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Serious social problems abound surrounding love and intimacy in our society, with the high ..... During the romantic love stage, lovers dis- play extreme degrees ...
CHAPTER 17

Love DIANE H . FELMLEE SUSAN SPRECHER

What's love, but a second-hand emotion? —Tina Turner

Love is a topic of considerable import and fascination in virtually every society. In Western cultures, love is claimed as the grounds for mating and dating and as the basis for family bonding. On a cultural level, love is one of the most frequently discussed literary topics. It is the repeated focus of philosophers, poets, novelists, musicians, artists, playwrights, and screen writers; there is no question that love preoccupies us as a society. For at least two decades, social scientists also have been adding to the burgeoning cornucopia that represents the production of knowledge on love. Research on the topic of love has expanded at an impressive pace, and there is no slowdown in sight. Yet, as we will see, despite the near-universal attraction of the subject of love, scholars rarely agree on first principles or stray beyond their disciplinary boundaries. A scholarly approach to love is not always appreciated. Former U.S. Senator William Proxmire criticized funding research on love, arguing that love is not a science and that "200 million other Americans want to leave some things in life a mystery" (cited in Hatfield and Walster 1978:viii). Nonetheless, much can be learned from an application of the rigorous and critical eye of the social scientist to love. Serious social problems abound surrounding love and intimacy in our society, with the high divorce rate being only one crude barometer. Why study love then? One reason is that it is simply a topic of fascination, even to those in the most ivory of towers. In addition, there is the possibility that scholarly work might have something to say that could have

DIANE H. FELMLEE • Department of Sociology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 SUSAN SPRECHER • Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Normal, H. 61790 We express appreciation to Scott Gartner, Liz Sweet, and Richard Novak for their comments on our work.

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an impact, no matter how modest, on a society at the crossroads of crisis and confusion regarding this intimate and, yes, mysterious emotional experience. The main purpose of this chapter is to review the latest social scientific literature on the topic of love and, in particular, to draw together work from both psychological and sociological perspectives. Although there is a number of extensive reviews of the literature on love from the field of psychology (e.g., Aron et al. 2006; Hendrick and Hendrick 2000; Noller 1996), there appears to be little to no work integrating research and theory on love within the discipline of sociology. Furthermore, we know of no attempts to address both streams of the psychology and sociology literatures on love in the same venue. We believe that there is much to be gained by examining work from both disciplines and attempting to explicate points of common agreement and those of departure. Because love is wildly varied in its expression and its experience, its study can readily benefit from both the incisive and rigorous magnifying glass yielded by psychologists and the wide-angle, social, cultural, and historical lens employed by sociologists. In the first section of the chapter, we address a fundamental and controversial question: Is love an emotion? In the second section, we summarize the main, classical theories and approaches to love within the field of psychology. Third, we discuss the major conceptual approaches to love that appear in the sociological literature. Finally, we describe avenues for future research, noting the strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature. We particularly call for more work that is truly multidisciplinary, incorporating concepts, themes, and approaches from both of these major fields. We caution that by no means will we be able to discuss every conceptual approach, or mention of love, within the literature. In order to narrow our focus, we will concentrate primarily on broad theories, and less on the expansive, empirical literature on love that is developing, especially within the field of close relationships. Moreover, we will focus on major psychological and sociological approaches to love; contributions to the literature on love emanating from several related disciplines, such as communication, family studies, and anthropology, are beyond the scope of the current chapter. We should note, too, that many works that we review are not easily classified into one major approach or subarea. Psychologists occasionally address questions that are typically sociological in nature, and sociologists also sometimes engage in psychological work. Furthermore, within one field, it can be challenging to develop firm boundaries between genres of theoretical work. Sociological perspectives can be particularly difficult to pigeonhole, in part because they are often broadly philosophical in nature and also because they tend to draw on multiple paradigms within the same work. Thus, our typologies are meant to be a guide to the major themes that arise within approaches to the study of love, rather than a foolproof, exclusionary, classificatory schema. With these caveats aside, we believe that our assessment reveals critical areas of agreement and divergence among the literature as well as avenues for fruitful future research.

IS LOVE AN EMOTION? What is love? This is a question pondered persistently by philosophers, poets, musicians, scholars, and popular culture. Within the scholarly literature, in particular, there is an ongoing debate regarding whether love is an emotion. The emotional status of love is an issue worth addressing for a number of reasons, one of which is that the answer to this question points us in the direction of what types of theory might be useful in explaining and understanding love—theories of emotions, attitudes, or motivation. Next, we present both sides of the debate, evidence of lay perspectives, and then our assessment of the arguments.

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Love Is Not an Emotion A number of emotion theorists and some scholars of love maintain that love is not an emotion because it is omitted from the lists of many contemporary emotion theorists (e.g., Ekman 1992; Kemper 1987; Oatley and Johnson-Laird 1987). There is a number of reasons for this omission, including the argument that, unlike the basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise, there is no distinctive universal facial expression associated with the state of love (e.g., Ekman 1992). Other reasons given for excluding love as an emotion include the following: it is an attitude (Rubin 1970), a "plot" (Ekman 1992), a sentiment (Turner 1970), a culturally constructed, emotional syndrome (Averill 1985), it needs an "object" (Oatley and Johnson-Laird 1987), and it is a mixture of several other emotions, such as joy and anxiety (Izard 1992). Recently, some scholars have argued that love is a goal-oriented motivational state rather than an emotion. They claim that love resembles our basic drives, such as hunger, thirst, and sleep (Aron and Aron 1991). Rempel and Burris (2005:299), for example, defined love as "a motivational state in which the goal is to preserve and promote the well-being of the valued object." The argument that love is not an emotion is supported further by research concluding that individuals associate the experience of love with many more emotions of opposite valences than they do for the experience of presumably more basic emotions such as happiness, sadness, fear, or anger (Acevedo and Aron 2004). In addition, recent research using physiological data gathered from functional magnetic resonance brain imaging (fMRI) contends that when participants gaze at pictures of beloved partners, activation occurs in regions of the brain that are associated with the motivation to obtain rewards (areas of the brain that can induce euphoria) (Bartels and Zeki 2000). Additional fMRI research suggests that romantic and maternal love activate similar brain regions in the reward system and, at the same time, lead to suppression of both negative emotions and the critical assessment of other people. Neurologically, in other words, "love is blind," and it has the power to overcome social distance and bond individuals through its ability to motivate and induce euphoria (Bartels and Zeki 2004).

