Passionate and companionate love
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In the psychological literature, a distinction is often made between two types of love.[1] Hatfield and Walster define:[1]
- passionate love as "a state of intense longing for union with another. Reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy; unrequited love (separation) is associated with emptiness, anxiety, or despair"[1]
- companionate love as "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined."[1]
Companionate love is felt less intensely and often follows after passionate love in a relationship.[2][3]
Passionate love is also called romantic love in some literature,[1][4][5][2][6] and is sometimes called being "in love"[4] or compared to infatuation[1][7] and limerence.[1][3] Companionate love is compared to strong liking or friendship love,[4] or sometimes the attachment referred to by attachment theory.[6]
Both passionate and companionate love contribute to relationship satisfaction.[4]
Characteristics[edit]
In the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) form, Elaine Hatfield & Susan Sprecher define the components of passionate love as:[1][8]
- Cognitive
- Intrusive thinking; preoccupation with the thoughts of the partner.
- Idealization of the loved one and the relationship.
- Desire for knowledge: to know and be known by the partner.
- Emotional
- Attraction to the other; pleasant feelings for the other when things go well.
- Ambivalence or negative feelings (emptiness, anxiety, despair) when things go awry.
- Longing for reciprocity.
- Desire for "complete union," permanency.
- Physiological (sexual) arousal.
- Behavioral
- Actions aimed at determining the other's feelings.
- Serving and helping the other.
A 2012 study by Sandra Langeslag and others determined that while the PLS is commonly used to measure passionate love, some of the questions actually measure companionate love as well.[7] Langeslag suggests slightly different constructs, which she refers to as infatuation and attachment.[7] Her infatuation scale asks, for example, about staring into the distance while thinking of the beloved, getting shaky knees when near the beloved and thoughts making it difficult to concentrate, while the attachment scale asks about feeling one can count on the beloved, feeling lonely without the beloved and hoping one's feelings for the beloved never end.[7]
Infatuation and attachment co-occur, so one can feel them together at the same time, or feel infatuation strongly and attachment weakly and vice versa.[7] Langeslag found that infatuation is more associated with negative emotion than attachment, and tends to decrease after entering a relationship, while attachment tends to increase.[7] Participants who were not in a relationship scored the highest on infatuation.[7]
Duration[edit]
Passionate love is said to last about 12 to 18 months[9] or 18 months to 3 years,[2] depending on the estimate. However, companionate love is thought to last indefinitely.[4]
A popular hypothesis suggests that passionate love turns into companionate love over time in a relationship,[1][4] but other accounts suggest that while companionate love takes longer to develop, it is important at the beginning of a relationship as well.[4][6]
Biology[edit]
Passionate and companionate love are thought to be interrelated, but involve different brain systems and serve different purposes.[5][6] Passionate love is thought to have evolved for mate choice[10] or to initiate a pair bond,[6] while companionate love is for maintaining a pair bond,[6] maintaining close proximity and affiliative behaviors.[5]
Passionate love is primarily associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine.[5][10][6] Companionate love is primarily associated with the neuropeptide oxytocin,[5][6] and sometimes vasopressin[5] and endogenous opioids.[6]
Passionate love is sometimes compared to an addiction.[1][9] Anthropologist Helen Fisher has suggested romantic love is a positive addiction when reciprocated and a negative addiction when unrequited or inappropriate.[9]
See also[edit]
- Biology of romantic love – Biological and neurochemical basis for thoughts, feelings and behaviors of romantic love
- Eros (concept) – Ancient Greek philosophical concept of sensual or passionate love
- Infatuation – Intense but shallow attraction
- Limerence – Romantic love, the state of being in love, lovesickness or even love madness
- Love addiction – Pathological passion-related behavior involving the feeling of being in love
- Obsessive love – Excessive desire to possess and protect another person
- Romance (love) – Type of love that focuses on feelings
- Storge – Familial love, natural or instinctual affection to one such as a family member
- Unrequited love – Love that is not reciprocated by the receiver
External links[edit]
- The Passionate Love Scale at Helen Fisher and Lucy Brown's website.
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Hatfield, Elaine (1988). The Psychology of Love. Yale University Press. pp. 191–217. ISBN 9780300045895. Archived from the original on 2024-05-25. Retrieved 2024-05-16.
- ^ a b c Bode, Adam; Kushnick, Geoff (11 April 2021). "Proximate and Ultimate Perspectives on Romantic Love". Frontiers in Psychology. 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.573123. PMC 8074860.
- ^ a b Lehr, Nick (10 October 2016). "Limerence: The potent grip of obsessive love" (web). CNN. Archived from the original on 31 May 2023. Retrieved 5 May 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g Berscheid, Ellen (2010). "Love in the Fourth Dimension". Annual Review of Psychology. 61.
- ^ a b c d e f Fisher, Helen (October 2002). "Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment". Archives of Sexual Behavior. 31 (5): 413–419. doi:10.1023/A:1019888024255. PMID 12238608. Archived from the original on 18 February 2024. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Bode, Adam (16 October 2023). "Romantic love evolved by co-opting mother-infant bonding". Frontiers in Psychology. 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1176067. PMC 10616966.
- ^ a b c d e f g Langeslag, Sandra; Muris, Peter; Franken, Ingmar (25 Oct 2012). "Measuring Romantic Love: Psychometric Properties of the Infatuation and Attachment Scales". The Journal of Sex Research. 50.
- ^ Hatfield, E. & Sprecher, S. The passionate love scale. In Fisher, T. D., C. M. Davis, W. L. Yaber, & S. L. Davis (Eds.) Handbook of sexuality-related measures: A compendium (3rd Ed.). (pp. 466-468). Thousand Oaks, CA: Taylor & Francis.
- ^ a b c Fisher, Helen; Xu, Xiaomeng; Aron, Arthur; Brown, Lucy (9 May 2016). "Intense, Passionate, Romantic Love: A Natural Addiction? How the Fields That Investigate Romance and Substance Abuse Can Inform Each Other". Frontiers in Psychology. 7. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00687. PMC 4861725.
- ^ a b Fisher, Helen; Aron, Arthur; Brown, Lucy (13 Nov 2006). "Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 361 (1476): 2173–2186. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1938. PMC 1764845. PMID 17118931.
