To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow.

–Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847/1992, p. 27)

The British novelist Charlotte Bronte captured a basic truth not only about humans but about other primates as well. Over a hundred years later, the comparative psychologist Harry Harlow discovered that when he separated infant monkeys from their moms and put them in cages by themselves, they became intensely attached to cheesecloth baby blankets he included in their cages; when the blankets were removed for laundering, the poor little monkeys became distressed (Harlow, 1959).

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In its most general sense, love is a strong, positive feeling we have toward someone or some thing we care deeply about (e.g., Berscheid, 2006). The object of our love is of great value to us. We feel possessive toward it, and if it is a living being, we usually want the love object to love us back. Indeed, in the romantic context, unrequited love causes damage to self-esteem and hostility in the rebuffed lover and guilt in the nonreciprocating beloved (Baumeister et al., 1993). We typically love our parents, our children, our siblings, our pets, and our romantic partners. We also may love other relatives, friends, our car, our flat-screen TV, our hometown, and our country. Although all of these forms of love can be important, social psychologists have focused primarily on love between adults, which includes sexual attraction and which is commonly referred to as romantic love.

Attesting to the importance of romantic love, studies have found that when asked to name the person they felt closest to, the most popular choice was one’s romantic partner (e.g., Berscheid et al., 1989). Many people have made valuable observations about love, including ancient philosophers, poets, and storytellers; Renaissance writers such as Shakespeare; 19th-century poets such as Keats and Shelley, and novelists such as Austen and Bronte; early psychologists such as Freud and Karen Horney; and present-day poets, songwriters, and novelists. Homer’s great epic The Odyssey is fundamentally a love story. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous love story of all. Romantic love is often portrayed as inspiring great feelings of joy and wholeness (e.g., Pope, 1980). At the same time, romantic love has also been described as a madness or a disease and a cause of great suffering, pain, and discord (Pope, 1980). Consider this anonymous poem by a Kwakiutl Indian of Alaska, transcribed in 1896 (Fisher, 2004, from Hamill, 1996):

I am torn by your love for me

Pain and more pain

Where are you going with my love?

I’m told you will go from here

I am told you will leave me here

My body is numb with grief

Remember what I’ve said, my love

Goodbye, my love, goodbye.

And indeed, when love is unrequited or romantic relationships don’t work out, it can lead to stalking, abuse, murder, and suicide (e.g., Daly & Wilson, 1988; Fisher, 2004).

Social psychologists began focusing on love with Zick Rubin’s seminal 1973 book Liking and Loving. Rubin developed scales to distinguish feelings of liking, which characterize many types of relationships, from feelings of love, which characterize romantic relationships. As the sample questionnaire items in FIGURE 15.1 show, Rubin assessed positive evaluations of, and perceived similarity to, another person as the core of liking, but attachment, caring, and intimacy as the key aspects of romantic love. In support of the validity of his love scale, Rubin found that the higher people scored on love, the more they thought marriage to their partner was likely, the more eye contact they made when with their romantic partner, and the more the relationship had progressed in intensity six months later (Rubin, 1973). Since the development of Rubin’s scale, researchers have developed a variety of other love scales, often tapping particular types or aspects of romantic love (e.g., Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986).

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The culture theorist Kenneth Pope (1980, p. 4) described the subjective experience of romantic love this way, consistent with Rubin’s scale:

A preoccupation with another person. A deeply felt desire to be with the loved one. A feeling of incompleteness without him or her. Thinking of the loved one often, whether together or apart. Separation frequently provokes feelings of genuine despair or else tantalizing anticipation of reuniting. Reunion is seen as bringing feelings of euphoric ecstasy or peace and fulfillment.

This description captures what researchers have found out about people who are in the throes of love. After conducting a survey of people’s thoughts about romantic love that she administered in the United States and Japan, the anthropologist Helen Fisher (2004) noted some recurring themes:

The beloved is idealized and becomes a center of attention, intrusive thoughts, emotion, energy, sexual desire, and a special source of meaning and value. The feeling is associated with mood swings from ecstasy to despair, and proneness to feelings of jealousy.

Consistent with the energy, desire, and ecstasy that accompanies love, when people in love contemplate their beloved, there is increased activation of the dopamine-rich ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus, two areas of the brain associated with reward, motivation, and pleasure (e.g., Aron et al., 2005; Fisher, 2004).