Love Is an Emotion A number of scholars also argues that love is indeed an emotion (e.g., Gonzaga et al. 2001), and, in particular, an emotion that occurs within a relationship (Kemper 1989). Sociological treatments of love that we discuss later tend to refer to love as an emotion (e.g., Goode 1959; Hochschild 2003). Some psychologists consider love to be one of the primary emotions (e.g., Epstein 1984; Scott 1980). Shaver and colleagues (1987,1996) argued that love is a basic emotion, particularly if one focuses on the immediate short-term moments of love, or "love surges," rather than the long-term disposition of love. In support of this position, there is a good deal of evidence for the universality of romantic love across cultures, across historical time, and among all age groups (Jankowiak and Fischer 1992). Research also suggests that there might be universal nonverbal signs of love, similar to what occurs with other basic emotions. These signs include soft and tender facial expressions (Hatfield and Rapson 1993), mutual gazing (Rubin 1973), and a host of other behaviors, including hugging and kissing, that are common in all societies. Finally, findings discussed earlier from recent fMRI studies regarding the nature of love remain controversial. For example, research shows that regions in the brain associated with euphoria are stimulated when an individual is gazing at photos of the person they love (Bartels and Zeki 2000), which suggests the participants are undergoing an emotional, not simply a motivational, experience. On the other hand, the situation in which a person views a picture of a loved one while

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lying down in a noisy fMRI scanner might not always engender an immediate "love surge" in the participants, the type of romantic love most closely thought to be a basic emotion. Furthermore, theorists maintain that emotions in general are a motivating force, in which individuals experiencing emotions are mobilized and pushed in various ways (Turner and Stets 2005). A fearful individual, for example, is apt to be motivated to flee a threatening situation. Thus, the argument that love is associated with motivational regions of the brain does not rule out the possibility that it is still an emotion.

A Layperson Approach Although theorists on emotions and theorists on love are not able to agree on whether love is an emotion, research clearly establishes that people believe that love is an emotion and there are emotional components to love. For example, in a study by Fehr and Russell (1984), participants were given the word "emotion" and asked to list examples. Love was the fourth most commonly listed type of emotion, behind only happiness, anger, and sadness. In a follow-up study, Fehr and Russell (1984) asked participants to rate several emotions identified in the first study in terms of the degree to which they were good examples of emotion. Of the emotions provided, participants indicated that love was the best example. Similar results were found by Shaver et al. (1987), who provided participants with several terms that could refer to emotions and asked them to indicate the degree to which they would call each an emotion. Love received the highest mean rating, followed by anger, hate, fear, happiness, and sadness. People also believe that emotional states coexist with love. For example, in a study by Lamm and Wiesmann (1997), participants were asked the open-ended question "How can you tell that you love someone?" (They were also asked a similar question about liking someone and being "in love" with someone.) A positive mood was the most commonly mentioned feature for love; 53% of the participants reported that being in a positive mood when in the other's presence or when thinking about the other was a good indicator of love. Positive mood was also a common indicator for the sentiments of being in love and liking. Interestingly, a negative mood also was rated by at least a proportion of the respondents as a common indicator of both love and being in love. In additional analyses, Lamm and Wiesmann (1997) categorized the indicators provided by the participants for each sentiment into three categories: cognitive, affective (emotional), and behavioral. Of the indicators provided by the participants in the free-list format, a greater proportion was affective (emotional) than cognitive or behavioral. In addition, in research by Aron and his colleagues (Acevedo and Aron 2004; as reported in Aron et al. 2006), participants were asked to indicate which emotions they felt when experiencing love or a specific subtype of love, such as passionate love. Participants in their study chose a greater variety of specific emotions for love than they did for fear, anger, sadness, and happiness. In sum, although emotion theorists do not always include love as one of the basic emotions, individuals believe that it is one of the best examples of emotions. In addition, people believe that love is characterized by emotional states. Certainly, research on the definition of love is just the beginning, and our guess is that the controversy over love's origins will not be over shortly. However, to the best of our knowledge, no one denies that emotions are associated with love or that love has motivational dimensions. Furthermore, it is clear that emotions and motivation are closely linked in the human animal. What we might have here is a "chicken and ^gg'' dilemma. For our purposes, the most important point is that love should not be ignored when discussing emotions. Regardless of whether love

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is a truly basic emotion or an emotion-laden motivated goal, it is clear that love is a central aspect of the emotional backdrop of social interaction and a topic worthy of serious, scholarly scrutiny.

CLASSIC PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO LOVE The identification of different categories or types of love represents a major thrust of the readily expanding psychological research and theory on love over the past two decades. Although most types of love we describe below typically address the varieties of love experienced in adult intimate relationships, some types of love can also be experienced for others, such as friends and family members. We focus on the classic, and most influential, categorization schemes for love in the psychological literature. For each approach, we highlight the particular type(s) or subtype(s) of love that is more likely to be experienced as a "surge of emotion," in contrast to others that better fit the definition of love as a disposition. In developing schemas of love, however, one of the first tasks is to distinguish love from closely related concepts, such as liking and attraction, and thus we turn first to a discussion of such conceptual distinctions.

