not expected at the beginning of marriage, but evolved
over time, if the marriage endured. Today, the expectations for emotional
intimacy between the partners begin early in the relationship.
Passionate love clearly maps onto eros and, to some extent, mania. Com-
panionate love matches storge most closely, and may include elements of
pragma and agape. Ludus is both anti-passion and anti-friendship.
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Prototype theory
Fehr (1988, 1993) articulated a detailed theory based on eliciting the
features of love in general. Several components of love emerge from feature
listing, but companionate features are clearly predominant. For example,
features consistently found include trust, caring, honesty, friendship, and
respect (Fehr, 1993). Even when features were listed explicitly for romantic
love, trust, honesty, and happiness ranked well above passion and sexuality
(Regan, Kocan, and Whitlock, 1998).
The method of feature listing differs substantially from rating scales. The
differences in results must be due in part to method variance. Clearly the
love styles, such as storge, pragma, and agape, are related to the compa-
nionate features Fehr has found. However, eros is not very important for
the prototype approach, in contrast to the strong predictability it has shown
in research with the love styles.
Love stories
Sternberg is perhaps best known for his triangular theory of love (e.g.,
1986). His more recent theory that love is a life story (1996, 1998) fits more
clearly with the theory of love styles. Love stories vary across individuals
and across time, just as the love styles do. Further understanding the guiding
metaphors of one’s own love stories may give more ability for one to struc-
ture a satisfying love life. A similar statement holds true for understanding
one’s own love styles. It would be interesting to do a fine-grained comparison
of the twenty-five love stories presented in Sternberg (1998) with the six
love styles, but such efforts are beyond the scope of this chapter.
Love ways
Perhaps this theory is most similar to the love styles. One example
(Hecht, Marston, and Larkey, 1994) used a rating approach similar to the
LAS. They found five factors designated as five types of love: committed,
intuitive, secure, traditional, and companionate. Other methods in this re-
search program included detailed interviews and qualitative analysis. The
love ways is still a work in progress, but the structural approach is very
similar to the research approach to the love styles. A detailed comparison
of the contents revealed by the two approaches remains to be done.
COMPARISON OF LOVE MEASURES

In one study (C. Hendrick and Hendrick, 1989) we compared five
rating instruments that assessed romantic love. These five instruments in-
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cluded nineteen subscales. Of present interest is the fact that we intercor-

related and factored these nineteen subscales. Five factors were extracted.
The first one accounted for 32 percent of the variance and clearly reflected
passionate love. The second factor accounted for 14 percent of the variance
and reflected closeness and lack of conflict. The other three factors were
small and not as clear in interpretation. We noted that the first two factors
closely matched Walster and Walster’s (1978) definitions of passionate and
companionate love. Thus, despite the great variety of items and rating scales,
in the end what emerged from an analysis of instruments was primarily the
passionate love and the companionate love with which we began this sec-
tion.
Whatever one’s theoretical perspective on love—and it is clear that our
own perspective is informed by the love styles—applicability/usability/prac-
ticality/applications should be of substantial concern. Although Lewin is re-
puted to have said that there is nothing so practical as good theory, he might
also have observed that a theory without practicality is not good, or at least
not as good as it might be. We would agree, and indeed the love styles’
practical and clinical utility is part of their appeal.
Love Styles and the Real World: From Theory to Practice

We were initially drawn to the love styles theory because it offered
several options in thinking about, experiencing, and expressing love, and
variety in love is a wonderful strength of this approach. Whether presenting
research papers, teaching classes, granting interviews for television or print
media, or giving talks to community groups, we have found that as we offer
detailed descriptions of the styles, people’s faces light up with recognition.
They see themselves, their partners, and other people in their lives in terms
of the love styles, and because the love style descriptions are “accessible,”
they can be practically useful. People retain these descriptions and use them
as part of their commonsense psychology. In fact, students typically want
to have their partners complete the LAS, community persons often respond
similarly, and television interviewers or newspaper reporters will complete
their assignment—and then want to talk “informally” about their own love
lives.
The love styles and the LAS are useful tools in couple therapy. Partners
can better understand both their own and their partner’s love behavior when
they have learned about their own and their partner’s responses to the LAS;
they gain a “language” for talking about these aspects of their relationship.
Along with an extended language can come an inclination to make more
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positive attributions about a partner’s love behavior (e.g., “He bought me a

book instead of flowers for Valentine’s Day, not because he is unromantic
but because he is a friendship/practical lover”). Therapists know that more
positive attributions can influence communication, conflict resolution, and
a number of other relationship behaviors in a desirable direction. (For a
more complete discussion of therapeutic use of the love styles approach and
a case example employing it, see S. Hendrick, 2004.)
Finally, our approach to love styles research over an extended time period
has been to view it as one theoretical/empirical/practical alternative to un-
derstanding the very complex phenomenon of romantic love in intimate re-
lationships. We have never proposed it as a “complete” approach or “the
only” approach. Lee’s (1973) initial work was meant to enlarge the study
of love, to broaden its conceptualization and its appeal. We have stayed
within this tradition.
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8
Searching for the Meaning of “Love”

ellen berscheid
In his preface to The Psychology of Love, Zick Rubin observed that

the science of love was still in its infancy. “One sign of this immaturity,”
he wrote, “is the fact that the investigators represented in this volume share
so little of a common vocabulary” (1988, p. viii). Because love means dif-
ferent things to different people, Rubin advised that “Love researchers might
do well to move toward a more common conceptual vocabulary” (p. ix).
Indeed, adequate conceptualization is an “eternal verity” in the realm of
scientific progress. Clear conceptualization of a phenomenon must precede
its empirical investigation and the subsequent integration of empirical find-
ings relevant to the phenomenon. No one would have disagreed with Rubin
then, or would disagree now, that a common conceptual vocabulary of love
is critical to progress of research on love—but there is a problem.
The Problem of Conceptualizing Love

In a television interview after his engagement to Diana was announced,
Prince Charles was asked if the couple was in love. Diana quickly replied
for him: “Of course,” she said with a smile. Charles added, under his breath,
“Whatever ‘in love’ means” (Kantrowitz and McGuire, 2005). Charles’s un-
certainty is not surprising. Theorists and researchers of love have spent a
171
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good deal of time and effort trying to pin down what love is, but no single
conceptualization of love has been agreed upon, although some have com-
pleted the exercise to their personal satisfaction.
The problem, as Murstein put it, is that “The word love is bandied about
more promiscuously than almost any other word in the English language”
(1988, p. 13). The word gives the appearance of being “bandied about”
because, as love theorists and researchers Susan and Clyde Hendrick (1987)
observe, “The language of love is highly impoverished in Western society
and probably throughout the world” (p. 162); that is, the word love is used
in an astounding array of situations to describe an enormous range of atti-
tudes, emotions, feelings, and behaviors toward objects and people. In this
respect, love is not different from many other words, for all human language
is characterized by polysemy. As the anthropologist and linguist Roy
D’Andrade states, “Rarely does any word have only one sense” (1989, p.
797). Love is not one of those rare words. Because love has more than one
meaning, there can be no single definition of love.
The fact that the word love has many meanings makes it difficult to write
even a single sentence about love that is unassailable and true under all
conditions. Ernest Hemingway, who used love as the theme of many of his
novels, would have appreciated the difficulty, for he aspired to write only
what he knew “truly.” When he experienced writer’s block, Hemingway
(1964) would say to himself, “All you have to do is write one true sentence”
(p. 12). But writing just one “true” sentence was not easy, and composing
a “true” paragraph sometimes consumed his entire day (see Hotchner,
1955). Hemingway’s writing style—short and lean sentences strung together
in staccato fashion—has been much parodied, but it probably evolved in the
service of his aim to write only true sentences, for the longer and more
complex the sentence, the more likely it is to include false elements.
One thinks of Hemingway because out of the millions, trillions, perhaps
even centillions of sentences written about love, very few can stand alone
and still strike one as “true.” One of those few is “Love is a word.” One
recognizes, of course, that had the oracle of Delphi uttered this sentence to
those seeking her wisdom about love, she would have been pelted with
stones. Nevertheless, when drowning in a sea of conjecture, assumption, and
just plain blather about love, it is prudent to find a rock to stand on, and
“Love is a word” is not as small a rock as it may seem at first glance.
As a word, love is used by people to represent something—many things,
actually—in their communications with other people, and despite the fact
that love is one of the most polysemous words in the English language,
people generally know what a person using the word is trying to commu-
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Searching for the Meaning of “Love” 173
nicate. Love in the phrase “I love ice cream” does not have the same mean-
ing as love in the phrase “I love you,” for example. People generally know
what love means in common discourse because they construe its meaning
from knowledge of precisely who, in what situation, in what culture, is using
the word to describe his or her attitudes, emotions, feelings, and behaviors
about a person or a thing. It is the context in which love is used that estab-
lishes its meaning.
Because the word love is used in an almost infinite variety of contexts, it
has an almost infinite variety of meanings. This fact is unfortunate from the
point of view of those who wish to construct a simple definition of love and
a set of algorithms representing its causes and consequences. Nevertheless,
few have been deterred from attempting the feat. To extract from the muddle
of meanings of love a definition of what love really is, most scholars have
grabbed their taxonomic broom and tried to tidy up the mess by sorting the
myriad meanings of love into neat piles, each believed to reflect a variety of
love.
Taxonomies of Love
People have been trying to classify the varieties of love at least since
the twelfth century (see Berscheid and Regan, 2005, p. 325). Virtually all
taxonomies of love start with an examination of the language of love. Peo-
ple’s conceptions of love are gleaned through an examination of their de-
scriptions of love experiences in diaries and novels, plays, and other literary
works, or directly asking questions, in interviews or on questionnaires, to
elicit what love means to them. The taxonomist then sorts the different
meanings of love according to their similarity. The sorting process has be-
come highly sophisticated in recent years, with prototype analysis (e.g., Fehr
and Russell, 1991) and factor analysis and its cousins (e.g., Sternberg and
Grajek, 1984) often used (see Berscheid and Meyers, 1996, for a description
of these and other methods), but the objective of the exercise remains the
same: to identify commonalities and differences among the ways in which
people use the word love in their daily lives, and thus its meanings. After
the meanings of love are sorted into piles, each is given a name that describes
its content and the variety of love it is assumed to represent (e.g., romantic
love).
Many classification schemes of love have been constructed. Some of the
types listed in one scheme may be similar to those listed in some other love
taxonomies (e.g., “romantic love” usually appears), but most taxonomies
also contain unique varieties (e.g., “fatuous love”; Sternberg, 1986) and
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unique names for the same variety (e.g., “pragmatic love”; Kelley, 1983/
2002). Precisely which varieties of love appear in a particular taxonomy
depends on many things, including the sorting technique used and how the
taxonomist exercises his or her artistic license to label the different piles.
Taxonomies of love also differ because the characteristics of the people
whose meanings of love are sampled differ. A difference in the people sam-
pled is likely to make a difference in the meanings found, because the mean-
ing of a word and the frequency with which it is used are a function of the
individual’s social world and the communication demands it makes. Not
everyone experiences the same demands. Meanings of a word may differ
among cultures, and even within the same culture they may differ by per-
sons’ gender, age, occupation, social status, and other characteristics. More-
over, people’s social and physical environments change over time and, as a
result, what people need and want to communicate to others changes. As a
consequence, language is not static; it is constantly adapting to the needs of
people who use it. Thus, the meaning of a word, even within a subculture
in a single culture, may change over time and, therefore, a taxonomy of love
constructed at a previous point in time may differ from a taxonomy con-
structed today.
Theories of Love(s)
Love taxonomies usually carry the assumption that each type of love
identified is different from the others in important respects, including the
experience of that type of love and its manifestations in observable behavior.
Constructing a taxonomy of love is preliminary to developing a theory of
love for each variety of love the taxonomy identifies. As Harold Kelley
writes:
The single word love refers to different phenomena. . . . Consequently, in

both common lore and scientific thought, there are a number of different
models of love. It is important to realize that these models are not alter-
native, competing views of a single phenomenon, “love.” Rather, they are
conceptualizations of different phenomena, each of which has historically
been termed love. The different models are addressed to the major forms
or types of love. They imply that one person’s “love” for another should
always be qualified as to the type or combination of types it involves. (1983/
2002, p. 280)
Kelley thus argues that it is unlikely there can be one theory of love, for
love is not a single phenomenon. Rather, there are several different phenom-
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ena, each of which is sometimes called love but which, more accurately, is
actually a particular variety of love that is different in important ways from
other varieties of love.
Kelley’s statement that the word love should always be qualified as to the
type or combination of types referred to has not always been heeded in the
study of love, and therein lies the source of a great deal of theoretical con-
fusion about love. Another source of confusion is that even when the word
love is qualified by an adjective that specifies a particular variety of love,
that variety may have been given different names by different taxonomists
and love theorists; that is, a single variety of love may have several aliases.
In sum, the taxonomic exercise of sorting the different varieties of love is
preliminary to constructing a theory of love—or, more precisely, a theory
of a specific type of love. Kelley also states that any theory about a specific
form or variety of love should include descriptions of the observable phe-
nomena associated with that kind of love (e.g., actions and feelings); the
current causes responsible for the observed phenomena; the historical an-
tecedents of the current causes and phenomena; and the future course of the
phenomena.
A Taxonomy of Loves
Some two decades ago, I reasoned that for the behavioral scientist who
wishes to predict behavior, the most compelling reasons for differentiating
seemingly like things from each other are (a) evidence that each is associated
with different behaviors; and (b) evidence that each is generated by different
causes. Four varieties of love seemed to satisfy those criteria at the time, and
they continue to satisfy those criteria today (Berscheid, 1985, 2006). To-
gether, the four seemed to me to be exhaustive of the basic types of love,
or positive affect, people may experience toward others, although within a
specific relationship, all or only some may be experienced at a single point
in time (I shall return to this later).
I hasten to add that there is nothing original about each of the four types
of love in the taxonomy I reintroduce here. Each has been named in at least
some other love taxonomies, elaborated by at least some other love theorists,
and investigated by many researchers, although each has been given a num-
ber of different names. Each appears to have different immediate, or prox-
imal, causes, but I believe all have the same historical, or ultimate, cause:
the human biological heritage as it developed over evolutionary time. Be-
cause the capacity for experiencing each of the four types of love appears
to be innately given, I also theorize that each is pancultural.
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ATTACHMENT LOVE
The first type of love I named in the 1985 quadrumvirate is “attach-
ment love.” As originally identified by Bowlby (e.g., 1979) and by Harlow
(1958), and as has become well established since, the attachment system
appears to be “innate,” or unlearned. Thus its historical cause lies in the
human evolutionary history, specifically, the need for infants to stay in close
proximity to a protector in order to survive. The immediate cause of be-
haviors associated with this kind of love is a threatening situation; its char-
acteristic behaviors are those that promote proximity to the protector; and
its interpersonal target is usually a familiar person who is older, stronger,
and wiser than the individual.
As both Bowlby and Harlow emphasized, reward-punishment principles
are not among the causal conditions of attachment love. Although Bowlby
theorized that attachment is characteristic of all humans over their life span,
this normative feature of attachment theory has been almost wholly ne-
glected in favor of investigations of its individual difference component,
“which attempts to explain stable, systematic deviations from the modal
behavioral patterns and stages” (Simpson and Rholes, 1998, p. 4). Investi-
gations of individual differences in attachment orientation, or different
“adult attachment styles” (e.g., secure and insecure), now fill volumes (e.g.,
see Cassidy and Shaver, 1999). In contrast, the modal behavior patterns and
stages of attachment for all humans over the life span are not yet well
known.
COMPASSIONATE LOVE
The second type of love involves concern for another’s welfare and
taking actions to promote it, regardless of whether those actions are per-
ceived to result in future benefits to the self. In the original taxonomy, I
called this kind of love “altruistic love,” although it goes by a number of
other names, including “charitable love,” “brotherly love,” “communal
love,” “agape,” and Maslow’s term, “B-love,” or love for another’s being.
Perhaps the most useful name at present is “compassionate love” (as I have
renamed it here), because contemporary theorists and researchers have re-
cently revived interest in this variety of love (e.g., Fehr and Sprecher, 2004)
and currently are using the “compassionate love” label.
The caregiving system, also identified by both Bowlby and Harlow, would
seem to underlie this kind of love. It, too, has been theorized to be a part
of the human biological heritage. Indeed, many have observed that the
attachment system could not have evolved without the complement of a
caregiving system. Humans, born immature and vulnerable, need older,
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stronger, and wiser humans to respond to their distress calls in order survive
to maturity and reproductive age. Those who received such protection and
care survived over evolutionary time, as did, presumably, a human predis-
position to help the weak and distressed.
Whereas the historical cause of compassionate love lies in the evolutionary
history of the human, its principal immediate cause, as outlined in the vast
social psychological literatures on “caregiving,” “social support,” and “pro-
social behavior,” is the perception that another is in distress. Its character-
istic behaviors depend on the nature of the distress that is perceived, because
the motive underlying the behavior is alleviation of the distress. The social
target of the behaviors is a distressed person. If it is true that all humans
are born with an unlearned caregiving system that results in responding to
distress calls made by other members of the species, then, as is true of the
attachment system, the causal conditions for activation of the caregiving
system do not follow reward-punishment principles.
COMPANIONATE LOVE/LIKING
In the original taxonomy, I called the third variety of love “friendship
love,” but at present, the term “companionate love/liking” makes a stronger
connection to the relevant literatures. In addition to “companionate love,”
“liking,” and “friendship love,” this variety of love has been given several
other names, including “philias,” “affection,” “affiliation,” and “pragmatic
love.” As the label “pragmatic love” suggests, this affect system, unlike the
attachment and caregiving systems, is very much based on reward-
punishment principles; that is, it is well established that we feel positive
affect for—“like”—those who reward us, and we dislike those who punish
us. Its historical cause is, again, our evolutionary heritage, and the pain-
pleasure principle that has served as the basic motivating principle under-
lying almost all psychological theories of behavior, especially the learning
theories.
The current causes of liking, its associated characteristic behaviors, and
its typical interpersonal targets are listed and discussed in the “interpersonal
attraction” chapter of every social psychology textbook. For example, we
like people who are familiar (as opposed to unfamiliar), who are similar (as
opposed to dissimilar), who like us (as opposed to dislike us), and who are
physically attractive (as opposed to unattractive) (see Berscheid and Regan,
2005). These characteristics of a target tend to make our interactions with
him or her rewarding, at least more rewarding than interactions with per-
sons who do not possess these characteristics. Generally, we try to achieve
and maintain proximity to liked persons and to behave in ways we believe
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they will find rewarding, in order to ensure that they will want to continue
to interact with us.
ROMANTIC LOVE
The fourth kind of love in the quadrumvirate is “romantic love,”
which appears in virtually every taxonomy of love. Of all the types of love,
laypersons and love theorists have been most interested romantic love, partly
because it has been, and continues to be, the sine qua non for marriage in
many societies. This type of love also is known by other names, including
“passionate love,” “addictive love,” and “erotic love.” As the word erotic
suggests, sexual desire is frequently associated with this type of love (see
Berscheid and Regan, 2005, p. 334, for a sample of theories that link ro-
mantic love to sexual desire). Nevertheless, investigations of the role of sex-
ual desire as a causal antecedent of romantic love have been sparse. Indeed,
in The Psychology of Love, I asked, “Whatever happened to old-fashioned
lust?” (Berscheid, 1988). Since then, however, evidence has been gathered
in support of the thesis that sexual desire (also known as lust) is an impor-
tant, perhaps even necessary, causal condition of romantic love—a causal
condition that differentiates this type of love from the other three types, and
thus satisfies the criteria for inclusion in a taxonomy of varieties of love.
THE CASE FOR LUST IN THE STUDY OF ROMANTIC LOVE

Returning to Charles sitting on the sofa alongside Diana, squirming
under the glare of the television lights and mumbling “Whatever ‘in love’
means,” I, too, wondered what “in love” means. I especially wondered if
the meaning of the phrase was different from what people mean when they
simply say they “love” another. Although the phrase “in love” and the word
love often have been treated as synonyms by love researchers, I suspected
that each refers to a different variety of love in the common lexicon of the
college students we so frequently study (Berscheid, 1985, p. 436).
To find out what people mean when they use the phrase “in love,” as
opposed to the word love, Sally Meyers and I (Berscheid and Meyers, 1996;
Meyers and Berscheid, 1997) developed what we called the “social categor-
ical method,” which simply involves asking individuals to list all the people
in their personal social worlds who belong in certain social categories; for
example, “family members,” “friends,” “people I love.” Respondents can
name a person in more than one category and, in fact, it is the overlap in
membership among the different categories that is of interest (e.g., the over-
lap between “family members” and “people I love”). College students listed
people in their personal worlds who belonged in ten different social cate-
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gories, three of which were of special interest: “people I love,” “people with
whom I am in love,” and “people for whom I feel sexual attraction/desire.”
Our first hypothesis was that membership in the “love” category would
be larger than membership in the “in love” category. It was. People “love”
many more people than they are “in love” with, suggesting that the two
terms are not synonyms in the common language of love. Whereas, on av-
erage, nine or so people were named in the “love” category, usually only
one person was named in the “in love” category. Women loved more people
than men did, and both men and women loved more women than men.
Additionally, and as illustrated by Diana’s alacrity in answering the inter-
viewer’s question and Charles’s befuddlement, men experienced more diffi-
culty than women in deciding if a person belonged in their “love” category,
and they also had more difficulty deciding if a person belonged in their “in
love” category, suggesting that these words may have a fuzzier meaning for
men than they do for women.
Our second hypothesis was that the phrase “in love” refers to a specific
type of love, whereas the term love is generic, referring to all types of love.
Thus, we expected the membership of the “in love” category to be encap-
sulated in the “love” category. It was. Almost all persons named in the “in
love” category were also named in the “love” category (93 percent); fewer
of those in the “love” category were also named in the “in love” category
(23 percent).
Our third hypothesis addressed the meaning of the phrase “in love.” We
hypothesized that if “in love” refers to a sexual kind of love, then members
of the “in love” category should also be listed as members of the “sexual
attraction/desire” category. They were. Most (87 percent) of those named
in the “in love” category were also named in the “sexual attraction/desire”
category; in contrast, few (14 percent) in the “love” category were also
sexually desirable.
People were sexually attracted to more persons than they were “in love”
with, suggesting that simply being sexually desirable was not enough to
admit a person to the “in love” category. Something else was needed. A clue
to at least one more thing that is needed was provided by the high overlap
in membership of the “in love” category and the “friend” category. Most
(74 percent) of the persons named in the “in love” category were also named
in the “friend” category, a finding consistent with those of S. Hendrick and
Hendrick (1993), who found that, at least in our society at this time, ro-
mantic love and friendship are strongly connected. (It should be noted that
members of the “love” category, who often were family members, were not
especially likely to be named as friends.)
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Among the conclusions we drew from this study was that our respondents
were clear about how love and sexuality are linked. When another is liked
(a friend) and sexually attractive, that person qualifies for membership in
the “in love” category, but if a person is only liked (only a friend) or only
sexually attractive, that individual is unlikely to be in the “in love” category.
Our respondents, then, would know the meaning of the phrase “I love you,
but I’m not in love with you.” We speculated that the “love” portion of the
phrase is generic love, referring to caring, respect, liking, and other features
of positive regard, whereas the “not in love” portion signifies that sexual
desire is absent.
The phrase “love but not in love” seems to be heard most often when
one partner in a relationship that had been progressing toward marriage (or
had been thought by one of the partners to be progressing) terminates the
relationship with the “I love you, but I’m not in love with you” reason.
Generally, an absence of sexual desire is accepted as a valid reason for
dissolution of a courtship relationship. Whether it also has become an ac-
ceptable reason for dissolving a marital relationship is an empirical question.
If it has, marital stability is threatened because there is some evidence that
sexual desire for a specific partner may be time-limited; for example,
Sprecher and Regan (1998) found that the longer a couple had been to-
gether, the less passionate love they felt for one another.
We also concluded that the phrase “in love,” as used in the common
lexicon of love, refers to “romantic love.” Some years ago, Elaine [Hatfield]
Walster and I distinguished between romantic love and companionate love
(Berscheid and Walster, 1974, 1978), a distinction that has endured and has
appeared in quantitatively derived taxonomies of love (e.g., Fehr, 1994; C.
Hendrick and Hendrick, 1986). Hatfield has since elaborated the difference
between the two (e.g., Hatfield, 1988; Walster [Hatfield] and Walster, 1978),
and the results of the Meyers and Berscheid (1997) study, as well as others
(e.g., see Regan, 1998), further illuminate the difference. They suggest that
• romantic love—liking with sexual desire

• companionate love—liking without sexual desire
• lust—sexual desire without liking.
If the causes of romantic love include not only the causes of companionate
love/liking (e.g., similarity) but also the causes of sexual desire, then in order
to predict who is likely to fall in love with whom and when, both sets of
causes must be taken into consideration. As previously noted, much is
known about the causal conditions conducive to liking another. Unfortu-
nately, much less is known about the causes of sexual attraction/desire. Its
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historical cause, of course, lies in our evolutionary history, for without sex-
ual desire, Homo sapiens would have become extinct. The current causes of
sexual desire have not been well established (see Regan and Berscheid,
1999), although they often include good general health and the availability
of an appropriate target, usually a physically attractive, fertile person of the
opposite sex, as evolutionary psychologists maintain. Its characteristic be-
haviors typically include planned pursuit of a person of the opposite sex
with the motive to mate sexually with that person.
Summing Up
The quadripartite view of love I have reintroduced here seems to me
to be the human biologically based and innately given positive interpersonal
affect systems, at least at the psychological level of analysis. My thesis is
that each deserves to be treated separately because each has different causes
for activation and different consequences (i.e., associated behaviors and in-
terpersonal targets). With respect to different targets, for example, we can
be attached to persons whom we do not like or respect, are not sexually
attracted to, and, as Bowlby and other ethologists have observed, have been
more a source of punishment than of reward. We can, and often do, exhibit
caregiving behavior toward people we do not know, are not attached to, do
not like, are not sexually attracted to, and from whom we expect no reward;
their distress activates our caregiving system, and we respond. We often like
people to whom we are not attached, as well as people whom we find sex-
ually repulsive, but we can be sexually attracted to unfamiliar people we do
not particularly like, and may even dislike.
In my original presentation of this taxonomy (Berscheid, 1985), I hypoth-
esized that within a single relationship and at a single point in time, one or
more of the four types of love may be experienced. Much more needs to be
learned, however, about the usual progression of these varieties of love
within a relationship over time—indeed, whether there is a typical progres-
sion over time. Investigation of this matter, as well as others, is not possible
if the four varieties of love are melded, as some love theorists do. For ex-
ample, in The Psychology of Love, Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw (1988)
theorized that romantic love is a combination of attachment love, caregiving
love, and sexuality. Evaluation of that thesis requires much more informa-
tion about each type of love than is currently available. More needs to be
known, for instance, about how quickly adult attachments develop and who
is likely to become attached to whom. Not all “romantic” partners are older,
wiser, and stronger than oneself, and turned to under threat conditions; and
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not all partners are weaker, vulnerable, and distressed, and thus invite care-
giving love.
Again, my thesis is simply that each variety of love needs to be treated
separately until there is clear evidence that all deserve to be placed under
one umbrella. This is especially true because it may be the case that one
variety of love inhibits the development and expression of another kind of
love in a relationship. For example, the cultural anthropologist Arthur Wolf
(1995) has found suggestive evidence that attachment love and caregiving
love may be contrasexual. Investigation of that and many other hypotheses
is not possible if the different varieties of love are not recognized and re-
spected, and researchers consistently use a single name for each. Love re-
searchers remain in great need of a common vocabulary of love.
References
Berscheid, E. (1985). Interpersonal attraction. In G. Lindzey and E. Aronson (eds.),
The Handbook of Social Psychology, 3rd ed., vol. 2, pp. 413–484. New York: Ran-
dom House.
———. (1988). Some comments on love’s anatomy: Or, whatever happened to old-
fashioned lust? In R. J. Sternberg and M. L. Barnes (eds.), The Psychology of Love,
pp. 359–374. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
———. (2006). Seasons of the heart. In M. Mikulincer and G. Goodwin (eds.), Dynam-
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9
A Duplex Theory of Love

robert j. sternberg
The duplex theory of love captures two essential elements of the nature
of love: first, its structure (a triangular subtheory), and second, its devel-
opment (a subtheory of love as a story). The subtheory of love as a story is
an attempt to specify how various kinds (triangles) of love develop. We
consider each of the subtheories and then the duplex theory as a whole.
The Triangular Subtheory of Love

The triangular theory of love (Sternberg, 1986, 1988a, 1988b, 1997,
1998a) holds that love can be understood in terms of three components that
together can be viewed as forming the vertices of a triangle. The triangle is
used as a metaphor, rather than as a strict geometric model. These three
components are intimacy (top vertex of the triangle), passion (left-hand ver-
tex of the triangle), and decision/commitment (right-hand vertex of the tri-
angle). The assignment of components to vertices is arbitrary. These three
components have appeared in various other theories of love and, moreover,
seem to correspond rather well to people’s implicit theories of love (Aron
and Westbay, 1996). Each of these three terms can be used in many different
ways, so it is important to clarify their meanings in the context of the present
theory.
184
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A Duplex Theory of Love 185
THREE COMPONENTS OF LOVE

The three components of love in the triangular theory are intimacy,
passion, and decision/commitment. Each component manifests a different
aspect of love.
Intimacy
Intimacy refers to feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness
in loving relationships. It thus includes those feelings that give rise, essen-
tially, to the experience of warmth in a loving relationship. Sternberg and
Grajek (1984) cluster-analyzed data from the loving and liking scales of
Rubin (1970) and a close relationships scale of Levinger, Rands, and Talaber
(1977); as a result, they identified ten clusters in intimacy: (1) desire to
promote the welfare of the loved one, (2) experienced happiness with the
loved one, (3) high regard for the loved one, (4) being able to count on the
loved one in times of need, (5) mutual understanding with the loved one,
(6) sharing of one’s self and one’s possessions with the loved one, (7) receipt
of emotional support from the loved one, (8) giving of emotional support
to the loved one, (9) intimate communication with the loved one, and (10)
valuing of the loved one.
Passion
Passion refers to the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction,
sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships. The
passion component includes those sources of motivational and other forms
of arousal that lead to the experience of passion in a loving relationship. It
includes what Walster and Walster (1981) refer to as “a state of intense
longing for union with the other” (p. 9). In a loving relationship, sexual
needs may well predominate in this experience. However, other needs—such
as those for self-esteem, succor, nurturance, affiliation, dominance, submis-
sion, and self-actualization—may also contribute to the experiencing of pas-
sion.
Decision/commitment
Decision/commitment refers, in the short term, to the decision that one
loves a certain other, and in the long term, to one’s commitment to maintain
that love. These two aspects of the decision/commitment component do not
necessarily go together, in that one can decide to love someone without
being committed to the love in the long term, or one can be committed to
a relationship without acknowledging that one loves the other person in the
relationship.
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The three components of love interact. For example, greater intimacy may
lead to greater passion or commitment, just as greater commitment may
lead to greater intimacy or, with lesser likelihood, greater passion. In gen-
eral, then, the components are separable but interactive. Although all three
components are important parts of loving relationships, their importance
may differ from one relationship to another, or over time within a given
relationship. Indeed, different kinds of love can be generated by limiting
cases of different combinations of the components.
KINDS OF LOVE
The three components of love generate eight possible limiting cases
when considered in combination. Each of these cases gives rise to a different
kind of love (described in Sternberg, 1988a, 1988b). It is important to realize
that these kinds of love are, in fact, limiting cases: no relationship is likely
to be a pure case of any of them. They are shown in table 9-1.
Non-love refers to the absence of all three components of love. Liking
results when one experiences only the intimacy component of love, in the
absence of the passion and decision/commitment components. Infatuated
love results from experiencing the passion component, in the absence of the
other components of love. Empty love emanates from the decision that one
loves another and is committed to that love, in the absence of both the
intimacy and passion components of love. Romantic love derives from a
combination of the intimacy and passion components. Companionate love
derives from a combination of the intimacy and decision/commitment com-
ponents of love. Fatuous love results from the combination of the passion
and decision/commitment components, in the absence of the intimacy com-
ponent. Consummate, or complete, love results from the full combination
of all three components.
In sum, the possible subsets of the three components of love generate
different kinds of love as limiting cases. Most loves are “impure” examples
of these various kinds: they partake of all three vertices of the triangle, but
in different amounts.
GEOMETRY OF THE LOVE TRIANGLE