Of course, love may not be experienced in this way (or at all) by all people or in all cultures. Some people and cultures may see this kind of love as too dramatic or reflecting codependency, but evidence suggests both that when one falls in love and when one is in a love relationship for a decade or more, emotional dependence is pretty likely. This is why people sometimes resort to violence when they perceive a threat to their relationship, or if it is ended (e.g., Fisher, 2004), and why people mourn, often to the point of depressive symptoms, when they lose a romantic partner (e.g., Bowlby, 1980).

We can consider such a high level of emotional investment healthy or unhealthy, but evidence suggests it occurs in many, if not the majority of, committed romantic relationships. From this perspective, love is a leap, a risk, with the individual investing his or her happiness partly on the partner and the relationship. If you love someone—this can be just as true of love for a parent, child, friend, or pet as of love for a romantic partner—you care about the loved one’s fortunes as well as your own. So your emotions are partly dependent on how the loved one is feeling and what is happening to him or her. If you don’t want to risk that, don’t love someone else. That way, your emotions will be based only on your own fortunes. Yet most people do take those risks, as children, parents, friends, pet owners, and lovers. Of these loves, romantic love is probably the most unstable and the most likely to lead to heartache. Most of us take the plunge anyway, often multiple times. Let’s consider some informative perspectives on this fascinating phenomenon.

Romantic love is partly a cultural creation. The culture we are raised in tells us what love is like, whom we should love and when, and what we should do about love (e.g., Hatfield & Rapson, 1996; Landis & O’Shea, 2000; Rubin, 1973). To gain insight into how the nature of love is articulated, researchers examined the use of words and songs to express love in the United States and China. Although they found similar levels of passion expressed, the Chinese were more likely to incorporate suffering and sadness as part of the love experience (Rothbaum & Tsang, 1998; Shaver et al., 1992). Regarding what to do about love, many contemporary cultures, such as the United States and Japan, consider love a primary basis for deciding whom to marry. But in some cultures, such as those prevalent in many parts of India and Pakistan, marriages are arranged; in fact, basing a marriage on love is considered inappropriate and foolhardy (Levine et al., 1995). Even in European cultures, until well into the 19th century, love generally was not considered a basis for marriage (e.g., Coontz, 2005; Finkel et al., 2014). Rather, marriage was a pragmatic arrangement that served social and economic goals of the bride’s and groom’s families. Rubin (1973) noted that many Western ideas about romantic love developed out of medieval concepts of courtly love. This kind of love was considered likely only between people who weren’t married, often between a man and a woman who became his mistress.

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In many stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, love emerges in opposition to cultural forces that control who marries whom. The very well-known Chinese story of the Butterfly Lovers is over a thousand years old (Idema, 2010). The young lovers are blocked from marrying by their society. As a result, the man eventually pines away and dies, and the woman subsequently commits suicide by throwing herself into his grave. The good news is that they re-emerge as butterflies. Stories such as Romeo and Juliet, The Butterfly Lovers, and countless others dating back over 4,000 years (Fisher, 2006; Wolkstein, 1991) attest to the universality of romantic love and to the fact that it often persists despite cultural pressures.

Research shows that although specific conceptions of love vary somewhat from culture to culture, love seems to exist in the vast majority of cultures, and perhaps all of them. In a survey of cultures around the globe, anthropologists found clear evidence of romantic love in 147 out of 166 cultures (Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992). What about the 19 cultures without evidence of romantic love? In these cultures, this aspect of people’s lives was not necessarily absent but had not been studied (Fisher, 2006).

We’ve seen that culture shapes some features of romantic love, but what explains the widespread existence of the phenomenon and the power it often holds over people? Let’s consider three broad theoretical perspectives that help clarify the nature and importance of romantic love and relationships.

Attachment Theory: Love’s Foundation

From an evolutionary perspective, love may be advantageous because it generally helps us focus on courting and mating with a single individual at a time. This focus conserves energy and motivates lengthy pair bonding, which aids a couple’s effective raising of their offspring (e.g., Fisher, 2004). However, evolutionary adaptations don’t spring out of nowhere; they build on preexisting tendencies and structures. Any compelling theory of love must combine insights from human evolution, human development, and adult psychological functioning. Attachment theory provides just such an integrative perspective on love.