Love versus Liking and Other Sentiments In some typologies, love is distinguished from a less intense sentiment directed toward others, such as liking. Many years ago, Rubin (1970) distinguished liking from love and developed scales to measure each. Liking included the themes of similarity, respect, and positive evaluation. The dimensions of love were dependency, caring, and exclusiveness. Rubin developed scales to measure both liking and love for another and found that they were only moderately correlated. The distinction between liking and love remains in the literature (e.g., Lamm and Wiesmann 1997), although rarely is liking assessed in research on relationships. Love is also distinguished from attraction. Within the discipline of social psychology, a major subarea that emerged in the 1970s and that predated a social psychological emphasis on love was interpersonal attraction (Byrne 1971, 1997). Attraction is a positive attitude directed toward another person (e.g., Berscheid 1985) and, thus, is related to, although less intense than, love. Love is also compared to, or studied in conjunction with, other constructs that assess the "pulse of a relationship," including commitment, satisfaction, respect, and intimacy (Orbuch and Sprecher 2003). However, of these various "pulse" measures, love is most often referred to as an emotion. Laypersons generally do not characterize other indicators of the quality of the relationship (e.g., satisfaction) as good examples of emotions (Fehr and Russell 1984; Shaver et al. 1987).

Companionate Love versus Passionate Love In early scientific writing on love, social psychologists distinguished between passionate love and companionate love (Berscheid and Walster 1978; Walster and Walster 1978). Companionate love is the affection two people feel for each other when their lives are intertwined. Passionate love is "a state of intense longing for union with another" and associated with "fulfillment and ecstasy" when the love is reciprocated and with "anxiety and despair" when it is not (Hatfield and Rapson

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1993:5). Thus, passionate love is much more emotionally intense than companionate love. The emotional intensity of passionate love led Berscheid and Walster (1974) to apply Schachter's (1964) two-component theory of emotion to passionate love. They argued that passionate love can be more intense when there is physiological arousal and there is a reason that the arousal can be labeled as passionate love or lust for the other. (For indirect support that an intense emotion for another can sometimes occur due to a misattribution of physiological arousal caused by another source, see Dutton and Aron (1974) and White et al. (1981).) Passionate love also is distinguished from companionate love in its fragility and in its connection with sexual desire. Passionate love is presented as the less enduring but more sexually intense type of love. Some evidence exists for the theoretical differences between passionate love (often measured by Hatfield and Sprecher's (1986) Passionate Love scale) and companionate love (often measured by a subset of items for the Rubin's (1970) Love scale), although the differences are not substantial. For example, both passionate and companionate love are linked to the experience of various positive emotions in the relationship, but generally are not associated with negative emotions (Regan et al. 1998; Sprecher and Regan 1998). One exception is jealousy, typically considered to be a negative emotion, which is positively associated with passionate love (Regan et al. 1998; Sprecher and Regan 1998). Although Walster and Walster (1978) originally speculated that passionate love exists early in the relationship and then evolves into companionate love, both types of love tend to coexist in romantic relationships (Hatfield 1988; Hendrick and Hendrick 1993). The combination might be most supportive of the maintenance of long-term relationships such as marriage (Noller 1996). A dichotomous distinction akin to the companionate love/passionate love distinction is that between loving someone versus "being in love'' with someone (Meyers and Berscheid 1997). The state of being in love is more intense and less common than love, and it is associated with sexual desire (Regan 1998; Regan et al. 1998), an increase in self-esteem (Hendrick and Hendrick 1988), and enhancement of self-concept (Aron et al. 1995), especially when love is reciprocated. In fact, the process of "falling in love," which is a common cultural phenomenon (Hendrick and Hendrick forthcoming), might represent "being in love" at its emotional peak.

Love Styles A particularly influential categorization schema distinguishes among six "styles of loving." This typology of love styles was originally developed by a sociologist, John Lee (1973, 1977), based on interviews conducted with married individuals. The six love styles or types are eros (intense, passionate love), ludus (game-playing love), storge (friendship love), pragma (practical love), mania (obsessive, dependent love), and agape (selfless love). Whereas, initial research with the love styles focused on the development of the scales and establishing their psychometric properties (e.g., Hendrick and Hendrick 1986, 1990; Hendrick et al. 1984, 1998), more recent research examines how the love styles predict relationship outcomes and are associated with individual characteristics (for a review, see Hendrick and Hendrick 1992; Hendrick and Hendrick forthcoming). Some of the love styles, at least based on the content of the items used to measure them (e.g., Hendrick et al. 1984), are more emotionally intense than others. In fact, Hendrick and Hendrick (1986) characterized love styles based on the degree of their emotional intensity. Eros and mania are the most emotionally intense, agape is average in emotional intensity, and ludus, storge, and pragma are low in emotional intensity. In general, however, the love styles reflect more "love as sentiment" than "love as an upsurge in emotion" in the distinction that we referred to earlier. Hendrick

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and Hendrick (1986, forthcoming) referred to the love styles as a combination of enduring personality attributes and attitude/belief complexes.

Triangular Theory of Love Sternberg (1986, 1988) described love as having three primary components: intimacy, passion, and commitment (pictorially represented as a triangle). Each component (triangle side) can range from low to high so that a number of different triangle shapes and sizes are possible. In addition, passion, commitment, and intimacy can differ between partners within the same relationship and between one's current relationship and what ideally one would want. Intimacy is the emotional or affective component and refers to warmth, understanding, caring, support, and connection. Passion represents a motivation characterized by physical attraction and arousal. Commitment is cognitive and refers to the decision to stay in the relationship and maintain it. Although Sternberg described intimacy as the emotional component, both intimacy and passion have emotional dimensions, as reflected in the content of the scale items to measure these different components (e.g., Sternberg 1997). The triangular model of love yields eight different love types ranging from nonlove (no intimacy, no passion, and no commitment) to consummate love (high on all three components). The types of love that include both passion and intimacy could be considered more emotionally intense than the others. These types include romantic love (intimacy + passion) and consummate love. The least emotional kind of love, other than nonlove, would be empty love, which consists only of commitment. However, the lack of a strong measure for this particular love typology impedes research, due to problems of discriminant validity (Aron et al. 2006).