The geometry of the “love triangle” depends upon two factors: the
amount of love and the balance of love. Differences in amounts of love are
represented by differing areas of the love triangle: the greater the amount
of love, the greater the area of the triangle. Differences in balances of the
three kinds of love are represented by differing shapes of triangles. For ex-
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Table 9-1 Taxonomy of kinds of triangles of love
Type of Love Intimacy Passion Commitment
Non-love No No No
Friendship Yes No No
Infatuated love No Yes No
Empty love No No Yes
Romantic love Yes Yes No
Companionate love Yes No Yes
Fatuous love No Yes Yes
Consummate love Yes Yes Yes
ample, balanced love (roughly equal amounts of each component) is repre-

sented by an equilateral triangle.
MULTIPLE TRIANGLES OF LOVE

Love does not involve just a single triangle. Rather, it involves a great
number of triangles, only some of which are of major theoretical and prac-
tical interest. For example, it is possible to contrast real and ideal triangles.
One has not only a triangle representing his or her love for the other, but
also a triangle representing an ideal other for that relationship (see Sternberg
and Barnes, 1985). The ideal may be based in part on experience in previous
relationships of the same kind, which form what Thibaut and Kelley (1959)
refer to as a “comparison level,” and in part on expectations of what the
close relationship can be. It is also possible to distinguish between self- and
other-perceived triangles. In other words, one’s feelings of love in a rela-
tionship may or may not correspond to how the significant other perceives
one as feeling. Finally, it is important to distinguish between triangles of
feelings and triangles of action.
It is one thing to feel a certain way about a significant other, and another
thing to act in a way consistent with these feelings. Each of the three com-
ponents of love has a set of actions associated with it. For example, intimacy
might be manifested in action through sharing one’s possessions and time,
expressing empathy for another, communicating honestly with another, and
so on. Passion might be manifested through gazing, touching, making love,
and so on. Commitment might be manifested through sexual fidelity, en-
gagement, marriage, and so on. Of course, the actions that express a par-
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ticular component of love can differ from one person to another, from one
relationship to another, or from one situation to another. Nevertheless, it is
important to consider the triangle of love as it is expressed through action,
because action has so many effects on a relationship.
DATA
Data presented here are based on Sternberg, 1997. Other data can be
found in Sternberg, 1988a, 1998a. Participants in a first study were eighty-
four New Haven area adults, equally divided between men and women, who
answered an advertisement in a local newspaper. To be eligible for partici-
pation, they were required to be over eighteen, primarily heterosexual, and
either married or currently involved in a close relationship. The range in age
was from nineteen to sixty-two, with a mean age of twenty-eight and a
standard deviation of eight years. Length of the close relationship ranged
from 0.10 to 22.00 years, with a mean of 4.54 years and a standard devi-
ation of 4.60 years. Participants in a second study were 101 New Haven
area adults, including fifty men and fifty-one women who answered an ad-
vertisement in a local newspaper. Eligibility requirements were the same as
in study 1. Participants ranged in age from eighteen to seventy-one, with a
mean of thirty-one years and a standard deviation of eleven years. Length
of the close relationship ranged from one to forty-two years, with a mean
of 6.3 years and a standard deviation of 8.6 years.
All participants received a Triangular Love Scale (Sternberg, 1997,
1998a). There were twelve Likert scale items measuring each of the three
components. An example of an intimacy item would be “I have a warm and
comfortable relationship with .” An example of a passion item would
be “I cannot imagine another person making me as happy as does.”
An example of a commitment item would be “I view my relationship with
as permanent.” Other scales were also administered, such as the
Rubin Liking Scale and the Rubin Love Scale.
Half of the participants (males and females in equal numbers) were in-
structed to rate all of the statements for six different love relationships
(mother, father, sibling closest in age, lover/spouse, best friend of the same
sex, and ideal lover/spouse) in terms of how important each statement was,
in the participants’ minds, to each of the six relationships. The other half of
the participants (again, males and females in equal numbers) were instructed
to rate the statements on how characteristic each was in their own lives for
each of the six relationships. Importance is a value judgment; characteristic-
ness, a judgment of the actual state of an existing relationship.
If the triangular theory and measure are viable, then there ought to be a
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significant interaction between relationship and component: in other words,

different relationships ought to show different blends of the three compo-
nents of the theory. Such a significant interaction was obtained and, in fact,
had the highest F value (58.25) and accounted for the most variance (.023)
of any of the two-, three-, or four-way interactions studied.
The actual means made sense in terms of the theory. For example, one
would expect the mean characteristicness ratings for the lover relationship
to vary less for passion versus intimacy and commitment, where passion
seems crucial, than for the other relationships, where it does not. For lover,
the mean passion rating was 6.91. The next highest rating was for mother
at 4.98, a difference of 1.93. In contrast, the mean for lover on intimacy
was 7.55, and the next highest mean, for friend, was 6.78, a difference of
only .77. Similarly, for commitment, the difference between lover and the
next highest mean, mother, was only 1.07. The importance ratings showed
the same pattern even more strongly.
The internal consistency analysis revealed that all but four of the thirty-
six test items served their appropriate functions in the triangular test. More-
over, the subscale reliabilities, which were in the .80s and .90s, and the
overall scale reliabilities, in the high .90s, were quite favorable.
Intercorrelational analyses revealed that although action means were
lower than feeling means, the two kinds of ratings were very highly corre-
lated (generally in the .90s), so action ratings were disregarded in subsequent
analyses. The intercorrelational analyses also revealed that, for characteris-
ticness ratings overall, intimacy and commitment were more highly corre-
lated than either intimacy and passion or passion and commitment. For
importance ratings, the correlation of intimacy with passion was lower than
the correlation of intimacy with commitment or of passion with commit-
ment.
Factor analyses revealed three factors for the characteristicness ratings,
corresponding to the three components of the triangular theory, and four
factors for the importance ratings, with decision/commitment splitting into
decision and commitment as separate factors. In general, then, the factor
analytic results were supportive of the theory.
Finally, the external validation revealed moderate to high correlations
with Rubin (1970) scale scores, although there was no clear convergent-
discriminant pattern with respect to liking and loving. The three subscales
of the Sternberg Triangular Love Scale correlated more highly with satisfac-
tion ratings than did either the Rubin Liking Scale or the Rubin Loving
Scale.
Study 2 was done in order to remedy some of the problems that arose in
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study 1. Most important, the study involved a replication sample somewhat

larger than in study 1, and the Sternberg Triangular Love Scale was revised
to help remediate some of the deficiencies in the scale that were observed in
study 1. The main deficiencies in that study were that an excessive number
of items showed their highest corrected correlation with a subscale other
than the one in which they appeared, and that the correlations among the
three subscales seemed excessively high. In the follow-up study, the cross-
correlations of items to scales other than their own were substantially re-
duced, and so were correlations among subscales, especially for character-
isticness ratings. With respect to internal validation, both characteristicness
and importance ratings revealed a three-factor structure corresponding to
the components of the triangular theory. With respect to external validation,
correlations with overall satisfaction were again very high (median .76 for
the three subscales), and higher than those for the Rubin scales.
In sum, the results were, on the whole, supportive of the triangular sub-
theory, although the scale was less than a perfect measure of the constructs
specified by the theory.
The Subtheory of Love as a Story

Love triangles emanate from stories. Almost all of us are exposed to
large numbers of diverse stories that convey different conceptions of how
love can be understood. Some of these stories may be explicitly intended as
love stories; others may have love stories embedded in the context of larger
stories. Either way, we are provided with varied opportunities to observe
multiple conceptions of what love can be. These stories may be observed by
watching people in relationships, by watching television or movies, or by
reading fiction. It seems plausible that as a result of our exposure to such
stories, over time we form our own stories of what love is or should be.
Sternberg (1994, 1995, 1996, 1998b; Sternberg, Hojjat, and Barnes,
2001) has proposed and tested a theory of love as a story, whereby the
interaction of our personal attributes with the environment—which we in
part create—leads to the development of stories about love that we then
seek to fulfill, to the extent possible, in our lives. Various potential partners
fit these stories to greater or lesser degrees, and we are more likely to succeed
in close relationships with people whose stories more, rather than less,
closely match our own. Although the stories we create are fundamentally
our own, they draw on our experience of living in the world—on fairy
stories we may have heard when we were young, on the models of love
relationships we observe around us in parents and relatives, on television
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and movies, on conversations with other people about their relationships,

and so forth.
KINDS OF STORIES
Although the number of possible stories is probably infinite, certain
genres of stories seem to keep emerging again and again in pilot analyses
we have done of literature, film, and people’s oral descriptions of relation-
ships. Because the stories we have analyzed were from participants in the
United States, our listing is likely to show some degree of cultural bias.
The stories contain some overlap, so that people with certain stories
higher in their hierarchies might be expected to have others higher in their
hierarchies as well. For example, an autocratic government story and a po-
lice story have overlapping elements—one partner maintaining authority and
surveillance over the other—so that people with a strong preference for one
of these stories might have a strong preference for the other. Stories we have
found to be particularly useful in conceptualizing people’s notions of love
are shown in table 9-2. This nonexhaustive working list of stories is based
upon an analysis of love stories in literature, previous psychological research
by the authors and others, and interpretations of informally gathered case
material.
ASPECTS OF STORIES
Several aspects of the stories are worth noting. These aspects are im-
portant to keep in mind because they apply to all the kinds of stories.
First, the current list of twenty-six kinds of stories represents a wide range
of conceptions of what love can be. Some of the conceptions are more com-
mon (e.g., love as a garden) than others (e.g., love as pornographic).
Second, each story has a characteristic mode of thought and behavior. For
example, someone with a game-based story of love (see also the “ludus”
love style as described by C. Hendrick and Hendrick [1986] and Lee [1977])
will behave very differently toward a loved one than will someone with a
religion-based love story (see also the anxious-ambivalent attachment style
proposed by Hazan and Shaver [1987] and Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw
[1988]).
Third, as implied above, there is a substantial overlap between the view
of love as a story and other views of love. As noted, the story of love as a
game seems compatible with Lee’s (1977) ludus love style; the religious story
seems likely to lead to an anxious-ambivalent attachment style (Shaver, Ha-
zan, and Bradshaw, 1988); the fantasy story sounds similar to typical con-
ceptions of romantic love (e.g., Walster and Walster, 1981; Sternberg, 1986);
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Table 9-2 Taxonomy of some love stories
1. Addiction. Strong, anxious attachment; clinging behavior; anxiety at thought

of losing partner.
2. Art. Love of partner for physical attractiveness; importance to person of part-
ner’s always looking good.
3. Business. Relationships as business propositions; money is power; partners in
close relationships as business partners.
4. Collection. Partner viewed as “fitting in” some overall scheme; partner viewed
in a detached way.
5. Cookbook. Doing things a certain way (recipe) results in relationship being
more likely to work out; departure from recipe for success leads to increased
likelihood of failure.
6. Fantasy. Often expects to be saved by a knight in shining armor or to marry
a princess and live happily ever after.
7. Game. Love as a game or sport.
8. Gardening. Relationships need to be continually nurtured and tended to.
9. Government. (a) Autocratic. One partner dominates or controls the other. (b)
Democratic. Two partners share power equally.
10. History. Events of relationship form an indelible record; keep a lot of records,
either mental or material.
11. Horror. Relationships become interesting when you terrorize or are terrorized
by your partner.
12. House and Home. Relationships have their core in the home, through its
development and maintenance.
13. Humor. Love is strange and funny.
14. Mystery. Love is a mystery, and you shouldn’t let too much of yourself be
known.
15. Police. You’ve got to keep close tabs on your partner to make sure he or she
toes the line, or you need to be under surveillance to make sure you behave.
16. Pornography. Love is dirty, and to love is to degrade or be degraded.
17. Recovery. Survivor mentality; view that after past trauma, a person can get
through practically anything.
18. Religion. Views love either as a religion or as a set of feelings and activities
dictated by religion.
19. Sacrifice. To love is to give of oneself or for someone to give of himself or
herself to you.
20. Science. Love can be understood, analyzed, and dissected, just like any other
natural phenomenon.
21. Science Fiction. Feeling that partner is like an alien—incomprehensible and
very strange.
22. Sewing. Love is whatever you make it.
23. Theater. Love is scripted, with predictable acts, scenes, and lines.
24. Travel. Love is a journey.
25. War. Love is a series of battles in a devastating but continuing war.
26. Student-Teacher. Love is a relationship between a student and a teacher.
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and so on. The difference is that the love story point of view tries to capture
the richness of the story that may lead to different structural love relations,
as characterized by the variety of theories now extant. Whereas these the-
ories propose various structures by which to view loving relationships, the
emphasis in this theory is upon the content of the story. The structure is
seen as the structure of stories, as discussed above.
Fourth, having a particular love story can lead to certain depictions of
what a loving relationship is, almost in the same way that we speak of
“automatic thoughts” in cognitive therapy (e.g., Beck, 1976; Ellis, 1973).
We may not even be aware that we have these views, or that they are idi-
osyncratic to the particular story we hold about love. Rather, we often will
view them as more or less “correct” characterizations of what love is or
should be, and we will view partners who fail to measure up as somehow
being inadequate. Alternatively, we may view ourselves as inadequate if we
cannot conform to the view we have of relationships. Thus, if someone views
love as a business but cannot form a business type of relationship after
several tries, he or she may view himself or herself as inadequate.
Fifth, love stories have within them complementary roles, which may or
may not be symmetrical. We look for someone who shares our story or who
at least has a compatible story that can more or less fit with ours, but we
may not always look for someone who is just like ourselves. Thus, people
look for others who are, at one level, similar, but, at another level, different.
From this point of view, neither similarity theory (Byrne, 1971) nor com-
plementarity theory (Kerckhoff and Davis, 1962) is quite right with respect
to love. Rather, what we seek depends on the level we are addressing.
Sixth, stories have certain adaptive advantages and disadvantages. A story
may be more or less adaptive to the demands of a given cultural milieu.
Seventh, certain stories seem to have more potential for success than oth-
ers. Some stories, for example, may run themselves out quickly, and thus
lack durability over the long term, whereas others may have the potential
to last a lifetime.
Eighth, stories are both causes and effects: They interact with the rest of
our lives. The stories we bring to relationships may cause us to behave in
certain ways, and even to elicit certain behavior from others. At the same
time, our own development and our interactions with others may shape and
modify the stories we have, and thus bring to our relationships. Our stories
are so intertwined with the rest of our lives that it would be hopeless to try
to definitively ease out cause and effect.
We may have multiple stories represented hierarchically, so that the stories
are likely to vary in salience for us. In other words, we will prefer some
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stories over others, so that we may find partners differentially satisfying as

a function of the extent to which they match our more, rather than less,
salient stories. A Likert-type scale presenting items representing multiple sto-
ries allows participants to show preferences for multiple stories.
Stories are probably best understood in terms of prototypical conceptions
of meaning (Rosch, 1973, 1978), which have been applied to notions of love
and have been shown to yield viable models of how people conceive of love
(e.g., Barnes and Sternberg, 1997; Fehr, 1988; Fehr and Russell, 1991). For
example, a prototypical feature of love would be intimacy. On the proto-
typical view, conceptions of love do not have defining features, but char-
acteristic features that, although not necessary and sufficient, are more or
less suggestive of a construct. For example, if someone has a “mystery
story,” there may be no defining features that uniquely identify that story
as a mystery story, but prototypical features are characteristic of mysteries
(e.g., a mystery to be solved, a sleuth trying to solve the mystery, a shadowy
figure draped in mystery whom the sleuth is trying to understand, infor-
mation that is nonobvious and possibly deliberately hidden, and so forth).
The theory of love as a story falls within a contemporary tradition of
trying to understand the role of narrative in people’s lives (Bruner, 1990;
Cohler, 1982; Josselson and Lieblich, 1993; McAdams, 1993; Murray and
Holmes, 1994; Sarbin, 1986; Taylor, 1989). Stories are also related to other
constructs that are, and have been, of interest to psychologists, such as
scripts (Schank and Abelson, 1977) and schemas, both adaptive (Piaget,
1972) and maladaptive (Young and Klosko, 1993). There may be crucial
differences between stories and these other constructs, however.
First, scripts and their cognate constructs are defined as stereotypical ac-
tion sequences, whereas stories may or may not be. Typically, stories, with
their plots, themes, and well-developed characters, are substantially richer
and more elaborate than scripts and related constructs. Second, scripts and
related constructs are typically subsets of stories, in that they may be em-
bedded into stories (e.g., a character visiting both a doctor’s office and a
fast-food restaurant in a single story). Third, stories more typically (but not
always) have underlying meanings through their themes than scripts and
related constructs do. No one claims that any profound meaning underlies,
say, a typical visit to a doctor’s office or a fast-food restaurant. More detail
regarding differences, and the theory in general, can be found elsewhere
(Sternberg, 1996, 1998b).
DATA
In two validation studies (Sternberg, Hojjat, and Barnes, 2001), we
sought to test some aspects of the view of love as a story. In order to em-
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pirically test some predictions of the theory of love as a story, we devised a

Likert scale-based questionnaire that assesses people’s stories. We opted for
such a questionnaire rather than for qualitative narratives because a scale
more readily provides quantitative tests of the theory.
A total of 105 individuals (fifty-five women and fifty men) from the in-
troductory psychology participant pool at Yale University participated in the
first study in exchange for course credit. Participants ranged in age from
seventeen to twenty-six, with a mean age of nineteen. To participate, indi-
viduals must have been involved in a close relationship (by their own defi-
nition) either presently or in the past. Fifty percent of individuals (52) were
involved in a close relationship at the time of participation. For 81 percent
of participants, the total number of self-described intimate relationships in
which they had been involved was less than five, for 17 percent, it was
between five and ten, and for the remaining 2 percent, the number was
greater than ten. Participants in the second study were eighty-six Yale Uni-
versity undergraduate and graduate students who formed forty-three hetero-
sexual couples involved in close relationships and who were recruited via
flyers and posters. Each couple was paid $20 for their participation. Partic-
ipants ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-six years, with a mean age
of twenty years. Couples were accepted for participation only if the duration
of their relationship was at least one year and both members agreed to take
part.
All participants received a love stories scale. The items included
1. Addiction: “If my partner were to leave me, my life would be completely

empty.”
2. Art: “Physical attractiveness is quite honestly the most essential charac-
teristic that I look for in a partner.”
3. Business: “I believe close relationships are partnerships, just like most
business relationships.”
4. Fantasy: “I think people owe it to themselves to wait for the partner they
have always dreamed about.”
5. Game: “I view my relationships as games; the uncertainty of winning or
losing is part of the excitement of the game.”
6. Garden: “I believe a good relationship is attainable only if you are willing
to spend the time and energy to care for it, just as you need to care for
a garden.”
Participants also received other scales, such as the Triangular Love Scale.
In the first study, we assessed reliability of a love stories scale and inter-
nally validated a measure of love stories, looking in two different ways (hi-
erarchical cluster analysis and factor analysis) at representations of the la-
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tent structure that underlies love stories. In the second study, we externally
validated our measure, relating scores on it to scores obtained for measures
generated by other theories. We also specifically tested the prediction, con-
sistent with similarity theories of attraction and satisfaction (e.g., Byrne,
1971), that members of couples will be more satisfied and successful in
their close relationships to the extent that their profiles of stories match
well. At the same time, of course, we realized that many elements besides
stories enter into satisfaction (see Gottman, 1994; Sternberg and Hojjat,
1997).
Stories differed widely in popularity. The most popular stories were travel,
gardening, democratic government, and history (in that order). Least pop-
ular stories were horror, collectors, autocratic government, and game (in
that order). There were significant sex differences favoring men for art, por-
nography, sacrifice, and science fiction. There was a significant difference
favoring women for travel.
We found that whereas all three components of the triangular theory of
love (Sternberg, 1986)—intimacy, passion, and commitment—positively
predicted satisfaction, those stories that showed significant correlations with
satisfaction all negatively predicted the satisfaction ratings. The stories with
significant negative correlations were business, collector, game, governor,
governed, horror (both terrorist and victim), humor (comedian), mystery
(mystery figure), police (officer), recovery (helper), science fiction, and the-
ater (both actor and audience). It appears, therefore, that maladaptive stories
in themselves can lead to dissatisfaction, but that adaptive stories do not
necessarily lead to satisfaction.
Similarity theory predicts that couples who are more similar will be more
likely to be attracted to one another and will have a better basis for being
satisfied in their close relationships. But similarity with respect to what? In
the second study, we tested similarity with respect to love stories, as well as
other aspects of love. In general, the results were consistent with the notion
that having more similar stories (as well as more similar triangular profiles
of love) is related to greater satisfaction in close relationships. In particular,
there was a strong correlation (.65) between story profiles of men and
women involved in close relationships, which survived even under the most
conservative of circumstances (.15). Moreover, the degree of discrepancy in
couples’ profiles of stories was negatively correlated with ratings of satisfac-
tion (–.45), as predicted by the theory.
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Conclusion
Love can be understood as involving triangles that characterize the
structure of love. Interestingly, hate can be characterized in the same way,
with related components (Sternberg, 2003).
The triangles are formed from three components: intimacy, passion, and
commitment. Different combinations of the three components yield different
kinds of love. On an individual basis, all three components are strongly
associated with happiness and satisfaction in relationships. Couples tend to
be happier when the sizes (amounts of love) and shapes (types of love) of
their triangles roughly correspond.
Stories give rise to different kinds of triangles. At present, there are
twenty-six stories in the taxonomy, although doubtless there are many more
that could be added. Each story involves two roles, and the roles may or
may not be symmetrical. Stories develop as an interaction between person-
ality and experience. No stories are individually associated with happiness
and satisfaction in relationships, although some are associated with dissat-
isfaction. Couples tend to be happier in relationships when they have
roughly matching story profiles (i.e., patterns of more and less preferred
stories).
If we wish fully to understand love, we must understand it in all of its
aspects.
Note
The most recent, complete version of the Triangular Love scale can be found in
Sternberg (1998a). The most recent version of the Love Stories Scale can be found in
Sternberg (1998b).
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10
Giving and Receiving Communal

Responsiveness as Love
margaret s. clark and joan k. monin
The term love is used in many different ways. It may refer to intense
sexual feelings, to thinking about being with another person almost all the
time, to motivation to be with that person, to feelings of friendship, and to
selfless devotion to others. No one usage is correct. Here we explicate just
one meaning of love: love as communal responsiveness in relationships, both
as it is felt and enacted toward a partner and as a partner feels and enacts
it toward the self. We discuss interpersonal processes that comprise and
facilitate communal responsiveness and processes that detract from com-
munal responsiveness, and what gives rise to those processes. We believe
that when a relationship is characterized by mutual, consistent communal
responsiveness, its members feel both loved and loving. We also discuss how
the structure of a person’s entire set of communal relationships may influ-
ence feelings of love. In talking about communal responsiveness, we build
both upon a long-standing program of research on communal relationships
(cf. Clark and Mills, 1979, 1993; Mills and Clark, 1982) and a more recent
discussion of responsiveness in relationships by Reis, Clark, and Holmes
(2004).
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Giving and Receiving Communal Responsiveness as Love 201
What Is Communal Responsiveness?

The nature of communal responsiveness is, perhaps, most easily con-
veyed by providing concrete examples of its enactment. Consider each of
the following interactions.
A young child bursts into tears. He explains to his mother that a classmate
teased him about his haircut. His mother hugs him and listens carefully to
what he is saying. She assures him that she thinks his hair looks just fine,
but takes care not to dismiss his concerns. She asks what he thinks. He says
he does not like his haircut, and she responds, “If you want a new haircut,
let’s go get you one.” She jokes a bit about the teaser, emphasizing that
perhaps if someone attended to him, he would not be so mean. Her focus
is squarely on her child’s needs for security and receipt of care. She comforts
and cheers him now, and endeavors to prepare him for future resilience and
compassion toward others.
Imagine a different scene. A woman stands close to her husband. She
unself-consciously begins to sing. Her husband smiles and starts to harmo-
nize, singing a few lines and making up some funny lyrics. They both laugh
and continue to sing. Each feels comfortable and is aware that both are
enjoying the interaction.
Now picture a young woman talking with her older brother. The woman
says she is bored with her job and wants to return to school, get her master’s
degree in biology, and teach high school biology. He’s surprised. He would
love to have her current high-paying and powerful sales position. Yet he
maintains a focus on her. He asks her questions about her current unhap-
piness and ambitions. He indicates understanding, comments that she would
make a very good teacher, and helps her explore ways of completing the
necessary coursework.
Finally, consider a woman who, in the midst of a meeting, realizes that she
has missed a lunch date with a friend. She feels awful, leaves the meeting, and
calls to apologize and express her distress and guilt. Her friend is not angry.
Without a trace of annoyance in her voice, that friend focuses on the trans-
gressor’s needs, not her own, reassuring her friend that she understands how
busy and stressed the woman has been. She says, “Don’t worry—we’ll get to-
gether another time.” She adds that she, herself, has made such mistakes, thus
providing a comforting social comparison. She returns promptly to the trans-
gressor’s stress, puts it in perspective, and suggests ways of coping. The trans-
gressor feels gratitude and expresses it. The transgressor is relieved.
We believe most people would judge each of these relationships as a loving
one. Each involves communal responsiveness. What these situations have in
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common is that one person has exposed his or her needs or desires and, in
so doing, his or her vulnerabilities. The partner, in turn, has focused squarely
on the first person’s welfare and has responded in a manner that promotes
that welfare. This responsiveness takes different forms, as in seeking to re-
mediate a hurt (in the case of the child who was teased), involving the
partner in enjoyable activities (in the case of the husband and wife harmo-
nizing), supporting progress toward a partner’s goals (in the case of the
brother and sister), or suppressing self-focused, angry reactions and offering
assurance of continuing care (in the case of the woman whose friend missed
an appointment). Moreover, the partner has done so with no strings at-
tached. Importantly, the partner has not exploited the person’s vulnerabili-
ties in such a manner as to hurt the person further. The mother has not
asked the child, “So, what stupid thing did you do that made them tease
you?” The husband has not laughed at his wife’s singing. The brother has
not mocked his sister’s goals, and the friend has not responded to the woman
who missed lunch with anger, rejection, and derision.
The partners have been responsive with seemingly little focus on the self—
even when the self was implicated. The mother did not worry that having
an unpopular child would reflect poorly on her. The brother did not cal-
culate his own costs in helping his sister explore educational opportunities.
The friend did not stop talking to the woman who missed their lunch date
nor demand an apology.
In mutual, communally responsive relationships, partners focus on one
another’s needs and welfare, attending to needs and promoting welfare. They
are confident that their partner will do the same and, as a result, they feel
safe, secure, and relaxed within the relationship. Such responsiveness in-
cludes providing benefits to one’s partner, both tangible and intangible, that
fulfill the partner’s needs when that is necessary (taking the partner to get a
desired haircut), enhance the partner’s enjoyment of life (singing along with
the partner), and supporting a partner’s growth toward goals (researching a
partner’s career options). Although we have not included an example to
illustrate this, communal responsiveness also can be largely symbolic, as
when one person writes another a supportive note, sends a card or flowers,
or simply expresses affection. When a person states that he or she loves
another, we think that person often means he or she is, and intends to be,
very communally responsive toward the other, and has experienced and
anticipates the same from the other.
Stating that a loving relationship involves individuals’ communal respon-
siveness places the emphasis on the person who is responsive, and might be
taken to imply that all one needs for a loving relationship is two people
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willing and able to be responsive to one another. However, we place at least

equal emphasis on the self-generated actions of the person who is to be the
recipient of responsiveness. Potential recipients of responsiveness must have
faith that the other will care, and must act in accord with that faith. In terms
of actions, potential recipients of responsiveness must be open about their
needs, what they enjoy, what their goals are, and even what their trans-
gressions have been (and how they feel about those transgressions), so that
the partner can understand, validate, and respond communally to the per-
son—three processes that Reis and his colleagues (Reis and Shaver, 1988;
Reis and Patrick, 1996) have identified as central to establishing intimacy.
They also must be willing to accept gestures of responsiveness from a part-
ner. The child revealed that he was upset about being teased. The sister
revealed her goals. The friend acknowledged her transgression and her feel-
ings of distress and guilt. All these actions facilitated the partner’s respon-
siveness and, in turn, the responsiveness was accepted.
How Can One Tell if Love, as Exemplified by Communal

Responsiveness, Characterizes a Relationship?
Defining loving relationships as ones characterized by communal re-
sponsiveness suggests that to index the quality of a relationship, it is best to
measure the presence of interpersonal processes contributing to communal
responsiveness and any interpersonal processes antithetical to achieving a
sense of communal responsiveness. That is, a high quality relationship
should be characterized by such things as helping, involving the other in
enjoyable activities, supporting the partner’s movement toward goals, free
expression of emotions indicative of need states, self-disclosure of joys and
woes, and a willingness both to ask for and to accept help. It ought not to
be characterized by hurtful actions and, less obviously, not by independence
and behaviors such as record-keeping.
We firmly believe that mutual communal responsiveness leads not only to
security and comfort, but also to personal growth and optimal physical and
mental health (Clark and Finkel, 2005). We further think that defining a
loving relationship as one that is characterized by communally responsive
acts and behaviors that support such acts is superior to using other, more
common methods of assessing relationship quality, such as having a person
rate how satisfied he or she is with a relationship, counting the number of
conflicts in a relationship, or examining whether a relationship remains sta-
ble or not. After all, people may be satisfied with a relationship just because
it exceeds expectations set by past, possibly low quality, relationships, and
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ratings of satisfaction reveal nothing about why a person is satisfied or not.

Assessing conflict at least gets at interpersonal processes in relationships, but
conflict is not always bad. Indeed, from our perspective, when conflict con-
sists of constructive complaints about neglected needs and is responded to
with attention to those needs, conflict is a part of communal responsiveness.
Finally, relationships may be stable simply because people have poor alter-
native options (Rusbult and Martz, 1995) or feel they must remain in a
relationship because of personal or social prescriptions (Cox, Wexler, Rus-
bult, and Gaines, 1997) rather than because the relationship is characterized
by communal responsiveness.
What Relationship Processes Characterize High Quality,

Loving Relationships?
Most straightforwardly, repeated, noncontingent acts of being com-
munally responsive to one’s partner, and one’s partner being communally
responsive to oneself, contribute to a sense of love, be it within a friendship,
a romantic relationship, or a family relationship. The longer the time period
over which this occurs, the longer it is expected to continue; and the fewer
lapses there are in such behavior, the greater the sense of love ought to be.
Most generally, responsiveness refers to one partner taking actions that
promote the other person’s welfare (Reis et al., 2004). However, as already
suggested, there are different types of responsiveness. One type occurs when
a person has lost something or has experienced some harm, and aid could
be used, as well as when a person provides something desirable to a person
(who lacks it, whereas most others in that person’s situation have it). This
is commonly called helping, and has received considerable research atten-
tion. Another type involves supporting a partner as he or she works toward
a goal, short-term or long-term, shared or individual. A person may simply
want to relax for an afternoon, make the Olympic trials in the marathon,
lose ten pounds, or go on a dream vacation. This type of responsiveness has
not received much attention from psychologists, although there are excep-
tions (Feeney, 2004). It may take the form of listening to the person artic-
ulate a dream, indicating understanding and acceptance, offering encour-
agement, stifling an urge to label the goal as crazy or unrealistic, or offering
concrete help. Importantly, it may also take the form of cheering for the
person as successful steps are made toward the goal and celebrating the
person’s attainment of the goal (Gable, Reis, Impett, and Asher, 2004).
A third type of responsiveness involves combining forces with another
person to create something enjoyable and beneficial to one or both—an
enjoyable conversation, a tennis game, harmonizing a song, a collaborative
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project, or a dance. A fourth category of positive responsiveness includes

caring behaviors in response to a transgression by one’s partner. Assuming
that one’s natural reaction in such a situation is to retaliate or express anger,
merely restraining oneself from doing so must be counted as responsiveness.
Forgiveness, reassurance of continuing care, and indications of understand-
ing are responsiveness in this sense.
A final, important type of responsiveness to another person is symbolic.
It may occur in the absence of any clear need for support or joint partici-
pation in an activity, and consists in conveying that one really does care
about the partner and will be there if needed. This can be done through
words (e.g., “I love you”), physical actions (e.g., a hug), cards, and even
affectionate teasing. It can be conveyed by attending a partner’s graduation
ceremony, musical performance, or athletic competition, or listening to a
partner practice a speech.
Why Is Responsiveness So Important?

Most obviously, responsiveness provides the partner with support,
goods, information, appraisals, and money that he or she can use. Less vis-
ibly, it provides the partner with an ongoing sense of security—a sense of
security that allows him or her to relax, enjoy life, explore, and achieve,
knowing that the self is not the only one looking out for his or her welfare.
Knowing that another person is watching out for one’s welfare allows one,
at least to some extent, to take the focus of attention off the self and, in
particular, off protecting the self, permitting one to focus attention else-
where, including on relationship partners (Mikulincer, Shaver, Gillath, and
Nitzberg, 2005). At the same time, it conveys that the partner truly cares
about the self. This, in turn, allows a person to feel comfortable opening
up, revealing emotions, stating needs, seeking and accepting help, sharing
goals, revealing creations, and engaging the other in joint activities—all
things that themselves elicit further responsiveness. In the absence of evi-
dence that the partner cares, emotions, goals, and creativity are often closely
guarded, because a partner who does not care can use this information to
exploit or harm a person.
The Importance of Responsiveness Being Noncontingent

For responsiveness to promote a sense of security, as noted above, it
is essential that it be noncontingent. In this regard, consider a target’s re-
action to noncontingent responsiveness. Say, for instance, that a man states
that he will be happy to have his wife’s relatives visit, with no further com-
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ment, versus agreeing to the same thing if she promises to do all the house-
cleaning for a month. To what will she attribute his willingness to have her
family visit? In the first case, she is likely to attribute it to her spouse’s
concern for her; in the second case, the thought that it is due to his concern
for her will be discounted to the extent that she believes what he really wants
is for her to clean the house. Now consider the same scenario from the
husband’s perspective. To what will he attribute his own actions in each
case? Self-perception suggests that he will see himself as caring in the former
case but, perhaps, smart, manipulative, or selfish in the second case. The
upshot of the former (but not the latter) offer should be a wife who feels
loved and a husband who feels loving.
Promoting attributions of care and nurturance constitutes one category of
reasons why noncontingent responsiveness is so important, but there is an-
other reason as well. It is that the initial impetus for noncontingent respon-
siveness is, naturally, the potential recipient’s needs and desires. However,
the most important impetus for contingent responsiveness will often be the
giver’s desire for something in return or as repayment of a perceived debt.
As a result, a partner’s needs may often be neglected and a partner may
receive undesired or harmful “benefits.”
NONCONTINGENT ACCEPTANCE OF RESPONSIVENESS

Noncontingent acceptance of support also is an important quality of
communal relationships. This refers, simply, to being willing to accept a
partner’s acts of responsiveness without repaying and without indicating that
one feels the necessity to repay or wishes he or she could repay. Gracious
acceptance with no protest sends the message that one feels comfortable
with the gesture, welcomes it, and desires the relationship. Insisting on re-
payment or displaying discomfort suggests that one might prefer that the
communal relationship not exist (or that it be less strong). On the other
hand, expressing gratitude or thanks is acceptable and, in our view, often
important. Indeed, when the giver is uncertain of whether the responsiveness
is appropriate to the communal strength of the relationship, such expressions
serve the important function of indicating that the gesture was welcome.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: ELICITING RESPONSIVENESS

Responsiveness is key to establishing a sense of love in a relationship,
but for a partner to be responsive, he or she must know what to do to
enhance the other’s welfare. At times it is obvious because the situation is a
strong cue. If a person walking down a sidewalk has dropped a sheaf of
papers and is frantically attempting to gather them, it is pretty clear some
help is in order. Yet, frequently, partner needs, desires, goals, and fears are
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not obvious. Thus, for high levels of communal responsiveness to charac-

terize a relationship (and to be felt by its inhabitants), its members must be
willing to express their needs, goals, desires, and fears freely. This can be
accomplished through self-disclosure.
How Much Responsiveness Is Required? How Much Need

Should Be Revealed?
How much responsiveness is required for people to label the relation-
ship as one involving love? People assume differing levels of responsibility
for the welfare of different partners. Clark, Mills, and their colleagues refer
to the degree of responsibility assumed as the communal strength of the
relationship (Mills, Clark, Ford, and Johnson, 2004). People have implicit
hierarchies of communal relationships, and relationships with strangers an-
chor the bottom of that hierarchy. (Most people assume some minimal com-
munal responsibility even for strangers; for example, they tell them the time
with no expectation of repayment.) They typically have stronger communal
relationships with acquaintances and neighbors, yet stronger communal re-
lationships with friends (and best friends stronger still), and typically the
strongest ones with children and romantic partners. People feel greater re-
sponsibility for the welfare of those higher in their hierarchies, and the needs
of people higher in the hierarchy take precedence over the needs of people
lower in the hierarchy.
People also have implicit hierarchies of the responsibility they expect from
each member of their set of communal partners, and they are more likely
to self-disclose and seek help from those highest in their hierarchies. Often
relationships in these two hierarchies are symmetrical, meaning that people
feel about the same level of communal responsibility for the partner as they
expect the partner to feel toward them. However, the communal strength
of relationships may be unequal. For instance, parents typically feel far more
communal responsibility for the welfare of their minor children than those
children feel toward them.
Returning to the question of what constitutes a loving relationship, it is
our sense that the terms love and loving are used to refer to a communal
relationship when that relationship surpasses some implicit threshold of
communal strength. However, other factors may influence a person’s sense
that a communal relationship is characterized by love, such as the length of
time a particular relationship has been characterized by a high level of com-
munal responsiveness and the length of time a high level of communal re-
sponsiveness is expected to continue.
In thinking about what contributes to a sense of love, it is interesting to re-
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turn to our point that communal relationships need not be symmetrical in

strength. As stated above, parents typically feel more responsibility for the
welfare of their minor children than those children feel for the welfare of their
parents. However, does this mean that the parents love the children more than
the children love the parents? Not necessarily. The reason is straightforward.
Both feeling a strong communal responsibility for another person and per-
ceiving that another person feels a strong communal responsibility for the self
contribute to a sense of love (whether the relationship is symmetrical or not).
Hence, even when a relationship is characterized by asymmetrical communal
strength, it need not be characterized by asymmetry in the amount of love the
participants feel for one another (although it may be).
Just what those thresholds of communal strength—length of past, ex-
pected communal strength, and relative positions in hierarchies—must be
for the term love to be used, undoubtedly differs between people. Just how
it differs is likely based on their own past experiences and the resulting
comparison levels they set for responsiveness expected in relationships.
The Importance of Certainty

Communal relationships differ not only in strength and in placement
within a person’s hierarchy of other communal relationships, they also differ
in felt certainty about the communal nature of the relationship (Mills and
Clark, 1982). We can be absolutely sure about the level of communal
strength of a given relationship, somewhat uncertain, or very uncertain.
Many factors drive certainty. An obvious one is the length of time a com-
munal relationship has existed. All else being equal, the longer a communal
relationship has existed, the more certainty should exist. A person’s history
in other communal relationships may well influence his or her certainty
about the strength of a present one. A history of failed communal expec-
tations may well carry over and influence one’s certainty about a current
relationship. Variability over time in a partner’s responsiveness is also a fac-
tor, with greater variability creating more uncertainty. Finally, the extent to
which a partner has sacrificed his or her own self-interest to be responsive
ought to increase certainty (Holmes and Rempel, 1989). Uncertainty of the
communal strength of relationships should undermine the sense that the
relationship is characterized by love.1
1. Interestingly, others have defined love as involving arousal plus a label (e.g., Dut-
ton and Aron, 1974; Berscheid and Walster, 1974). Uncertainty and variability may
be associated with greater anxiety and arousal that may contribute to a sense of love
defined in this manner, but not to a sense of love as discussed in this chapter.
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Placement of the Self in One’s Communal Hierarchy

People are not responsive only to partners’ needs; they also feel re-
sponsible for their own needs. They place themselves in their own hierarchy
of communal relationships, most times at or near the top because most
people feel tremendous levels of responsibility for the self. We believe that
placement of the self in the hierarchy has implications for the sense of love
that the self feels for a partner as well as for the sense of love that the
partner feels for the self. In particular, if the self is placed at the very pinnacle
of the person’s hierarchy, and especially if the self is placed far above the
partner, then even the strongest communal partner’s needs will never take
precedence over the needs of the self. Sacrifices will not be made for the
partner, and it is less likely that the self will forgive the partner for trans-
gressions against the self. Whereas the self can feel some sense of love and
caring in such relationships and the partner can feel some sense of being
loved, the very fact that the self’s welfare always takes precedence over that
of the partner should serve as a fairly strong signal to both parties that the
love is not exceptionally strong. Such placement of the self above all others
is a factor that may strongly undermine felt love.
If the self is placed either at the same level as the partner (as many spouses
may do) or at a level lower than the partner (as mothers may often do with
regard to relationships with a child), the story is very different. In such cases,
sacrifices will be made, the needs of the partner will sometimes (given equal
strength) or often (if the self is placed below the partner) take precedence
over the needs of self, forgiveness will take place regularly, and so on. The
few relationships a person has that fit this category are often considered the
most loving relationships. The placement of self relative to a partner is,
we believe, a potent determinant of this.2 This is precisely why, we believe,
sacrificing self-interest to be responsive to a partner promotes certainty
about the communal nature of the relationship (Holmes and Rempel, 1989).
2. An important caveat is that some people are high in a trait known as unmitigated
communion (Helgeson and Fritz, 1998). They place the needs of a partner above their
own needs, neglect their own needs, and fail to alert a partner to their own needs. It
is our belief that this trait may arise from a person’s having low self-esteem, feeling
unworthy of care, and/or having a great desire to win others over and to please them.
This is not a trait that contributes to optimal communal responsiveness nor to mutual
feelings of love.
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Numbers of Communal Relationships at Various Levels

Reis et al. (2004) suggested that communal relationships are typically
arranged in terms of a hierarchy of communal strength and also that, when
arranged in such hierarchies, they tend to form triangles with many very
low strength communal relationships at the base, fewer in the middle, and
a very few, very high strength relationships at the top.
The numbers of people tied in communal strength at various levels within
a person’s (generally roughly) triangular set of communal relationships may
influence a person’s sense of the relationship. Being one of many people at
a particular communal strength may create a different sense than being the
only person or one of a very few people at that level. If one is uniquely high
in another person’s hierarchy of relationships, one may feel especially loved.
Suddenly having to share a spot in another’s hierarchy (e.g., a child who
has just acquired a sibling) may cause one to question the other’s love.
WHAT IS IDEAL AND WHAT IS REAL?