The Basics of Attachment: Infancy and Childhood

Attachment theory is rooted in the ideas of psychologists such as Otto Rank, Karen Horney, and Melanie Klein, but was formally developed by the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby in his three-volume classic Attachment and Loss (1969; 1973; 1980). His attachment theory combines insights from the Freudian psychoanalytic tradition, studies of primate evolution, developmental psychology, and Bowlby’s own clinical experiences with children separated from their parents (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Attachment theory posits that the prototypic experience of love is the young child’s bond with the primary caretaker, typically the child’s mother.

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The importance of this bond is rooted in our primate heritage. But it is particularly essential for humans, whose newborns are the most helpless and dependent of all mammalian species and need the longest period of care before reaching adulthood. Human newborns lack the capacity to roll over, let alone move on their own, find food, feed themselves, or defend themselves against predators. How do they survive long enough to reach some degree of independence? They rely on close attachments to parental figures who can provide care and protection. In fact, infants come into the world with a number of evolved techniques for assuring proximity to attachment figures. For one, their cries guarantee that no one (their parents or anyone else!) can ignore them in times of need. Add those heart-warming smiles that start by about 6 weeks of age, and you generally have caregivers who are very attentive to the child’s well-being (Berry & McArthur, 1986; McArthur & Baron, 1983).

When infants feel close to an available and responsive attachment figure, they feel comfort and reassurance. Bowlby proposed that when parents are responsive and supportive, they provide a safe haven when the child is fearful and a secure base from which the child can venture forth, explore, and grow.

The developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth studied attachment before and independent of Bowlby. However, after working with Bowlby, she became the primary researcher to study infant attachment systematically. Along with naturalistic observation of infants and their mothers in their homes, she developed a set of strange situation tests to examine the early attachment bond between mothers and their children (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970). Through this research, Ainsworth and colleagues were able to demonstrate the role of attachment in providing young children with psychological security. They were also able to establish three major forms of attachment that are associated with particular patterns of child-maternal interaction (Ainsworth et al., 1978).

Secure attachment style. In the initial version of the strange situation test, a mother and her nearly one-year-old child enter an unfamiliar room with toys and chairs. After a short time, a female stranger enters the room and sits down. The mother eventually leaves for a few minutes, and then returns. In the typical case, the child is attentive to her mother but then happily turns to exploring the toys. When the stranger enters, the child exhibits distress and relieves that distress by returning to her mother. When the mother leaves, distress returns. When the mother returns, the child greets her, becomes relaxed, and resumes exploring the toys. The mother is a secure base for the child’s explorations and play. About 60% of the children displayed this form of secure attachment.

The other 40% of the children were split about evenly between two insecure attachment styles.

Anxious-ambivalent attachment style. Children who exhibit the anxious-ambivalent attachment style are overly clingy while the mom is there, but they do explore the toys. When the mom leaves the room, they cry and protest. When she returns, they seem angry and resistant (ambivalent) and have difficulty calming down and returning to play with the toys. Parents of these anxious-ambivalent children tend to be very inconsistent, fluctuating between unresponsive and overly intrusive.

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Avoidant attachment style. Children who exhibit the avoidant attachment style are not very affectionate with the mom there. They play with the toys but not very enthusiastically. When the mother leaves, they show little distress, and when she returns, they often turn away or avoid her. Parents of avoidant children tend to reject or deflect the child’s bids for comfort and closeness.

Subsequent research has confirmed this general distribution of what now are known as attachment styles. For example, Campos and colleagues (1983) found that among American samples, 62% of infants were secure, 23% were avoidant, and 15% were anxious-ambivalent.

The Enduring Influence of Attachment: Adult Romantic Relationships

So what does attachment have to do with adult romantic relationships? The nature of this initial love relationship influences the close relationships individuals have over the course of their lives, including adult love relationships. Just as attachment to the parents is central to a child’s psychological security, attachment to the romantic partner is central to psychological security for most adults (e.g., Mikulincer, 2006; Simpson et al., 1992). Attachment theorists explain that these childhood experiences result in working models of relationships—that is, global feelings about the nature and worth of close relationships and other people’s trustworthiness and ability to provide warmth and security (Baldwin et al., 1996; Collins & Read, 1994; Pietromonaco & Barrett, 2000). These working models of relationships, which originate early in life, become our style of attachment, stable patterns in the way we think about and behave in our adult relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Shaver & Hazan, 1993).