Love as a Story Sternberg (1996, 1998) presented a new approach to love that departs dramatically from that of his previous framework discussed above. This perspective represents a social constructionist view to love, as reflected in narrative autobiographies, and frames love as a story. He argued that people develop stories about love based on socialization experiences with parents, media, and others and that individuals attempt to act out these love stories in their own lives. Thus, each story shapes the choice of a partner and the eventual course of a relationship. Although people might have multiple stories, they prefer some narratives more than others. Typical themes include that of a couple growing closer over time as they continually tend to their relationship and the story of a couple constantly struggling with each other. Sternberg identified 25 common love stories, and among those that appear to be more likely to have emotions as part of the story plot are the following: the addiction story (strong, anxious attachment), the gardening story (relationship needs nurturance), the horror story (relationships thrive on one or both partners terrorizing each other), and the war story (love is a series of battles). The love story approach is the "new kid on the block" when it comes to psychological classification schemes for love, and it is deserving of further empirical examination. One question worthy of attention is the extent to which this perspective's numerous love types relate to, or differ from, those of prior schemas. One broad difference is that, unlike previous approaches, this new conceptualization refers to the interdependent roles of two partners in each individual's type of love.

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The Prototype Approach to Love The above approaches, even though informed by ordinary people's love experiences, focus on experts' definitions and measurements of love. The prototype approach, however, examines laypersons' experiences with, and meanings given to, love, and as we referred to in a prior section, it finds that people believe that love is a prototypical emotion (e.g., Fehr and Russell 1984). Studies in this genre also examine what features people associate with love. Some (e.g., Fehr 1988) establish that characteristics such as trust, caring, intimacy, respect, and friendship are considered most central to love. Other research (e.g., Fehr and Russell 1991) investigates which types of love people assume are more prototypical and finds that ordinary people regai*d maternal love, parental love, and friendship love to be the best examples of love; romantic love is fifth. Recent analyses also consider the relationship outcomes of having different conceptions of love. For example, Fehr and Broughton (2004) found that those couples who conceptualize love in prototypical terms experience greater love and liking for their partner than those who conceptualize love in a less prototypical manner.

Other Approaches to Love Although the above approaches concentrate on enumerating different types of love, other scholars focus in depth on a particular type of love, including unrequited love (e.g., Baumeister et al. 1993), limerence or an intense type of love (Tennov 1979), lust (Regan and Berscheid 1999), friendship love (Grote and Frieze 1994), compassionate love (Sprecher and Fehr 2005), and love as a theme of relationship development distinct from conflict/negativity, ambivalence, and maintenance behaviors (Braiker and Kelley 1979). Although the various types of love might have some similarities, they also have unique correlates and consequences. For example, feeling unrequited love can lead to a decrease in self-esteem (Baumeister et al. 1993), which might not be characteristic of other types of love. Compassionate love might be especially predictive of engaging in socially supportive behavior (Sprecher and Fehr 2005). A limited amount of research also investigates cultural and subcultural differences in love types and experiences. Do people love in relationships in similar ways regardless of cultural background and ethnicity and social class? What about differences between men and women? Cross-cultural studies of these questions find relatively modest differences (e.g., Sprecher et al. 1994), and some scholars conclude that there is evidence for the cultural universality of romantic love (Hatfield and Rapson 1993). Research also finds some discrepancies between ethnic and social classes within the United States (e.g., Contreras et al. 1996). Modest gender differences do occur consistently, however, especially in love styles. For example, men rate higher in eros and ludus, whereas women tend to report higher levels of storge, pragma, and mania (Hendrick and Hendrickl986). Certain general theories of human behavior also pertain to the study of love. For example, Aron and Aron's (1996) self-expansion theory maintains that people develop love and the desire to enter a relationship with a particular other because they want to include the other in the self and experience self-expansion. In addition, attachment theory (e.g., Bartholomew 1990; Bowlby 1973; Kazan and Shaver 1987) is a developmental theory applied to love. Kazan and Shaver (1987) argued that adult romantic love develops out of human attachment, caregiving, and sexuality systems and that adults vary in their relationship attachment styles, in part as a function of formative experiences with caretakers. For a recent review of the voluminous research in this area, see Feeney et al. (2000). Finally, another general theory that is applied at least indirectly to love

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is evolutionary theory (e.g., Buss 1988, 1995). This perspective focuses on how behaviors and feelings might have evolved over time and served an evolutionary, reproductive value. For example, as noted by Hendrick and Hendrick (2000:207), a passionate form of love might have helped "to drive males and females into reproduction" and a companionate form of love might have provided the "contact for the survival of the relationship and the offspring produced from it." This theory also predicts gender differences in preferences for a love partner and the mate strategies engaged in to attract a love partner. In addition. Buss (1988) argued that "love acts" (actions displayed toward the other) exist because of their association with reproductive success. In sum, in this section, we referred to several classic, psychological approaches to love and began by describing theories that address the question "What is love?" We see that there are many different types and subtypes of love, most of which have corresponding, validated, and well-developed scales. Some types of love are more emotionally intense than others, including passionate love, Eros, and falling in love. Theories of related concepts also help to explicate an aspect of love, such as the motivation for entering love relationships. In the next section, we turn to sociological approaches to love.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LOVE Traditionally, sociological theories and research do not focus on love, and sociologists are apt to view love as the domain of psychology and other more individualistic, or philosophical, scholarly domains. Yet, scholars from this discipline have made theoretical contributions to the study of love, particularly in recent years. Sociologists who write on the topic tend to focus on the broad, societal, cultural, and institutional patterns that relate to love. The study of love has much to gain from the application of the "sociological imagination" (Mills 1959)—that is, the ability to "think ourselves away" from the routine of our daily lives and examine our social world in a new light. Such a focus contends that the social and cultural milieu shapes fundamentally the individual experience of love and that this social nature of love must not be ignored. In the following subsection, we review several main works on love developed by sociologists. We group them into four clusters: structural, historical, cultural, and social inequality. These groupings are loose, and there is overlap between the clusters; yet, we believe that these categories represent major themes in the literature.