The amount of communal responsibility a person ideally assumes for
another person and the amount enacted toward that person can differ.
Moreover, the amount of communal responsibility a person ideally expects
from another person and the amount received can differ. In assessing what
produces a sense of love, we believe that actual responsiveness is most im-
portant. However, we also believe that the level of responsiveness a person
knows he or she ideally wishes to express contributes to feeling loving, and
the responsiveness a person expects from a partner contributes to feeling
loved.
The Importance of Individual Differences in Tending to

Perceive That Others Will Be Communally Responsive
Thus far we have discussed a loving relationship as being one that is
objectively characterized by communal responsiveness. Of course there is
variability between individuals in their general, chronic tendencies to be
communally responsive (or to behave in such a way as to elicit communal
responsiveness), and variability between individuals in their tendencies to
perceive that others are communally responsive to them (given the same
objective circumstances). Indeed, such differences have become the topic of
much interest within psychology.
We do not wish to dwell extensively on these differences. We would simply
note that the social and developmental psychology literature provides ample
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evidence that such differences are important both to (a) whether or not any
particular relationship will be characterized by communal responsiveness
and to (b) holding communal responsiveness constant; that is, to whether
members of a relationship will perceive a particular relationship to be com-
munally responsive.
Many (conceptually overlapping) traits are relevant in this regard (Reis et
al., 2004). They include communal orientation (Clark et al., 1987), self-
esteem (Leary and Baumeister, 2000; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, and Chokel,
1998; Murray et al., 1998; Murray, Bellavia, Rose, and Griffin, 2003), re-
jection sensitivity (Downey and Feldman, 1996), and attachment styles
(Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1982; Hazan, and
Shaver, 1987; Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw, 1988). People who are high
in communal orientation, high in self-esteem, low in rejection sensitivity,
and secure in attachment styles undoubtedly are more likely, on average, to
be communally responsive to their partners in any given relationship (Simp-
son, Rholes, and Nelligan, 1992; Clark et al., 1987), to reveal vulnerabilities,
to ask for help from partners (Simpson et al., 1992), and to perceive their
partners as communally responsive, especially in ambiguous situations (Col-
lins and Feeney, 2004; Downey and Feldman, 1996). They also are less likely
to be threatened by negative information about their partner, and less likely
to withdraw from dependency on their partner in the face of any sign of
rejection (Murray et al., 2003). Indeed, people who are generally confident
in their partners’ positive regard even find positives in their partners’ faults
(Murray and Holmes, 1993, 1999). Thus, we think it is safe to say that
people high in communal orientation and high in self-esteem, and those
secure in attachment styles and low in rejection sensitivity will be more likely
than others to experience their close relationships as communally responsive
and loving.
What Promotes Communal Responsiveness?

What encourages communally responsive acts? Are there processes
that support communal responsiveness and contribute to an overall sense of
loving and being loved? We do not believe that much of the difference in
people’s success in pulling off communally responsive relationships is due to
variability in their basic knowledge of basic communal norms. Our culture
teaches virtually all of us how to behave communally in such relationships.
If explicitly asked, most people would readily agree that helping, providing
support toward goals, including partners in enjoyable activities, readily for-
giving partners, and conveying care through words and symbolic actions are
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all terrific for purposes of establishing good personal relationships. Indeed,

most people are quite adept at immediately behaving communally when they
desire a new friendship or romantic relationship (Berg and Clark, 1986;
Clark and Mills, 1979; Clark and Waddell, 1985; Clark, Ouellette, Powell,
and Milberg, 1987; Clark, et al., 1986; Clark, et al., 1989; Williamson and
Clark, 1989).
TRUST IS CENTRAL
What matter far more to being able to form, deepen, and, especially,
to maintain communal relationships in the face of challenges, are (a) trusting
that a particular partner truly cares about one’s welfare and, simultaneously,
will not exploit or hurt one, as well as (b) trusting that a partner desires to
be a recipient of one’s care and will accept such care, along with a mutual
communal relationship. The former type of trust affords one the courage to
reveal needs and seek support; the latter type of trust affords one the courage
to offer support.
Trust in a particular partner within a specific relationship is what is crucial
to a loving relationship. Such trust is primarily built up by having an actual
partner who is truly responsive to one’s welfare even in the face of his or
her conflicting self-interests (Holmes and Rempel, 1989; Holmes, 2002). Of
course, the propensity to trust is the central part of the individual differences
that were just discussed as relevant to communal responsiveness. Yet the
trust that inheres in a particular partner within a particular relationship
remains important to achieving a sense of love. No matter how generally
secure and trusting a person is, that person does not experience love until
the trust is manifested within a particular relationship.
The Nature of a Person’s Wider Network of

Communal Relationships
Beyond trust in a particular partner, the nature of a person’s wider
network of communal relationships may influence that person’s willingness
to risk revealing vulnerabilities (and perhaps eliciting care) in new relation-
ships or in relationships with potential to grow in communal strength. Al-
though rarely discussed, having faith and trust in one or more communal
partner(s) may well afford a person the fortitude to attempt developing other
communal relationships, if additional communal relationships are desired.
After all, if the new relationship does not take, there are others on whom
to rely, and the self can still be seen as a good and competent communal
relationship partner. At the same time, having existing strong communal
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partners may inhibit the development of new partnerships and deepening of

existing ones, if the person feels a sufficient number exist, needs are being
met, and resources for caring for others are limited.
To What Relationship- and Love-Enhancing Processes Does

Trust Give Rise?
It is our sense that trust that a particular partner truly cares for one
gives rise to a host of processes, which promote the formation, maintenance,
and strengthening of communal relationships. It is, perhaps, easiest to un-
derstand how trust in a partner’s care facilitates behaviors that elicit support,
such as revealing one’s own vulnerabilities; self-disclosing needs, goals and
desires; expressing emotions (Clark et al., 2004; Clark and Finkel, 2005);
and issuing straightforward requests for help. Trust is necessary to engaging
in these behaviors because the other can turn one down (thereby hurting
one’s feelings and/or embarrassing one) or even exploit one’s revealed vul-
nerabilities. Trust is also crucial to noncontingently accepting benefits from
partners, since one is signaling a willingness to be dependent on the other
by so doing.
Trust is also integral to the process of noncontingently providing support.
People like partners more when those partners do not repay them for ben-
efits received and do not ask for repayment of benefits given (Clark and
Mills, 1979). In a diary study involving married couples and benefits given
day to day, both husbands and wives reported experiencing more positive
emotions after having given a benefit for communal (noncontingent) reasons
and after having received a benefit on a communal, noncontingent basis than
after having given or received benefits on a contingent basis (Clark, Graham,
Lemay, Pataki, and Finkel, 2006). Yet, when one does care noncontingently,
one is doing so with no guarantee that the person will welcome the support
and no guarantee (in relationships that one hopes will be mutual) that the
other will be similarly responsive to the self. Trust, we believe, provides the
courage to believe that responsiveness will be welcome, and the reassurance
that the other will be responsive to the self if and when such responsiveness
is needed. Lack of trust, we believe, pushes one to use exchange norms that
involve insisting on guarantees and that the self will be compensated for
support given, and that, perhaps less obviously, provide a “cover” for the
self in case one’s efforts to be responsive are declined. That is, one can think
to oneself, and even say to the other, that one was really seeking something
for the self, not indicating a desire for a communal relationship with the
other. Preliminary evidence that a lack of trust in others does promote the
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use of exchange rules is emerging from an ongoing longitudinal study of

marriages in which avoidant (but not secure) individuals show rises in use
of exchange behaviors over the course of their marriages, in the face of
mildly declining communal responsiveness on the part of their spouses
(Clark, 2005).
Trust also appears to give rise to a host of other interpersonal processes
that do not directly involve providing or receiving support, but do support
a more macrolevel process of becoming increasingly dependent upon one’s
partner. This point has been made clearly by Murray, Holmes, and their
colleagues in talking about dependency regulation (Murray, Holmes, and
Griffin, 2000). They suggest that having faith that one’s partner regards one
positively (and, we would say, more specifically, having trust that the partner
is likely to care about one’s welfare) allows one to “take a leap of faith”
and to hold positive illusions about that partner. The illusions they study
consist largely in viewing partners as having traits, such as kindness, which
should allow people both to risk revealing vulnerabilities and to believe that
their own communal gestures will be accepted. This, we suspect, increases
a person’s communal responsiveness, which in turn should encourage the
partner to live up to those norms. This may be exactly why Murray, Holmes,
and Griffin (1996) observe that people do tend to live up to the illusions
partners have of them. Other processes to which trust may give rise, and
that may also foster maintaining or increasing dependence on one’s partner,
include making benign attributions for a partner’s less than perfect behavior
(Fincham, 2001), being accommodating (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik,
and Lipkus, 1991; Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, and Agnew, 1999), and
seeing one’s partner as being superior to alternative partners (Rusbult, Van
Lange, Wildschut, Yovetich, and Verette, 2000).
How Might a Lack of Trust Detract from

Communal Responsiveness?
We view low trust in others’ care as the primary factor that interferes
with the development of ongoing communal responsiveness and love in a
relationship. Mistrust heightens a person’s focus on self-protection, which,
in turn, typically (a) moves the self above the partner, sometimes far above
the partner, in a person’s hierarchy of communal relationships; (b) makes a
person very reticent to reveal vulnerabilities; and (c) heightens a person’s
reluctance to be noncontingently responsive to the other, lest the other reject
communal overtures (which would hurt) or not respond to the person’s own
needs (in mutual communal relationships) when needs arise. The ultimate
04:51:19 UTC
fallout is independence from others at best, and conflict, suspicion, tenden-

cies to interpret partner behaviors in negative, defensive ways (Collins, 1996;
Collins and Allard, 2001), and outright negative interactions at worst.
We have recently studied two additional processes that, we believe, arise
from a relative lack of trust in others’ care and a resultant felt need to protect
the self: active use of contingent—what Clark and Mills (1979; Mills and
Clark, 1982) called exchange—rules within close relationships, and a ten-
dency to functionally segregate positive and negative information about
partners in memory. Consider following contingent norms for giving and
accepting benefits first. Doing so is certainly “fair” and, indeed, has been
advocated as a positive technique for maintaining the quality of relationships
(Walster, Walster, and Berscheid, 1978). Yet, as we have already noted, fol-
lowing contingent norms undermines both the giver’s sense of being nurtur-
ing and the recipient’s sense of being the object of care. It also results in
responsiveness being dictated as much or more by the provider’s needs than
by the potential recipient’s needs, desires, or goals.
Early evidence that people do prefer noncontingent to contingent rules for
giving benefits in close relationships came in the form of people who had
been led to desire a communal relationship liking their partners less when
those partners appeared to follow exchange norms by repaying them for
benefits received or asking for repayments for benefits given (Clark and
Mills, 1979; Clark and Waddell, 1985), as well as avoiding keeping track
of benefits when a communal relationship was desired (Clark, 1984; Clark,
Mills, and Corcoran, 1989). More recent evidence comes from studies of
ongoing marriages, which show that although almost all couples start out
with the view that communal norms are ideal for their relationships (Grote
and Clark, 1998; Clark, 2005), and with efforts to be communally respon-
sive, stressful times can cause members to begin calculating fairness, which,
in turn, increases conflict (Grote and Clark, 2001) and appears to be asso-
ciated with both low trust and decreased marital satisfaction (Clark, 2005).
Yet another process to which low faith in others appears to give rise is
thinking of partners as “all positive” or “all negative” at a single point in
time (Graham and Clark, 2006). Graham and Clark (2006) reasoned that
whereas all people feel a need to belong (Baumeister and Leary, 1995), those
low in trust that others will care for them (as indexed by low self-esteem or
anxious attachment) find approaching a less than seemingly perfect other
very difficult. Hence, in times of low threat, they tend to defensively see
others as perfect, which allows them both to approach and interact with
such people and to feel that partners will reflect positively upon them. How-
ever, once they detect a fault in others, they quickly conjure up all other
04:51:19 UTC
faults, which provide an excuse to avoid depending upon the person and to
avoid being embarrassed by him or her. The result, Graham and Clark
claim, and for which they provide evidence, is a tendency to think of part-
ners as “all good” or “all bad” at a given point in time, a tendency that
does not characterize people high in self-esteem (and trust of others), who
appear to view partners in more realistic and stable ways.
Although the evidence is not yet in, our sense is that a tendency to seg-
regate a partner’s positive and negative attributes instead of integrating them
will detract from communal responsiveness in a number of ways. First, a
balanced sense of a partner’s strengths and weaknesses ought to support
both being optimally communally responsive to that person and optimal
seeking of support from that partner. For instance, if one knows that one’s
partner has great mathematical skills and also is forgetful, one can both
recommend that he or she apply for a desirable job requiring those skills
and remind him or her of the deadline for applications; and if one needs
some tutoring in math for a course one is taking, one can both ask for that
help and call to remind him or her of when the help is needed. Beyond this,
having a balanced view ought to allow for a steadiness in views of and
communal responsiveness toward the partner across time and events (Clark
and Graham, 2006; Wortman, 2005) that should, as noted above, increase
trust and felt love. All-positive and all-negative views of partners, in con-
trast, ought to lead, respectively, to expecting too much from partners and
believing they need little support (when views are positive) and avoiding
supporting or relying on partners (when views are negative).
Summary and Conclusions

To summarize, we believe repeated and consistent giving and receipt
of communal responsiveness results in experiencing relationships as loving
ones. In mutual communal relationships, such responsiveness is dependent
upon each member’s trusting that the other cares and will accept care. Be-
yond this, sensing where one is in a partner’s hierarchy of other communal
relationships and where one places one’s partner in one’s own hierarchy can
have an impact on felt love with higher placements, particularly relative to
the partner, thus enhancing felt love. Trust gives rise to a wide variety of
interpersonal processes, including actual acts of communal responsiveness
(indicating understanding, validation, and noncontingent helping; including
the other in joint activities; supporting; signaling felt care) and acts that often
directly elicit receipt of felt care (expressing emotion, self-disclosure, asking
for support). Less obviously, trust encourages processes—such as viewing
04:51:19 UTC
one’s partner in a very positive light and more positively than alternatives,
making benign attributions for partner misdeeds, accommodation, and for-
giveness—that permit a person to remain comfortably within the relation-
ship and to continue acting in communally responsive ways.
Low trust, in contrast, discourages communal responsiveness and reveal-
ing information about the self that may elicit communal responsiveness from
others. Instead, it gives rise to behaviors, some of which, on the surface,
may seem okay (and even admirable) but which, simultaneously, undermine
communal responsiveness. Such behaviors include relying on the self even
when receipt of support might be very useful, suppressing emotions, giving
and accepting benefits only on a contingent basis, and behaving in a wide
variety of defensive ways that may lead to harmful chronic ways of thinking
about partners, such as segregating positive and negative thoughts about
partners. Behaviors that are chronically associated with high rather than low
communal responsiveness will come to elicit high rather than low feelings
of love.
We do not claim that communal responsiveness and the interpersonal pro-
cesses with which it is associated are the only ways in which love can be
productively defined. However, we do think the term is often used to refer
to a relationship characterized by chronic communal responsiveness and
comfort, and the security and warm feelings that accompany it. Communal
responsiveness is also, we firmly believe, the most important factor contrib-
uting to the now well-documented fact that having close, loving, relation-
ships is tremendously beneficial to one’s mental and physical health (Clark
and Finkel, 2004).
Acknowledgment
Preparation of this chapter was supported by National Science Foundation grant
BNS 9983417. The ideas and opinions expressed in the chapter are those of the au-
thors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.
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PART III
Implicit Theories of Love
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11
A Prototype Approach to Studying Love

beverley fehr
What is love? This fundamental question, posed by Shakespeare in

Twelfth Night, is one that has captured the imagination of social scientists.
However, in contrast to Shakespeare and the philosophers, poets, and writ-
ers before him, social scientists’ interest in love is a relatively recent phe-
nomenon. The study of love did not receive serious attention from social
psychologists until the 1970s, when scholars such as Rubin (1970) and Ber-
scheid and Hatfield (1974) began to focus on this topic. Their conceptuali-
zations and empirical investigations, particularly Berscheid and Hatfield’s
(1974) and Hatfield and Walster’s (1978) distinction between companionate
love and passionate love, inspired others to develop and test theories and
models of love (e.g., Hazan and Shaver, 1987; C. Hendrick and Hendrick,
1986; Sternberg, 1986, 1988). This period of conceptual development pro-
duced a substantial literature on experts’ theories of love (see Fehr, 2001;
S. S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2000, for reviews). Thus, by now, much is
known about how social scientists think about love. In contrast, much less
is known about how ordinary people conceptualize love. The purpose of
this chapter is to review and synthesize research on lay conceptions of love,
analyzed from a prototype perspective. First, I shall address the basic ques-
tion: What is love? Experts’ answers to this question are presented, followed
by the answers of ordinary people. I then consider whether there are cultural
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226 Implicit Theories of Love
and individual differences in lay conceptions of love. Next, I discuss the role
of lay conceptions in the construction of measurement instruments. In the
final section, the relationship implications of conceptions of love are ex-
plored.
What Is Love?
EXPERTS’ ANSWERS
A major development in the study of love was Rubin’s (1970, 1973)
groundbreaking analysis of love and the related construct of liking. Rubin
defined love as an attitude that predisposes one to think, feel, and act in
particular ways toward the love object. Further, he delineated three com-
ponents of love: intimacy, need/attachment, and caring. Subsequent research
has shown that people consider caring to be more indicative of love than
need/attachment (Steck, Levitan, McLane, and Kelley, 1982).
The next influential development was Berscheid and Hatfield’s (1974)
model of love. They argued that love is not a single entity, but is best con-
ceptualized in terms of two basic kinds: companionate love and passionate
love. Companionate love is defined as “friendly affection and deep attach-
ment to someone” (Hatfield and Walster, 1978, p. 2). This kind of love is
characterized by caring, trust, honesty, respect, and the like (Brehm, 1992).
It can be experienced for a number of significant people in one’s life (e.g.,
close friends, family members, romantic partners). Passionate love, in con-
trast, is defined as “a state of intense longing for union with another” (Hat-
field and Walster, 1978, p. 9). This kind of love is characterized by emotional
extremes, physiological arousal, and sexual attraction. Passionate love typ-
ically has only one, rather than multiple, targets.
Subsequent theoretical developments included C. Hendrick and Hen-
drick’s (1986) and Lee’s (1973) typology of six different love styles: agape
(altruistic, selfless love), storge (friendship-based love), ludus (game-playing
love), mania (obsessive, dependent love), pragma (practical love), and eros
(romantic, passionate love). Eros, ludus, and storge are considered to be the
primary colors of love; mania, agape, and pragma are secondary. Another
major contribution was Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love. He
conceptualized love as a triangle, with passion, intimacy, and decision/com-
mitment as the vertices. The various combinations of these elements produce
eight different kinds of love. For example, companionate love is composed
of intimacy plus decision/commitment. Finally, Hazan and Shaver (1987)
conceptualized love as attachment and argued that the three major attach-
ment styles displayed in infancy (secure, anxious/ambivalent, and avoidant)
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A Prototype Approach to Studying Love 227
are evident in people’s patterns of relating to an adult romantic partner. This

approach to love has spawned literally thousands of studies on the link
between attachment (now generally conceptualized in terms of the two un-
derlying dimensions of anxiety and avoidance) and a large range of rela-
tionship phenomena, including love (see Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003, for
a review).
An attempt to integrate these various experts’ models of love was made
by C. Hendrick and Hendrick (1989), who factor-analyzed measures of the
components of these models of love. A number of passion scales, such as
Hatfield and Sprecher’s (1986) Passionate Love Scale, loaded on the first
factor, suggesting that passion is a major dimension of love. The second
factor appeared to be a companionate love factor, although it was not as
clearly defined as the first. Sternberg’s intimacy scale loaded positively on
this factor; the ludus (game-playing) love style scale loaded negatively. Based
on this study and other kinds of evidence, it has been argued that the major
theories of love can be summarized in terms of the companionate-passionate
distinction originally proposed by Berscheid and Hatfield (see Fehr, 2001).
ORDINARY PEOPLE’S ANSWERS

The fact that experts have generated numerous definitions of love,
rather than a single, agreed-upon definition, suggests that love may not be
a classically defined concept. According to Rosch (1973a, 1973b), many
natural language concepts are not amenable to classical definition (i.e., de-
fined in terms of necessary and sufficient criterial features). Rather, such
concepts are organized around their clearest cases, or best examples, which
Rosch referred to as prototypes. Further, Rosch argued that members of a
category can be ordered in terms of their degree of resemblance to the pro-
totypical cases, with members shading gradually into nonmembers. Bound-
aries between categories therefore are blurry and ill-defined, rather than pre-
cise and clear-cut, as the classical view would have it.
Rosch (see Mervis and Rosch, 1981, for a review) substantiated her claims
with numerous experiments demonstrating that natural language concepts
such as fruit, vegetable, and furniture are structured as prototypes, such that
some instances of the concept are considered more prototypical than others.
Moreover, she showed that this internal structure affects the cognitive proc-
essing of category-relevant information. For example, in a reaction time
study, the category membership of prototypical instances was confirmed
more quickly than that of nonprototypical instances (e.g., robins were ver-
ified as a kind of bird more quickly than were chickens; Rosch, 1973b).
Might more abstract concepts such as love also be represented as proto-
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types in cognitive representation? Certainly, the failure of experts to reach

consensus on a definition of love is consistent with this possibility. In a series
of studies, I (Fehr, 1988) explored the hypothesis that the concept of love
is more amenable to a prototype than to a classical conceptualization. I
began by asking laypeople (university students) to list features or attributes
of the concept of love. Features such as honesty, trust, and caring were listed
frequently. Features such as dependency, sexual passion, and physical at-
traction were listed relatively infrequently. In all, there were sixty-eight fea-
tures listed by more than one participant, suggesting that laypeople have
rich, complex knowledge of this concept. Moreover, as these examples sug-
gest, the lay conception of love seems to encompass both companionate love
and passionate love. A different group of participants then rated these fea-
tures in terms of prototypicality (goodness-of-example). This study revealed
that features such as trust, caring, and intimacy were considered central to
love, whereas sexual passion, gazing at the other, and heart rate increases
were considered peripheral. Put another way, laypeople regarded features
portraying companionate love as the essence of love; features depicting pas-
sionate love were considered nonprototypical of the concept. (Interestingly,
these findings contradicted the stereotype that university students define love
in terms of passion and romance.)
This prototype structure was confirmed using a variety of methodologies.
In one study, prototypical features of love were found to be more salient in
memory than were nonprototypical features (Fehr, 1988, study 3). For ex-
ample, participants tended to erroneously report having seen prototypical
features that, in fact, had not been presented. Such false positives were less
likely to occur for nonprototypical features. The prototype structure of love
also was reflected in natural language use, such that it sounded awkward to
insert hedges in sentences containing central, but not peripheral, features
(e.g., “Pat sort of trusts Chris” sounded peculiar, whereas “Pat sort of ad-
mires Chris” was rated as more natural-sounding; Fehr, 1988, study 4). The
convergence of findings across studies supported the conclusion that the
concept of love is better thought of as a prototype than a classically defined
concept.
In subsequent research (Fehr and Russell, 1991), the focus shifted to types
or kinds of love, rather than features. Based on prototype theory, it was
hypothesized that some types of love would be considered more prototypical
than others, in the same way that some kinds of fruit (e.g., apples) are more
prototypical than others (e.g., avocados; Rosch, 1973a, 1973b). This hy-
pothesis received support in a series of studies (Fehr and Russell, 1991). For
example, we found that familial kinds of love and friendship love were con-
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sidered prototypical; romantic love, passionate love, and sexual love were
considered nonprototypical. This internal structure was corroborated using
a variety of different methods. For example, in a reaction time study, par-
ticipants were faster to verify that maternal love is a kind of love than that
sexual love is a kind of love. Participants also tended to agree that the
prototypical instances were, in fact, kinds of love, but disagreed on whether
the nonprototypical instances belonged. Overall, the findings converged with
those found in the analysis of features of love; namely, that companionate
kinds of love were considered central to the concept, whereas passionate
kinds of love were considered peripheral.
Cultural and Individual Differences in Conceptions of Love

The initial studies of lay conceptions of love were conducted at the
University of British Columbia (Fehr, 1988; Fehr and Russell, 1991). It was
possible that the prototype of love that had been uncovered in this research
was unique to this particular group of respondents, rather than reflecting a
more widely held conception of love, at least within North America. It was
also possible that, despite agreement on prototypicality ratings, there could
be individual differences in prototypes of love. If conceptions of love were
to vary from one person to the next, or from one region to the next, this
would have important implications for close relationships. Social interac-
tions proceed more smoothly when partners are “reading from the same
page.” Or, as Sternberg (1988) put it, “At least some of the distress in close
relationships might be avoidable if each partner understood what the other
meant by love and how the interpretations were related” (p. 120).
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES/SIMILARITIES IN CONCEPTIONS OF LOVE

There have been a few investigations examining whether the prototype
of love that was derived on the west coast of Canada (Fehr, 1988) would
be replicable in other regions of North America. For example, Button and
Collier (1991) examined whether similar findings would be obtained on the
east coast of Canada, with both university student and community partici-
pants. The latter group consisted of provincial government employees as
well as members of the public. Luby and Aron (1990) explored whether
Americans living on the west coast of the United States also would hold a
similar prototype of love. Their research was conducted with students at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, as well as with members of the public
enrolled in music appreciation classes. There was a remarkable degree of
consistency across these data sets (see Fehr, 1993), particularly for those
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features of love identified as prototypical by Fehr (1988). More specifically,

five features of love were listed frequently and received the highest proto-
typicality ratings in each of these data sets: trust, caring, honesty, friendship,
and respect. Intimacy also received high ratings in each data set. Thus, at
least within North America, among university students and nonstudents
alike, there appears to be consensus that it is the companionate features of
love that capture the true meaning of the concept. Whether or not these
findings would be replicated in non–North American samples is a worth-
while pursuit for future research. There is some evidence, for example, that
people in collectivist cultures (e.g., Asia) hold a more companionate view of
love than those in individualist cultures, such as North America (e.g., K. L.
Dion and Dion, 1993; K. K. Dion and Dion, 1996). Thus, the prototype of
love in collectivist cultures may contain an even greater concentration of
companionate-like features of love than has been found in the North Amer-
ican studies.
Unfortunately, there have been few cross-cultural prototype analyses of
love per se. However, prototype analyses of the concept of emotion have
been conducted in a number of diverse countries, including Palau, Micro-
nesia (Smith and Tkel-Sbal, 1995), Turkey (Türk Smith and Smith, 1995),
Indonesia (Shaver, Murdaya, and Fraley, 2001), and China (Shaver, Wu,
and Schwartz, 1992). Shaver and colleagues noted that in cluster analyses
of emotion terms, love was grouped with other positive emotion terms in
American samples (e.g., liking, attraction, caring; Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson,
and O’Connor, 1987). However, in Indonesia, love clustered with emotion
terms that would be considered more negative (at least by North Americans),
such as yearning or longing. (In the United States, for example, these terms
are part of a sadness cluster.) In China the love cluster split into two subcat-
egories; one positive and one negative (Shaver et al., 1992). Thus, there is
reason to believe that people’s conceptions of love vary, depending on the
cultural context. An important direction for future research will be to assess
prototypes of love (rather than simply having people list emotion terms) in
different cultures and to identify areas of universality as well as cultural
specificity in people’s conceptions of love. For example, it is possible that
the features of love, which have been identified as prototypical in North
American research, may be universal and that it may be the nonprototypical
features that vary by culture.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE PROTOTYPE OF LOVE