Cindy Hazan and Phil Shaver (1987) conducted the first studies providing evidence that these attachment styles relate to adult romantic relationships. They recruited community participants of various ages in their first study and college students in their second study. They created three descriptions of how people think and feel about getting close to others that corresponded to the secure, anxious-ambivalent, and avoidant attachment styles established by Ainsworth. These are depicted in FIGURE 15.2. Take a look and, as the participants did in the study, pick which of the three best characterizes how you relate to other people. Hazan and Shaver hypothesized that if attachment theory applies to adult relationships, the percentages of people who picked one of the three different paragraphs should be similar to the percentages that Ainsworth and colleagues found with very young children. And indeed it was: Across the two studies, roughly 56% reported the secure style, 24% the avoidant style, and 20% the anxious-ambivalent style. Subsequent studies have found similar frequencies of these attachment styles (Mickelson et al., 1997).

Over the years researchers have specified two dimensions of attachment feelings that underlie these styles of attachment (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Brennan et al., 1998). One dimension is referred to as attachment-related anxiety. When someone is high in attachment anxiety, he or she is overly concerned with whether the partner is attentive and responsive. The other dimension is labeled attachment-related avoidance and refers to a reluctance to depend on others. People can be high or low in either or both dimensions. As shown in FIGURE 15.3, this yields what many researchers now recognize as four possibilities. Research using this dimensional approach provides further insight into how people’s attachment feelings relate to the nature of their most important romantic relationship, their views of romantic love, their approach to sex, and their reports of how their parents raised them.

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Low Avoidance/Low Anxiety: Securely Attached Adults

Participants who are securely attached are low in both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. They tend to report the longest-lasting, most satisfying romantic relationships. They believe that love can endure, and they tend to be self-confident and trusting of others. They recall having warm relationships with both of their parents while growing up. Moreover, securely attached people are generally psychologically well adjusted (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). When their relationship partners need care or comfort, they are very responsive in providing it. Also, securely attached people react less negatively than insecurely attached people to unflattering feedback from their partners (Collins & Feeney, 2004).

Those with a more secure attachment style are also more comfortable with their sexuality and generally enjoy sex (Tracy et al., 2003). But this does not mean they will jump into the sack with anybody and at any opportunity. They are also more likely to have sex within a committed relationship (Feeney et al., 1993) and to see sex as a way to enhance intimacy in the relationship and express their love for their partners (Cooper et al., 2006).

Low Avoidance/High Anxiety: Anxious-ambivalent Adults

Anxious-ambivalent (or preoccupied) individuals tend to have a negative view of themselves (i.e., low self-esteem) but a positive view of others. They have short, intense relationships but with many emotional highs and lows (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), featuring frequent feelings of passion, jealousy, anger, and smothering (e.g., Davis et al., 2004; Shaver et al., 2005). They tend to fall in love very easily but at the same time are skeptical of how long love can last, and are dissatisfied with the attentiveness of romantic partners. They give affection according to their own needs as opposed to being responsive to the needs of their relationship partners.

Not surprisingly, they also use and see sex differently. Like many aspects of relationships for these individuals, sex can become riddled with anxiety. The more attachment anxiety men have, the older they are when they first have sex, and they have less frequent intercourse and fewer partners (Feeney et al., 1993; Gentzler & Kerns, 2004). But among anxious-ambivalent women, greater attachment anxiety predicts higher likelihood of having sex, earlier age at first intercourse, and less exclusivity in partners (Cooper et al., 1998). In part this is because such women succumb to pressures to have sex (Gentzler & Kerns, 2004) and use sex to avoid partner disapproval and to reassure themselves of their self-worth (Cooper et al., 2006).

High Avoidance/High or Low Anxiety: Avoidantly Attached Adults

Participants who report higher levels of avoidance tend to have shorter relationships that lack intimacy (Hazan & Shaver, 1987). They don’t believe love endures, are fearful of closeness, and lack trust in romantic partners. They seem not to want to get much from their romantic relationships, are emotionally distant, and tend to ignore their partners’ needs for care and intimacy (e.g., Collins & Feeney, 2000). They recall their mothers as being cold and rejecting.

People who are high in attachment avoidance show yet another profile of sexual behavior. They are more likely to delay having sex, and when they do, they do so in contexts that limit intimacy, such as having more casual as well as solitary sex (Cooper et al., 1998). This is partly because avoidant people tend to use sex to affirm their desirability and to cope with negative emotions, rather than to seek pleasure or enhance intimacy.