Social Structural Perspectives Social structure refers to persistent patterns of social relationships among actors over time. These patterns operate at the macrolevel and microlevel. We review one macrolevel structural perspective on love, which considers the implications for human attachment of broad, societal structures, such as the institution of marriage. We also examine a second structural perspective, at the microlevel of social organization, in which an individual's status position within a social structure is of relevance. M A C R O - L E V E L SOCIAL S T R U C T U R E . Love has considerable macrolevel, social structural implications for societies, according to one of the initial sociological treatments of love. In "The Theoretical Importance of Love," Goode (1959) defined love as a strong emotional attachment. He maintained that this psychological "cathexis" is of crucial significance to the study of societal-level phenomena. In particular, Goode discussed the power of love and its potential to

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disrupt social structure, class systems, and kinship lineages within society. Love is often the basis for mamage and mating, and mate choice connects two kinship groups. "Both mate choice and love, therefore, are too important to be left to children," according to Goode (1959:43). Random mating would involve fundamental transformations in a society's existing social structure and stratification system. Societies control love through a variety of methods. For example, in certain cultures, social institutions constrain mating by mechanisms such as the physical and social segregation of females from males and the arrangement of marriages by kin. In Western society, love and mate choice are presumably free, and yet social control abounds via individuals' peer groups, who provide constant feedback regarding a partner, and parents. In order for their children to develop "appropriate" companions, parents in the United States structure the environment by moving to particular neighborhoods, choosing the correct schools, socializing with the appropriate groups, and so on. On a more direct level, parents "threaten, cajole, wheedle, bribe, and persuade their children to 'go with the right people'" (Goode 1959:45). Greater social control is exerted by the upper, as compared to the lower, classes, because those from the upper ranks of society have more to lose as a result of unconstrained love choices on the part of their offspring. Thus, Goode's argument suggests that this phenomenon of love is fundamentally linked to societal functioning at a broad, macrolevel. M I C R O SOCIAL S T R U C T U R E . Kemper (1987, 1989) argued that love is a social relationship, as well as an emotion, and that it is shaped by two principles: power and status. Love is simultaneously both the emotional experience of a sense of harmony and the desire to accord status to the object of one's love. Loving differs fundamentally from liking, because liking is an emotion evoked by the rewards, or status, we receive from another. Romantic love arises when both the loved person and the lover experience relatively high levels of both status/affection and power in their relationship (Kemper and Reid 1997). During the romantic love stage, lovers display extreme degrees of affection, but intense pain also can be inflicted upon one another because of the heightened fear of relationship loss. "We are in the grip of a passion and feel we have no choice," noted Kemper and Reid (1997:45). The paradox of love, hence, is that it is both voluntary, or unforced, and nonvolitional, seemingly not under one's control.

Historical Social Transformations Sociologists also focus on filling in the gaps in the developmental, historical side of human social life. They trace societal shifts and movements, such as feminism, that mold the experience and expression of love in our culture. T H E RISE OF CONFLUENT LOVE. Giddens (1992) discussed societal trends in sexuality, love, and intimacy over time, and his perspective suggests that love is a social construction that evolves historically. In his work on love, he drew eclectically from a range of theories, including feminist psychoanalytical perspectives and his own "structuration" perspective, in which individuals are seen as influencing their social world while being shaped by society. Giddens described the revolutionary changes in our society, particularly for women, that resulted from the relatively recent historical development of the separation of sexuality from marriage and reproduction. He traced the rise of romantic love following the Middle Ages and argued that this ideology of romance propagates masculine values and helps to keep women "downtrodden." On the other hand, he discussed the recent development of "confluent love," love that presupposes equality between

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partners in both emotional and sexual expression, a type of love that occurs in what Giddens termed the "pure relationship." He contrasted confluent love with that of romantic love, love that idealizes the other and projects a "fantasy" narrative into the future. Giddens envisioned the possibility of a continued radical transformation of intimacy and love in this society, due in large part to the disengaging of sexuality from reproduction. This transformation is one toward equality and democracy. He argueed that women and homosexual relationships are the "emotional revolutionaries" behind this societal shift away from romantic love and toward the democratization of intimacy. FEMINIZATION OF L O V E . Love is feminized in our society, according to Cancian (1987), who traced developmental themes over time regarding love and also spoke to issues of gender inequality. Today, love is strongly associated with women and with the expression of feelings and other traditionally feminine aspects of relationships, she argued. For example, scholars of love usually define love in terms of emotional intimacy and they often focus on communication and self-disclosure in relationships as measures of love. There is a tendency to ignore the more material and practical dimensions of love, such as the provision of money, sex, and practical assistance, that are more typically viewed as masculine. The feminization of love encourages women to focus their energies on love, intimate relationships, and the family, with a concomitant loss of power. For example, popular magazines since 1900 continue to direct marital advice toward women, not men (Cancian and Gordon 1988). Self-development, on the other hand, is masculinized and associated with separation, independence, and, ultimately, power. Cancian (1987) claimed that a blueprint for love is emerging in contemporary society that emphasizes interdependence between women and men, rather than either independence or traditional gender roles. It is based on an androgynous image of love, in which prominence is given to flexible, mutual love and, at the same time, self-development. Love and self-development are viewed as mutually reinforcing, rather than contradictory, as is often assumed. She viewed this new blueprint for love as a promising possibility for societal change in the future.

Cultural Construction A recent shift in the discipline of sociology has been a "turn to culture," and major recipients of this relatively new focus are the topics of love, intimacy, and caregiving. Cultural theorists tend to examine the ideology, values, norms, and material goods that a society creates and the manner in which these cultural products shape and constrain an individual's behavior and emotions. According to this theoretical perspective, love is a fundamentally cultural construction. INDIVIDUALISM AND L O V E . One aspect of culture that receives considerable attention is the ideology of individualism. In particular, recent societal critiques in the social science literature bemoan the overemphasis on individualism in U.S. culture (e.g., Putnam 2000). In Habits of the Heart, Bellah and colleagues (1985) developed the argument that the intense cultural focus on individuality and the individual pursuit of happiness and success conflict deeply with ideals of love. Contemporary society presents two contrasting views of love, according to findings from these authors' interviews with varied groups of Americans. One view is based on religious ideals of obligation, in which love is largely a matter of will and action, as opposed to spontaneous feeling, a stance that is particularly common among the evangelical Christians they studied. The other is a "therapeutic" view that is much more widespread among middle-class society, according to the authors. The "therapeutic" image is one in which deeply committed love is seen