Do women and men view love differently? This is a question that was
contemplated by Aristotle, and continues to intrigue philosophers and social
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scientists to this day. Whether or not people with different personalities

conceptualize love differently also has been of interest, particularly to social
scientists. Regarding gender, the assumption has been that it is women who
are most concerned with love and romance. However, when social psy-
chologists began conducting research on this question, they were surprised
to discover that it is actually men who are the more romantic sex (e.g., K. L.
Dion and Dion, 1993; Fehr and Broughton, 2001; Sprecher and Metts,
1989). For example, men are more likely than women to subscribe to ro-
mantic beliefs (e.g., true love lasts forever; when you meet the right person,
you will just “know” it) and to report experiences such as falling in love at
first sight. Women, on the other hand, have a more pragmatic orientation
to love (e.g., socioeconomic resources should be given consideration in part-
ner selection; it is possible to have a satisfying relationship with any number
of potential partners). Women also have more of a friendship orientation to
love, believing that romantic relationships should be built on a solid base of
friendship (e.g., Grote and Frieze, 1994; S. S. Hendrick and Hendrick,
1995). In short, it appears that men hold a passionate conception of love,
whereas women hold a companionate conception.
Given these gender differences, it has been difficult to escape the conclusion
(particularly in the popular press) that when it comes to love, women and
men inhabit different worlds. It is difficult to justify such a conclusion, how-
ever, when researchers generally have assessed only passionate (romantic)
love or only companionate (friendship) love, but not both kinds of love in
the same investigation. This precludes an examination of the relative empha-
ses that women and men place on these kinds of love. (The few researchers
who have measured both kinds of love typically have conducted between-,
and not within-, gender analyses.) In an attempt to shed light on this issue,
Fehr and Broughton (2001) conducted a series of studies in which compa-
nionate and passionate love scales (see section on prototype-based measure-
ment) were administered to large samples of women and men. Consistent
with past research, men were found to hold a more passionate view of love
than were women. Also consistent with past research, women endorsed a
more companionate conception of love than did men. However, within-
gender analyses revealed that for both women and men, companionate love
received the highest ratings, whereas passionate love received much lower
ratings. This pattern is illustrated in figure 11-1. In other words, by assessing
both companionate and passionate love and comparing ratings of these
kinds of love within each sex, a rather different picture emerged—one in
which the sexes appear to exhibit much greater agreement than disagree-
ment.
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9
8
7
6
women
5
men
4
3
2
1
Companionate Love Passionate Love
Figure 11-1. The general pattern of gender differences

and similarities in conceptions of love obtained across
studies in Fehr and Broughton (2001).
Personality differences in conceptions of love also were examined by Fehr

and Broughton (2001). The results across several studies showed that those
who are high in traits saturated with nurturance (e.g., warm-agreeable) tend
to hold a companionate conception of love. In contrast, low nurturance
traits (e.g., cold-hearted) are associated with a more passionate conception.
Dominance-related traits showed little relation to conceptions of love over-
all.
Individual differences in prototypes of love have been examined by other
researchers as well. For example, Aron and Westbay (1996) hypothesized
that individuals who had successfully completed the intimacy (vs. isolation)
stage of development (Erikson, 1950) would rate features of love (taken
from Fehr’s 1988 prototype) that portrayed intimacy higher than those who
had not achieved intimacy status. This hypothesis was supported. Contrary
to expectations, however, ratings of attachment style were uncorrelated with
prototypicality ratings. In another investigation, Rousar and Aron (1990)
examined sexual orientation, age, and attachment style differences in ratings
of the features of Fehr’s (1988) prototype of love. Overall, there was little
relation between these individual difference variables and ratings of proto-
typicality.
Before leaving this topic, it is interesting to note that individual differences
emerge only when participants are specifically asked to rate features or types
of love in terms of their own view of love. Individual differences typically
are not found when participants are asked to provide standard prototypi-
cality ratings (i.e., rate features or types in terms of how well they exemplify
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the concept of love). In the latter case, they may well be reporting on
culturally-shared conceptions (see Fehr, 1993, for further discussion of this
point.)
In summary, general consensus on the meaning of love (at least within
North America) does not preclude variability in conceptions of love at an
individual or cultural level. Indeed, there is some evidence that conceptions
of love vary, depending on one’s gender and personality. However, the most
striking finding in this literature is the extent of agreement on the prototype
of love.
Related Approaches to the Study of Lay Conceptions

of Love
Several other researchers have conducted prototype-based analyses of
love. One such approach has been to elicit laypeople’s accounts of particular
experiences of love, rather than asking them to describe the meaning of the
concept, as in Fehr’s research. For example, Shaver et al. (1987) asked par-
ticipants to describe an episode of love (along with other emotions). A pro-
totype of love was then derived from these accounts. More specifically, fea-
tures were extracted and classified as antecedents (e.g., feeling wanted/
needed by the other, finding the other attractive), responses (e.g., wanting
to be physically close to the other, kissing, sex), physiological reactions (e.g.,
high energy, fast heartbeat), behaviors (e.g., gazing, smiling), and so on. A
variation of this methodology was used by Fitness and Fletcher (1993) in
their analysis of love (and other emotions) as experienced in the context of
a marital relationship. In this research, married couples were asked to de-
scribe the most typical incident that would elicit feelings of love for one’s
spouse. The results indicated that love experiences were triggered by events
such as thinking about one’s partner, receiving support from him or her,
sharing happy times, and so on. Participants also mentioned low-arousal
physiological responses, such as feelings of warmth and relaxed muscles.
Behaviors included the desire to be physically close to one’s partner, giving
presents, hugging and kissing, and doing nothing.
Although they did not explicitly conduct a prototype study, Lamm and
Wiesmann (1997) asked university students in Germany to answer the ques-
tion “How can you tell that you love someone?” (Other participants were
asked about liking, and still others about being in love.) The responses were
coded, and a feature list was derived. Responses such as positive mood, trust,
and desire to be with the other were mentioned with high frequency. The
researchers concluded that there was considerable overlap between their
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findings and the features that were mentioned most frequently in Fehr’s
(1988) prototype analysis of love.
To give a final example, Buss (1988) focused on the behavioral indicators
of love. In this research, participants were asked to list behaviors that ex-
emplify love. These behaviors then were rated for prototypicality by a new
sample. Some behaviors of love were, in fact, regarded as more prototypical
than others. For example, behaviors indicative of commitment (e.g., “She
agreed to marry him”) received high prototypicality ratings. Other acts (e.g.,
“He made love to her”) received low ratings.
Thus, prototype analyses of love have taken different forms. It seems likely
that each of these approaches is tapping a different kind of relational knowl-
edge. As has been suggested elsewhere (e.g., Fehr, 2005; Fitness, Fletcher,
and Overall, 1993; Surra and Bohman, 1991), there are probably different
levels, or at least different storehouses, of knowledge of love. At the most
general level are socially shared conceptions of love. Presumably, this is the
kind of knowledge that is being assessed when researchers ask participants
to describe the concept of love (as in the studies by Fehr and colleagues), or
to list the behaviors that are typical of love (e.g., Buss, 1988). People also
are likely to hold relationship-specific representations of love, based on their
experiences in relationships. This may well be the kind of knowledge that
is accessed when participants are asked to describe specific experiences or
episodes of love (e.g., Fitness and Fletcher, 1991; Shaver et al., 1987). In
future research, it will be important to further explore the idea that people
organize their knowledge of love into different levels of abstraction and to
discover which body of knowledge is most likely to be accessed when mak-
ing relationship-relevant decisions.
Prototype-Based Measurement of Love

Prototype analyses also have been used to create measurement instru-
ments. One approach has been to present participants with features depict-
ing love or various types of love (derived from prototype studies). The task
for the participant is to rate the extent to which the conception of love
portrayed in the feature list captures his or her own view of love. For ex-
ample, I (Fehr, 1994) constructed a scale to assess laypeople’s conceptions
of love by presenting participants with the feature lists of fifteen different
kinds of love (taken from Fehr and Russell, 1991). In this scale, participants
are asked to rate how similar the view of love portrayed in each feature list
is to their own conception. The researcher can then analyze ratings of the
individual types of love (e.g., the extent of agreement with the romantic love
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prototype) or, alternatively, ratings can be aggregated to assess the more

global concepts of companionate love and passionate love. A companionate
love score is created by summing ratings of friendship love, familial love,
maternal love, and so on (based on the results of a cluster analysis; see Fehr,
1994). A passionate love score is created by summing ratings of the feature
lists depicting passionate love, romantic love, infatuation, sexual love, and
the like. This measure was used in Fehr and Broughton’s (2001) analysis of
gender and personality differences in conceptions of love discussed earlier.
More recently, this scale was used to assess the implications of dating cou-
ples’ conceptions of love (and similarities in those conceptions) for relation-
ship outcomes, discussed later (Fehr and Broughton, 2004).
Another approach to measurement was taken by Aron and Westbay
(1996), who factor-analyzed the sixty-eight features of the concept of love
identified by Fehr (1988). Three factors were extracted and were labeled
intimacy, passion, and commitment because of their similarity to the com-
ponents of Sternberg’s (1986, 1988) triangular theory of love. Aron and
Westbay (1996) developed scales to measure these dimensions by having
participants provide prototypicality ratings of the features of love that
loaded on each of these factors. These ratings were then averaged to produce
intimacy, passion, and commitment scores. Thus, this approach enables re-
searchers to assess the dimensions underlying the prototype of love.
The most recent development has been the construction of distance-from-
the-prototype measures in which people rate how well they (or their rela-
tionships) “match” prototypical descriptions presented by the researcher.
This methodology originally was developed in personality psychology (e.g.,
Broughton, 1984). In this research, participants are provided with descrip-
tions of hypothetical characters “acting out” behaviors that are prototypical
of various personality traits and are asked to rate how similar they are to
these characters. Personality classifications are based on these distance-from-
the-prototype ratings. In social psychology, Hassebrauck and Aron (2001)
developed a distance-from-the-prototype measure for the concept of rela-
tionship quality. More specifically, participants were asked to rate the extent
to which the features of the prototype of relationship quality (e.g., trust,
tolerance; Hassebrauck, 1997) were present in their romantic relationship.
The distance between the participants’ ratings of their relationship and the
prototype of relationship quality was then calculated. (The participants’ rat-
ing of each feature of the prototype of relationship quality was subtracted
from the maximum score, the difference was squared, and the squared dif-
ference scores were summed.) More recently, Boris (2002) used this meth-
odology to obtain distance-from-the-prototype ratings for the concept of
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love. In this study, participants rated their dating relationship in terms of

the features of the prototype of love (Fehr, 1988). Distance-from-the-
prototype scores were calculated as in Hassebrauck and Aron’s (2001) re-
search. (The findings of this study are presented in the next section.)
In conclusion, a number of prototype-based measures of love have been
developed. Which of these approaches is preferable depends on the needs of
the individual researcher. If the goal is to assess lay conceptions of love (or
various types of love), participants can be presented with prototypes (i.e.,
feature lists) and asked to rate how well that feature list approximates their
own conception. If the goal is to assess components of love (e.g., intimacy,
passion), participants can be asked to provide prototypicality ratings of par-
ticular subsets of features depicting these dimensions (Aron and Westbay,
1996). Finally, if the goal is to measure people’s perceptions of the extent
to which their own relationship “matches” a given prototype, distance-from-
the-prototype measures seem to hold considerable promise. One advantage
of prototype-based instruments is their reliance on laypeople’s understanding
of the target concept. This increases the probability that the researcher and
the participant have the same meaning in mind when assessing constructs.
This seems particularly important when doing research on concepts such as
love, where the risk is that the social scientists conducting the research and
the people they are studying may not necessarily hold the same definitions.
Relationship Implications of Prototypes of Love

In a landmark treatise on love and commitment, Kelley (1983) made
a persuasive case for the importance of studying lay conceptions of these
constructs. He argued that people rely on their knowledge of love when
seeking answers to some of life’s most important questions: Do I truly love
my partner? Is this the kind of love on which I should base a long-term
commitment? Presumably people also rely on their conception of love when
contemplating whether to remain in a relationship. For example, no longer
loving one’s partner is a common reason given for terminating relationships
(e.g., Sprecher and Fehr, 1998). In short, there is little argument that people’s
conceptions of love are likely to have important implications for “real world”
relationship dynamics. However, despite progress in mapping out what love
means to ordinary people, little is known about how these conceptions trans-
late into cognition, emotion, and behavior in actual relationships.
There are a few exceptions. Fehr (1988) conducted two scenario studies
to explore the implications of the prototype structure of love for judgments
about relationships. In the first study, participants were presented with de-
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scriptions of various kinds of relationships that differed in their degree of

love. As predicted, prototypical features (e.g., trust, caring) were rated as
most applicable to the most loving relationships. In contrast, the applica-
bility of nonprototypical features (e.g., physical attraction, thinking about
the other all the time) did not vary as systematically with the level of love
in the relationship. In a subsequent study, it was shown that violations of
prototypical features (e.g., failures of trust or respect) were seen as under-
mining the level of love in a relationship to a greater extent than violations
of nonprototypical features (e.g., no longer experiencing sexual attraction).
Although these studies suggest that the knowledge of love that exists in
people’s minds is relevant to the kinds of judgments they make about rela-
tionships, the findings are limited because actual relationships were not ex-
amined.
Aron and Westbay (1996) were among the first to explore the link be-
tween conceptions of love and relationship experiences. They had partici-
pants provide prototypicality ratings of features of love depicting intimacy,
passion, and commitment, as well as rate the level of intimacy, passion, and
commitment that they were experiencing in a love relationship. Conceptions
of love (assessed via prototypicality ratings) were not strongly associated
with relationship ratings, except for a significant positive correlation be-
tween prototypicality ratings of intimacy features and the level of intimacy
experienced.
More recently, a few studies have examined the relation between concep-
tions of love and satisfaction—the most commonly examined outcome var-
iable in close relationships research. For example, Moszkiewicz (2002) asked
individuals in dating relationships to rate the extent to which each of Fehr’s
(1988) features of love characterized their relationship. The correlation be-
tween ratings of the prototypical features of love (e.g., trust, intimacy) and
relationship satisfaction was .64; the correlation between ratings of the non-
prototypical features (e.g., sexual passion, thinking about the other all the
time) was .56. Thus, when people believe that their relationship embodies
the prototype of love, they tend to be more satisfied with their relationship.
This is particularly true for the prototypical features. The same pattern was
found by Boris (2002), who had dating couples rate their relationship in
terms of Fehr’s features of love. Again, both prototypical and nonprototyp-
ical features of love were significantly associated with relationship satisfac-
tion, and again, this relation was stronger for prototypical features (r ⫽ .73)
than for nonprototypical features (r ⫽ .47). Interestingly, these findings par-
allel those obtained in studies that have assessed the amount of love expe-
rienced in a relationship (rather than conceptions of love). According to this
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rather extensive body of research, both companionate love (akin to a pro-

totypical conception of love) and passionate love (akin to a nonprototypical
conception) are associated with relationship satisfaction, but the relation
tends to be stronger for companionate love (e.g., Hendrick and Hendrick,
1986; Sprecher and Regan, 1998; Sternberg, 1997; see Fehr, 2001, for a
review).
Finally, Fehr and Broughton (2004) examined the relation between con-
ceptions of love, using Fehr’s (1994) measure, and a broad range of rela-
tional outcomes. Consistent with predictions, dating couples who concep-
tualized love in terms of its prototypical cases tended to report greater love
and liking for their partner than those who conceptualized love in terms of
its nonprototypical cases. There was also a tendency for a prototypical con-
ception of love to be associated with higher relationship quality and greater
relationship stability. Further, there was evidence that similarity between
partners in conceptions of love—particularly similarity in terms of a pro-
totypical conception of love—was associated with positive outcomes. Al-
though these effects were relatively small, the findings provide at least pre-
liminary evidence that the way in which people think about love has
wide-ranging implications for their relationships.
The assumption underlying these studies is that conceptualizing love in
terms of its prototypical cases causes one to experience positive relationship
outcomes. However, the correlational nature of this research precludes
causal conclusions. Nevertheless, these findings raise the intriguing possibil-
ity that if people could be persuaded to think about love in terms of its
prototypical features, relationship satisfaction might be enhanced. Or per-
haps relationship satisfaction could be increased by inducing people to ex-
perience prototypical characteristics of love. But how might researchers ac-
complish this rather daunting task? In an innovative study, Boris (2002)
attempted to increase dating couples’ experience of a prototypical feature of
love—namely, intimacy—by having them engage in Aron and colleagues’
closeness induction procedure (Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone, and Bator,
1997). This self-disclosure exercise requires participants to reveal increas-
ingly intimate information about themselves to their partner. The exercise
begins with neutral questions (e.g., “When did you last go to the zoo?”),
which escalate in their level of intimacy over a forty-five-minute discussion.
During the last phase, partners answer questions that require a high degree
of personal disclosure (e.g., “If you were to die this evening with no oppor-
tunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having
told someone?”). Participants in the control condition are required to answer
neutral questions throughout the conversation session. This manipulation
was successful—participants in the intimacy condition subsequently rated
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their relationship as significantly closer than those in the control condition.

Importantly, those in the intimacy condition also reported greater satisfac-
tion and happiness with the relationship. Although only one feature of love
was targeted in this study, the results are encouraging.
As discussed earlier, endorsement of nonprototypical features of love is
also associated with relationship satisfaction, although not as strongly as for
prototypical features. This correlation suggests that relationships also might
benefit if nonprototypical features of love were enhanced. A fascinating pro-
gram of research by Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna, and Heyman (2000)
provides support for this idea. Aron and colleagues have devised a method
for increasing excitement in relationships. (Excitement is a nonprototypical
feature of love; Fehr, 1988.) In this research, couples are brought to the lab
and attached to one another with Velcro straps. Their task is to crawl
through an obstacle course, racing against a clock, to reach a bowl of candy.
Quite remarkably, after only seven minutes of this exciting activity, couples
report a significant increase in relationship satisfaction (relative to a con-
trol group and relative to the couple’s pre-experiment satisfaction ratings).
Moreover, when the couples’ interactions are surreptitiously recorded, ob-
servers perceive more warmth and positivity after the excitement induction
than before it. Thus, there is evidence that experiencing a nonprototypical
feature of love—namely, excitement—has salutary effects on couples’ well-
being.
Obviously, future research will need to examine a broader range of pro-
totypical and nonprototypical features than the single features that have
been targeted so far. Moreover, given that a prototypical conception (and
experience) of love tends to be more highly associated with satisfaction than
a nonprototypical conception (and experience), it will be important to es-
tablish whether it is more beneficial to enhance prototypical, rather than
nonprototypical, features of love. In research currently under way, priming
methodology is being used to bring to mind either prototypical or nonpro-
totypical features by having participants describe either a prototypical (e.g.,
trust) or nonprototypical (e.g., passion) love experience. The critical ques-
tion is whether bringing to mind prototypical love experiences will produce
greater relationship satisfaction than priming nonprototypical love experi-
ences.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Prototype Approach

In this final section, I discuss the strengths and limitations of the pro-
totype approach to the study of love. Some areas for future investigation
also are identified.
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WHAT DOES A PROTOTYPE ANALYSIS BUY US?

Prototype analyses of love have yielded important description infor-
mation about the content and structure of love in cognitive representation.
Social psychologists, dating back at least to Heider (1958), have recognized
the importance of studying “commonsense” psychology—the layperson’s
understanding of psychological concepts and phenomena. However, empir-
ical investigations of lay conceptions have been hampered by the absence of
a standard methodology for doing so. Rosch’s (1973a, 1973b; Mervis and
Rosch, 1981) delineation of a conceptual model, and articulation of a re-
search methodology based on that model, paved the way for social psycho-
logical investigation of lay conceptions of love. Thus, when asked, “How
do ordinary people define love?,” social scientists are now in a position to
give a lengthy answer. Moreover, as discussed in this chapter, researchers
have begun to investigate the link between conceptions of love and relation-
ship outcomes. Thus, by examining how ordinary people think about love,
social scientists are at least one step closer to understanding the way people
think, feel, and behave in their closest relationships.
Despite the considerable progress, there are still significant gaps. One
shortcoming of this literature is that lay conceptions of different kinds of
love have not received much attention. Virtually every article and book
chapter on love makes reference to the multifaceted nature of love, or com-
ments on its many varieties, sometimes using color-of-the rainbow analogies.
Yet, where prototype analyses are concerned, little is known about the dif-
ferent colors (or stripes) of love. Fehr and Russell (1991) gathered feature
lists for twenty different kinds of love, but did not have these features rated
for prototypicality. Thus, their investigation uncovered the content of dif-
ferent kinds of love, but not the structure of this knowledge. A few research-
ers have conducted prototype analyses in which features of romantic love
were elicited and rated for prototypicality (Button and Collier, 1991; Regan,
Kocan, and Whitlock, 1998). Recently, another kind of love—namely, com-
passionate love—was targeted for a prototype analysis (Fehr and Sprecher,
2005; Sprecher and Fehr, 2005). Prototype analyses of other varieties of
love not only will provide a fuller understanding of how laypeople think
about love, but also will enable researchers to address a number of concep-
tual issues concerning the cognitive representation of concepts. One issue
that merits attention is the role of nonprototypical features in defining spe-
cific types of love. For example, in their prototype analysis of compassionate
love, Fehr and Sprecher (2005) expected that features such as sacrifice and
putting the other ahead of self would be seen as central to this kind of love.
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However, these features received the lowest prototypicality ratings. The fea-
tures that were rated highest were those that are prototypical of the concept
of love itself (e.g., trust, caring).
Similarly, in Regan et al.’s (1998) prototype analysis of romantic love,
features that might be considered definitive of romantic love (e.g., romance,
giddiness/walking on air, cannot live without one another) received lower
ratings than features such as trust, honesty, respect, and caring (i.e., proto-
typical features of the more general concept of love). Thus, it is possible
that many, if not most, varieties of love share a common core, and that it
is the features that are rated as nonprototypical that serve to differentiate
one kind of love from another.
As mentioned earlier, prototype analyses also have the potential to address
questions about the universality versus cultural specificity of conceptions of
love. Prototype analyses also could provide insights into how people’s rela-
tionship experiences affect their conceptions of love. Might it be the case
that limerent lovers (those who desperately pursue inappropriate love rela-
tionships) hold prototypes of love that emphasize features that others regard
as nonprototypical (e.g., passion, thinking about the other all the time)?
Might the experience of unrequited love, or having several failed relation-
ships, influence one’s conception of love? These are important questions that
prototype analyses are equipped to answer.
Finally, prototype analyses hold promise for documenting historical
changes in conceptions of love. For example, in ancient Greek and Roman
times, love was seen as a state of intense torment that was experienced outside
of marriage. The twelfth century witnessed the birth of courtly love in France,
in which love was conceptualized as an idealistic, romantic, and elegant ex-
perience in which a married man courted a married woman who was not his
wife (Brehm, 1992). It would be fascinating to conduct prototype analyses on
archival sources (e.g., letters, diaries) to trace changes in conceptions of love
over time. Thus, a prototype approach has the potential to address a number
of issues concerning conceptions of love in different cultures, at different
times, and among those with different relationship experiences.
LIMITATIONS OF A PROTOTYPE APPROACH

There are many important questions about love that a prototype anal-
ysis is not equipped to answer. First, a prototype analysis is, by definition,
a descriptive analysis. Experts may choose to rely on these conceptions when
formulating theories of love, but these analyses, in and of themselves, do
not offer prescriptions for how love should be defined or explained. Put
another way, prototype analyses can answer “What?” questions (e.g.,
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“What is love?”), but are unable to answer important “Why?” questions

about human behavior (e.g., “Why do people fall in love?”).
Second, prototype analyses are bounded by people’s ability to articulate
and describe complex concepts such as love. Some social scientists have
expressed skepticism about how well laypeople can accomplish this task.
Berscheid and Meyers (1996) commented that “directly asking people to
describe the cultural models they use to interpret events within a particular
domain is not likely to be wholly successful for the same reason that inter-
views with fish seldom yield mentions of water” (p. 22). As a prototype
researcher, I can only respond that the hapless fish I have studied seem to
do quite well when directly asked to describe the qualities of the water they
inhabit. However, I believe it is important to cast a wide net to ensure that
all of the relevant qualities are captured. Thus, in the initial feature-listing
stages of a prototype analysis, it is crucial that large sample sizes be used.
It is also crucial that feature-listing studies be followed with studies in which
prototypicality ratings (and other indices of prototype structure) are gath-
ered. Frequency-of-listing and prototypicality ratings are not strongly cor-
related (see, e.g., Fehr, 2004), which suggests that people may not necessarily
produce the full range of important features when asked (a recall task), but
“know them when they see them” (assuming that providing prototypicality
ratings can be construed as a recognition task).
In conclusion, prototype analyses have yielded important information on
how laypeople conceptualize love. These conceptions undoubtedly play a
role in determining some of the most significant, potentially life-altering de-
cisions that people make in their lives: with whom to establish a close inti-
mate relationship and whether to maintain or end that relationship.
Acknowledgment
Preparation of this chapter was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. I am grateful to Susan Sprecher for her help-
ful comments on this chapter.
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PART IV
Cultural Theories of Love
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12
Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives

on Love: The Influence of Gender, Personality,
and Local Ecology on Emotional Investment in
Romantic Relationships
david p. schmitt
Why do some people experience more profound levels of love than

others? The answer to that question depends first and foremost on one’s
definition of love (Hatfield and Rapson, 2002; S. Hendrick and Hendrick,
2002; Lee, 1973; Murstein, 1988; Rubin, 1970). Evolutionary psychologists
tend to define love in terms of emotional investments that have reproductive
or fitness-enhancing consequences (Buss, 1988; Fisher, 1992; Lampert,
1997). Stable influxes of love through parental closeness and emotional pres-
ence, for instance, reliably produce children and adolescents with adaptive
attachment orientations (Bowlby, 1969; Hazan and Shaver, 1987). Love
tends to lead to parents bonding immediately in healthy ways with their
newborn offspring, to the development of informative infatuations before
the onset of more serious mating pursuits, and to the exchange of critical
social support among family and friends (Fletcher and Stenswick, 2003;
Hrdy, 1999; Kirkpatrick and Shaver, 1992; McAndrew, 2002; Shaver and
Hazan, 1988). Love often rivets our attention to a single potential mate,
instigating romantic flirtation, courtship behaviors, and eventually marriage
rituals (Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1989; Moore, 1995; Tennov, 1979). Ultimately, love
can culminate in physical intimacy that not infrequently results in genetic
reproduction. In short, from an evolutionary perspective, love is about in-
249
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250 Cultural Theories of Love
creasing fitness—it leads to a greater likelihood of reproducing (and having

our relatives and descendants reproduce).
In support of this evolutionary perspective on love, the psychology of
emotional investment appears to have deep biological substrates. Many of
the core feelings of love show definite ties to discrete biological systems
within human physiology and neuroanatomy (Buck, 2002; Diamond, 2004;
Insel and Young, 1997). Fisher (2000, 2004) has articulated a theory
whereby three distinct biological systems of love are hypothesized to have
evolved in humans. Each of these systems has specialized brain circuitries,
hormones, and neurotransmitters. In its simplified form, Fisher’s (2000) the-
ory suggests that love as lust involves testosterone and leads to motivated
mate-seeking with any partner. Love as romance or attraction involves do-
pamine and serotonin and leads to people falling in love with one particular
person. Love as attachment involves oxytocin and leads to the type of long-
term commitment needed to raise offspring to viability (around four years
in humans, given the natural history of birth spacing and weaning patterns
among forager cultures; Kelly, 1995). After that, Fisher (2000, 2004) argues,
humans are functionally designed to fall in love with a different person and
begin the reproductive love cycle anew. Although social context is obviously
critical to the experience of love (Medora, Larson, and Hortacsu, 2002),
feelings of romantic love across cultures seem to support this evolutionary
perspective, including the fact that love is universal across nearly all forms
and diversities of human culture (Fisher, 1992; Hatfield and Rapson, 2002;
Jankowiak and Fischer, 1998; Sprecher, Aron, and Hatfield, 1994). From
an evolutionary perspective, therefore, human nature appears to be funda-
mentally designed for the experience of love.
Despite love’s deep natural roots, there exist important individual differ-
ences in the extent to which the various forms of love are experienced (K. L.
Dion and Dion, 1988; Landis and O’Shea, 2000). Among the most impor-
tant factors that influence love are personality, culture, and biological sex.
Are people who possess certain personality trait profiles more likely to ex-
perience love? Are people from certain cultures or local ecologies more likely
to experience love? Finally, is one sex (male or female) more likely to ex-
perience love? Each of these fundamental questions is treated, in turn, in
this chapter.
Personality Differences in Love

Love and the many emotional features of romantic relationships ap-
pear to have strong ties to core features of human personality (Asendorpf,
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Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Love 251
1998; K. L. Dion and Dion, 1988; Shaver and Brennan, 1992; White, Hen-
drick, and Hendrick, 2004). The Big Five model of personality traits pro-
vides a popular heuristic of the core features of personality (Digman, 1997;
John, 1990). Locating individual difference variables such as love within the
Big Five can help relate emotional investment as a psychological construct
to other individual difference dimensions, as well as hint at the genetics,
neurology, and physiology underlying love experiences (Costa and McCrae,
2002; Fisher, 2000). Among the five dimensions that comprise the Big Five,
two stand out as closely related to individual differences in love: extraversion
and agreeableness (Caralis and Haslam, 2004; Davies, 1996; Heaven, Da
Silva, Carey, and Holen, 2004; Wiggins, 1979).
In one study, Schmitt and Buss (2000) explored a series of love-related
adjectives found in the English language and identified a general love di-
mension they dubbed “emotional investment.” The emotional investment
scale seemed to capture many of the core features of love—including aspects
of passion, intimacy, and commitment (Sternberg, 1988)—and was com-
posed of self-ratings of the adjectives loving, lovable, romantic, affectionate,
cuddlesome, compassionate, and passionate. In various samples of American
college students, Schmitt and Buss (2000) found the emotional investment
scale had psychometrically sound internal reliability, temporal reliability
over four weeks, convergent validity with Sternberg’s three dimensions of
love, and displayed discriminant validity by not correlating with social de-
sirability or relationship satisfaction. In terms of personality associations,
Schmitt and Buss found the expected links with extraversion and agreeable-
ness. Among both men and women, emotional investment significantly cor-
related with extraversion and agreeableness, though a little more so with
agreeableness. No other dimensions of the Big Five correlated with the emo-
tional investment scale for either sex.
Given the correlational profile found by Schmitt and Buss (2000), it seems
that love in terms of their evolutionary-relevant emotional investment di-
mension may be a mix of extraversion and agreeableness, with a little more
agreeableness than extraversion (see also Digman, 1997). These findings sup-
port the view that love is related to dopaminergic and serotonergic brain
circuitry (Fisher, 2004), and perhaps to heritable substrates related to these
systems (Cherkas, Oelsner, Mak, Valdes, and Spector, 2004; but see Waller
and Shaver, 1994). Special links of extraversion and agreeableness with love
and relationship outcomes have been documented by others (Asendorpf,
1998; Schmitt, 2002; White et al., 2004). However, specific subtypes of love
sometimes correlate differentially with extraversion and agreeableness (Wan,
Luk, and Lai, 2000). Fehr and Broughton (2001), for example, found pas-
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sionate love is more closely related to dominance or extraversion, whereas

companionate love is more closely related to nurturance or agreeableness.
Overall, though, it appears that individual differences in the tendency to
invest emotionally in loving relationships are related to extraversion and
agreeableness, psychometrically residing somewhere in between these two
dimensions and forming a fundamental axis of the interpersonal circle (see
Gurtman and Pincus, 2003; Wiggins, 1979).
Cultural Differences in Love

In addition to love’s differential links with personality, people tend to
experience love in different ways and in varying degrees across cultures
(K. K. Dion and Dion, 1996; S. Hendrick and Hendrick, 2003; Inman and
Sandhu, 2002; Rodrı́guez, Montgomery, and Peláez, 2003; Wan et al.,
2000). The rules and permissions regarding when, with whom, and how we
may fall in love are powerful examples of the influence of culture (Hatfield
and Rapson, 1996; Neto, Mullet, Deschamps, Barros, Benvindo, Camino,
Falconi, Kagibanga, and Machado, 2000). Culture can moderate how love
feels, what we think about when we are in love, and which behaviors are
most appropriate or pleasing in our love lives (Landis and O’Shea, 2000;
Sternberg, 1998). Love must, to some degree, be a socially constructed ex-
perience and reflect the time and place within which it occurs.
Within the multiple cultures of the United States, for example, there ap-
pear to be differences in the love experiences of various ethnic groups. Chi-
nese Americans tend to experience higher levels of passionate love than Eu-
ropean Americans, whereas Pacific Islanders tend to experience more
companionate love than European Americans (Doherty, Hatfield, Thomp-
son, and Choo, 1994). This contrasts with the finding that passionate love
is sometimes higher among European Americans than Chinese Americans
(Gao, 2001). Across national cultures, Sprecher and her colleagues (1994)
found the percentage of people reporting they were “in love” right now was
highest among Russians (67 percent) and lowest among Japanese (52 per-
cent), with Americans in the middle (58 percent). When assessed in terms
of whether one would marry without love, many people in Pakistan (50
percent) and India (49 percent) would do so, whereas very few in Japan (2
percent) or the United States (4 percent) would do so (Levine, Sato, and
Hashimoto, 1995). Although the collectivism-individualism dimension might
explain some of these cross-cultural findings (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1996;
Hofstede, 2001; Triandis, 2001), the relationships between collectivism-
individualism and measures of love experiences have proven inconsistent
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(Sprecher, Aron, and Hatfield, 1994). In contrast, evolutionary perspectives

have proven quite useful in explaining cultural universals and variations of
love, particularly in terms of emotional investments (Bowlby, 1988; de
Munck, 1998; Jankowiak and Fischer, 1992; Rosenblatt, 1967).
According to the highly influential evolutionary model of Belsky, Stein-
berg, and Draper (1991), early socialization adaptively channels children
down one of two reproductive pathways. Children culturally exposed to
high levels of stress—especially insensitive/inconsistent parenting, harsh
physical environments, and economic hardship—tend to grow up expressing
lower levels of emotional investment (see also Rohner and Britner, 2002).
This low level of emotional investment is viewed as a form of insecure at-
tachment and is also associated with early puberty, more prolific reproduc-
tion, and short-term mating strategies in adulthood (Chisholm, 1999; Kirk-
patrick, 1998; Schmitt, 2005a). Children from cultures with lower stress,
such as those with ample health care, education, and resources, should de-
velop more emotionally investing tendencies or experience higher levels of
love (Gangestad and Simpson, 2000). This more loving emotionality is
thought to be rooted in secure parent-child attachment and is associated in
adulthood with delayed puberty, lower fertility, and long-term or monoga-
mous mating strategies. In each case, the different expressions of emotional
investment or love are thought to be functional within their local ecology
of reproduction (Belsky, 1997; Chisholm, 1996). High emotional investment
is adaptive in long-term mating contexts, whereas low emotional investment
is generally adaptive in short-term mating contexts.
Sex Differences in Love