Avoidant styles can come in one of two forms (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1990). High levels of avoidance can be paired with high levels of anxiety (i.e., a fearful avoidant style) and reflect negative views of both self and of others. So the fearfully avoidant person doesn’t feel worthy, doesn’t trust others, and fears rejection. High levels of avoidance can also be paired with low levels of anxiety. Those with this dismissive avoidant attachment style tend to show a positive view of the self but a negative view of others. Dismissive avoidant people are more self-satisfied and appear not to need closeness with others. They hide their vulnerability, deny their desire for intimacy, and tend to be sexually promiscuous (Gjerde et al., 2004; Mikulincer et al., 2004).

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Combinations of Attachment Styles and Long-term Relationships

Clearly the best bet for a stable and satisfying long-term relationship is for both members of a couple to have a secure attachment style (e.g., Kane et al., 2007; Senchak & Leonard, 1992; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2010; Simpson, 1990). Other combinations of attachment styles yield less mutual satisfaction and stability, with one interesting exception. Over a four-year period, Kirkpatrick and Davis (1994) found that anxious women and avoidant men had relationships as stable as those of secure couples, although far less satisfying. Kirkpatrick and Davis suggested that this is because women who are highly invested in relationships and men who are distant and less invested fit the prevailing gender stereotypes. In these relationships, the women put up with the men and vice versa, even though neither of them is very satisfied. In fact, some studies of heterosexual couples have found that women’s dissatisfaction increases the more avoidant their male partners are, whereas men’s dissatisfaction increases the more anxious their female partners are (e.g., Collins & Read, 1990; Kane et al., 2007).

Attachment Style, Genes, and Parental Caregiving

Research on attachment theory raises a number of questions. One issue concerns the extent to which a child’s temperament and genetic inheritance contribute to the attachment style he or she develops (Kagan, 1994). Research findings on this issue are mixed. Some studies have found that genes have a negligible influence (e.g., Bokhorst et al., 2003). Other research suggests that DNA associated with low dopamine levels is linked to high levels of attachment anxiety, and DNA associated with low serotonin levels is linked to high levels of attachment avoidance (Gillath et al., 2008). This latter work suggests that about 20% of variability in attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance may result from genetic factors.

Clearly, though, as attachment theory proposes, the primary determinant of attachment style is how attachment figures interact with the child (e.g., Fraley, 2002; Main, 1995; Waller & Shaver, 1994). In one particularly ambitious study, Dymphna van den Boom (1994) showed that when a random half of mothers of temperamentally difficult 6-month-old infants were trained for three months in sensitive responding to the child, by 12 months of age, 62% of the infants were securely attached, whereas only 22% of the children whose parents weren’t so trained exhibited secure attachment. And a follow-up study found that the children whose mothers had received training were still benefiting from it at age 3 (van den Boom, 1995).

Stability of Attachment Style

Another issue concerns stability of attachment style over time. Although the Hazan and Shaver study suggested that early childhood attachment style relates to adult attachment style, the best way to test this stability is with a longitudinal study in which parent-child attachment style is assessed in young children and then again when the same children are adults. Such time-consuming studies have been conducted, and they generally suggest considerable stability of attachment style from infancy to adulthood (Fraley, 2002; Simpson et al., 2007).

However, early attachment style is not set in stone. As Bowlby (1980) proposed, experiences with attachment figures throughout one’s life can alter one’s predominant working model of attachment. A horrible relationship, full of betrayal, could make a securely attached person insecure; a happy, stable relationship might shift an insecure person toward a secure style. Indeed, in a four-year longitudinal study of adults, Kirkpatrick and Hazan (1994) found that overall, 30% of the adults in the study changed their attachment style. Secures were more stable, with 17% changing. In other words, the anxious and avoidant attached adults were more likely to change styles over the four years (also see Baldwin & Fehr, 1995).

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Love, the Ultimate Security Blanket

As we wrap up our discussion of attachment theory and research, we want to close by reiterating this theory’s central insight regarding love. From the perspective of attachment theory, we seek and maintain love for significant others to garner a sense of support, comfort, relief, trust, and security, particularly when we are confronted with threats from the outside world or distressing thoughts and emotions (e.g., Mikulincer et al., 2001). The sense of warmth and physical protection that we experience as infants when we are close to a responsive caregiver lays the foundation for the comforting experience we have as adults when we feel a secure bond with our romantic partners.