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as developing only from "self-actualization" and from having confronted one's own individual feelings honesdy. This clinical picture of love reinforces the individualistic strains in our culture, and it can create a paradox in which there is a contradiction between self-development and visions of love. C U L T U R A L R E P E R T O I R E AND L O V E . Swidler (2001) examined the ways in which Americans rely on cultural tools to develop "narratives of love" in their everyday lives. Using evidence from a sample of 88 middle-aged, middle-class white residents in the San Jose, California area, she noted that these middle-aged adults actively embrace and reject aspects of a vast cultural repertoire regarding love. Two love myths proliferate when people talk about love, according to Swidler's findings—the first of romantic love and the second of a more practical, "real" love. Romantic love is based on the notions of a clear choice of a unique partner, in which the choice is often made in defiance of social forces and a choice that portends an individual's destiny. Prosaic, or "real," love, on the other hand, is not sudden, but grows slowly. In the cultural icon of "real" love, there is no "one true love." Love depends, instead, on practical, compatible traits and it does not always last forever. Individuals do not necessarily passively accept the cultural symbols available to them, especially those of romantic love, and many remain highly skeptical. Yet, images of romantic love continually reappear in even some of the most "rational" individuals' interviews. Swidler maintained that the power of the romantic love myth is reinforced in our society by the structural reality of the institution of marriage, in which individuals choose one partner with the intent that the liaison last forever. "The social organization of marriage makes the mythic image true experientially, whatever the facts" (Swidler 2001:121).

Social Inequality Sociologists point to the enduring inequities inherent in the experience of love in our society. This perspective represents a powerful critique of our societal structure and the obstacles inherent in experiencing love in such a milieu. PATERNALISM. Feminists paint romantic love, in particular, as a societal ideology that leashes women to the home (e.g., Ehrenreich 1983). More generally, Jackman (1994) maintained that dominant societal groups, whether on the basis of gender, race, or social class, prefer to maintain power not by means of force, but by the more subtle means of affection. Exploitation is better undertaken by "sweet persuasion" than by hostility and, thus, the preferred tool of dominant groups, such as men, whites, and the upper class, is paternalism. Supported by findings from national attitudinal surveys, Jackman argued that affection is the emotion that dominants want to feel toward groups that they exploit. In the process of preserving the privileged status of dominants, "love and affection offer a coercive energy and a soothing balm that cannot be matched" (Jackman 1994:383). Thus, love is a major tool that aids in expropriative social arrangements, and the bonds of this "conditional love" are insidious and destructive. T H E COMMODIFICATION OF L O V E . An additional theme regarding inequality and love in the sociological literature is the argument that our capitalist society "commodifies" love (Fromm 1956). Hochschild, in a series of essays from her newest book The Commercialization of Intimate Life (2003), built on this theme in a discussion of the everyday conflicts between love and work in modern capitalism. In particular, Hochschild maintained that the concepts of care

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and love are devalued in our society, and her argument is, in part, bolstered by findings from an examination of popular advice books. Trends toward a "cooler" and more rational society have led to the adoption of "male rules" of love, with a coiTcsponding deemphasis on love, a separation of love from sex, and fewer sanctions on adultery. According to Hochschild (2003), one emotion management strategy in adapting to the unstable realities of our capitalist society is to invest less and less in emotions, such as that of love. Likewise, we commodify and depersonalize the loving and caring tasks traditionally performed by a wife or a mother. The bakery provides bread for the family, for instance, child care is for hire, and even the various traditional functions of a wife can be purchased. Yet, paradoxically, our society also idealizes love and expects it to be increasingly expressive and fulfilling. Hochschild argued that our modern culture places a heightened importance on the caring, maternal image, perhaps due to a harsh external, market environment. There also is increased pressure put on the intimate pair to fulfill all of the communal functions once enacted by a host of family and community connections. Hochshild called for a societal revolution to address this major social problem that would entail love and care being rewarded as much as market success. In sum, sociological approaches place love in its structural, historical, cultural, and societal context. We see the ways in which cultural ideologies of love develop and shift over time and the manner in which societies constrain and control the experience of this emotional connection. These approaches raise our awareness of the invasive presence of societal inequality and capitalism. Love is socially, and culturally, constructed. In the next section, we discuss avenues for future research and, in particular, turn to an approach that attempts to bridge the gap between the sociological and the psychological.

THE FUTURE OF SCHOLARSHIP ON LOVE There are numerous avenues for additional scholarship on love, which is not surprising given the multidimensional nature of this elusive construct. We will discuss those that are of particular relevance to us as social psychologists and as relationship scholars. In our reading of the literature, we note that there is relatively little work on love at the particular intersection of psychology and sociology that is referred to as sociological social psychology. Put differently, there is a relative neglect of the immediate situation (Goffman 1964). From psychology, we have microlevel, detailed typologies and carefully, categorized schemes for love. From sociology, we have a range of macrolevel societal perspectives. What is missing is at the middle range of theorizing and research—in particular, the study of love within the context of the couple and the immediate social environment. In this section, we discuss three avenues for future scholarship on love that fall in this interface between sociology and psychology. First, we encourage more research on the dyadic nature of love. Second, we recommend the consideration of love beyond the pair, as a network phenomenon. Finally, we call for more scholarship on love that combines different levels of analysis so that fundamental aspects of love from an individual perspective are considered while wider societal influences are taken into account.