Some studies suggest that whether people experience love, or not, has
to do with biological sex (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1973; Fehr and Broughton,
2001; Hendrick, Hendrick, Foote, and Slapion-Foote, 1984; Sprecher and
Toro-Morn, 2002). For example, women are more likely to experience love
and attraction for a man when he is dominant, whereas men are more likely
to experience love and attraction for a woman when she is physically at-
tractive (Fletcher, Tither, O’Loughlin, Friesen, and Overall, 2004; Kenrick,
Neuberg, Zierk, and Krones, 1994; Lucas, Wendorf, and Imamoglu, 2004;
Schmitt and Buss, 1996). Women are more likely to think about love in
terms of emotional commitment and security, whereas men are more likely
to think of love in terms of sexual commitment and the pleasure of inter-
course (Buss, 2000; Cimbalo and Novell, 1993; Hazan and Shaver, 1987).
Women tend to experience more of the emotional “symptoms” of love (e.g.,
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feeling giddy, tingling spine, euphoria), but men tend to report falling in love
more quickly than women (Kanin, Davidson, and Scheck, 1970; Brantley,
Knox, and Zusman, 2002). Finally, women tend to require love before con-
senting to sex (Schmitt, in press; Simpson and Gangestad, 1991), whereas
men are more likely to consent to sex with complete strangers (Clark and
Hatfield, 1989).
In the lexical exploration of love-related adjectives described earlier,
Schmitt and Buss (2000) found that women reported moderately higher lev-
els of “emotional investment” than men, which may reflect the emotion-
laden aspects of love that comprise the emotional investment scale (e.g., self-
ratings of the words romantic and compassionate). On a scale of more
sexualized person descriptors called erotophilic disposition (with adjectives
such as lustful and kinky), men reported higher scores than women (Schmitt
and Buss, 2000). Findings from other American and cross-cultural samples
would seem to confirm the view that women score higher on love-related
scales that are rooted in emotional closeness and intimacy. C. Hendrick and
Hendrick (1986) measured self-reported levels of “being in love right now”
and found American women (64 percent) reported significantly higher levels
of love than American men (46 percent). Sprecher et al. (1994) replicated
this finding, showing that significantly more women than men reported cur-
rently being “in love” across many different and diverse cultures, with Rus-
sian women reporting twelve percentage points higher than Russian men,
American women reporting ten percentage points higher than American
men, and Japanese women reporting twenty-one percentage points higher
than Japanese men.
Why the seemingly pervasive sex differences in love, at least in terms of
love as emotional investment? According to Parental Investment Theory
(Trivers, 1972), the relative proportion of parental investment—the time and
energy devoted to the care of individual offspring—varies across the males
and females of different species. In some species, males tend to provide more
parental investment than females (e.g., the Mormon cricket). In other spe-
cies, females bear the heavier-investing parental burdens (e.g., most mam-
mals; Clutton-Brock, 1991). Trivers (1972) noted that sex differences in
parental investment burdens are systematically linked to processes of sexual
selection in ways that potentially relate to love. Within a given species, the
sex that invests more in offspring tends to have a more long-term or love-
oriented mating strategy, whereas the lesser investing sex tends to have a
short-term or sex-oriented mating strategy (see also Andersson, 1994). Sex-
ual selection also results in the heavy-investing sex being smaller, less
aggressive, less risk-taking, earlier to mature, later to die, and generally more
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discriminating when choosing to invest in a potential mating partner (Al-

exander and Noonan, 1979).
Among humans, many males invest heavily as parents, dedicating both
direct resources and general prestige to their children (Hazan and Diamond,
2000; Pasternak, Ember, and Ember, 1997). Nevertheless, human males typ-
ically invest considerably less than females in active parenting effort across
all known cultures (Low, 1989; Munroe and Munroe, 1997; Quinn, 1977).
In addition, men face much lower levels of obligatory or “minimum” pa-
rental investment in offspring than women do. That is, men are not obligated
to invest as much as women do in order to produce viable progeny (Symons,
1979). Women are obligated to incur the costs of internal fertilization, plac-
entation, and gestation in order to reproduce. The minimum physiological
obligations of men are considerably less—requiring only the contribution of
sperm. Furthermore, all female mammals, including ancestral women, car-
ried the requisite burdens associated with lactation. Lactation can last sev-
eral years in human foraging environments, years during which it is harder
for women to reproduce and invest in additional offspring (Kelly, 1995).
When looked at from the evolutionary perspective of Parental Investment
Theory (Trivers, 1972), this human asymmetry in obligate parental invest-
ment burdens should result in the lesser-investing sex (i.e., men) displaying
lower levels of love or emotional investment in potential reproductive part-
ners and their offspring. In support of Parental Investment Theory applying
to humans, numerous studies have shown that men exhibit greater physical
size and competitive aggression (Archer and Lloyd, 2002; Hyde, 1986;
Reynolds and Harvey, 1994), riskier life history strategies (Daly and Wilson,
1988), relatively delayed maturation (Geary, 1998), and earlier death than
women do across all known cultures (Alexander and Noonan, 1979). Many
of these differences appear to be culturally universal among preadolescents
(Freedman and DeBoer, 1979; Low, 1989). In addition, men’s mate prefer-
ences are, as predicted by Parental Investment Theory, almost always less
“choosy” or discriminating than women’s, especially in the context of short-
term mating without love (Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Kenrick, Sadalla, Groth,
and Trost, 1990; Regan, 1998; Regan and Berscheid, 1997; Simpson and
Gangestad, 1991). Based on Parental Investment Theory, therefore, men are
clearly the lesser-investing sex of our species, and should be inclined toward
lower emotional investment in relationships and any offspring that ensue
(see also Baron-Cohen, 2003; Geary, 1998; Mealey, 2000).
On the other hand, according to Social Structural Theory (Eagly and
Wood, 1999; Wood and Eagly, 2002), men and women may not have
evolved different mating psychologies. Instead, men and women evolved dif-
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ferent physical abilities (e.g., women’s nursing abilities and men’s hunting
abilities) that tend to give rise to social roles, and these social roles are what
proximately cause men and women to differ psychologically in the realm of
mating and love. From this perspective, when men and women occupy sim-
ilar social roles (e.g., in cultures with high gender equality), they should not
differ in emotional investment. In order to contrast Parental Investment The-
ory and Social Structural Theory, sex differences in emotional investment
would need to be examined across a wide range of cultures.
The International Sexuality Description Project

Beginning in 2000, Schmitt and his colleagues (see Schmitt, Alcalay,
Allik, Ault, Austers, Bennett, et al., 2003; Schmitt, Alcalay, Allik, Angleiter,
Ault, Austers, et al., 2004) formed a research collaboration, the International
Sexuality Description Project (ISDP), to investigate the effects of sex, per-
sonality, and culture on sexual outcome variables such as love and emotional
investment. A total of 15,234 participants from forty-eight nations (see
Schmitt, 2005b) completed the “Sexy Seven Measure” of human sexuality
(Schmitt and Buss, 2000). This self-report measure asked participants to
describe themselves, using a nine-point scale on sixty-seven sexually con-
notative adjectives, including the adjectives loving, lovable, romantic, affec-
tionate, cuddlesome, compassionate, and passionate, as translated from En-
glish into twenty-seven languages. The overall average of these seven
adjectives comprises the emotional investment scale that can be used as a
broad-based indicator of love (Schmitt and Buss, 2000).
This large ISDP data set provides a unique opportunity to examine both
the intranational and international correlates of self-reported love across
diverse cultural forms. For example, within each of the ISDP nations, high
levels of emotional investment may be universally associated with high levels
of extraversion and agreeableness, and not with other personality traits.
Such a finding would provide evidence that love in terms of emotional in-
vestment has conceptual equivalence across cultures, and would heuristically
help to guide researchers toward the psychological foundations of love.
PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES IN LOVE ACROSS THE ISDP

The internal reliability of the emotional investment scale was moderate
to high across most of the ISDP nations (for details, see Schmitt, 2005b).
Not surprisingly, the internal reliability of the emotional investment scale
was highest in the United States (a ⫽ 0.87), where the precise meanings of
the Sexy Seven Measure’s love-related adjectives are probably clearest.
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Within each of the ISDP nations, high levels of emotional investment, as

measured by the Sexy Seven Measure, were expected to be associated with
high levels of extraversion and agreeableness, as measured by the Big Five
Inventory (Benet-Martı́nez and John, 1998). This was largely the case, with
all reported correlations falling in the positive direction. In only two nations
(Indonesia and Malaysia) did neither extraversion nor agreeableness reach
the level of statistical significance in correlating with emotional investment,
though relatively small sample sizes in these nations may have led to inad-
equate power to detect the expected associations.
In most nations, the positive correlations were stronger between emotional
investment and agreeableness than between emotional investment and ex-
traversion. However, these correlational differences were rarely statistically
significant, so emotional investment as measured by the Sexy Seven Measure
can only be said to fall somewhere in between extraversion and agreeable-
ness (see Wiggins, 1979). Love was also found to be unassociated with neu-
roticism across most cultures, with only a few positive or negative correla-
tions observed. Overall, these findings provide evidence that love in terms
of emotional investment has a reasonable degree of conceptual equivalence
across cultures, and future researchers may wish to focus on the substrates
of the extraversion and agreeableness dimensions when investigating indi-
vidual differences in love.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN LOVE ACROSS THE ISDP

Across the ISDP, national levels of emotional investment (after con-
trolling for sex of participant) ranged from relatively low levels in Tanzania,
Hong Kong, and Japan, to relatively high levels in the United States, Slo-
venia, and Cyprus. Overall, there was a significant effect of nation on emo-
tional investment, with a trend for East Asian cultures to score lower than
others on emotional investment. For example, encoding each national mean
as representative of North America, South America, Western Europe, East-
ern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Oceania, South/
Southeast Asia, or East Asia (for details on these groupings, see Schmitt et
al., 2003; Schmitt, Alcalay, Allensworth, Allik, Ault, Austers, et al., 2004),
there was a significant main effect of world region on emotional investment.
East Asia had significantly lower levels of emotional investment than all
other regions, whereas North America had significantly higher levels than
all other regions (see Schmitt, 2005b).
Across individual nations, the evolutionary theory of Belsky, Steinberg,
and Draper (1991) predicted that higher levels of emotional investment
would be associated with national indicators of lower stress—such as ample
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health care, education, and resources—as well as with secure forms of ro-
mantic attachment, lower fertility, and more long-term-oriented mating
strategies (see also Chisholm, 1999; Schmitt, 2005a). The United Nations
Statistical Division tracks the degree to which individual nations have ade-
quate health care, education, and resources, and quantifies this variability
in the form of the Human Development Index (HDI; United Nations De-
velopment Programme, 2001). HDI scores were available for forty-six of the
ISDP nations (scores were unavailable for Taiwan and Serbia). As seen in
table 12-1, national emotional investment levels positively correlated with
the national HDI scores. This association was present among both men and
women, supporting the evolutionary theory of Belsky et al. (1991). At the
direct level of gross domestic product (GDP), the links did not reach statis-
tical significance, but all were in the predicted direction, with higher levels
of emotional investment associated with higher levels of GDP.
Belsky et al. (1991) hypothesized that the link between social stress and
loving emotional investment is rooted in attachment security (see also Chis-
holm, 1999; Rohner and Britner, 2002; Shaver and Hazan, 1988). In sup-
port of this view, higher levels of emotional investment at the national level
were positively related to secure attachment, negatively related to preoccu-
pied attachment, and negatively related to fearful attachment among
women. Indeed, among the eight nations with the lowest levels of emotional
investment (Taiwan, Morocco, Ethiopia, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan,
Hong Kong, and Tanzania), all were above average in national levels of
preoccupied romantic attachment. Emotional investment was also associated
with national levels of self-esteem, in terms of both Rosenberg’s measure of
self-esteem as administered in the ISDP (Schmitt and Allik, in press), and
Diener and Diener’s (1995) cross-cultural assessment of self-worth (see table
12-1). These findings replicate those of K. K. Dion and Dion (1975) and
provide an additional indication that securely attached individuals (i.e.,
those with a positive model of self) have more emotionally investing per-
sonalities.
Recall that the Belsky et al. (1991) theory viewed the development of
insecure attachment and low emotional investment levels as part of an adap-
tive reproductive strategy that included high fertility, early puberty, and
short-term mating. The results from the ISDP did not support all aspects of
this theory. Low levels of emotional investment among women were related
to higher fertility levels. However, national levels of emotional investment
were positively correlated with divorce, unrestricted sociosexuality, short-
term mating interests, and the tendency to engage in short-term mate-
poaching (i.e., stealing someone else’s partner for a short-term sexual affair).
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Table 12-1 Levels of emotional investment related to sociocultural factors across nations of the international sexuality description
project
Emotional Investment
Sociocultural Factors n National Men Women Sex Difference (d)
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Cultural development (UNDP, 2001)
Human Development Index 46 .31* .29* .32* ⫺.21
Gross Domestic Product 46 .18 .12 .22 ⫺.30*
Romantic attachment (Schmitt et al., 2004)
Secure attachment 48 .35** .33** .35** ⫺.13
Dismissive attachment 48 ⫺.09 ⫺.04 ⫺.12 .21
Preoccupied attachment 48 ⫺.46*** ⫺.39** ⫺.51*** .35**
Fearful attachment 48 ⫺.22 ⫺.17 ⫺.27* .28*
Self-esteem
RSES (Schmitt and Allik, in press) 48 .54*** .52*** .53*** ⫺.14
Self-worth (Deiner and Diener, 1995) 18 .43* .40* .44* ⫺.19
Reproductive factors
Fertility rate (UNDP, 2001) 46 ⫺.23 ⫺.19 ⫺.25* .28*
Divorce rate (UNDP, 2001) 24 .52** .46* .54** ⫺.29
Sociosexuality (Schmitt, in press) 43 .49*** .43** .52*** ⫺.29*
Short-term mating interests (Schmitt, 2005a) 43 .44** .36** .47*** ⫺.33*
Mate-poaching (Schmitt et al., 2004) 42 .55*** .50*** .57*** ⫺.20
continued
Table 12-1 continued
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Emotional Investment
Sociocultural Factors n National Men Women Sex Difference (d)
Gender equality (UNDP, 2001)

Gender Development Index 45 .31* .29* .32* ⫺.22
Gender Empowerment Measure 33 .35* .26 .37* ⫺.31*
Cultural values (Hofstede, 2001)
Individualism (versus collectivism) 42 .31* .25* .32* ⫺.23
Power distance 42 ⫺.18 ⫺.14 ⫺.19 .16
Uncertainty avoidance 42 .13 .14 .12 .04
Masculinity 42 ⫺.14 ⫺.20 ⫺.11 ⫺.13
Notes: * p ⬍ .05
** p ⬍ .01
*** p ⬍ .001
UNDP: United Nations Development Programme
RSES: Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale
It appears that when short-term mating is more common at the national

level, emotional investment is more commonly reported as well.
It is worth noting that all indexes of short-term mating were negatively
correlated with the effect size (d) of sex differences in emotional investment.
That is, as the d for sex differences in emotional investment went lower (i.e.,
became larger in magnitude or farther from zero), short-term mating became
more common at the national level. This was mainly due to women’s levels
of emotional investment increasing more than men’s as short-term mating
increased across nations. One possible explanation for this trend lies with
Strategic Pluralism Theory (SPT; Gangestad and Simpson, 2000). According
to SPT, humans have evolved a menu of alternative mating strategies (see
also Belsky, 1997; Chisholm, 1996; de Munck and Korotayev, 1999). Which
strategy is followed depends in part on local environmental conditions.
When environments are full of resources and investing sufficient levels of
parenting effort in offspring is relatively easy, women generally have what
they need to raise offspring and so feel free to seek short-term mates on the
side. If the local ecology is one in which resources are scarce and emotional
investments are relatively low from men, women try to maintain what little
paternal investments they do receive, and so stay particularly faithful to their
long-term mates. This theory helps to explain why emotional investment is
more common in nations with high rates of short-term mating. In low re-
source nations, women are faithful to ensure paternal investment. In high
resource nations, emotional investments are plentiful, and women feel so-
ciosexually unrestricted and are able to capitalize on the benefits of female
short-term mating (Gangestad and Simpson, 2000; Schmitt, in press).
SEX DIFFERENCES IN LOVE ACROSS THE ISDP

Parental Investment Theory (Trivers, 1972) predicts that men will tend
to experience lower levels of emotional investment than women. Sex differ-
ences in emotional investment were nearly universal across nations of the
ISDP (for details, see Schmitt, 2005b). Across thirty-four of the forty-eight
nations, sex differences were statistically significant. Some of the instances
of the sex difference not reaching significance were due to relatively small
sample sizes, yet the magnitude of the sex difference still reached the ⫺0.20
level of d. For example, with statistical power (beta) set at 0.80 and statis-
tical significance (alpha) at 0.05, in order to ensure that a difference of d ⫽
⫺0.20 would be statistically significant, a sample of over three hundred men
and three hundred women would have been necessary.
In terms of the magnitudes of effect (d), in eleven nations men were lower
than women on emotional investment, with a sex difference “moderate to
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large” in magnitude (i.e., a d of ⫺0.50 or greater); in twenty-six nations

men were lower than women on emotional investment with a sex difference
“small to moderate” in size (d between ⫺0.20 and ⫺0.49), and in eight
nations men were lower than women on emotional investment with a “min-
imal” sex difference (d between ⫺0.01 and ⫺0.19). However, in three
nations it was clear that whether the evaluation was in terms of statistical
significance or magnitude of effect, men were clearly not lower than women
in emotional investment. In Bolivia, men and women were identical in their
mean levels of emotional investment (d ⫽ 0.00). In Indonesia (d ⫽ 0.32)
and Malaysia (d ⫽ 0.24), men scored notably higher than women (though
not significantly so). It is interesting that these two neighboring countries
would exhibit the same unexpected trend for men to have higher levels of
emotional investment than women. In Indonesia, the reversed sex difference
was due to Indonesian women scoring much lower than the worldwide av-
erage for women. Indonesian men were also below the worldwide average
for men, but not as low as Indonesian women. In Malaysia, the reversed
sex difference was due to a combination of Malaysian men scoring about
average for men and Malaysian women scoring below average for women.
These two nations were also the only two that failed to exhibit a significant
correlation of emotional investment with either extraversion or agreeable-
ness. It is possible that in the languages of these two countries (Indonesian
and Malay, respectively) ratings of the translated love-related adjectives of
the emotional investment scale were not equivalent to those of English.
In trying to account for why some nations had greater sex differences
than others, social structural theory suggests that national indicators of gen-
der equality may be useful (see Eagly and Wood, 1999). It may be that when
a nation moves toward greater gender equality, sex differences in variables
such as emotional investment are eliminated, or at least attenuated (Wood
and Eagly, 2002). It would be of particular interest to determine whether
such shifts are due to a lowering of emotional investment among women,
an increasing level of emotional investment among men, or both. The United
Nations Statistics Division provides two key indicators of gender equality.
The first is the Gender Development Index (GDI), which is similar to the
HDI but reduces a nation’s score if human development indicators are not
made equally available to men and women. The second is the Gender Em-
powerment Measure, which quantifies the degree of gender equality in three
domains: economic participation and decision-making, political participa-
tion and decision-making, and power over economic resources. In both
cases, indexes of greater gender equality were positively associated with na-
04:51:26 UTC
tional levels of emotional investment. Thus, increases in gender equality

seem to lead to increases in emotional investment at the national level.
Contrary to expectations, however, sex differences in emotional invest-
ment were larger in nations with higher gender equality (e.g., Switzerland,
Australia, Germany), and were smaller in nations with lower gender equality
(e.g., Turkey, South Korea, Bolivia). Indeed, Switzerland is among the top
ten nations in terms of the Gender Empowerment Measure, but had the
largest sex difference in emotional investment across the nations of the ISDP
(d ⫽ –0.86; see figure 12-1). What appears to be happening across nations
is that greater gender equality is associated with higher emotional investment
among both men and women, but the accentuating effect of gender equality
on emotional investment is greater among women, leading to larger sex
differences in emotional investment overall. These findings run counter to
Social Structure Theory (Eagly and Wood, 1999; Wood and Eagly, 2002),
which assumes that “when men and women occupy the same specific social
role, sex differences would tend to erode” (Eagly and Wood, 1999, p. 413).
Instead, according to the ISDP, more similar gender experiences are asso-
ciated with larger sex differences in emotional investment.
Other cross-cultural studies (e.g., Costa et al., 2001; Williams and Best,
1990) have shown that more gender equality is often associated with larger
sex differences in self-perceptions. For instance, in a twenty-six-nation study
of personality traits, it was noted that “the social role model would have
hypothesized that gender differences would be attenuated in progressive
countries, when in fact they were magnified” (Costa et al., 2001, p. 329).
One speculation is that in cultures where men and women are more socially
differentiated, they fail to compare themselves across sex when completing
self-report surveys. In cultures where men and women are free to inhabit
different social roles, people may be more likely to compare themselves with
both genders, and sex differences are thereby more likely to surface. Nev-
ertheless, these findings appear troubling for social structural perspectives.
Conclusions About Sex, Personality, Culture, and Love

As part of the ISDP, convenience samples from forty-eight nations
completed a self-report survey that included a simple adjectival measure of
love called the emotional investment scale. This measure included seven
items, and possessed moderate to extensive internal reliability across all
nations. Within most nations, high levels of emotional investment were as-
sociated with high levels of extraversion and agreeableness, but were not
04:51:26 UTC
National Sex Differences in Emotional Investment 0.25 Malaysia
0.00 Bolivia
South Korea
Greece
Japan
Mexico Poland Portugal
Turkey
Finland
–0.25 Italy
Philippines Czech Rep. New Zealand
Netherlands
Belgium Austria
Bangladesh Romania Estonia Canada
Lithuania Peru USA
–0.50 Israel United Kingdom
Germany
Croatia Australia
Latvia
Slovenia
–0.75
Slovakia
Switzerland
–1.00
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

National Level of Gender Equity
Figure 12-1. The Gender Empowerment Measure related to sex differences in emotional
investment across the nations of the International Sexuality Description Project, r(31) ⫽
–0.31, p ⬍ .05.
associated with neuroticism, providing some evidence of the conceptual

equivalence of love across cultures.
Cross-cultural variation in love was to some degree explained by the ev-
olutionary theory that high levels of ecological stress—especially insensitive/
inconsistent parenting, harsh physical environments, and economic hard-
ship—lead children to form insecure attachment styles that culminate in low
levels of emotional investment in adulthood (Belsky et al., 1991). People
from cultures with lower stress—such as those with ample health care, ed-
ucation, and resources—tend to develop secure attachment styles and high
04:51:26 UTC
8.0
USA
National Level of Emotional Investment
7.5 Slovenia
Bangladesh Argentina Canada
Brazil Malta Australia
Portugal Philippines Austria
Croatia New Zealand
Zimbabwe Greece Slovakia Germany
United Kingdom
Romania Israel Finland
7.0 Peru Lebanon
Serbia Poland Netherlands
Botswana
Turkey Estonia
Czech Rep. Belgium
Italy
6.5 Malaysia Switzerland

Mexico Taiwan
Morocco
Ethiopia
6.0 Indonesia
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
5.5
20 40 60 80 100
National Level of Individualism
Figure 12-2. Individualism-collectivism related to emotional investment across the nations

of the International Sexuality Description Project, r(40) ⫽ 0.31, p ⬍ .05.
self-esteem, and to have more emotionally investing romantic personalities.

Emotional investment tendencies were also associated with fertility and pro-
miscuous sexual attitudes and behaviors, though these links were not always
consistent with Belsky et al.’s (1991) views on the evolution of love.
Other factors are surely involved in the cross-cultural patterns of emo-
tional investment observed across the nations of the ISDP. For example,
national levels of emotional investment were positively correlated with na-
tional levels of individualism (see table 12-1). However, the direction of this
relationship ran counter to the expectation that love in terms of emotional
investment would be higher in more collectivist cultures (see figure 12-2; cf.
04:51:26 UTC
K. K. Dion and Dion, 1996). Love as emotional investment was unrelated

to Hofstede’s (2001) other dimensions of culture. The courtship-related so-
cialization practices across different cultures also may have influenced the
current findings (Medora et al., 2002). In South Korea, for example, it is
only lately that young adults have had to work on their emotional invest-
ment skills in the context of dating relationships during the college years.
Until recently, most marriages in several of the nations of the ISDP were
arranged. On the other hand, in Western societies there is freedom of choice
with regard to love. In more traditional societies, familial obligations and
social and cultural expectations dictate a person’s love attitudes and expec-
tations, and there is less freedom of choice in the domain of emotional
investment and mating. Such influences may account for some of the na-
tional differences in emotional investment across the ISDP.
Although these nation-level love findings seem informative, several addi-
tional limitations of the ISDP must be considered. First, the translations of
the ISDP survey were not done by professional translators. This leaves open
the question of translation quality. Second, even if the love items of the
emotional investment scale have translation equivalence, that does not guar-
antee that the items have full metric equivalence across cultures (Van de
Vijver and Leung, 2000). Third, increasing evidence suggests that people
from different cultures possess varying degrees of response bias, including
the acquiescence bias, the negative item bias, and socially desirable respond-
ing (Schmitt and Allik, in press). Thus, the current findings must be consid-
ered tentative until work is conducted that takes these issues more fully into
account. The consistent intracultural reliability and correlations between
love and personality do provide some reassurance that similar constructs are
being measured across languages and cultures. Within this limited context,
the current findings represent an advance in our understanding of sex, per-
sonality, culture, and love.
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13
Passionate Love: Cross-Cultural and

Evolutionary Perspectives
debra lieberman and elaine hatfield
“Hubb” is love, “ishq” is love that entwines two people together,

“shaghaf” is love that nests in the chambers of the heart, “hayam” is
love that wanders the earth, “teeh” is love in which you lose yourself,
“walah” is love that carries sorrow within it, “sababah” is love that
exudes from your pores, “hawa” is love that shares its name with “air”
and with “falling,” “gharm” is love that is willing to pay the price.
—Ahdaf Soueif (1999)
Passionate love (sometimes termed “obsessive love,” “infatuation,”

“lovesickness,” or “being-in-love”) is a powerful emotional state. Hatfield
and Rapson (1993) defined it as “A state of intense longing for union with
another. Passionate love is a complex functional whole including appraisals
or appreciations, subjective feelings, expressions, patterned physiological
processes, action tendencies, and instrumental behaviors. Reciprocated love
(union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy. Unrequited
love (separation), with emptiness, anxiety, or despair” (p. 5).
The Passionate Love Scale (PLS) was designed to assess the cognitive,
physiological, and behavioral incidents of such love (Hatfield and Sprecher,
1986). The PLS has been found to be a useful measure of passionate love
274
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Passionate Love 275
for young children, adolescents, and adults from a variety of cultures (see
Doherty, Hatfield, Thompson, and Choo, 1994; Landis and O’Shea, 2000),
and has been found to correlate well with neurocortical and fMRI measures
of passionate love and sexual desire (see Bartels and Zeki, 2000; Fisher,
2003; Fisher, Aron, Mashek, Strong, Li, and Brown, 2004). In parallel with
this research, neurobiologists have begun to explore the chemical and hor-
monal bases of passionate love, sexual desire, and sexual motivation (C. S.
Carter, 1998; Fisher, et al., 2004; Komisaruk and Whipple, 1998; Marazziti,
Akiskal, Rossi, and Cassano, 1999; Marazziti and Canale, 2004).
In recent years, the topic of passionate love, sexual desire, and mate se-
lection, once considered of only minor interest, has grown to become one
of central concern to psychologists. Three things account for this dramatic
change: (1) scientists have gained a new understanding of the critical im-
portance of culture in shaping people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions; (2)
technological advances, such as fMRI techniques, have made it possible for
scientists to study phenomena (such as passionate love and darker emotions)
once thought to be will-o’-the-wisps, too vague to study scientifically; and
(3) recent advances in evolutionary psychology have made it clear that the
challenges our ancestors faced may have a profound impact on the ways
men and women behave today.
Cultural Factors Affecting Passionate Love and

Sexual Desire
CULTURE AND THE MEANING OF LOVE
In all societies, people find it easy to understand such emotional terms
as love, joy, anger, fear, and sadness (see Jankowiak, 1995). Nevertheless,
cultural values have been found to have a profound impact on the subtle
shadings of meaning assigned to such constructs (see Nisbett, 2003).
Shaver, Wu, and Schwartz (1991) interviewed young people in the United
States, Italy, and the People’s Republic of China. As expected, in all three
cultures, men and women identified the same five emotions as “basic,” or
prototypic, emotions. These were joy/happiness, love/attraction, fear, anger/
hate, and sadness/depression.
Men and women in these cultures also agreed on whether the various
emotions should be labeled as positive experiences (such as joy) or negative
ones (such as fear, anger, or sadness). They agreed, that is, with one excep-
tion—love. American and Italian subjects tended to equate passionate love
with happiness; love was assumed to be an intensely positive experience.
Students in Beijing, China, possessed a darker view of love. In Chinese there
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are few “happy love” words; love is associated with sadness. It is not sur-
prising, then, that Chinese men and women associated passionate love with
such ideographs (words) as infatuation, unrequited love, nostalgia, and “sor-
row love.”
More recently, social psychologists have explored folk conceptions of love
in a variety of cultures—such as the People’s Republic of China and Indo-
nesia. Researchers find that although in most cultures, people possess sur-
prisingly similar views of love and other “feelings of the heart,” differences
do in fact exist (see Shaver and Murdaya, 2001, and Jankowiak, 1995, for
a review of this research).
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
At one time, scholars assumed that passionate love was “invented” by
the troubadours in twelfth-century France. In fact, passionate love is as old
as humankind. The Sumerian love fable of Inanna and Dumuzi, for example,
was spun by tribal storytellers in 2000 b.c. Today, most anthropologists
agree that passionate love is a cultural universal.
Jankowiak and Fischer (1992) drew a sharp distinction between “roman-
tic passion” and “simple lust.” They proposed that both passion and lust,
although different, are universal feelings. To test this notion, they selected a
sampling of tribal societies from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample in an
effort to determine how prevalent romantic love was in those societies. They
found that in almost all of these far-flung societies, young lovers talked
about passionate love, recounted tales of love, sang love songs, and spoke
of the longings and anguish of infatuation; when passionate affections
clashed with parents’ or elders’ wishes, young couples often eloped. On this
basis, the authors concluded that romantic love is a panhuman character-
istic. There is considerable evidence that they are right (see Buss, 2003;
Hatfield and Rapson, 1993; Jankowiak, 1995).
Social anthropologists have explored folk conceptions of love in such di-
verse cultures as the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria,
Trinidad, Morocco, and the Fulbe of North Cameroun. They have also stud-
ied the Mangrove (an aboriginal Australian community), the Mangaia in the
Cook Islands, and Palau in Micronesia, and have worked among the Taita
of Kenya. In all these studies, people’s views of passionate love appear to
be surprisingly similar. One impact of globalization (and the ubiquitous
MTV, Hollywood and Bollywood movies, chat rooms, and foreign travel)
is to ensure that when people speak of “passionate love,” they are talking
about much the same thing (see Jankowiak, 1995, for a review of this field
research).
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Passionate Love 277
In spite of the fact that passionate love is considered to be a cultural

universal—an emotion thought to exist in all cultures and in all historical
eras—cultural factors do seem to exert a profound impact on the common-
ness of such passionate feelings. They also appear to affect how intensely
passion is experienced and how people attempt to deal with these tumul-
tuous feelings.
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Americans are preoccupied with love—or so cross-cultural observers
have claimed.
Hsu (1985), an anthropologist, contrasted Western and Chinese values
concerning passionate love and intimacy. American culture, he argued, is
interested in personality. It attaches great importance to personal and emo-
tional expression. Chinese culture is situation-centered. The Chinese are
caught up in “a web of interpersonal relationships” (p. 33). Group members
are required to conform to “the interpersonal standards of the society”
(1971, p. 29). Chinese men and women tend to “underplay all matters of
the heart” (1971, p. 12).
Hsu (1953) maintained that such cultural differences have a critical im-
pact on the ways in which people in these two societies view romantic love.
The concept of romantic love fits in well with a North American cultural
perspective but not with a Chinese cultural orientation, where one is ex-
pected to consider not just one’s personal feelings, but also obligations to
others, especially one’s parents. Hsu wrote: “An American asks, ‘How does
my heart feel?’ A Chinese asks, ‘What will other people say?’ ” (p. 50). He
claimed that the Western idea of romantic love has virtually no appeal for
young adults in China. He pointed out that the Chinese generally use the
term love to describe not a respectable, socially sanctioned relationship, but
an illicit liaison between a man and a woman.
More recently, other cross-cultural researchers have noted that romantic
love is less valued in traditional cultures with strong, extended family ties
(Simmons, Vom Kolke, and Shimizu, 1986).
On the basis of such testimony, early cross-cultural researchers (Goode,
1959; Rosenblatt, 1967) proposed that romantic love would be common
only in modern, industrialized countries. The emerging evidence, however,
suggests that men and women in a variety of cultures—individualist and
collectivist, urban and rural, rich and poverty-stricken—are every bit as ro-
mantic as Americans.
In one study, for example, Sprecher and her colleagues (1994) interviewed
1,667 men and women in the United States, Russia, and Japan. They found
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that in all three societies, the majority of young people were “currently in
love.” They had expected American men and women to be most vulnerable
to love; the Japanese, the least. In fact, 59 percent of American college stu-
dents, 67 percent of Russian students, and 53 percent of Japanese students
said they were in love at the time of the interview. In all three cultures, men
were slightly less likely than women to be in love at the present time. There
was no evidence that individualistic cultures bred young men and women
who are more love-struck than do collectivist societies, however.
Surveys of Mexican American, Chinese American, and European Ameri-
can students have found that in a variety of cross-national groups, young
men and women show high rates of “being in love” at the present time
(Aron and Rodriguez, 1992; Doherty et al., 1994).
Culture and the intensity of passionate love

What impact does culture have on how passionately men and women
love? In one study, Hatfield and Rapson (1996) asked men and women of
European, Filipino, and Japanese ancestry to complete the Passionate Love
Scale. To their surprise, they found that men and women from the various
ethnic groups seemed to love with equal passion.
Doherty and his colleagues (1994), in a survey of European Americans,
Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Japanese Americans, and Pacific Is-
landers, secured similar results.
What men and women desire in romantic partners

Since Darwin’s (1871) classic treatise The Descent of Man and Selec-
tion in Relation to Sex, evolutionary biologists have been interested in mate
preferences. Many evolutionary psychologists contend that there are cultural
universals in what men and women desire in a mate.
In a landmark cross-cultural study, Buss (1989) asked over ten thousand
men and women, from thirty-seven countries, to indicate what characteris-
tics they valued in a potential mate. The survey interviewed people from a
variety of geographic, cultural, political, ethnic, religious, racial, economic,
and linguistic groups.
Men and women were asked to consider eighteen traits and to rate how
important each trait was in choosing a mate. Buss and his colleagues found
that, overall, the single trait that men and women in all societies valued
most was “mutual attraction-love.” After that, men and women cared next
about finding someone who possessed a dependable character, emotional
stability and maturity, and a pleasing disposition.
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Passionate Love 279
Buss was interested in cultural universals; nonetheless, he could not help

being struck by the powerful impact that culture had on preferences. In
China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel (the Palestinian Arabs), and Taiwan, for
example, young people were insistent that their mate should be “chaste.” In
Finland, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and West Germany, on
the other hand, most judged chastity to be relatively unimportant. (A few
respondents even jotted notes in the margin of the questionnaire indicating
that, for them, chastity would be a disadvantage.)
In an alternative analysis of Buss’s (1989) data, Wallen (1989) attempted
to determine which was more important—culture or gender—in shaping
people’s mate preferences. He found that for some traits—such as good
looks and financial prospects—gender had a great influence on preferences.
(Gender accounted for 40–45 percent of the variance; geographical origin
accounted for only 8–17 percent of the variance.) For other traits—such as
chastity, ambition, and preferred age—on the other hand, culture mattered
most. (Gender accounted for only 5–16 percent of the variance, whereas
geographical origin accounted for 38–59 percent of the variance.) Wallen
concluded that, in general, the cultural perspective may well be even more
powerful than one’s evolutionary heritage in understanding mate selection.
Cultural researchers provide additional evidence that in different cultural,
national, and ethnic groups, people often desire very different things in ro-
mantic, sexual, or marital partners.
Hatfield and Sprecher (1996) studied three powerful, modern, and indus-
trial societies: the United States, Russia, and Japan. Men and women in
Western, individualistic cultures (such as the United States and, to some
extent, Russia) expected far more from their marriages than did couples in
a collectivist culture (such as Japan). Cultural attitudes were also found to
be critically important in determining what men and women desired in a
mate.
Culture and the willingness to marry someone you do not love