Love and Death

Unable are the Loved to die

For Love is Immortality

–Emily Dickinson (1864/1960, p. 394)

In the weeks following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans showed an increased tendency to solidify their close relationships, express more commitment, spend more time with family and friends, and seek more intimate sexual encounters with their romantic partners (e.g., Ai et al., 2009). Various newspapers and magazines such as Newsweek also reported similar trends in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well as among military units facing more combat and higher levels of violence (e.g., Mitchell, 2009). Why?

One answer comes from the existential perspective offered by terror management theory. Terror management theory is highly compatible with attachment theory in its focus on how children develop security and how that sets the stage for adults’ bases of psychological security. From this theoretical perspective, romantic partners help each other manage the threat of mortality by giving life meaning and reinforcing self-worth (Kosloff et al., 2010; Solomon et al., 1991). Thus, even in situations in which a person faces no immediate threat to her survival, the knowledge that life is fragile and destined to end—a fact made salient, for example, by media reports of the attacks of September 11—helps fuel feelings of love by driving people to cling to close relationships for security.

According to Otto Rank (1936a), as Western societies became more secular during the 20th century, romantic relationships largely replaced religion as the primary source of meaning and value, which in turn provide a sense of transcendence of death. Rank suggested that as this occurred in Western cultures, the romantic relationship became viewed increasingly as a magical, eternal bond of love with a cosmically designated soul mate. Thus, romantic relationships became a central basis of feeling that one’s life is meaningful and enduringly significant. You know you are valued because you are loved. A life partner knows your life story and cares about the minute details of your life, thus bearing witness to and validating your existence and its value. Though perhaps particularly prevalent in modern Western societies, this idea has been around for many centuries and has been expressed in many cultures. A Hindu song put it this way: “My lover is like God: if he accepts me my existence is utilized” (Becker, 1973, p. 161). Eli Finkel and colleagues (2014) have recently made similar observations, suggesting that people in North America increasingly view romantic relationships as a way to meet the needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.

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Studies have supported the idea that romantic partners enhance people’s self-worth and validate their worldviews. Aron and colleagues (1995) tracked people who did and did not fall in love over time. One of their findings was that people who fell in love showed an increase in self-esteem. And even more directly, studies show that thinking of our mortality leads us to be more committed to lovers who positively regard us and make us feel good about ourselves. In addition, when participants were reminded of death, the more highly committed they were to the relationship, the more positively they viewed their romantic partners, and the more positively they felt that their romantic partners viewed them (Cox & Arndt, 2012).

Further support for the role of romantic relationships in terror management has been provided by a series of studies conducted in Israel by Mario Mikulincer and colleagues, who noted that such relationships may be especially important for managing fear of death because they provide the same type of physical and emotional closeness we all relied on as children when scared (see Mikulincer et al., 2003). They have found that for people in committed relationships, threats to the relationship or thoughts of being away from their partners increase the accessibility of death-related thought. In addition, reminders of mortality increase the desire for closeness in the romantic relationship. In people lacking a romantic relationship, they increase the desire to have one. Finally, thinking about a current romantic partner reduces the need for defensiveness after a reminder of death, but only for people who are securely attached. This suggests that romantic relationships help securely attached people manage their concerns about mortality, but they don’t do so for those who are insecurely attached. Additional evidence suggests that insecurely attached young adults, at least, still rely on their parents, rather than their romantic partners, for existential security (Cox et al., 2008).

Terror management theory also contributes to understanding the desire for and love of one’s children, as children can be one way to feel that a part of the self lives on beyond one’s own death. In line with this account, research shows that death reminders increase desire for offspring among Dutch, German, and Chinese individuals (Fritsche et al., 2007; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005; Zhou et al., 2008). Furthermore, for young married adults without children, death reminders increase positive thoughts of parenthood, and thinking about becoming parents reduces the accessibility of death-related thoughts (Yaakobi et al., 2014). Taken together, this work suggests that the idea of having children, and thereby continuing to live on in some way, helps to quell concerns about personal mortality.

The Self-expansion Model: Love as a Basis of Growth

So far we’ve been focusing on theories that portray love primarily as a basis for feeling safe and secure in the world. But this is undoubtedly an incomplete picture of why we pursue love relationships. You’ll remember from chapter 6 that humanistic psychology and self-determination theory emphasize the person’s potential to grow and change. These theories view the person as inherently motivated to cultivate her inner potentialities, seek out optimal challenges, and master and integrate new experiences.