Love as a Couple-Level System One of the unique aspects of love as an emotion is that it is apt to be intensely dyadic. However, scholars generally study love as if it exists in a situational vacuum, and most theories of love do not consider the existence of an active, engaged partner (Felmlee and Sprecher 2000). Ironically, in this

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sense, both psychological and sociological approaches to theorizing are relatively individualistic, rather than dyadic. There are exceptions, of course; there are interactionist elements to various theories both from psychology and sociology, including Sternberg's (1998) "love is a story" and Kemper's (1987) power and status perspective. Simmel (1984; see also Oakes 1989) employed a couple-level, rather than individualistic, approach when he touched on the topic of love and discussed the reciprocal relationship between actor and object. Several traditional approaches to love would benefit from greater attention to how the responses of one partner sculpt the shape that love takes for the other. First, classic psychological perspectives that refer to myriad types of love need to consider further the manner in which one's primary way of loving (e.g., manic love style, secure attachment, passionate love) may depend on the behavior and emotions of one's partner. Love styles may vary between pairs involving the same individual, for example. With a particular partner, one might tend to be passionate and intense; later with a different person one might be primarily storgic. Psychological classification schemes also suggest that individuals often possess a single type of love, a love style, or a love story, that is apt to be relatively stable over time. With some exceptions, there is little discussion of the ways in which partners might influence the shifting form that love between the same two individuals takes over time. A young couple might start out with an erotic love style, or romantic love story, which they transform over time into an agape style, or a relatively stable, companionate story. Typologies of love could focus on the patterns of love types for couples in addition to those at the individual level. Relationships, instead of individuals, could be manic, passionate, or companionate. Furthermore, the way in which love for a pair evolves may depend on each partner's love type or style, as well as the manner in which each individual responds to the other's expression of love. Interdependence between partners can produce numerous possible paths over time, depending on whether the pair responds in either cooperative, individualistic, or reactionary ways to each other (Felmlee 2006; Felmlee and Greenberg 1999). Scholars who take a cultural perspective to love would also benefit from focusing on love from a couple-level perspective. Researchers (e.g., Swidler 2001) argue that individuals have a variety of cultural tools, that is, aspects of ideology from which they choose and mold their experience of love. However, how do individuals choose which tools to rely on in a particular situation? How do they interpret the meaning of those cultural ideas? We maintain that these processes evolve first and foremost in the day-to-day interaction with the one who is the object of one's affection. Two partners are often exposed to the same cultural symbols and images because of the time they spend together. Therefore, they are likely to create similar narratives of love. In the study of the link between love and inequality, a pair-level perspective also needs to be considered. Our society is riddled with inequalities. It is racist, sexist, homophobic, and class based, to name only a few of the "isms" that haunt our social world. Yet, how are these disparities experienced? How are they realized and confronted on a day-to-day basis, and, in particular, how do they influence feelings of love? In romantic love, individuals are apt to encounter inequality within their relationships. For example, one actor might earn more income, make more of the decisions, have a greater ability to veto outcomes, exert more influence, and, in general, have more power. Many times, these inequities are apt to reflect those of society, with, for instance, males and whites having more power in a romantic dyad than females and persons of color. On the other hand, a particular pair might defy typical forms of stratification. The wife might occupy a more prestigious and lucrative occupation than that of her husband, or the couple might be of the same gender. Are such liaisons able to challenge traditional forms of paternalism and commodification, or do power inequities reassert themselves in other ways? In short, we see a

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need for more theoretical and empirical work on love at its dyadic, relationship foundations, in work on inequality, as well as in other areas such as culture and psychology.

Love from a Social Network Perspective Interaction between partners is not the only interactive influence on love. In romantic love, for example, each partner's wider social network also shapes the course of love that emerges between two partners. Individuals' primary style of love and cultural ideas and tools are likely to be affected by their larger social circle of family and friends. In addition, the social network is likely to affect the course of love over its various developmental stages, including its initiation, maintenance, and termination. Networks can influence all aspects of love. First, in order for a couple to love one another, the two individuals need to meet. Social networks shape the environment in which individuals are apt to contact a potential loved one. As suggested by Goode (1959), some parents choose neighborhoods and schools, at least in part, so that their children will be likely to meet the "right" kind of friends and potential mates. Moreover, across social classes, parents and other family members are likely to shape the mate and friendship choices of their offspring. Social networks also likely influence the type of love that an individual seeks, or expects to experience. Western culture propagates various love myths, and it champions sometimes contradictory notions of individualistic, feminine, and masculine love. To what extent is an individual influenced by one myth or one particular cultural image of love? An individual's immediate social milieu is apt to be one of the main conveyors and interpreters of cultural symbols and messages. Furthermore, individuals seek a partner to play out their particular love story, whether it is a garden, mystery, or horror theme. We might learn more about the factors affecting these choices by investigating a couple's broader social environment. Once a relationship is under way, a couple's immediate social situation continues to affect love between the pair. Support and approval from a couple's social network predicts enhanced feelings of love and relationship endurance over time (e.g., Felmlee 2001; Felmlee et al. 1990; Sprecher and Felmlee 2000). Yet, we know little about the intervening processes that produce these network effects. Why might approval from one's social surrounding enhance feelings of love and increase relationship stability? Having supportive friends and family members provides a ready-made safety net for couples over time, a source of instrumental and emotional support that enables love to take root and develop. For example, many young couples need practical and financial help in order to buy a house, raise children, manage a household, and maintain employment. Emotional advice and support is also required to keep many relationships going. On the other hand, it remains plausible that, in some instances, network opposition toward a couple's relationship could enhance, rather than dampen, feelings of love between partners. Parental opposition to a pair's involvement, rather than extinguishing the flames of desire, might act as fuel on the fire; this is the theme of various Western plays and movies. There is only limited evidence for such a "Romeo and Juliet" effect (Driscoll et al. 1972); however, and the overall role of network support and opposition in shaping a couple's love remains controversial and deserving of more attention. A couple's relationship cannot last forever; it ends via breakup, divorce, or, if it survives such pitfalls, death. Such a time of loss can be revealing with respect to the nature of a social bond (Lofland 1982). What happens to love, therefore, at this type of key juncture? There is little research on the topic, but it seems likely that an individual's social environment plays a part in the emotional course that ensues.

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Finally, almost no scientific attention has been given to how love for nonromantic close others (family members, friends) interferes with, enhances, or changes the love experienced for a romantic partner and vice versa. Scholarship on love is dominated by a focus on romantic love in adult, heterosexual couples, rather than love among families and other network members. Furthermore, these couple and familial social dynamics are apt to vary among different cultures; therefore, we need to expand research beyond the borders of the United States in order to investigate such issues.