In the West, romantic love is considered to be the sine qua non of
marriage (Kelley, 1983; Sprecher, Aron, Hatfield, Cortese, Potapova, and
Levitskaya, 1994).
In the mid-1960s, Kephart (1967) asked more than a thousand college
students: “If a boy (girl) had all the other qualities you desired, would you
marry this person if you were not in love with him (her)?” In that era, men
and women were found to possess very different ideas of how important
romantic love was in a marriage. Men considered passion to be essential
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(only 35 percent of them said they would marry someone they did not love).
Women were more practical. They claimed that the absence of love would
not necessarily deter them from considering marriage. (A full 76 percent of
them admitted they would be willing to marry someone they did not love.)
Kephart suggested that while men might have the luxury of marrying for
love, women did not. A woman’s status was dependent on her husband’s;
thus, she had to be practical and take a potential mate’s family background,
professional status, and income into account.
Since the 1960s, sociologists have continued to ask young American men
and women The Question. They have found that, year by year, young Amer-
ican men and women are coming to demand more and more of love.
In the most recent research, 86 percent of American men and a full 91
percent of American women answered The Question (of whether they would
wed without love) with a resounding “No!” (Allgeier and Wiederman,
1991).
How do young men and women in other countries feel about this issue?
Many social psychologists have pointed out that cultural values have a pro-
found impact on how people feel about the wisdom of love matches versus
arranged marriages. Throughout the world, arranged marriages are still rel-
atively common. It seems reasonable to argue that in societies such as China,
India, and Japan, where arranged marriages are fairly typical, they ought to
be viewed more positively than in the West, where they are relatively rare.
To test this notion, Sprecher and her colleagues (1994) asked American,
Russian, and Japanese students: “If a person had all the other qualities you
desired, would you marry him (her) if you were not in love?” The authors
assumed that only Americans would demand love and marriage; they pre-
dicted that both the Russians and the Japanese would be more practical.
They were wrong! Both the Americans and the Japanese were romantics.
Few of them would consider marrying someone they did not love. The Rus-
sians were more practical. Russian men were only slightly more practical
than men in other countries. It was the Russian women who were most
likely to “settle.”
In a landmark study, Levine and his colleagues (1995) asked college stu-
dents in eleven nations if they would be willing to marry someone they did
not love even if that person had all the other qualities they desired. In afflu-
ent Western nations, young people were insistent on love as a prerequisite
for marriage. (In the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, and England,
few young people admitted they would say yes to a loveless marriage.) Col-
lege students in affluent Eastern nations tended to vote for love as well. (In
Japan and Hong Kong, couples insisted on love as a prerequisite for mar-
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Passionate Love 281
riage.) Only in a very few traditional, collectivist, Third World nations were
students willing to compromise. (In the Philippines, Thailand, India, and
Pakistan, a fairly high percentage of college students said they would be
willing to marry someone they did not love.) In these societies, of course,
the extended family is still extremely important, and poverty is widespread.
Research suggests that today, young men and women in many countries
consider love to be a prerequisite for courtship and marriage. It is only in a
few Eastern, collectivist, and poorer countries that passionate love remains
a bit of a luxury.
IN CONCLUSION
The preceding studies suggest that the large differences that once ex-
isted between Westernized, modern, urban, industrial societies and Eastern,
modern, urban, industrial societies may be fast disappearing. Those inter-
ested in cross-cultural differences may be forced to search for large differ-
ences in only the most underdeveloped, developing, and collectivist socie-
ties—such as in Africa or Latin America, in China or the Arab countries
(Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or the United Arab
Emirates).
However, it may well be that even there, the winds of Westernization,
individualism, and social change are blowing. In spite of the censure of their
elders, in a variety of traditional cultures young people are increasingly
adopting “Western” patterns, placing a high value on “falling in love,”
pressing for gender equality in love and sex, and insisting on marrying for
love (as opposed to arranged marriages). Such changes have been docu-
mented in Finland, Estonia, and Russia (Haavio-Mannila and Kontula,
2003), as well as among an Australian aboriginal people of Mangrove and
a Copper Inuit Alaskan tribe (see Jankowiak, 1995, for an extensive review
of this research).
Naturally, cultural differences still exert a profound influence on young
people’s attitudes, emotions, and behavior, and such differences are not
likely to disappear in our lifetime. In Morocco, for example, marriage was
once an alliance between families (as it was in most of the world before the
eighteenth century), in which children had little or no say. Today, although
parents can no longer simply dictate whom their children will marry, pa-
rental approval remains critically important. Important though it is, how-
ever, young men and women are at least allowed to have their say (see Davis
and Davis, 1995).
Many have observed that today two powerful forces—globalization and
nationalism—are contending for men’s and women’s souls. True, to some
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extent the world’s citizens may be becoming “one,” but in truth the delight-
ful and divisive cultural variations that have made our world such an inter-
esting, and simultaneously dangerous, place are likely to add spice to that
heady brew of love and sexual practices for some time to come. The con-
vergence of cultures around the world may be reducing the differences in
the ways passionate love is experienced and expressed, but tradition can be
tenacious, and the global future of passionate love cannot be predicted with
any certainty.
The Development of Sexual Aversions: Kin Detection and

the Emotion of Disgust
According to social psychologists, factors that influence whom one will
choose as a sexual partner include degrees of familiarity, similarity, and
proximity (e.g., Berscheid and Walster, 1978). Yet, who best fits this descrip-
tion? Family members! They are familiar—you have known them your en-
tire life. They are similar—you share the same religion, the same culture,
and a strong physical resemblance, and have a greater than average chance
of sharing the same genes. Last, they’re close by and easily accessible—
perhaps even under the same roof and down the hall. Nevertheless, nuclear
family members are, typically, the last group of individuals considered as
appropriate sexual partners.
Why is this? Intuitively, the answer to this question is that sex with family
is disgusting and repugnant. But why do most people across diverse cultures
feel this way rather than perceiving sexual behavior with a close family
member as exciting and erotic? One answer to this question can be obtained
by considering our species’ evolutionary history. In particular, throughout
our evolutionary past, recurring selection pressures (e.g., pathogens and del-
eterious recessive genes) led to the evolution and maintenance of psycholog-
ical mechanisms promoting the avoidance of sexual relations with close ge-
netic relatives. Such an inbreeding avoidance system requires at least two
main components: (1) systems designed to estimate of the probability that
each individual in the surrounding social environment is a close genetic rel-
ative (i.e., systems for detecting kin), and (2) systems that take these com-
puted estimates of kinship as input and regulate motivations to seek or avoid
an individual as a sexual partner accordingly.
The nature of the information humans use to detect kin remains largely
unknown. In addition, the emotive systems entrained to regulate sexual
avoidance have not been fully explored. In this section, the psychological
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Passionate Love 283
mechanisms governing the development of a sexual aversion toward close

genetic relatives are discussed. First, theoretical considerations regarding the
selection pressures that led to the evolution of inbreeding avoidance mech-
anisms are reviewed. Then evidence from inbred humans and nonhuman
animals is presented to show that sexual relations with close genetic relatives
are in fact deleterious. This is followed by a discussion of the cognitive
systems mediating kin detection. In particular, the cues governing the detec-
tion of a specific class of kin, siblings, is discussed along with ethnographic
studies exploring whether these cues mediate the development of a sexual
aversion between genetically unrelated individuals reared as siblings. Last,
the emotion of disgust is proposed as the cognitive program entrained by
kin detection systems to motivate sexual avoidance. At the opposite end of
the spectrum from lust, sexual disgust is an important, though often ne-
glected, aspect of human mating psychology.
SELECTION PRESSURES AND THE EVOLUTION OF INBREEDING

AVOIDANCE SYSTEMS
There are sound biological reasons why psychological mechanisms de-
signed to avoid mating with a close genetic relative are expected to exist.
Throughout our species’ evolutionary history, the selection pressures posed
by deleterious recessive mutations (e.g., Bittles and Neel, 1994) and short-
generation pathogens (e.g., Tooby, 1982) would have severely negatively
impacted the health and viability of offspring of individuals who were close
genetic relatives. As a result, individuals who avoided mating with close
genetic relatives and instead mated with someone who did not share an
immediate common ancestor would have enjoyed greater reproductive suc-
cess. Consequently, the presence of these two selection pressures would have
led to the evolution and maintenance of systems that decreased the proba-
bility of close kin matings in species where close genetic relatives regularly
encountered one another over the life span.
THE EFFECTS OF INBREEDING DEPRESSION

The negative fitness consequences associated with inbreeding have
been acknowledged in a number of different nonhuman species (Charles-
worth and Charlesworth, 1999; Husband and Schemske, 1996; Keller, Ar-
cese, James, and Hochachka, 1994; Crnokrak and Roff, 1999). In general,
parents who are close genetic relatives, such as siblings, tend to produce
fewer and less viable offspring. These decrements in fitness can be manifested
in a number of ways, such as an increased susceptibility to disease-causing
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organisms and, hence, increased rates of mortality (e.g., Jimenez, Hughes,

Alaks, Graham, and Lact, 1994; Acevedo-Whitehouse, Gulland, Greig, and
Amos, 2003), impaired cognitive functions (e.g., Deckard, Wilson, and
Schlesinger, 1989), and inability to attract a mate (Hoglund, Piertney, Ala-
talo, Lindell, Lundberg, and Rintamaki, 2002).
Studies from human populations have documented the negative fitness
consequences associated with mating with a close genetic relative (Schull
and Neel, 1965; Adams and Neel, 1967; C. O. Carter, 1967; Seemanova,
1971; Bittles and Neel, 1994). Inbreeding leads to an increased probability
of the expression of recessive deleterious genes, leading in turn to a greater
incidence of major congenital malformations and postnatal mortality (Bit-
tles, Mason, Greene, and Rao, 1991). Many studies in humans have focused
on offspring of first cousins since this form of marriage is quite common in
many cultures (Bittles, 2005). Though the effects of inbreeding depression
in offspring of first cousins are expected to be much less severe than in
offspring of individuals related at an r ⫽ 0.5 (parents, offspring, and sib-
lings), there have, nevertheless, been reports of various deformities and de-
ficiencies across a variety of populations (Stoltenberg, Magnus, Lie, Daltveit,
and Irgens, 1997; Demirel, Katlanoglu, Acar, Bodur, and Paydak, 1997;
Jaber, Merlob, Bu, Rotter, and Shohat, 1992; Zlotogora, 2002).
In addition to increased probabilities of mortality, congenital malforma-
tions, and diseases, children of first cousins have been shown to have cog-
nitive impairments. In two early studies, Cohen, Bloc, Flum, Kadar, and
Goldschmidt (1963) and Schull and Neel (1965) both found offspring of
first-cousin marriages to have lower IQs than offspring of nonrelatives.
However, these studies did not take into account important variables such
as the socioeconomic status of the parents (Bashi, 1977). Controlling for
this variable and other demographic factors, Bashi, focusing on an Arab
population, found that children of nonrelatives performed better on intelli-
gence (e.g., Raven’s Progressive Matrices; Raven, 1960) and achievement
tests (e.g., subject tests in science, mathematics, and language) than children
of first cousins.
Studies focusing on the effects of inbreeding between siblings have found
substantially greater risk of mortality and morbidity when compared with
first-cousin matings (Bittles, 2005). Compared with inbreeding depression
rates of 2–6 percent in offspring of first cousins (compared with population
baseline), it has been estimated that sibling matings lead to an inbreeding
depression of 45 percent (Seemanova, 1971; Ralls, Ballou, and Templeton,
1988; Aoki and Feldman, 1997). Moreover, since spontaneous abortions
may go undetected, the effects of consanguineous marriages may be signif-
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Passionate Love 285
icantly underestimated (Bittles et al., 1991). There have been a handful of

studies documenting the fitness consequences of offspring born of two sib-
lings. In all studies, there was an increased risk of mortality, mental defi-
ciencies, congenital malformations, and disease (Schull and Neel, 1965; Ad-
ams and Neel, 1967; C. O. Carter, 1967; Seemanova, 1971).
Components of Incest Avoidance Mechanisms

Given these negative fitness consequences of inbreeding, natural selec-
tion would have favored those individuals who preferred to not mate with
close genetic relatives. However, to solve the adaptive problem of inbreeding
avoidance, two distinct systems are required: (1) systems for identifying
those individuals who have a high probability of being a close genetic rel-
ative (e.g., a sibling, parent, or offspring)—in short, kin detection—and (2)
systems that regulate sexual attraction/avoidance in accordance with the
computation of the likelihood that an individual is a close genetic relative.
These two components are discussed in turn, with specific consideration of
the cues our mind uses to detect a particular class of close relative: siblings.
SYSTEMS FOR DETECTING KIN

Specifically, what is the nature of the information used to categorize
an individual as a close genetic relative? There are a number of possible cues
that kin detection systems may have been designed to take as input. One
potential source of information regarding kinship is linguistic and cultural
input (e.g., during development, you are told who counts as a close genetic
relative and how to feel about him or her). However, this poses several
problems. First, kin terms can be used across genetic boundaries, and blur
the distinction between types of close genetic relatives and between kin and
non-kin. For example, in the United States, “brother” might be used to refer
to a full, half, step, or adopted sibling, and in some cultures might encom-
pass cousins or coalitional allies. Second, due to asymmetries in relatedness,
individuals may not share common “interests” regarding whom to help and
when (Trivers, 1974). For example, a child would benefit (in terms of inclu-
sive fitness) from helping a full sibling (with whom the degree of relatedness
is .5) more than a half sibling (with whom the degree of relatedness is .25),
all other things being equal. However, a female is equally related to all her
children, regardless of their paternity, and might therefore urge each child
to, for example, “help your sister,” not linguistically differentiating between
full and half siblings. Thus, kin terms might disregard or obscure genetic
distinctions, making them evolutionarily less reliable cues to kinship (but see
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Jones, 2004). Last, systems for detecting kin exist in many other animal
species (Hepper, 1991; Hepper and Cleland, 1999), and predate the evolu-
tion of language and culture. There is no reason to suspect that either of
these recent inventions has erased or replaced such phylogenetically ancient
mechanisms.
So if linguistic and cultural inputs alone do not provide a stable solution,
what does? Because we cannot “see” another person’s genes directly, the
best natural selection could do is to shape mechanisms that use cues that
were reliably correlated with genetic relatedness in the ancestral past to com-
pute an internal index of relatedness. To the extent that different cues reli-
ably correlated with an individual being a particular type of close genetic
relative (e.g., mother, father, offspring, or sibling), different detection mech-
anisms are expected to exist. For example, because a female always gave
birth to her own offspring, she could have relied on the process of birth
and/or the visual and olfactory cues derived from a newborn to reliably and
accurately categorize that child as a close genetic relative (e.g., Porter, Ma-
tochik, and Makin, 1983, 1984). However, due to the fact that males of
our species could not be 100 percent certain of their paternity, seeing one’s
mate give birth to an offspring would not have solved the problem of as-
sessing degree of relatedness to that offspring. Rather, for males, assessments
of paternity may rely on cues signaling the sexual fidelity of their mate.
Therefore, there may not be a general kin detection mechanism that relies
on the same set of information for detecting all types of close genetic rela-
tives. Instead, the advantages of kin selection would accrue most strongly
to individuals who possessed specialized detection systems capable of nar-
rowing in on the small subset of states that correlated with an individual
being a particular kind of kin. The following discussion focuses on the cues
used by the human cognitive architecture to detect a particular class of kin,
siblings.
Cues to siblinghood: The Westermarck Hypothesis

Throughout our evolutionary history, the nutritional demands of
breast-feeding, along with the need for protection, would have meant that
children of the same mother were typically reared in close proximity during
early childhood. Also, when hunter-gatherer bands split into smaller units
(e.g., due to size or difficult times), nuclear families (including siblings) tend
to stay together as a unit (Lee and DeVore, 1968; Chagnon, 1992). This
means that in ancestral environments, early childhood would have offered
valuable information regarding relatedness of individuals in prolonged close
association. The notion that early childhood association plays an important
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Passionate Love 287
role in the assessment of relatedness was first proposed by Edward Wester-

marck (1891), a Finnish social scientist. Noting the absence of sexual at-
traction between siblings, Westermarck hypothesized that early childhood
propinquity leads to the development of a sexual aversion during adulthood.
This has come to be known as the Westermarck Hypothesis (WH).
A number of researchers have tested the WH (see e.g., Shepher, 1971,
1983; Wolf, 1995; Williams and Finkelhor, 1995; Bevc and Silverman, 1993,
2000; Lieberman, Tooby, and Cosmides, 2003; Fessler and Navarrete,
2004). For some, the focus of research has been testing the WH in popu-
lations where genetically unrelated individuals are reared as siblings. These
have become well-known studies in the inbreeding avoidance literature and
are reviewed in the next section.
Empirically testing the Westermarck Hypothesis:

Ethnographic measures
Two well-known anthropological studies have taken advantage of cul-
tural institutions that inadvertently created a “natural experiment” where
children who were genetically unrelated were reared in close physical prox-
imity throughout childhood. The first study focused on the peer groups of
Israeli kibbutzim (Spiro, 1958; Talmon, 1964; Shepher, 1971, 1983). The
second, far more comprehensive series of investigations was by Arthur Wolf
and colleagues, who examined the adoption of baby girls into the house-
holds of their future husbands in Taiwan (sim-pua marriages; Wolf, 1995).
Both of these “natural experiments” provide strong support for the Wester-
marck Hypothesis and shed light on the nature of the cues mediating the
recognition of siblings.
Israeli kibbutzim provided a unique natural laboratory allowing for the
investigation of the role co-residence plays in the development of a sexual
aversion. According to Shepher (1983), children born on a kibbutz were
raised in peer groups consisting of six to eight individuals who were within
two years of age of each other. Since there was a very low probability that
biological siblings would occupy the same peer group (due to birth intervals
greater than two years), individuals brought together in these groups tended
to be unrelated. Most daily activities, such as attending school, eating, show-
ering, using the toilet, playing, and sleeping, were done with other group
members. A woman, who might or might not be the biological mother of
anyone within the peer group, slept in the same house with its members.
This rearing environment led to the close physical association of individuals
who were not genetic relatives and allowed a series of researchers to explore
the effects this arrangement had on sexual attraction. The Westermarck Hy-
04:51:30 UTC
pothesis predicts that individuals reared in close physical association will

develop a sexual aversion toward one another during adulthood.
Three of the pioneering social scientists to explore the commonly noted
lack of sexual attraction and absence of marriage between peer group mem-
bers were Spiro (1958), Talmon (1964), and Shepher (1971, 1983). In his
survey of marriages within one kibbutz, Spiro (1958) found that no members
within a peer group married one another or engaged in sexual behaviors
during adulthood. Talmon (1964) found a similar pattern in her study eval-
uating 125 married couples across three kibbutzim. She discovered that no
marriages and no reported sexual behavior occurred between individuals
within the same peer group who had been reared together from early child-
hood.
Perhaps the most comprehensive survey was completed by Shepher (1971,
1983). Shepher investigated the sexual behavior and patterns of marriage in
all of the second-generation adults living in one kibbutz (N ⫽ 65) and then
surveyed all of the marriages occurring between second-generation kibbutz
members in all 211 Israeli kibbutzim. In the former he found the complete
absence of sexual behavior and marriage between individuals reared in the
same peer group from early childhood. In the latter study, of the 2,769
marriages that occurred across all 211 Israeli kibbutzim surveyed, only four-
teen were between people reported to have been reared in the same peer
group. Upon closer inspection, Shepher found that none of these fourteen
couples had been reared together continuously throughout the first six years
of life. Shepher reasoned that continuous exposure throughout childhood,
and especially the first six years of life, was critical for the development of
a sexual aversion that became manifest at the age of fourteen or fifteen
(Shepher, 1983). All of this occurred despite the lack of prohibitions or
taboos against such relations. In fact, most parents were hopeful their chil-
dren would marry within their respective peer group (Shepher, 1971).
A second natural experiment that allowed for the testing of the Wester-
marck Hypothesis was the cultural institution of Taiwanese minor mar-
riages. When the Japanese colonial government took control of Taiwan in
the late 1800s, it compiled meticulous demographic records, including birth
rates, death rates, marriages, divorces, and adoptions. Also recorded was
the form of marriage that took place. In Taiwan during this period, there
were three different forms of marriage: patrilocal (major), uxorilocal, and
minor. In the major form of marriage, the bride went to live with the hus-
band’s family, whereas in the uxorilocal form, the bridegroom went to live
with the wife’s family. In both cases, the parents of the children arranged
the marriage and the husband and wife did not meet until the day of their
04:51:30 UTC
Passionate Love 289
marriage. In the minor form of marriage, a sim-pua (little bride), usually

between a few months and three years of age, was adopted into a family
for the purpose of marrying one of the sons later in life.
The anthropologist Arthur Wolf and colleagues spent forty years collect-
ing and analyzing data to determine whether marriages in which the wife
had resided with her husband throughout early childhood differed from
those in which the wife first met and started to live with her husband at the
time of marriage (see Wolf, 1995). Wolf reasoned that if co-residence du-
ration influences sexual attraction, as the Westermarck Hypothesis predicts,
then in those marriages where husband and wife co-resided from very early
childhood, there should be a reduced sexual attraction as measured by rates
of fertility, divorce, and extramarital affairs. Moreover, Wolf hypothesized
that the earlier a sim-pua was adopted into her husband’s family, the more
pronounced the effects would be.
Wolf surveyed more than twenty thousand marriages and found that
women in the minor form of marriage had twice as many extramarital af-
fairs as women married in the major or uxorilocal form. In addition, women
in minor marriages had three times the rate of divorce, and fertility rates 40
percent lower than women married in the major or uxorilocal pattern. When
Wolf looked at the age at which the daughter was adopted into her hus-
band’s family, he found an increased frequency of divorce and extramarital
affairs and a lower fertility rate if the girl was adopted into a family with a
son designated to be her future husband before her third birthday. If the
girl was adopted after her third birthday, the rates of fertility, divorce, and
extramarital affairs were similar to those found for women married in the
major fashion. These data led Wolf to conclude that for an aversion to
develop, individuals must be exposed to one another before the age of three.
These cross-cultural studies have provided evidence in support of the Wes-
termarck Hypothesis, showing that genetically unrelated individuals who are
reared together from early childhood develop a sexual aversion toward one
another. As informative as these studies are, many questions remain: Does
co-residence duration mediate the development of sexual aversions between
individuals who are in fact genetic relatives? Is there a specific time frame
of co-residence necessary for the activation of a sexual aversion? Is co-
residence duration the only cue used by the cognitive architecture to identify
siblings, or are other cues used (e.g., facial similarity and cues derived from
the catabolism of proteins associated with the major histocompatibility com-
plex, a component of the immune system that may signal genetic relatedness;
see Penn and Potts, 1999)? Does co-residence duration serve as a cue for
identifying both older and younger siblings? After all, older siblings would
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have been exposed to a potent cue signaling relatedness, namely, seeing their
biological mother pregnant and caring for (e.g., breast-feeding) a newborn
(see Lieberman et al., 2003; Lieberman et al., under review). Last, does co-
residence, or other cues mediating sibling detection, predict psychological
measures assessing sexual aversions to siblings, as implied by the sociological
measures used by Shepher and Wolf? This last question relies on the exis-
tence of cognitive programs regulating sexual aversions, the topic of the next
section.
COGNITIVE PROGRAMS GUIDING SEXUAL AVERSION:

THE EMOTION OF DISGUST
In addition to systems designed to take in cues from the social envi-
ronment and compute an estimate of kinship (i.e., kin detection), systems
for regulating sexual attraction and avoidance are required to achieve in-
breeding avoidance. The amplitude of a sexual avoidance mechanism should
be a function of the computed estimate of kinship (Lieberman et al., 2003).
For example, when the kinship estimate is high (i.e., when cues signaling
that an individual is likely to be a close genetic relative are present), then
systems motivating sexual attraction will be downregulated and systems mo-
tivating sexual avoidance will be upregulated. The greater the kinship esti-
mate, the greater the activation of the program mediating sexual avoidance.
The question remains, however, What program governs sexual aversions?
There are various programs that could, in principle, solve this problem.
One possibility is a system that causes an individual to withdraw from sit-
uations in which there is a high probability that sexual relations with a close
relative might occur. A response that renders an individual merely disinter-
ested in such a situation, for example, would not be as effective at avoiding
sexual relations with close relatives as a response that enabled an individual
to actively monitor others’ desires and withdraw from potentially incestuous
(and, hence, reproductively costly) situations. This is particularly important
given the possibility of inbreeding conflict, where males may actively seek
sexual relations with female relatives (Tooby, 1977; Haig, 1999).
Under ancestral conditions, close kin regularly encountered one another
throughout their lifetime. In the absence of any sexual aversion, there would
have been a substantial chance that two close genetic relatives would engage
in sexual relations. The presence of this statistically recurrent situation
would have selected for psychological programs that brought about an ap-
propriate response when cues indicating a close relative’s desire to mate were
present. A cognitive system already in place that could have caused an in-
dividual to withdraw from a potential inbreeding situation is the emotion
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Passionate Love 291
of disgust (Lieberman, 2003). From an evolutionary perspective, an emotion

is a coordinated response of a suite of specific cognitive and physiological
mechanisms to an evolutionary recurring situation (Tooby and Cosmides,
1990, 2000; Rosenberg and Ekman, 1994). As a repeated situation, the
statistical possibility of sexual relations occurring between close family mem-
bers would make an emotion, such as disgust, a good solution to this adap-
tive problem.
It has been widely hypothesized that the original function of disgust is to
avoid the oral incorporation of various harmful substances (see, for example,
Rozin and Fallon, 1987; Ekman and Davidson, 1994; Izard, 1993). More
specifically, disgust evolved to inhibit the ingestion of toxic materials and
contact with disease-causing agents (e.g., feces, dead organisms, and spoiled
food; Curtis and Biran, 2001). Disgust, which causes one to avoid or with-
draw from harmful substances, such as pathogens, could have been co-opted
during human evolution to motivate withdrawal from sexual relations with
a close genetic relative. The characteristic trait of disgust to motivate avoid-
ance means that it can be mobilized to deter an unsolicited advance by a
close family member. Moreover, it can also function to counteract any sex-
ual desire that may arise due to the fact that one’s close genetic relative may
be an attractive member of the opposite sex and possess traits (including
accessibility) that feed into sexual attraction systems.
There are several reasons why the emotion of disgust may have been co-
opted for this new function. For example, a link between disgust and sex
may have already existed due the pathogen avoidance function of disgust.
Disgust functions to prevent contact with others’ bodily fluids because these
possess potentially harmful foreign pathogens. However, this system of
avoidance must be suppressed for sexual contact to take place (Angyal,
1941). If, however, engineering refinements were made that decreased the
threshold of activation of disgust in response to sexual contact with partic-
ular individuals (as opposed to increasing it), the system would well be on
its way to serving as a sexual avoidance mechanism.
IN CONCLUSION
The model of a human inbreeding avoidance system proposed here
provides an empirical framework within which information hypothesized to
serve as cues to relatedness can be tested. The magnitude of the sexual
aversion (or attraction) associated with a particular individual should be a
function of the cues present in the social environment that were correlated
with relatedness in our ancestral past. It is therefore possible to reverse en-
gineer the kinds of cues used to detect each type of close genetic relative by
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quantitatively matching individual variation in opposition to incest to indi-

vidual variation in parameters that may have served as cues to relatedness.
Recently a handful of researchers have employed this method to investigate
the nature of the cues our mind uses to identify siblings (e.g., DeBruine,
2002; Lieberman, 2003; Lieberman et al., 2003; Fessler and Navarrete,
2004).
Understanding how sexual aversions develop in addition to how sexual
attraction operates will provide a more comprehensive picture of mate se-
lection in humans. Evolutionary considerations of the kinds of systems likely
to exist that govern mating psychology in tandem with cross-cultural anal-
yses of mating preferences and behavior will assist in the mapping of the
cognitive architecture of human mating psychology.
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14
Individualism, Collectivism, and the Psychology

of Love
karen k. dion and kenneth l. dion
What is love? Asking this question implies a search for clearly defining
features of universal relevance. Theory and research on the psychology of
love have often proceeded from the assumption that various “basic” pro-
cesses, such as biological, cognitive, and/or evolutionary processes, underlie
this complex human experience. From this perspective, the social context in
which these processes unfold is relevant but not the central focus. An alter-
native view is that the psychology of love can be understood only by con-
sidering the social structure in which the patterns of personal relationships
unfold. From this perspective, the social context is pivotal. Differences in
the development and evolution of cultures contribute to the structuring of
relationships in a manner that in turn is central for understanding the psy-
chology of love (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1996b). Therefore, another way of
asking about the nature of love is: How is love understood? This wording
offers the possibility of multiple frames of reference, each of which may
offer a different answer. It is this second question that has guided our think-
ing about love.
When we first wrote about the relation between the social context and
Author Note: Ken Dion died on November 16, 2004. I dedicate this chapter to him.
298
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Individualism, Collectivism, and the Psychology of Love 299
the nature of love in The Psychology of Love (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1988),
relatively little research in social psychology had taken a cultural perspective
on close relationships. Now the field of close relationships, along with many
other areas of psychology, has seen considerable growth of interest in the
impact of culture and culture-related factors on intrapersonal and interper-
sonal processes. In our 1988 chapter, we introduced several issues central
for understanding the psychology of love in a cultural framework that have
guided our subsequent thinking and research.
We suggested that culture-related systems of belief about the relation be-
tween the individual and the group, especially important in-groups such as
the family, were central to different understandings of love, and noted our
intent to pursue this line of inquiry (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1988). We have
been examining this hypothesized interrelation in our subsequent research,
which we will discuss here. The constructs of individualism and collectivism
have been the focus of much theoretical and empirical attention (e.g., Hof-
stede, 1980, 2001; Hui, 1988; Hui and Triandis, 1986; Oyserman, Coon,
and Kemmelmeier, 2002). We have reviewed many of the key assumptions
underlying these concepts elsewhere (see K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993;
1996a). The core point for the present discussion is that the system of beliefs
underlying each construct addresses the issue of the hierarchy of priorities
when balancing the goals, needs, and preferences of the individual members
within a group (such as the family) with those of the entire in-group. More-
over, each of these constructs can be analyzed at either the level of the
individual or at a societal level. We have used the terms psychological in-
dividualism and psychological collectivism for the personal level and societal
individualism and societal collectivism at the macro or societal level.
Individualism and Love

Based on evidence from diverse sources in the social sciences, we pre-
viously proposed that at the societal level, marriage based on romantic love
was more likely to be endorsed in societies where individualism, as con-
trasted with collectivism, prevailed (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993). Consistent
with this hypothesis, Levine and his colleagues (Levine, Sato, Hashimoto,
and Verma, 1995) found that the importance of being “in love” was stressed
as a precondition for marriage among young adults (university students)
from several Western societies (e.g., the United States, England, Australia).
Across the eleven societies examined, Levine and his colleagues found that
societal individualism as assessed by Hofstede’s (1980) measure of this con-
struct was positively related to endorsing the importance of marriage based
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on love. Part of the reason for this relation can be seen in the perceived
function and role of intimate relationships, such as marriage, in adult life.
If romantic love is seen as an opportunity for self-discovery and self-
expression, as discussed by Bellah and his colleagues (Bellah, Madsen, Sul-
livan, Swidler, and Tipton, 1985) in their analysis of individualism in Amer-
ican life, the link between individualism and “being in love” as a basis for
marriage follows from this view of love.
Interestingly, one can predict that marked societal change in the nature
and structure of key institutions, such as the family, will in turn be reflected
in changing ideologies about the function of intimate relationships. For ex-
ample, in the People’s Republic of China, the “one child per family” policy
has markedly changed family structure. Children growing up in this context
might be expected to develop a strong sense of self as highly unique. This
changed family structure might therefore be expected to produce a cohort
of young adults who view personal relationships as a means for self-
fulfillment and self-discovery (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993). If so, they should
be more likely to stress the importance of being “in love” as a basis for
marriage.
At the psychological level, the relation between individualism and love
has been debated. There have been competing claims about the relation
between individualism and relationship quality. In part, this debate reflects
different conceptualizations about the meaning of the term individualism.
Wachtel (1983) pointed out that this term has been used both to stress the
uniqueness and dignity of each person and also to describe excessive pre-
occupation with one’s self-interest, such that the needs of the larger com-
munity were ignored. Waterman (1981, 1984) proposed that freedom of
choice, respect for the integrity of others, and fulfilling one’s personal po-
tential are central features of individualism; thus, one might expect a positive
relation between individualism and relationship quality. If so, individualism
should facilitate the development of love for one’s partner.
However, others have conceptualized individualism, or at least one type
of individualism, as an extreme belief in one’s personal autonomy and con-
trol, as seen in Sampson’s (1977) term self-contained individualism. With
this self-construal, people try to be as self-sufficient as possible, regarding
dependence on others and others’ dependence on them with ambivalence. A
similar point has been made by Bellah and his colleagues (Bellah et al., 1985)
in their discussion of the role of individualism in both the public and the
private/personal domains of life, noting that the competing pulls of wanting
one’s freedom and the needs of one’s partner can create problems for de-
veloping intimacy. Given this wariness concerning interdependence among
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those endorsing self-contained individualism, we predicted a negative rela-

tion between this form of psychological individualism and the quality of
love for one’s partner.
Paradoxically, when thinking about individualism at both the societal and
the personal level, although in societies characterized as individualistic, mar-
riage based on romantic love is a cultural ideal, the presence of some forms
of individualism at the personal level can hinder the likelihood of realizing
this ideal (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993). Our research and that of others has
found evidence supporting this hypothesis: namely, that psychological in-
dividualism can make it more difficult to develop and maintain the desired
love-based marriage. Several studies have found that self-contained individ-
ualism is negatively related to relationship quality. In this section, the main
points will be presented from research that we have conducted examining
the relation between psychological individualism and the affective quality of
love for one’s partner, as well as one’s beliefs about the nature of love and
the nature of marriage.
To assess beliefs about the relation between the individual and the group
(individualism and collectivism), we have used items developed by Breer and
Locke (1965), sampling both domain-specific content and more global items
intended to be more general indicators of each construct. Participants in the
research to be described were young adults (university students). In our first
study (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1991), using a series of simultaneous regression
analyses, we examined the contribution of different components of psycho-
logical individualism and collectivism, along with age and sex of partici-
pants. The most consistent pattern of findings occurred for one component
of psychological individualism, which we characterized as reflecting self-
contained individualism. The items comprising this component stressed qual-
ities such as the importance of personal freedom and autonomy, personal
control over one’s life, and valuing self-sufficiency. Greater self-contained
individualism was related to lesser likelihood of reporting that one had ever
been in love. Individualists also endorsed a more “ludic” view of love as
described by Lee’s (1973) typology of ideologies of love. The ludic style is
characterized by a noncommittal, permissive view of love, as reflected in the
idea of love as a type of game.
Of particular interest, among those who did report ever having been in
love, self-contained individualism also was negatively related to reported
quality of the experience of love and love for one’s partner. The experience
of love was less likely to be described by qualities such as tender, deep, and
rewarding as self-contained individualism increased. To assess reported love
for one’s partner, we used Rubin’s (1970) measure and analyzed its three
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subscales (caring, need, and trust) identified by Steck and colleagues (Steck,
Levitan, McLane, and Kelley, 1982), along with Pam, Plutchik, and Conte’s
(1975) measure of reported physical attraction to one’s partner. On all of
these measures, we found the predicted negative relation between self-
contained individualism and the quality of love for one’s partner. This form
of psychological individualism was associated with less reported caring,
need, and trust of one’s partner as well as less reported attraction.
In our second study (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1993b), we once again looked
at the relationship quality correlates of psychological individualism and col-
lectivism. In this study, we included some additional measures: attitudes
toward marriage and toward divorce. Once again, using the Breer and Locke
(1965) items, the “self-contained individualism “component emerged (see
K. L. Dion and Dion, 2005, for description of the self-contained individu-
alism index). Similar to the first study, greater individualism was related to
less likelihood of ever having been in love. As predicted, self-contained in-
dividualism was related to more negative attitudes toward marriage and a
greater wish to marry later.
Other researchers (Agnew and Lee, 1997; Kemmelmeier, Sanchez-Burks,
Cytron, and Coon, 1998, study 2) have similarly found evidence for a neg-
ative relation between psychological individualism and relationship com-
mitment among samples of university students in the United States. They
used scales constructed from the Breer and Locke (1965) items to assess
individualism, and a measure developed by Rusbult and her colleagues (see
Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew, 1998) to assess commitment in close relation-
ships. There is thus converging evidence from diverse university samples that
some aspects of individualism contribute negatively to love and relationship
quality. Since these studies involved young adults, specifically, university
students, it is relevant to ask about the nature of the relation between in-
dividualism and love among a more representative group of adults.
We examined this issue (K. L. Dion and Dion, 2005) by analyzing previous
survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS), which were collected in
1993. The General Social Survey, a probability survey of English-speaking
adults in the United States, is conducted almost annually (Davis and Smith,
1992). In 1993, five questions were included about individualism. One of
these items quite clearly captured the core of self-contained individualism
with its strong focus on putting one’s own needs and goals before those of
other people. Also included in the GSS were questions about satisfaction
with different types of relationships, such as marriage and friendship, as
well as items about subjective well-being and other items related to the qual-
ity of one’s life. The pattern of findings across a series of regression analyses
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found considerable evidence of a negative relation between “self-first” in-