According to Art Aron’s self-expansion model of relationships, one way that people satisfy this motive is through romantic relationships. The self-expansion model proposes that a central human motive is the desire to expand the self and that loving another person is an important way to do so (Aron et al., 2001). From this perspective, the romantic partner becomes incorporated as part of the self, thus helping to expand the self, making the self more complex. When you fall in love, you start to care about the things your partner cares about. You may start doing different activities, eating different foods, listening to different music, reading different books, and so forth. In this way, love can enhance growth. In support of this idea, Aron and colleagues (1995) found that when people fell in love, their self-concept did indeed become more complex.

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To assess the idea that people incorporate their partners partly into the self, Aron and colleagues (1992) developed the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) Scale. As depicted in FIGURE 15.4, the scale consists of seven pairs of circles that represent varying degrees of overlap between self and partner. Individuals are asked to select the pair that best describes their relationship with their partners. This simple, one-item scale has proven very useful for assessing relationship closeness (Agnew et al., 2004).

People who chose more overlapping circles have more satisfying relationships and use more plural pronouns in describing their relationship. They are also more likely to blur the line between their sense of who they are and who their partner is. After rating some traits for self and other traits for their partners, they were more likely to mistake traits they rated for self for those they rated for others (Aron & Fraley, 1999).

The self-expansion model also posits that the experience of self-expanding in relationships adds pleasure and excitement to relationships (Aron & Aron, 2006). On the basis of this idea, Aron and colleagues proposed that early in relationships, during the “honeymoon period,” people are getting to know each other. This stimulates a great deal of rapid self-expansion and consequent exhilaration. Over time, however, the self-expanding aspect of a relationship tends to slow down as the relationship falls into routine. The challenge then is to keep the process of mutual self-expansion going over the long haul, an idea we will return to later in this chapter.

Attachment theory, terror management theory, and the self-expansion model help explain why love is a virtually universal and very important aspect of human experience. Other social psychological models of love provide insights into the subjective experience of love and the various forms romantic love can take.

Schachter’s Two Factor Theory: Love as an Emotion

Love is often a lasting feeling toward another person, but people also have intense feelings of falling in love and being in love. Where do these feelings come from? Berscheid and Walster (1974) applied Schachter’s (1964) two factor theory of emotion to understanding love as a felt emotion. As you’ll recall from chapter 5, Schachter’s theory proposed that emotions partly consist of physiological arousal and a label for that arousal based on cues present when the arousal is being felt. As applied to love (and lust), this theory suggests that when an individual is aroused, in the presence of a member of the appropriate sex, and in a context that cultural learning suggests is romantic, the individual may very well label that arousal as love. One interesting implication of the two factor theory is that cultures direct when and with whom the label love is most likely to be applied to arousal that occurs in the presence of another person.

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A second interesting implication of this approach is that the real source of the arousal doesn’t always matter, as long as it is labeled attraction or love. One set of studies supporting this idea was conducted by Dutton and Aron (1974). In one of their studies, adult males were interviewed on one of two bridges over the Capilano River in British Columbia by an attractive female interviewer or a male interviewer. One bridge was a very wide, safe bridge, only 10 feet over a small rivulet. The other bridge was a wobbly, narrow 450-foot suspension bridge over a 230-foot gorge, with shallow rapids below. Dutton and Aron assumed that the narrow bridge over the deep drop would generate some physiological arousal because of the possibility of danger (and perhaps also the spectacular setting), whereas the small footbridge would not. Applying the two factor theory, they thus proposed that men interviewed over the scary bridge by the female interviewer would attribute some of their arousal to their feelings of attraction to and perhaps romantic interest in her. They therefore predicted that men would be more attracted to the female interviewer if the setting was the scary bridge than if it was the safe bridge.

Dutton and Aron used two clever dependent variables to test this idea. First, while on the bridge, the interviewer showed the interviewees an ambiguous picture of a young woman covering her face with one hand and reaching out with the other and asked them to write a brief story about it. Dutton and Aron had the stories coded for sexual content. They expected more sexual content in the stories by the men who were interviewed by the female over the scary bridge. Second, they had the interviewer give the interviewees her phone number in case they wanted to learn more about the study. Dutton and Aron figured that if the scary bridge interviewees were more attracted to the female interviewer, they would be more likely to call her. Both hypotheses were supported. The scary bridge interviewees made more calls and wrote more sexual stories. For example, 50% of these interviewees called, whereas only about 20% called in the other three conditions (male interviewer, safe bridge).