Integration of Literature Third, we would like to see more integration of the two strands of social scientific research on love: the psychological and the sociological. In general, neither camp refers to the work of the other. In fact, within the sociological (but not psychological) literature, it is not uncommon to cite little or no prior research or theories on love. There are problems that stem from this lack of integration of scholarly work; for example, there is a proliferation of terms for love in the literature, and it seems that every scholar who writes on the topic generates a "new" type of love. For a list of the main varieties and typologies of love discussed in this chapter, see Table 17.1. One implication of the propagation of terms for love, and the lack of integrated literature, is that there is not a clear research agenda for the accumulation of knowledge regarding this noteworthy concept, certainly not one that crosses disciplinary boundaries. There is bound to be a good deal of overlap among the countless terms and schemas for love generated by multiple disciplines. We note that confluent love (Giddens 1992), for instance, has much in common with consummate love (Sternberg 1986). The typology of love into two types, romantic and "real," identified by Swidler (2001), is similar in many ways to the dichotomy of passionate and companionate love originally suggested by Berscheid and Walster (1978). More generally, note that some version of romantic love occurs in the large majority of categorization schemes (e.g., passionate, "being in love, Eros, romance story, love). Many of the remaining

TABLE 17.1. Main Types and Typologies of Love Taken from Psychology and Sociology Types and Typologies

Author(s)

Passionate and companionate "Loving" versus "being in love" Eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania, agape

Berscheid and Walster 1978 Meyers and Berscheid 1997 Lee 1973; Hendrick and Hendrick 1986 Sternberg 1986

Nonlove, liking, infatuated, empty, romantic, companionate, fatuous, consummate Garden, travel, mystery, addiction, horror, war, art, romance (and 17 others) Maternal, parental, friendship, romantic, and others Love, like, and love Confluent versus romantic Feminized versus androgynous Obligation versus "therapeutic" "Real" versus romantic Paternalism (conditional) Commodified

Sternberg 1998 Fehr and Russell 1991 Kemper 1989 Giddens 1992 Cancian 1987 Bellah et al. 1985 Swidler 2001 Jackman 1994 Hochschild 2003

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terms for love also incorporate romantic notions (e.g., feminine, paternalism, commodification). Romantic love, or its equivalent, is typically contrasted with other types of affection that are not romantic and are either more companionate and friendship based (e.g., storge, "real" love, garden story) or "newer" and more egalitarian (e.g., confluent, androgynous). Another difficulty is that there are seemingly contradictory statements about love in the literature. For instance, Cancian (1987) argued that our culture "feminizes" love, with its emphasis on emotional expressivity, whereas Hochschild (2003) decried its "masculine" dimensions, such as a deemphasis on intimacy and the separation of love from sex. Another case is clashing definitions of love. Kemper (1989) defined love as a relationship, whereas Rempel and Burris (2005) maintained that love is «c?r a relationship. Greater mixing of literatures could help to resolve such possible inconsistencies and help us to move beyond these and other debates such as whether love is an emotion. Given the complexity of love, it is not surprising that there is a lack of consensus on its nature. We are reminded of the words of the philosopher Finck (1902:1), over a century ago: "Love is such a tissue of paradoxes, and exists in such an endless variety of forms and shades that you may say almost anything about it that you please, and it is likely to be correct." Nevertheless, the tendency within sociology and across disciplines to ignore other scholars' opinions on the issue is disconcerting. We will learn the most about love from a social scientific approach when research is interactive and cumulative, rather than disjointed and idiosyncratic. An additional problem is that researchers from one field sometimes ignore entire conceptual approaches to love that might be important to consider in developing a more complete theory. For example, sociologists tend to avoid biological perspectives, in any of their forms, when discussing love (or other topics). A number of psychologists employ evolutionary approaches, and several also direcdy examine brain and body functioning. With a human experience as basic as love, it seems likely that biology and evolution are relevant. It will no doubt prove worthwhile to take these fundamental processes into account in the development of comprehensive theoretical frameworks. Psychology, on the other hand, often pays little attention to the societal embeddedness of love. Social factors emphasized by sociologists, such as gender inequality, the institution of marriage, and cultural ideology, are apt to vastly influence couples' love styles and other aspects of love studied by psychologists. Conceptual development would benefit from a wider focus that includes the social and cultural milieu of love. Moreover, sociological research tends to be broadly theoretical and philosophical, and it relies on very little data for its arguments. Psychologists are more narrow in scope, but they are more apt to subject their arguments to empirical investigation. From our vantage point, it appears that the sociologists need to gather more data. Psychological work, on the other hand, might stand to gain from a broader, theoretical focus. Once again, we believe that the two perspectives could profit from each other's strengths.

CONCLUSION Reflecting on its status in society at large, love remains a controversial, yet captivating topic to social science scholars. To begin with, theorists disagree on a number of definitional issues. One bone of contention is whether love is an emotion, although laypersons are in wide agreement that it is a, if not the, central emotion. Psychological research highlights the multidimensional nature of love, using several classification schemes, the most fundamental of which distinguishes between passionate and companionate love. Sociological work points to extensive structural, cultural, and historical influences on love. Perhaps the most important point is that the experience of love is not

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individually determined, but that it is fundamentally immersed in a societal backdrop. We also call for more research at the intersection of the two fields of psychology and sociology, noting that love is a dynamic emotion that develops in a socially interactive sphere. Finally, as noted at the beginning of this chapter, for some it seems as if the scientific study of love represents an oxymoron. Thus, we ask the question: Is there anything we have said here that could not be expressed better by Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Monet, or even the Beatles? Perhaps not. Social science research to date generates multiple classification schemes, contradictory conclusions, and unresolved conflicts. When the dust settles on the scholarship we have reviewed here, love still remains a mystery. However, that is not uncommon for relatively new scholarly endeavors. Moreover, social scientific endeavor has in no way affected, nor do we anticipate it will affect, the depth of experience of which love is capable, an experience that might be better represented by art. Yet, we believe that the research we reviewed here demonstrates that the social scientific enterprise has its own rightful place in the panoply of work on love, expanding our understanding of this salient, interpersonal phenomenon.

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