dividualism and reported relationship quality, as well as other aspects of
subjective well-being.
For example, the greater the individualism, the less reported happiness in
romantic relationships, less reported happiness in marriage, and lower sat-
isfaction with family life and with friends. Reported relationship outcomes
also emerged as negatively related to individualism; for example, a lower
sense of perceived success in one’s family life and more likelihood of having
been divorced in the past year or the previous five years. (For a more detailed
description of these findings, see K. L. Dion and Dion, 2005.) The important
point here is that the relationship quality correlates of self-contained indi-
vidualism for university student samples in Canada and the United States
and for a probability sample of adults in the United States were similar.
Across these different studies, the pattern of results indicated that psycho-
logical individualism negatively contributed to the quality of close relation-
ships and to the experience of love. Our and others’ work on individualism
and love has focused for the most part on its role in the development, qual-
ity, and maintenance of heterosexual relationships in adulthood.
Recent evidence also suggests, however, that the problematic aspects of
individualism are evident in other important close relationships and the man-
ifestation of love in those relationships. Although not undertaken to study
the psychology of love, research on adult children’s attempts to care for their
aging parents and their parents’ responses to this care, conducted by Pyke
and her colleagues, identified several themes consistent with our hypothesis
that some forms of psychological individualism have a negative relation to
relationship quality. Using a qualitative research methodology based on in-
terviews with members of three generations (aging parents, midlife adult
children, and adult grandchildren), Pyke and Bengtson (1996) identified both
individualistic and collectivistic systems of beliefs concerning the family.
Families whose orientation was largely individualistic stressed the value of
personal autonomy of family members, voluntary association, and looser
kinship ties among family members. Interestingly, family relations were fre-
quently described in more negative or ambivalent terms.
Pyke and Bengston (1996) pointed out that among the families whose
prevailing ideology was individualism, the adult children were more likely
to delegate the physical caregiving to others (nonfamily hired help, nursing
homes) and focused on help managing parents’ finances and arrangements
for eldercare. The underlying motivation when caring for ailing parents
seemed to be one of duty rather than affection; hence, caregiving was seen
as a burden. From the individualist perspective, aging parents valued their
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own autonomy and neither expected nor wanted intervention in their lives
by their adult daughters and sons. To ask for or need help might threaten
the parent’s relation with the adult child since autonomy was so highly val-
ued. The following statement poignantly reveals this dilemma. An eighty-
nine-year-old mother said of her fifty-three-year-old daughter: “ I don’t want
her to have to be burdened with me. Because I want her to keep on liking
me, and if they have to take care of you, you never know if they are going
to like you or not” (Pyke and Bengtson, 1996, p. 384).
Older parents thus received relatively little direct help from their children
who endorsed a view of the family as supporting the individual autonomy
of each member. Pyke (1999) subsequently examined the implications of a
individualistic family orientation for eldercare for the power dynamics in a
family. By adhering to individualism, older adults could preserve their sense
of independence and not yield any of their parental authority to their chil-
dren. Although this system of beliefs and related behaviors was functional
for older adults in good health, with the dependencies related to poor health
Pyke (1999) found that endorsing an individualistic view of the family was
related to problems for both aging parents and their adult children, who
now had to provide a level of care-related behavior that conflicted with these
beliefs and often was resented by their parents. Moreover, the previous stress
on self-sufficiency meant that adult children would not always be able to
provide the most sensitive caregiving since they were unaware of their par-
ents’ preferences and wishes, and inexperienced in providing caregiving. In
essence, adult children might be least able to be fully emotionally responsive
to the needs of aging parents when their parents’ needs were the greatest.
In some cases, Pyke pointed out, aging parents who were individualists
might prefer to forgo closer relationships with their adult children if that
meant acknowledging increasing dependency and deferring to their chil-
dren’s wishes, resulting in less companionship and less instrumental assis-
tance from their sons and daughters.
The research conducted by Pyke and her colleagues looked at the relation
between individualism and family functioning in a domain different from
the one we have been studying. It was independently designed to address
other issues than those which have guided our thinking, and used a different
research approach. Nonetheless, their results provide striking converging ev-
idence consistent with the pattern of findings in our own program of re-
search on the challenges that individualism poses for the expression of love
in close relationships.
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Collectivism and Love

Previously we have suggested that there should be less emphasis on
the cultural ideal of marriage based on love in societies characterized as
collectivistic, and that affective involvement with one’s partner might be less
intense, with affect diffused across a more complex pattern of family rela-
tionships (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993). At the societal level, G. R. Lee and
Stone (1980), examining the anthropological evidence for 117 nonindustrial-
ized societies, found a relation between family structure (nuclear versus ex-
tended) and the importance of marriage based on love and choosing one’s
spouse. Love-based marriage was stressed more in societies with a nuclear
structure than with an extended family structure.
More recent data, cited earlier, from Levine and his colleagues (1995)
have shown that in some traditionally collectivistic societies, a substantial
proportion of young adults say that they would marry a person with whom
they were not in love as long as this person had the other qualities they
wished. However, in other societies with collectivistic cultural traditions
(e.g., Japan), almost none of the young adults were willing to marry without
being in love, suggesting a move toward greater individualism in some do-
mains.
At the personal level, psychological individualism and its contribution to
the experience of love have yielded a more consistent pattern of findings in
our program of research on the psychology of love, compared with psycho-
logical collectivism. However, in one of our studies, an interesting pattern
occurred. In our second study on individualism, collectivism, and love (K. L.
Dion and Dion, 1993b, 2005, our findings for the more general component
of psychological collectivism, which we labeled “belongingness,” were con-
sistent with the second part of the hypothesis stated at the start of this
section. Psychological collectivism was related to views of the nature of love
and love for one’s partner that stressed different aspects of caring rather
than intense affect or self-discovery. Specifically, endorsing the importance
of group-related belongingness and communal goals was positively related
to reported caring for one’s partner (Rubin’s measure). This type of psy-
chological collectivism also was associated with viewing love as based on
friendship, pragmatic concerns, and, of particular importance, altruistic or
“agapic” goals.
In another study (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1993a), we found that women
(university undergraduates) from several Asian ethnocultural backgrounds
were more likely to endorse an agapic view of love compared with Anglo-
Celtic women. An agapic view of love stresses the importance of putting
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one’s partner’s needs and interests before one’s own. These findings suggest
that psychological collectivism promotes the development of a caring net-
work of close relationships. Previously we proposed that psychological col-
lectivism increased the likelihood that affective ties would be diffused across
a network of family relationships, with the bond between spouses being one
among many family ties (K. K. Dion and Dion, 1993).
If that is so, the relation between collectivism and love for one’s partner
might be expected to be responsive not only to the quality of marital inter-
action but also to changes in the larger family system. In a qualitative study,
Ingersoll-Dayton and her colleagues (Ingersoll-Dayton, Campbell, Kuro-
kawa, and Saito, 1996) compared long-term marriages (on average, four
decades) in Japan and the United States. These older adults from both cul-
tural contexts reported intimacy with their spouse. What differed was how
and at what phase of their marriage this intimacy developed. Among the
couples from the United States, participants commented on the desire to
keep a high level of psychological intimacy in their marriage and also “to
negotiate a separate identity and space in which to develop autonomously”
(p. 394). This desire to develop a separate sense of self was especially evident
among the older women.
The themes emerging from interviews with the Japanese participants were
different. In the early years of their marriage, for both wife and husband
their primary obligations and ties were to different aspects of the larger
family system, such as attending to the needs of the extended family and
duties to other members of the kinship group. However, the Japanese cou-
ples reported a greater sense of intimacy with their spouse later in their
marriage, the time when the interviews were conducted. The reasons for this
perceived change were both individual (e.g., the husband’s being more will-
ing to express affection toward his wife) and structural (loss of members of
the larger family group with whom close bonds had existed).
Psychological collectivism may have implications not only for reported
intimacy in family relationships but also for the concrete expression of love,
as manifested in the quality of care given to family members. In the previous
section, Pyke and Bengtson’s (1996) research on family belief systems and
eldercare was discussed, focussing on individualism. Pyke and her colleagues
also looked at collectivism as an orientation guiding family-related beliefs
and behavior. Families following a more collectivistic/communal approach
stressed the importance of family bonds, the need for mutual assistance, and
the interdependency of family members. They often depicted other family
members positively.
From this view of the family, affection and attachment, rather than duty,
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were the main reasons underlying eldercare, which was not viewed as a
burden. One daughter, commenting on her increased involvement in caring
for her mother, commented: “So then, of course, we got even closer because
I was doing more things for her than I had done before” (Pyke and Bengtson,
1996, p. 384). Pyke and Bengtson noted that when contrasted with members
of more individualistic families, those who endorsed a more collective set of
beliefs seemed to be characterized by “a nearly unlimited commitment to
care giving” (p. 384).
In this qualitative analysis, the more communal approach had clear ben-
efits for aging parents in terms of the quality and amount of care received
from their adult children. However, as Pyke (1999) noted in her subsequent
analysis of family power relationships, the psychological cost of receiving
this care was deference to the wishes of the children, in essence a lessening
or loss of parental power or authority. If parents sought to assert their
wishes and were not deferential, children were less likely to offer help or
companionship. Pyke pointed out that this research was conducted in a more
individualistic society (the United States), so that a more “bounded form”
of collectivism might have developed, and speculated that comparative re-
search in more collectivist societies would be of interest.
In summary, findings from our own work and that of other researchers
have shown that some aspects (forms of) psychological collectivism seem to
be positively related to important markers of relationship quality in different
types of close relationships. The implications of psychological collectivism
for the psychology of love and its concrete expressions in close relationships
is a promising direction meriting more research attention.
Cultural Contexts and the Psychology of Love

Previously we noted that culture contributes to how the self is under-
stood and defined (K. L. Dion and Dion, 1988). Although this statement
now seems almost axiomatic given the current research literature in social/
personality psychology on culture and the self, at the time of our initial
writing, the relation between cultural factors and the self was mostly dis-
cussed by scholars from cross-cultural psychology, psychological anthro-
pology, and related areas. We drew on the writing of several Asian scholars,
who noted that concepts of personhood in Western psychological theory
focused on what could be described as an atomistic view of each person as
a psychologically separate and bounded entity. By contrast, the psychology
of personhood as illustrated by Asian concepts such as jen portrayed persons
a part of a network of relationships. This different view of self in turn has
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implications for how love is understood. Here we present further implica-

tions of this perspective.
If the self is conceptualized at core as distinct and separate from the other,
then one function of love is to create bonds and ties with others and, ulti-
mately, to break down the sense of isolation and disconnection inherent in
this view of self. However, the process of developing this bond is complex
and relies on active, ongoing negotiation as a relationship develops. In this
context, verbal disclosure and a sense of self-validation—talking about one-
self and one’s needs, feeling understood by the other, hearing the other’s
verbal expression of love—are likely to be important aspects of this ongoing
process. Verbal disclosure may be especially important for the development
of love when forming close relationships must be negotiated on an ongoing
basis, since interdependence cannot be assumed to be a basic property of
the self. Love is the bridge connecting two otherwise isolated selves. It is
formed by the constant attempt to build connections between self and other.
At the same time, if self is viewed as a separate entity from the other, the
connection between self and other is optional, maintained insofar as the
needs and goals of each individual are met. This perspective applies not only
to love in the context of peer relationships (close friendship; marriage) but
also, other relationships such as parent-adult child, which might be assumed
to have a more permanent quality. As presented earlier, if family belief sys-
tems reflect a view of family members as separate selves, then love itself is
contingent on the more needy family member’s “not being a burden” to the
less needy. If this condition is not met, love and support may be withdrawn
from those with the greatest need, as suggested in the research conducted
by Pyke and her colleagues discussed in an earlier section.
By contrast, if the self emerges in the context of a network of relation-
ships, this inherent interdependence between self and other would predict a
different dynamic for understanding the nature of love. There should be less
emphasis on mutual expression of personal needs and preferences as a basis
for forming and maintaining a connection, and more emphasis on behaviors
(helping, supporting, taking care of the other’s needs) that acknowledge and
support the presence of a bond already assumed to exist. The presence of
the relationship itself is evidence of deep and enduring connections—for
example, between parent and adult daughter or son and between spouses.
Accordingly, there is no need for verbal affirmation or reassurance about
the nature of the bond. The question “Do you love me?” would seem su-
perfluous. For example, writing about family relationships in Japanese so-
ciety, Iwao (1993) noted that “the expectation of complete tacit understand-
ing” in intimate relationships would make verbal expression of love both
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less likely and less desirable. Indeed, Iwao suggested that when confronted
with a direct question about one’s depth of feelings for another, such as a
wife asking her husband if he loved her, the individual queried might re-
spond with frustration and annoyance since this explicit declaration was
regarded as unnecessary.
In social contexts where competing views of the nature of self and other
occur, tensions may arise in close relationships over how love is understood
and expressed. The nature of love and how it is manifested in close rela-
tionships differ as a function of core beliefs about self as having a distinct
identity from others or as being interdependent, with identity emerging as a
function of this relatedness. For example, K. K. Dion (2006) noted that the
basis for tension concerning many close relationship issues (such as choice
of one’s spouse, freedom to date, family responsibilities) between parents
and their adult children in families from immigrant groups in the United
States and Canada at core is due to different ideologies of optimal human
development. Parents and their adult children may hold markedly different
views of the nature of self and of identity, which in turn have implications
for the expression of love and affection in one’s close relationships. From
the immigrant parents’ perspective, “letting go” is not the hallmark of suc-
cessful parenting, nor is it the ultimate expression of love for one’s adult
children. Rather, as a parent, one expresses love by active involvement in
the grown children’s lives, given the permanent interdependencies in the fam-
ily.
Thus, culture-related views of self and other may contribute to how love
is understood among different generations in immigrant families. For ex-
ample, Pyke’s (2000) interviews with adult children from Korean and Viet-
namese immigrant families in the United States is consistent with this point.
She commented that in Korean and Vietnamese cultural traditions, helping
and offering forms of instrumental support were valued expressions of love
for one’s family, rather than declarations of affection and personal feeling.
By contrast, the adult children from these immigrant families wanted their
parents to be more expressive. The following comment from one young man
vividly shows the difference in these two views. Remembering a conversation
with his father when the interviewee was a child, he said: “I tried saying ‘I
love you’ one time and he looked at me and said, ‘Are you American now?
You think this is The Brady Bunch? You don’t love me. You love me when
you can support me’ ” (Pyke, 2000, p. 247).
In closing, theories about the psychology of love are themselves cultural
constructions. Many current theories seem to be guided by the assumption
that self and other are distinct entities, so that the challenge for individuals
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in marital and family relationships is to develop and maintain intimacy, with

love needing to be constantly affirmed to create a connection between two
distinct selves. If, however, one begins with the assumption that a sense of
self in marriage and other close family relationships is inherently interde-
pendent, that is, self has no independent meaning except in relation to
other(s), how love is understood and manifested reflects a very different set
of assumptions. This conceptual framework has the potential to offer dis-
tinctive insights. Our own research and that of others have emphasized the
importance of social/cultural contexts and related belief systems concerning
the relation between self and other, such as individualism and collectivism,
for understanding the psychology of love and its implications for both re-
lationship processes and outcomes.
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15
Conclusion: The Nature and Interrelations of

Theories of Love
karin weis
The authors writing for this volume have presented a wide range of
theories and research on the topic of love. They have used different methods
and studied different aspects of the phenomenon. Having gotten some in-
sights into all these areas, one can clearly say that things are on the move
in the study of love. However, at times the variety of results and the different
aspects of love that are studied can be quite overwhelming. Perhaps the
ultimate goal is to have one all-encompassing theory of love that is able to
explain all of its phenomena without contradictions. This goal is a distant
prospect, however. It may be asked, therefore, what common ground the
theories presented in this volume have. They cover different aspects of love,
but there is still a considerable overlap among the theories and the results
achieved. In this chapter, we will look at the different kinds of love and the
mechanisms associated with them. In this way, it may be possible to see
whether, and if so, to what degree, they overlap. Since many of the theories
in this book deal with biology, we will first consider the biological theories,
then the taxonomies, and finally the prototype approach. Afterward, we will
consider the influences personality, context, and time have on love. Next,
we will explore the cultural differences that are presented in several chapters.
We will also consider what general strategies humans have developed to
achieve the goals associated with love and mating, and what consequences
313
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314 Conclusion
failure in these domains may have. Last, we will explore some questions that
are still unanswered and that may be addressed in future research.
Integration of the Different Love Styles

VIEWS BASED ON BIOLOGICAL THEORIES
Some of the biological theories described in this volume propose the
existence of a number of systems that drive the behaviors we associate with
love. Comparison shows that most of the love styles and systems overlap to
a certain degree, so that there seems to be at least some common ground.
The biological theories all have in common an attempt to understand
human cognitions, emotions, and behaviors in the light of human and pri-
mate evolutionary history. They state that the human brain and the psy-
chological mechanisms evolved by natural selection exist in order to solve
recurring problems of survival and to facilitate reproduction. These mech-
anisms are supposed to be universal, although some of them may be specific
to one sex or a particular age. However, some of the biological theories
presented here have more than that in common with each other, and also
with other theories, in that they suggest systems regulating cognition, emo-
tions, and behavior, which have some degree of overlap with other kinds of
love.
In chapter 3, “A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic Love Rela-
tionships,” Phillip R. Shaver and Mario Mikulincer suggest that there are
three innate motivational systems: attachment, caregiving, and sex. They
developed this idea in part as a result of Bowlby’s (1969/1982) ethological
theory of attachment. According to this theory, certain motivational systems
have evolved over the course of human development because they increase
the likelihood that infants will survive and reproduce successfully. The at-
tachment system is activated when a person encounters a threat and wants
to draw back to an attachment figure that can provide shelter. The caregiv-
ing system’s function is to provide protection and support to significant oth-
ers when they are in need. The sexual system works to bring sexual partners
together to achieve reproduction. Each of these systems comprises specific
goals and strategies to achieve these goals.
In chapter 5, “The Drive to Love,” Helen Fisher takes a neurological
approach, but also proposes three different brain-based systems for love—
the sex drive, attraction, and attachment—that are similar to Shaver and
Mikulincer’s three motivational systems. The sex drive is responsible for
sexual desire. Attraction equals romantic love and is characterized by atten-
tion focused on one particular mate and on mate-guarding, for example.
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Conclusion 315
Attachment is associated with mutual grooming, nest-building, and the de-

sire to maintain proximity to the partner. Fisher’s attachment shares some
features with Shaver and Mikulincer’s attachment system, the goal of which
is to provide shelter and possibilities of retreat in situations of threat. The
sex systems of both theories work to achieve successful reproduction. How-
ever, whereas Fisher’s system essentially equates attraction with romantic
love, its caregiving counterpart in Shaver and Mikulincer’s theory refers to
an altruistic form of compassionate love, in that it is squarely focused on
the welfare of another person.
Shaver and Mikulincer, and Fisher, are not the only ones to establish a
connection between love and attachment. Attachment is also the main topic
of chapter 6, “A Biobehavioral Model of Attachment and Bonding,” by
James F. Leckman, Sarah B. Hrdy, Eric B. Keverne, and C. Sue Carter. They
distinguish between bonding, which puts an emphasis on biological pro-
cesses mediating parental behaviors and infant responsiveness, and attach-
ment, which has a stronger psychological connotation. In their biobehavioral
model, besides observing affiliative behaviors and bonding in a number of
species, they explore the biosocial mechanisms that form the basis of at-
tachment behavior both in humans and in mammals. Peptides, such as oxy-
tocin, and opioids are associated with bonding between infants and their
parents. Oxytocin seems to be involved, for example, in sexual arousal, pair-
bonding, and maternal behavior. Opioids act in the brain much like drugs
such as heroin. When they are released, for example, during parturition and
suckling, they evoke positive affects, therefore reinforcing maternal care.
Fisher also agrees that oxytocin plays a role in attachment. Her attraction
system also shares some behavioral features with Leckman and colleagues
romantic love, which is characterized mainly by time-consuming, intrusive
thoughts and obsession.
The necessity and sense of different kinds of love is also recognized in
chapter 2, “A Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love,” by Douglas T. Ken-
rick. He states that during their evolution, humans have encountered specific
problems again and again. Different kinds of love are relevant to these prob-
lems. For example, humans need to attract potential mates and, if they have
found a mate, to try to maintain this relationship. They also need to take
care of their offspring in the best way possible. As every generation of hu-
mans has encountered these problems, they have developed decision biases
that help them solve problems associated with particular goals. For example,
males generally tend to ascribe more importance to attractiveness in females
than females do to attractiveness in men. The reason is that attractiveness
serves as a cue for the fertility of the woman. Females, on the contrary,
04:51:37 UTC
316 Conclusion
attend to the status of the potential mate to assure he will be able to provide
for offspring. Since problems such as parental care, on the one hand, and
mate-seeking, on the other, need different solutions, different kinds of love
are relevant for the different domains.
TAXONOMIES OF LOVE
The intent of the chapters in the taxonomy section is to describe cer-
tain kinds of love and, in some cases, to establish lists of kinds of love based
on certain theoretical assumptions. The different kinds of love proposed in
the taxonomies can be partly assigned to the three brain systems and mo-
tivational systems described above. At times, they comprise a mixture of
more than one of these components. This overlap becomes clearest in chap-
ter 8, “Searching for the Meaning of ‘Love,’ ” in which Ellen Berscheid sug-
gests that there are four kinds of love: attachment, compassionate, compa-
nionate, and romantic. Attachment love is characterized by the seeking of
proximity to a protector, usually in a threatening situation. Compassionate
love is an altruistic love that has at its center the welfare of the other, with-
out necessarily expecting that person to reciprocate. Companionate love or
liking refers to friendship between people and is based on reward-
punishment principles: if someone is treated well by another person, he or
she tends to like that person, whereas if someone is treated badly, he or she
tends to dislike that person. The fourth kind of love that Berscheid proposes,
romantic love, is a passionate type of love that involves sexual desire. Ber-
scheid’s love styles show some overlap with the biologically based systems
of Shaver and Mikulincer and of Fisher. Attachment love clearly finds its
counterpart in the attachment systems of Shaver and Fisher. Compassionate
love seems to correspond best with Shaver and Mikulincer’s caregiving sys-
tem. Berscheid’s romantic love may be a mixture of the sex systems of Shaver
and Mikulincer and of Fisher, and may comprise parts of Fisher’s attraction
system as well as Shaver and Mikulincer’s caregiving system. Companionate
love may be related to the attachment systems and caregiving.
The six love styles of Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (see chapter
7, “Styles of Romantic Love”) also can be assigned to one or more kinds of
love or kinds of systems mentioned above. However, the three primary love
styles—eros, ludus, and storge—cannot be assigned primarily to one kind
of love in the other taxonomies. As the three secondary styles, they are in
general more adequately mapped onto more than one style of the other
taxonomies. Eros, for example, is characterized as a passionate and erotic
kind of love as well as involving intense emotions.Therefore, it matches well
with the romantic love of Berscheid and the sex drives of both Fisher and
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Conclusion 317
of Shaver and Mikulincer because of its erotic content. In addition, some of

the elements of eros may be present in Fisher’s attraction system, which is
similar to romantic love in humans. Ludus is rather hard to assign to any
of the styles and systems mentioned above. It is a kind of game-playing,
uncommitted love that is characterized by deception. One could argue that
any kind of love could be uncommitted. However, because of the deception
component, it cannot really be assigned to most of the other love styles. The
attachment of Fisher, of Shaver and Mikulincer, and of Berscheid does not
include an uncommitted component because the very core of attachment is
to seek to be attached to and to be sheltered by a person across a longer
time span. Shaver and Mikulincer’s caregiving and Berscheid’s compassion-
ate love do not fit the characteristics of ludus, because altruistic acts do not
have much in common with a game-playing uncommittedness. Ludus maps
best onto the romantic love of Berscheid and the attraction of Fisher, as well
as the sex drives of Fisher and of Shaver and Mikulincer. The game-playing,
uncommitted elements seem to fit best the kind of passionate relationship
that develops between two lovers but is not necessarily meant to be serious
and can vanish within a short time. Storge as a kind of companionate friend-
ship is easier to match with other love styles. It matches best with Berscheid’s
companionate love, and also comprises elements of the attachment love of
Berscheid, Fisher, and Shaver and Mikulincer, as well as Shaver and Mik-
ulincer’s caregiving system. Turning to the three secondary “colors” of love,
agape, the altruistic and sacrificial kind of love, is closely related to Ber-
scheid’s compassionate love and Shaver and Mikulincer’s caregiving. It may
also contain some elements of companionate love.
For the last two styles, it is a bit more complicated. Pragma, the practical
kind of love, might be best seen as related to Berscheid’s companionate love,
which is ruled by reward and punishment. Berscheid suggests that in this
kind of love, we love those people best who reward us—who attend to our
needs. That is much of what pragma is about—attaining what one desires.
Facilitation of the achievement of one’s goals is one reason to engage in a
pragmatic relationship, and so pragma and companionate love seem defi-
nitely to be related. The last of the six love styles is mania, a kind of ob-
sessional love oscillating between ecstasy and agony. Obsessional love most
often happens in the domain of romantic relationships. Therefore, mania
seems to be related to Berscheid’s romantic love and Fisher’s attraction sys-
tem, as well as to the sex drives of Shaver and Mikulincer and of Fisher.
In his duplex theory of love (see chapter 9, “A Duplex Theory of Love”),
Robert J. Sternberg suggests eight kinds of love comprising various combi-
nations of intimacy, passion, and commitment. The easiest kind of love to
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318 Conclusion
assign to other love styles or systems is surely non-love, in which none of

the three components are present. Since no love is experienced, it may be
assumed that this state is not related to any other kinds of love mentioned
above.
Friendship is characterized as a kind of love in which intimacy is present,
but neither passion nor commitment. Therefore, friendship best can be
mapped onto the storge of the Hendricks and the companionate love of
Berscheid. Although (short-term) friendship may also comprise some ele-
ments of attachment, it does not really overlap with it because it does not
comprise serious elements of commitment, according to Sternberg’s defini-
tion. Some kind of commitment or continuity is necessary, however, to build
up attachment, as defined in the theories of Fisher, of Shaver and Mikulin-
cer, and of Berscheid. Friendship shares the feature of lacking serious com-
mitment with the Hendricks’ ludus style of love.
Infatuated love is characterized by the presence of the passion component,
but the absence of both intimacy and commitment. It contains the intense
emotions of the Hendricks’ eros and the obsession of their mania. It may
also be associated with the sex drive components of Fisher and of Shaver
and Mikulincer, in that the passion component is so salient in infatuated
love.
Empty love is a kind of love in which neither intimacy nor passion is
present, but in which a person is nevertheless committed to loving someone.
Although certainly different, empty love may share some features with at-
tachment, since attachment is associated with maintenance of proximity and
separation anxiety. Separation anxiety may be a reason for couples deciding
to stay together even though intimacy and passion have long left their re-
lationship. But there is still some comfort in the habits of their relationship
that makes them stay together.
Romantic love is characterized by the presence of both intimacy and pas-
sion and the absence of commitment. Sternberg’s romantic love can relatively
easily be assigned to the romantic love of Berscheid and Fisher (attraction).
Furthermore, romantic love also has common features with the Hendricks’
eros, in that intense emotions and physical attraction are associated with it.
Since passion is involved, the sex drive components of Shaver and Mikulin-
cer and of Fisher may also play a role in romantic love.
Companionate love is characterized by intimacy and commitment; in this
case, however, passion is not involved. Sternberg’s companionate love shares
its name with Berscheid’s companionate love, indicating a substantial over-
lap. It is also related to the Hendricks’ storge in its companionate aspect,
and in that passion is missing. Because commitment is present in compa-
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Conclusion 319
nionate love, it shares this characteristic with the attachment love of Ber-
scheid, of Shaver and Mikulincer, and of Fisher.
Fatuous love is characterized by feelings of both commitment and passion,
but no stabilizing intimacy. The passion element of fatuous love bears some
semblance to the intense feelings in the Hendricks’ eros, and the romantic
love of Berscheid and Fisher. However, the element that is missing in these
kinds of love, but that is present in fatuous love, is commitment. The sex
drive posited by Shaver and Mikulincer and by Fisher also has some com-
monalities with the passion component of fatuous love.
Consummate love unites all three components of love: intimacy, passion,
and commitment. It therefore encompasses several of the styles of love men-
tioned above. The romantic love of Berscheid and the eros of the Hendricks
are part of consummate love, as well as of Fisher’s attraction and the sex
drive component of both Fisher and of Shaver and Mikulincer. Furthermore,
consummate love also means that the couple has a high level of intimacy,
therefore making it more similar to companionate forms of love, such as the
ones suggested by Berscheid and the Hendricks (storge). It is also related to
the attachment system posited by Fisher, by Shaver and Mikulincer, and by
Berscheid, in that both partners try to maintain proximity and exhibit affi-
liative behaviors. As far as the partners are also concerned about one an-
other’s welfare and try to attend to one another’s needs, Shaver and Miku-
lincer’s caregiving system is involved in consummate love as well as in
compassionate love (Berscheid) and agape (Hendrick and Hendrick).
There is another connection between Shaver and Mikulincer’s theory and
Sternberg’s love triangle, in that the area of the love triangle can be enlarged
by an optimal functioning of the three systems of attachment, caregiving,
and sex. Sternberg’s taxonomy generally differs from the others outlined in
this book in that it does not primarily seek differences between the kinds of
love in content or associated behaviors. Rather, Sternberg suggests three
basic components of love whose combination results in eight different kinds
of love. His view of love as a story, part of his duplex theory, deals with
content.
Another kind of love, communal responsiveness, is introduced by Mar-
garet S. Clark and Joan K. Monin in chapter 10 (“Giving and Receiving
Communal Repsonsiveness as Love”). Communal responsiveness includes
the response to the needs that a person has exposed. The response focuses
on the person’s welfare and his or her needs without any conditions at-
tached, which means that the responding person does not help because he
or she expects to be helped in return. This kind of love is similiar to Ber-
scheid’s compassionate love and the Hendricks’ agape in that it is concerned
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320 Conclusion
with the other’s welfare. It also shares common features with Shaver and
Mikulincer’s caregiving system, which represents a kind of altruistic love.
Communal love differs from the kinds of love described in the other chap-
ters, however, in that it is a prominent feature in a variety of kinds of
relationships. People probably see the particularities of their relationship as
best characterized by one of the love styles described above, such as roman-
tic love or friendship, because there are important qualitative differences in
these types of love. However, communal love encompasses a number of
different relationships without necessarily defining their nature. It may be
present in friendships as well as in love between relatives or married couples.
PROTOTYPE ANALYSIS AND THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE

Prototype analyses ask which features of love are the typical ones that
incorporate people’s concepts of love most clearly. They can help to develop
categorizations and to examine existing categorizations for similarities, in
that they can elucidate whether the different kinds of love that have been
identified have any core concepts in common. In her prototype analysis of
love (see chapter 11, “A Prototype Approach to Studying Love”), Beverley
Fehr found that companionate rather than passionate conceptions of love
are considered to be central parts of the concept of love, and that most
theories of love can be conceptualized on the basis of a distinction between
passionate and companionate love. A factor analysis of sixty-eight features
that, for laypersons, are associated with the concept of love was done to
identify to which subcategories the various features can be assigned. It re-
vealed three factors that corresponded to Sternberg’s intimacy, passion, and
commitment factors (Aron and Westbay, 1996).
WHAT’S THE USE OF ALL THESE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE?