The idea that love and attraction can be fueled by extraneous sources of arousal has been supported in other ways as well (e.g., Valins, 1966; White et al., 1981; White & Kight, 1984). For example, working with the excitation transfer paradigm developed by Zillmann (1971) and described in chapter 5, White and colleagues (1981) showed that arousal from both exercise and funny or disturbing audiotapes subsequently increased male romantic attraction to a physically attractive female confederate. In a study conducted at an amusement park, individuals found a photographed member of the opposite sex more desirable as a date after exiting a roller coaster than before getting on the roller coaster—unless they were with a romantic partner on the roller coaster (Meston & Frohlich, 2003). Some additional research suggests that arousal intensifies attraction in part because, as you may recall from chapter 9, arousal intensifies dominant responses. The dominant response when viewing or in the presence of a physically attractive member of the appropriate sex may be romantic interest (Foster et al., 1998).

How much of our attraction to, and even love for, a romantic partner may have been fueled or intensified by extrapersonal sources of arousal? It is hard to say in any specific case. But the research supporting the two factor theory suggests that initial attraction to or feelings of love for a romantic partner may indeed be affected by extrapersonal sources of arousal. And if you think of what people do when they date others they are interested in, they often do exciting, physiologically arousing things: They go dancing, watch exciting or scary movies, go on amusement-park rides or hikes, play sports or watch sporting events, or visit exciting places. Coincidence?

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Sternberg’s Triangular Model of Love

There are a variety of models that describe different types of romantic love. Perhaps the most basic distinction is between passionate love and companionate love (e.g., Hatfield, 1988). Passionate love involves an emotionally intense and erotic desire to be absorbed in another person. Companionate love is believed to better characterize older couples who have been together a long time. There is still great affection, trust, and a sense that the relationship is important, but passion is much diminished or absent.

Robert Sternberg’s triangular model of love relationships (depicted in FIGURE 15.5) rather elegantly captures not only these two kinds of love but five others as well. The model posits three basic components of love relationships that in different combinations describe different kinds of relationships. The components are passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion is the excitement about, sexual attraction to, and longing for the partner. Intimacy involves liking, sharing, knowing, and emotional support of the partner. Commitment is the extent to which the individual is invested in maintaining the relationship. Sternberg proposes that the ideal romantic relationship has a high level of all three components. He refers to this as consummate love. Research supports his model by showing that almost all aspects of relationships seem to fit under one of the three factors (Aron & Westbay, 1996) and that people view the ideal lover as someone high in all three factors (Sternberg, 1997).

Many other kinds of relationships lack one or more component, but can still be meaningfully experienced as love. A relationship with only passion is an infatuation; there is strong attraction and arousal, but the partner is not well known and there is no commitment to a relationship. Intimacy alone can characterize a close acquaintanceship or friendship. Commitment alone is labeled by Sternberg as empty love. There is investment in maintaining the relationship, but there is no sharing and no passion. This sometimes occurs in older couples for whom the passion and even the sense of liking for the partner is no longer there, but out of habit, familiarity, or fear of being alone, commitment persists. The relationship still helps the individual feel secure, but there is no growth or stimulation.

The combination of passion and intimacy is labeled romantic, or passionate, love. People are in love and share knowledge of each other but haven’t made a real commitment to sustaining the relationship over time. Romantic love often is a step toward consummate love, but in some cases that commitment is never made. The combination of passion and commitment is called fatuous love and is exemplified by young adults who have developed a strong infatuation and jump to the commitment of marriage before they really know each other well. These kinds of relationships often don’t turn out well because, lacking intimacy, partners don’t know what they are getting into. Each partner will tend to idealize the other, but over time they may encounter less-than-ideal surprises as they get to know each other better.

Finally, the combination of intimacy and commitment without passion is compan-ionate love, a kind of love not uncommon in very long-term romantic relationships. Stimulation and sexual attraction have died out, but the positive feelings, sharing, and commitment have remained strong. Though passion in relationships does tend to diminish somewhat in intensity over time, it still can be found in many long-standing relationships (Acevedo & Aron, 2009; Acker & Davis, 1992). If consummate love is the ideal, keeping passion alive over the long haul is one of the biggest challenges of long-term relationships, and something we will address later in the chapter.

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