The purpose of taxonomies and prototypes in the field of love is to
catalog the different forms of love according to a predetermined system, so
that the resulting conceptual framework may serve as a basis for further
analysis and discussion. Therefore, taxonomies are of use, regardless of
which method is used to study love. The analysis above demonstrates that
although a large number of love styles and systems have been suggested,
they overlap to a considerable degree. So there seems to be at least a mini-
mum amount of agreement as to what different kinds of love exist and how
they may consist of other components of love. However, there are still no
specific definitions, and there is a lack of a common conceptual vocabulary
of love to allow for unambiguous discourse about love. When engaging in
such a scientific discourse, it is important to make sure that everybody talks
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Conclusion 321
about the same thing and has the same understanding when talking about
a certain concept. When people talk about romantic love or attachment love,
do they really have the same concept in mind? At this point in the devel-
opment of the field of love, such clarity of terms does not necessarily exist.
It presents one area where more research is needed to reach a convergence
among conceptions of the different kinds of love.
Influence of Context, Personality, and Time

Now that we have learned about the kinds of love that exist, the ques-
tion is whether there are differences between people in how they experience
love—whether the situation they are in influences the love experienced, and
whether their experiences and the types of love they endorse are the same
throughout life or are subject to change.
In chapter 4, “The Evolution of Love,” David M. Buss suggests that love
is an adaptation to solve problems of reproduction that have recurrently
arisen over the generations. Since all people have faced these problems and
have needed to find solutions for them, these psychological adaptations are
considered to be universal. However, their being universal does not neces-
sarily mean that the associated experiences are similar. They can differ from
person to person. For example, all persons have the predisposition to feel
jealousy. But there may be some people who never are jealous, because their
partners do not exhibit any signs of infidelity and do not give them any
reason to feel jealous. The extent to which people feel jealous also depends
on their personality. As Buss, and Shaver and Mikulincer, acknowledge,
there are individual differences in the attachment, caregiving, and sex sys-
tems, and they emphasize the importance of both context and personality.
But what about an individual in the course of his or her life? Hendrick
and Hendrick state that love styles vary across individuals and time. At any
moment in his or her life, a love profile can be generated for a person
according to the salience of each of the six love styles. This profile, however,
can change over time. The profile of a girl in her early twenties can differ
considerably from her profile fifteen or twenty years later; for example, the
main focus may shift from eros to companionate love. This point also ap-
pears in Sternberg’s theory of love as a story, according to which individuals
have different love stories over their lifetime, or even more than one love
story at a given time. The love stories are the expressions of the different
conceptions people have about love. Whereas some people may see love as
a game, others may see it in terms of gardening, for example, whereby the
relationship continually needs to be cared for and nurtured.
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322 Conclusion
THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE ON LOVE

No one will deny that culture has an effect on many, if not all, parts
of human life. Therefore, it is not surprising that the study of love across
cultures is part of what psychologists examine in the area of love. The cul-
tural theories in this volume differ in that they stress either the differences
or the similarities between cultures. The chapter by Karen K. Dion and
Kenneth L. Dion (chapter 14, “Individualism, Collectivism, and the Psy-
chology of Love”) focuses on the differences in the experience of love and
associated behaviors depending on the identification of a culture as either
individualistic or collectivistic. Individualistic and collectivistic cultures differ
in the extent to which, in decision-making, the interests of the individual or
the in-group (for example, the family) are weighed as more important. Love
in collectivist cultures emphasizes altruistic goals and is based on friendship,
whereas love in individualistic countries tends to be more game-playing and
permissive. In this view, culture plays an important role in the explanation
of differences between different peoples.
David P. Schmitt (in chapter 12, “Evolutionary and Cross-Cultural Per-
spectives on Love”), on the contrary, tries to explain differences from an
evolutionary perspective. He points out that despite all the differences, there
are commonalities encompassing more or less all cultures. In his research on
love, he uses a construct labeled “emotional investment.” Emotional invest-
ment encompasses many of the features considered central to love, including
the intimacy, passion, and commitment of Sternberg’s duplex theory of love.
Emotional investment is related across cultures to high levels of extraversion
and agreeableness, but not related to neuroticism. Variables such as ecolog-
ical stress have similar consequences in most cultures. Children who grow
up in physically harsh environments, for example, tend to exhibit less emo-
tional investment than children who grow up in more moderate environ-
ments.
Debra Lieberman and Elaine Hatfield emphasize in chapter 13 (“Passion-
ate Love: Cross-Cultural and Evolutionary Perspectives”) that love is a cul-
tural universal. Similarities across cultures include the development of sys-
tems to avoid inbreeding, such as kin detection and the emotion of disgust
connected with situations in which sexual contact could develop with a close
relative. However, there are cultural differences in the meanings that are
assigned to love. Whereas in the United States passionate love is associated
with feelings of happiness, in China it is associated with sadness (Shaver,
Wu, and Schwartz, 1991). Furthermore, the concept of romantic love does
not fit in well in cultures other than the Western ones. In China, for example,
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Conclusion 323
where love is associated with the consideration of one’s obligations to others,

romantic love does not have so much appeal to young people (Hsu, 1981).
However, in some areas, gender can be of more importance than cultural
differences. For traits such as good looks, gender has a greater influence on
preferences than culture does (Wallen, 1989).
So although most theories state that love is a universal phenomenon, cul-
ture and other factors such as gender do influence the experience of love
and the behaviors that are associated with it. Most theories acknowledge
that love in its different aspects is dependent on both context and person-
ality. The taxonomies of love overlap to some extent, but also cover different
regions of the “love space.” Thus there is still no common understanding of
how many different kinds of love there are or of what distinguishes them.
However, it is acknowledged that different kinds of love exist and need to
exist, because they serve different purposes.
Mechanisms to Achieve One’s Goals

In the domain of love, just as in any other domain of life, people have
a number of wishes and goals they would like to achieve. They are looking
for potential mates. Once they have found a mate, they usually try to keep
him or her, they want to reproduce, and so on. Both Kenrick and Shaver
and Mikulincer posit that humans have particular goals they want to
achieve, and their theories are complementary in the ways they propose that
humans try to achieve their goals. Kenrick stresses the role of decision biases
and, therefore, of cognition. Different kinds of relationships (for example,
with friends or one’s romantic partner) are associated with different decision
biases. Shaver and Mikulincer’s main focus, on the contrary, is on the three
behavioral systems of attachment, caregiving, and sex, and the strategies
associated with each system, which include behaviors serving to attain the
goal, for example, of finding a suitable mate.
But what happens if these strategies are not successful? If people do not
achieve their goals, the consequences can be quite different. Shaver suggests
that a failure of goal achievement results in either hyperactivation strategies,
where the person “fights” for his or her goal, or deactivation strategies,
where the goal is more or less “denied” in order to avoid frustration. The
fight for one’s goal is particularly explicit in Buss’s exploration of the “dark”
side of love. When people fall out of love and are in danger of losing, or
have already lost, their partner to someone else, these traumatic experiences
can result in crimes against the (former) mate. Men, especially, seem at times
to be prone to committing murder in these situations. Buss points out that
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324 Conclusion
as counterproductive as it may seem to kill one’s mate, there may be some

reason behind doing so—for example, to make sure that one’s own loss of
sexual access to a person does not result in a gain for an immediate rival.
Future Research
Although many questions have been answered concerning the topic of
love, a number of questions remain open and subject to further research.
One of the most basic issues, that of finding a consensually accepted vocab-
ulary, has not yet been resolved. Furthermore, there are still many constructs
for which no adequate measure yet has been developed—for example, in the
the domain of caregiving. More needs to be known about how and in what
time span adult attachments develop, and about who feels attracted to
whom, and why. It would also be interesting to know more about the pro-
gression of love over time, and how it changes. Eventually, the goal will be
to integrate the different theories that exist at present, and thereby ultimately
to come to a more complete understanding of love, the force that has the
potential to cause so much happiness and so much sorrow in every human
being.
References
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Hendrick, S. S., and Hendrick, C. (2002). Linking romantic love with sex: Development
of the Perceptions of Love and Sex Scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relation-
ships, 19, 361–378.
Hsu, F. L. K. (1981). Americans and Chinese: Passage to Difference, 3rd ed. Honolulu:
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Iverson, P. (1992). Taking care of the earth and sky. In A. M. Josephy, Jr. (ed.),
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Conclusion 325
Shaver, P. R., Wu, S., and Schwartz, J. C. (1991). Cross-cultural similarities and dif-
ferences in emotion and its representation: A prototype approach. In M. S. Clark
(ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 13, pp. 175–212. Newbury
Park, Calif.: Sage.
Sternberg, R. J., Hojjat, M., and Barnes, M. L. (2001). Empirical tests of aspects of a
theory of love as a story. European Journal of Personality, 15(3): 199–218.
Wallen, K. (1989). Mate selection: Economics and affection. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 12, 37–38.
04:51:37 UTC
04:51:37 UTC
Contributors
Ellen Berscheid, University of Minnesota
David M. Buss, University of Texas, Austin
C. Sue Carter, University of Illinois at Chicago
Margaret S. Clark, Yale University
Karen K. Dion, University of Toronto
Kenneth L. Dion, University of Toronto
Beverley Fehr, University of Winnipeg
Helen Fisher, Rutgers University
Elaine Hatfield, University of Hawaii
Clyde Hendrick, Texas Tech University
Susan S. Hendrick, Texas Tech University
Sarah B. Hrdy, University of California, Davis
Douglas T. Kenrick, Arizona State University
327
04:51:41 UTC
328 Contributors
Eric B. Keverne, University of Cambridge
James F. Leckman, Yale University
Debra Lieberman, University of Hawaii
Mario Mikulincer, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
Joan K. Monin, Carnegie Mellon University
David P. Schmitt, Bradley University
Phillip R. Shaver, University of California, Davis
Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University
Karin Weis, University of Heidelberg, Germany
04:51:41 UTC
Index
The letters f, n, or t following a page number refer to a figure, note, or table on that
page.
“abandonment rage,” 97 Aron, E. N., 239

activating and deactivating strategies, 5, attachment, 5–7, 36–40, 176, 314–15,
42–43, 46–47, 49, 99, 323–24 316; definitions, 162; interventions
adaptive functions of love, 66 and, 136–39; relationship stability
adultery, 104–6 and, 50–51; research, 50–51; roman-
“affectional bonding,” 127 tic love and, 162; security and care-
agape, 7, 46, 158, 305–6, 317, 319–20; giving and, 53–54, 136–38; sex and,
love styles, 153; love styles and, 150– 54–55
51 Attachment and Loss (Bowlby), 37
age: cultural variations and, 29–30; attachment behavioral system, 162, 226–
love styles and, 159 27; anxiety, 48; avoidance, 48; dys-
Ainsworth, M. D. S., 37, 53 function, 51; goals and functions,
Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure, 43–44; hyperactivating and deactivat-
136 ing strategies, 44–45; negative inter-
Amini, F., 96 actions and, 44–45; styles, 38–39,
androgens, 89 43–45
antidepressants, romantic love and, 103– attachment security, emotional invest-
4, 106 ment and, 258, 261
Aron, Arthur, 91, 92, 158, 229, 232, attraction, 5–6, 314–15; characteristics,
235, 237, 239 90
329
04:51:45 UTC
330 Index
Aujard, Y., 123 Bradshaw, D., 181

avoidance systems, 283 brain, human: bonding and attachment
and, 130–33; dopaminergic and sero-
Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., 136–37 tonergic circuitry, 251; evolution of,
Barnes, Michael: The Psychology of 116–17
Love, 3 Breer, P. E., 301
Bartels, A., 92, 101 Brock, K. F., 160
Bashi, J., 284 Broughton, R., 231–32, 235, 238, 251–
behavioral systems, 4–6, 35–37, 40–43; 52
context and personality and, 56–58; Brown, Lucy L., 91
measurement issues, 48–49; relational Buss, D. M., 234, 251, 254, 278–79
interdependence and, 55–58; roman- Button, C. M., 229
tic love and, 49–52. See also specific
systems caregiver-infant dyad, resiliency and,
Bellah, R. N., 300 135–36
Belsky, J., 253, 257–58 caregiving behavioral system, 45–46;
Bengston, V. L., 303–4, 306–7 dysfunction, 51–52; empathy and, 46;
Berman, W. H., 162 goals and functions, 45–46; hyperac-
Berscheid, E., 36, 163, 225, 226, 242 tivating and deactivating strategies,
“big five” personality scales (Big Five 46; measurement issues, 48–49
Inventory), 57–58, 156–57, 251, 257; Carey, C., 156
“facets” and, 57 caudate nucleus, 91–92, 93
biological theories, 4–6 children: emotional investment of,
biparental caretaking, 120–22 10–11; male investment in, 70–72.
Blehar, M. C., 53 See also maternal behavior; parental
Bleske, A. L., 81 care
Block, N., 284 China, 230, 275–76, 300; romantic
Bohning, D. E., 130 love and, 277
Bolivia, International Sexuality Descrip- Cho, W., 158
tion Project (ISDP) and, 262 Clark, E. M., 160
bonding and attachment, 6; brain cir- Clark, M. S., 200, 207, 215
cuits and hormonal influences, 130– Cohen, T., 284
33; definitions, 116–17; early paren- collectivism, 10–11. See also psycholog-
tal love and, 121t; mammalian ical collectivism; societal collectivism
species and, 119–20; maternal behav- Collier, D. R., 229
ior and, 118–19; parental care and, Colours of Love (Lee), 149
117; romantic love and, 124–28; spe- commitment, 70–72, 83
cies variation, 124; vicissitudes of, common denominators, 11
129 communal relationships, 210
Boris, T. S., 235–36, 237–39 communal responsiveness, 8–9, 200–
Bowlby, J., 35, 45, 135, 176–77; At- 203, 319–20; acceptance of, non-
tachment and Loss, 37; behavioral contingent, 206; certainty and, 208;
systems, 53; ontogenetically learned contingency and, 205–6, 215; elicit-
adjustments, 42; operating parame- ing, 206–7; hierarchies, 207–8; im-
ters, 40–43; system programming, 42 portance, 205; individual differences
04:51:45 UTC
Index 331
and, 210–11; love and, 200, 216–17; definitions of love, ordinary people, 227–
measurement issues, 203–4; personal- 29
ity traits and, 211; positive and nega- demographics, love styles and, 158–60
tive attributes and, 216; recipient of, Demographic Yearbook of the United
203; satisfaction and, 203–4; self Nations, 105
and, 209; sense of love and, 207–8; Descent of Man and Selection in Rela-
trust and, 212–16, 217; types, 204–5 tion to Sex (Darwin), 278
companionate love, 5–6, 316, 318–19 De Schonen, S., 123
companionate love/liking, 7, 177–78 descriptive and atheoretical approaches,
companionate versus passionate love, 35–36
226, 228 detecting kin, systems for, 285–86
compassionate love, 7, 176–77, 180, Dion, K. K., 309
316; prototype analyses, 240–41 disgust, 10, 290–91
conceptions of love, 229–33; analyses, distance-from-the-prototype measures,
cross-cultural, 230; cultural variables 235–36
and, 229–30; feature ratings, 230; in- divorce, 105
dividual differences, 230–33; men domains of social life, 19–21; affilia-
versus women and, 232f; personality tion, 19; love and, 19–21; mate re-
traits and, 232–33; satisfaction and, tention, 20; mate-seeking, 20; paren-
237–38 tal care, 20; phenomenological
conceptualization of love, 171 components, 21; physiological com-
consummate love, 319 ponents, 21; self-protection, 20;
content versus processes, 151 status, 19
Contreras, R., 158–59 dopamine, 6, 90, 91, 92, 94, 99, 250;
Cortse, A., 158 in seminal fluid, 103
Crivello, F., 123 Draper, P., 253, 257–58
Cross, S. E., 158 drives, 93, 99; generalized arousal sys-
cultural variables, 4; disappearance of, tems and, 96; particular biological
281–82; love and, 322–23; love and needs and, 96; psychobiological inter-
marriage and, 279–81; theories, 9–11 actions, 102–4; romantic love and,
93
Daly, M., 82 drug use: maternal bonding and, 132;
D’Amato, F. R., 134 “reward system” and, 101
D’Andrade, Roy, 172 Dubno, J. R., 130
Darwin, Charles, 93; Descent of Man duplex theory of love, 317–18
and Selection in Relation to Sex, 278 dynamical evolutionary model: assump-
Da Silva, T., 156 tions, 16–17; domains, 19–21; func-
Davis, M. H., 49 tionality, 30
deactivating and activating strategies, 5,
42–43, 46–47, 49, 99, 323–24 early parental love: bonding and attach-
deception, 72–73 ment and, 121t; romantic love simi-
decision biases, 4, 16–17, 22–25 larities, 128–29
decision/commitment, 185–86 East Asia, 257
definitions of love, 21–22, 249–50 eldercare, 10–11
definitions of love, experts, 226–27 Ellis, B. J., 97
04:51:45 UTC
332 Index
emotion, two-factor theory, 36 fatuous love, 319

emotional investment: attachment secu- Feeney, J. A., 161
rity and, 258; collectivist versus indi- Fehr, Beverley, 164, 230–32, 235–38,
vidualist cultures, 252–53; cultural 240–41, 251–52
variables and, 252–53; dimension, Fischer, E. F., 124–25, 160, 276
251; early socialization and, 253; Fisher, H., 250
ecological stress and, 264–65; evolu- Fitness, J., 233
tion and, 250; extraversion, agree- Fletcher, G. J. O., 233
ableness and, 251–52; gender and, Flum, Y., 284
253–56, 261–63; individualism and, forms of love, 2–3
265–66, 265f; parenting and, 255; Frank, Robert, 71
personality and, 250–52; short-term friendship, 318; love styles and, 155–56
mating and, 261; sociocultural fac- functional magnetic resonance imaging
tors and, 259t–60t; U.S. ethnic (fMRI) studies, 95, 97, 106–7, 275;
groups and, 252 pair-bonding and, 130–33; romantic
emotional investment scale, 263 love and, 89–90, 91–92
emotions versus motivations, 92–93 further research. See research needed
empty love, 318
environmental influences, 6, 17–18, 21– gender: deception and, 72–73; equality
22, 28–30, 101–2; biological theories indicators, 262–63; meaning of love
and, 134–35; emotional investment and, 10; as status variable, 158–60.
and, 10, 253; love stories and, 190; See also men versus women; women
maternal behavior and, 134–36; short- versus men
term mating and, 261, 264 Gender Development Index (GDI), 262–
eros, 7, 150–51, 153, 316–17 63
estrogens, 89 Gender Empowerment Measure, 262–
ethnicity/culture, love scales and, 158– 63, 264f
59 General Social Survey (GSS), 302–3
evolution: adaptive functions of love, gene-targeting experiments, 133–35
65–66; decision biases and, 16; hu- George, M. S., 130
man brain and, 116–17; kinds of love globalization versus nationalism, 282
and, 315–16; long-term mating and, Goldschmidt, E., 284
70–72; psychology of love, 68–70; re- great apes, 118–19
production problems and, 321 Griffin, G. W., 214
evolutionary adaptations, 5 group activation, 91–92
evolutionary psychology of love, 36
evolved decision biases, 20–21 Hamner, M. B., 130
excitement, love and, 239 Harlow, H. F., 176–77
experiences of love, 5, 233–34 Harris, David and Clara, 76–78
Hassebrauck, M., 235
“facets,” “big five” personality scales Hatfield [Walster], E., 154, 158, 163,
and, 57 225, 226, 227, 279
facial recognition, 123 Hazan, C., 36–40, 48, 128, 162, 181,
falling in love, 38, 69, 93, 250, 281; 226–27
love styles and, 7, 154–55; sex and, Heaven, P. C. L., 156
103, 127 Heider, F., 240
04:51:45 UTC
Index 333
Hemingway, Ernest, 172 57. See also Human Development In-

Hendrick, Clyde, 156–59, 161, 172, dex (HDI), ISDP scores and
226, 227, 254 interpersonal affect systems, 181
Hendrick, Susan, 156–57, 160–61, 172, interpersonal dynamics, 25–28
226, 227, 254 Interpersonal Reactivity Index, 49; Em-
heroin, maternal bonding and, 132 pathetic Concern subscale, 49; Per-
Heyman, R., 239 sonal Distress subscale, 49
Hofstede, G., 266, 299–300 interventions, attachment and, 136–39
Holen, J., 156 intimacy, 185; ten clusters, 185
Holmes, J. G., 200, 214 “intrusive thinking,” 125–26
homocides, 76–82 ISDP. See International Sexuality De-
Horton, D., 125–26 scription Project (ISDP)
Horwitz, A. R., 130 Iwao, S., 308–9
Hsu, F. L. K., 277
Human Development Index (HDI), “Jade Goddess, The,” 87
ISDP scores and, 258 James, William, 17–18, 19
human nature, romantic love and, 4 Jankowiak, W. R., 124–25, 160, 276
hyperactivating and deactivating strate- Japan, 10–11, 252, 254; long-term mar-
gies, 5, 42–43, 323–24 riages and, 306
jealousy, 22, 73–75, 83
implicit theories, 9 Johnson, M. P., 152
inbreeding avoidance systems, compo- Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
nents, 282, 285, 291–92 chology, 36
inbreeding depression, 283–85 Juffer, F., 137
individualism, 10; love and, 299–304;
relationship quality and, 300–301. Kadar, M., 284
See also psychological individualism; Kelley, Harold, 174–75, 187, 236
societal individualism Kephart, W. M., 279–80
Indonesia, 230; International Sexuality Kieffer, B. L., 134
Description Project (ISDP) and, 262 kin detection, 282–83
infant responsiveness, 122–24; features, kinds of love, 186, 187t; evolution and,
121t; genes and, 134 315–16
infatuated love, 318 kin relationships, 21, 24
Ingersoll-Dayton, B., 306 Kirkpatrick, L. A., 162
“in love” versus love, 3, 7, 38, 67–69,
91–93, 171–72, 178–81; love styles Lamm, H., 233–34
and, 153–55 language acquisition, 123
instincts, human, 17–19; environmental Lannon, R., 96
inputs and, 18; sequences, 18–19 Lasswell, M. E., 152
interdependence theories, 55 Lasswell, T. E., 152
International Sexuality Description Proj- Lee, G. R., 305
ect (ISDP), 256–63; Bolivia and, 262; Lee, John Alan, 226, 301; The Colours
cultural variables and, 257–61; gen- of Love, 149–50
der differences and, 261–63; Indone- Levine, R., 280–81, 299–300, 305
sia and, 262; limitations of, 266; Ma- Levinger, G., 185
laysia and, 262; personality and, 256– Levitskaya, A., 158
04:51:45 UTC
334 Index
Lewin, 165 lust, romantic love and, 178–81

Lewis, T., 96 Lydiard, R. B., 130
Locke, E. A., 301
long-term mating, evolution of, 70–72 Malamuth, N. M., 97
Lorberbaum, J. P., 130 Malaysia, International Sexuality De-
love and marriage, culture and, 279–81 scription Project (ISDP) and, 262
love as a story subtheory, 190–96; as- mania, 7, 317; love styles, 150–51, 153
pects of stories, 191–94; data, 194– marmosets, 118–19
96; kinds of stories, 191, 192t; other Mashek, Debra, 91
constructs and, 194; prototypes and, Maslow, Abraham, 176–77
194; satisfaction and, 196 maternal behavior: bonding and attach-
“love at first sight,” 5, 69, 82–83, 94 ment, 117; brain size and, 133; envi-
Love Attitudes Scale (LAS), 150, 152, ronmental influences and, 134–36;
157, 158, 165–66; constructs, 153 heroin and, 132; opioids and, 131;
Love Comes Before Sex dimension, 157– oxytocin and, 131
58 mate selection, 93–95; factors, 101–2;
Love Is Most Important dimension, 157– gender differences, 68–70, 101; men
58 versus women, 255
love measures, 164–65 Mathes, E. W., 74
love scales: ethnicity/culture and, 158– Mazoyer, B., 123
59; men versus women and, 158 McDougall, William, 18, 19
Love Stories Scale, 3 McKenna, C., 239
love stories theory, 164, 321 medications, romantic love and, 104
Love Story Card Sort, 149 Meeks, B. S., 161
love styles, 316–17; agape, 150, 226; men versus women, 5; conception of
age and, 159; biological theories love and, 231, 232f; deception and,
and, 314–16; criticisms of, 162–63; 72–73; decision biases, 16; emotional
definition, 150–51; demographics investment and, 253–56; love scales
and, 158–60; dimensions, 151; eros, and, 158; mate selection, 68–70;
150, 226; “falling in love” and, 154– mate selection and, 255; meaning of
55; friendship and, 155–56; integra- love and, 10; passionate love and,
tion of, 309–21; ludus, 150, 226; 278–79; potential mates and, 24–25,
mania, 150, 226; other theories and, 82–83; rejection and, 98
163–65; other variables and, 151; Merighi, J. R., 158
personality and, 156–57; personality Meyers, Sally, 178–80
traits and, 151–52; pragma, 150, 226; Mills, J., 207, 215
quantification, 152–53; research, 153– mind modularity, 16, 19–20
63; respect and, 161–62; sexuality Moles, A., 134
and, 157–58; sexual orientation and, Montgomery, M. J., 159
159–60; storge, 150, 226; as theory, Morgan, H. J., 154
151–53 Mormons, 67
love ways theory, 164 Morrow, G. D., 160
Luby, V., 229 Moszkiewicz, A, 237
ludus, 7, 301, 316–17; love styles, 150– mother-infant dyad, interruptions of,
51, 153 123–24
04:51:45 UTC
Index 335
motivational systems, 5–6, 314 Passionate Love Scale (PLS), 99, 227,
motivations versus emotions, 92–93 274–75
Murray, S. L., 214 Peplau, L. A., 159–60
Murstein, B. I., 158, 172 Perceptions of Love and Sex Scale, 3,
Myers, S. A., 242 157
personality traits: conceptions of love
Najib, A., 96 and, 232–33; love styles and, 156–57
Neel, J. V., 284 Pfaff, Donald, 93, 99
NEO Personality Inventory-Revised phenomenology of love, 15–16
(NEOPI-R), 156 polyandry, 29
neotenous features, 129 polygyny, 29–30, 67
neural activity systems, 88 Potapova, E., 158
neuroimaging. See functional magnetic potential mates, men versus women
resonance imaging (fMRI) studies and, 24–25, 82–83
Newman, J. D., 130 pragma, 7, 317; love styles, 150–51, 153
Noller, P., 161 prisoner’s dilemma, 26–27
norepinephrine, 6, 90, 91, 92, 99 prototype structure, 227, 320; individ-
Norman, C. C., 239 ual differences and, 231–33; limita-
North America, 257. See also United tions of, 241–42; measurement issues,
States 234–36; relationship implications of,
236–39; strengths and weaknesses of,
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 239–42; studies of, 233–34; study
92, 122 methodologies, 228–29; theory of,
Oneida Society, 67 164
“open marriage,” 74–75 psychological collectivism, 299; aging
opioids, 6, 315; definition, 131; mater- parent care and, 306–7; relationship
nal behavior and, 131, 132–33; mon- quality and, 306–7; view of love and,
keys and, 131–32 305–6
ovulation, concealment of, 70 psychological individualism, 299; aging
oxytocin, 6, 21, 90, 103, 250, 315; def- parent care and, 303–4; loved-based
inition, 131; maternal behavior and, marriage and, 301; relationship com-
131; pair-bonding and, 131 mitment and, 302–3
Psychology of Love (Sternberg, Barnes),
pain, emotional, 98 3, 35, 48, 149, 178, 181, 299
Palau, 230 Pyke, K., 303–4, 306–7, 308, 309
parental care, bonding and attachment
and, 117 Rands, M., 185
Parental Investment Theory, 254–55, Raven’s Progressive Matrices, 284
261 Regan, P. C., 241
passionate love: anthropology and, 276– Reis, H. T., 200, 203, 210
77; compassionate love and, 163; cul- rejection, 94; activations and deactiva-
ture and intensity, 278; definition, tions, 99; group effects of, 95; men
185; definitions and cultural variables, versus women and, 98; protest phase,
275–81; increasing research interest, 96–97; resignation/despair phase, 97–
275; men versus women, 278–79 98
04:51:45 UTC
336 Index
relational interdependence, behavioral self-contained individualism, 300–301

systems and, 55–58 seminal fluid, 103
relationship satisfaction, 160–61 serial monogamy, 104–6
reproduction, 5 serotonin, 6, 90, 91, 92, 99, 250
research needed, 58, 230, 240–41, 289– Sex Demonstrates Love dimension, 157–
90, 324 58
resiliency, caregiver-infant dyad and, sex drive, 5–6, 89–90, 314–15
135–36 Sex Is Declining dimension, 157–58
respect, love styles and, 161–62 Sexual Attitudes Scale, 157–58
Reutter, B., 123 sexual aversion, 282–85; co-residence
“reward system,” 91–92, 95–96; drug and, 287–88
use and, 101 sexual behavioral system, 46–48; dys-
romantic love, 7, 90–91, 178, 180, 316, function, 52; goals and functions, 46–
318; addiction and, 100–101; age 47; hyperactivating and deactivating
and, 89; antidepressants and, 103–4; strategies, 46–47, 49; measurement
attachment and, 162; bonding and, issues, 48–49
124–28; casual sex and, 103; charac- sexuality, love styles and, 157–58
teristics, 88; cross-cultural studies, sexual orientation: love styles and, 157,
277–78; early parental love 159–60; prototype structure and, 232
similarities, 128–29; ethnicity and, 89; Sexy Seven Measure, 3, 256–57
features, 121t; fMRI studies and, 89– Shackelford, T. K., 81
90, 91–92, 96; individual variations Shakers, 67
and, 101–2; infidelity and, 75–82; Shaver, P. R., 53–54, 58, 226–27, 230,
“intrusive thinking” and, 88; medica- 233, 275; attachment, 48–49, 128,
tions and, 104; sexual orientation 162; behavioral systems, 35–40; na-
and, 89; trajectory of, 100; universal- ture of love, 154, 181
ity, 36; universality of, 89, 124–25 Shepher, J., 287–88, 290
Rosch, E. H., 227, 240 siblinghood, detecting, 286–87
Rousar, E. E., III, 232 similarity theory, 196
Rubin, Zick, 171, 225, 226, 301–2 Simpson, O. J., 73
Rubin Liking Scale, 188, 189 social bonds, functions of, 23t
Rubin Love Scale, 188, 189 “social categorical method,” 178–79
Russell, J. A., 228–29, 240–41 social dynamics, cultural norms and, 28–
Russia, 252, 254 30
social engagement, 122
Sampson, E. E., 300 social structures, personal relationships
satisfaction, love as a story subtheory and, 298
and, 196 Social Structure Theory, 255–56, 263
Schachter, S., 36 societal collectivism, 299
Schmitt, D. P., 251, 254 societal individualism, 299
Schull, W. J., 284 societal institutions and relationship
Schwartz, J. C., 275 ideologies, 300
self, the, 205, 208, 209, 213, 215; cul- Sokolski, D. M., 160–61
ture and, 307–8 Sorell, G. T., 159
04:51:45 UTC
Index 337
Soueif, Ahdaf, 274 Trivers, R., 254

Spaulding, L. R., 159–60 Turkey, 230
Sperling, M. B., 162 two-factor theory of emotion, 36
Spiro, M. E., 288 tyrosine, 103
Sprecher, Susan, 67–68, 158, 227, 252, Tzourio-Mazoyer, N., 123
278, 279, 280
Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, 276 United Nations Statistical Division, 258,
Steck, L., 302 262–63
Steinberg, L., 253, 257–58 United States, 10–11; conceptions of
Stendahl [Beyle, M. H.], 126–27 love, 229–30, 309, 322; emotional
Sternberg, Robert J., 50, 164, 187–96, investment, 256–57; ethnic groups,
226, 229; The Psychology of Love, 3 emotional investment and, 252; eth-
Sternberg Triangular Love Scale, 189– nic groups, love experiences of, 252;
90, 195–96 homocides in, 78–81; long-term mar-
Stone, L. H., 305 riages and, 10, 306; romantic love in,
storge, 7, 316–17; love styles, 150–51, 278–80
153 universality of love, 36, 65–68, 82,
story, love as. See love as a story sub- 160, 250, 276–77
theory unmitigated communion, 209n2
Strategic Pluralism Theory, 261
strategies. See activating and deactivat- Van IJzendoorn, M. H., 137
ing strategies vasopressin, 6, 90, 103
Strong, Greg, 91 ventral tegmental area (VTA), 91, 93
Switzerland, 262–63 violence, 83
Viorst, Judith, 75
Taiwan, 288–89 Vyse, S. A., 158
Talaber, R., 185
Talmon, G. Y., 288 Wachtel, P. L., 300
taxonomies of love, 6–9, 173–74; behav- Wall, S., 53
iors and causes, 175; process, 173, 175 Wallen, K., 279
ten clusters in intimacy, 185 Walster, [Hatfield] E., 36, 163, 165,
Tennov, D., 125, 126–27 178–81, 185
testosterone, 6, 89, 103, 250 Walster, G. W., 36, 165, 185, 225
theories of love, 174–75 Ward, C., 161
Thibaut, J. W., 187 Waterman, A. S., 300
Thomson, J. Anderson, 103 Waters, E., 53
Tiwi people, 29 Westbay, L., 232, 235, 237
Triangular Love Scale, 188 Westermarck, Edward, 287
triangular subtheory, 8, 50, 164, 184– Westermarck Hypothesis (WH), 286–90;
90, 197, 226, 319; data, 188–90; ex- empirical testing of, 287–90
ternal validation, 189; factor analy- White, J. K., 156–57
ses, 189; geometry, 186–87; intercor- Wiesmann, U., 233–34
relational analyses, 189; multiple Wilson, M., 82
triangles, 187–88 Wolf, Arthur, 287, 289, 290
04:51:45 UTC
338 Index
women versus men, 5, 78–81; deception 278–79; potential mates and, 24–25,
and, 72–73; decision biases, 16; emo- 82–83; rejection and, 98
tional investment and, 253–56; love Wu, S., 154, 275
scales and, 158; mate selection, 68–
70; mate selection and, 255; meaning Zeifman, D., 162
of love and, 10; passionate love and, Zeki, S., 92, 101
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The New Psychology of Love

The New Psychology

Yale University Press

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,

Set in Sabon Roman type by

Part I Biological Theories

Part II Taxonomies of Love

Part III Implicit Theories of Love

Part IV Cultural Theories of Love

15 Conclusion: The Nature and Interrelations of Theories

In the mid-1980s, the senior editor of this volume, Robert J. Sternberg,

1. How would you deﬁne love?

Because the questions are uniform, it is possible to compare the various

Much of the universe of human interactions, as well as of people’s

basis of biology and evolutionary theory. Part II, “Taxonomies of Love,”

Part I: Biological Theories

generation. Therefore, one must be sensitive to signals of fertility and interest

Part II: Taxonomies of Love

Chapter 9, “A Duplex Theory of Love,” by Robert J. Sternberg, consists

Part III: Implicit Theories of Love

Part IV: Cultural Theories of Love

prevail. However, in individualistic cultures, parents try to maintain a higher

A Dynamical Evolutionary View of Love

The ﬁrst step in scientiﬁc analysis—carefully describing the phenom-

have tried to determine whether there are different physiological systems

1. Love is at base a set of evolved decision biases. This assumption incor-

Instincts, Mental Modules, and Domain Speciﬁcity

an instinct as an innate capacity to act “to produce certain ends, without

represent the sequential complexities of courtship in humans as well as other

MODERN VIEWS OF MODULARITY

DOMAINS OF SOCIAL LIFE

• Self-protection: Ancestral humans frequently faced threats from members

Because solutions to problems in one domain are often inconsistent with

inﬂuenced by kinship considerations (Alcock, 2001; Laham, Gonsalkorale,

Where Does Love Fit into the Social Domains?

LOVE AS AN ARRAY OF DECISION BIASES

Coalition To cement reciprocal Attention to commonalities over dif-

Status To ride coattails of Dampened critical thinking for re-

Retaining mates Maintain reproductive Attenuate inequity detection mecha-

The table offers examples and is not meant to be exhaustive.

more likely to attribute sexual motivation to women—except in the case of

LOVE AND INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS

interactions between evolved psychological decision rules and experience.

A & B unrelated, A & B brothers,

payoffs creating a difﬁcult dilemma for a pair of unrelated individuals, how-

of one’s neighbors are promiscuous partygoers. Although a neighborhood

SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND CULTURAL NORMS

of the physical and social environment. For example, polyandry in animals

Plutchik, R. (1980). A general psychoevolutionary theory of emotion. In R. Plutchik

A Behavioral Systems Approach to Romantic

In The Psychology of Love (Sternberg and Barnes, 1988), Shaver, Ha-

We begin with a brief summary of Shaver et al.’s (1988) chapter. We then

Following Bowlby’s lead, Shaver et al. (1988) proposed that romantic

Secure: I ﬁnd it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable

In both a newspaper survey of community members and a more typical

that have examined the interpersonal and intrapersonal correlates of adult

Operating Parameters of the Attachment, Caregiving, and

Parameter Attachment System Caregiving System Sexual System

Deactivating Denial of attachment Inhibition of empathic Dismissal of sexual

an attractive potential sex partner), and “deactivated” or “terminated” by

THE ATTACHMENT BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM

intense when he or she encounters actual or symbolic threats and notices