The Psychology of Love and Relationships

This assignment delves into the psychology of love and relationships, examining different theoretical perspectives on these complex human experiences. It explores concepts such as Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love, social comparison theory, and the influence of individual differences on relationship dynamics. The assignment also touches upon the role of emotions, motivations, and cultural factors in shaping our understanding and experience of love.

Psychology - perspectives on
behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
Social influence processes ..............................................................................................................3
Scientific approach in accounting for the phenomenon of love......................................................4
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Phenomenon of love refers to the variety of feelings, states and attitudes which ranges from
interpersonal affection and pleasure. It also called as emotions related to the strong attraction and
personal attachment. Compassionate and affectionate actions towards the animals and one self is
also included in love. One can understand love as a function which helps individuals in being
together for facilitating the continuation of the species. There are various types of love which
includes impersonal and interpersonal (Biological, psychological, evolutionary). On the other hand,
different cultures like ancient Greek, Chinese, Ancient Roman, Persian, Japanese, Turkish, etc have
different symbol and signs towards the phenomenon of love. Those people who are more religious
and spiritual experiences more compassionate love as compare to those who posses less interest in
religion. Along with this, there are many types of theories of love which helps in explaining the
process of love among the people. These theories include triangular theory of love, psychological
theory of love, etc (Gross, 2015).
The entire report will discuss the different perception of love, theories which helps in
understanding the concept of love. It will also explore how successful the scientific approach has
been in accounting for the phenomenon of love
Phenomenon of love
Different people have different perception and opinion towards the phenomenon of love
which are as follows:
The Physicist:
According to the physicist, love is a powerful neurological situation due to this there is no
control over it. Along with this, it includes enhance release of chemicals like testosterone,
oestrogen, etc whereas in true love brain release chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, vasopressin,
etc. It can involve long term relations, mutual defence, parental support to the children, feelings
related to safety and security, etc (Sprecher, 2016).
The Psychotherapist:
According to the psychotherapist, people can not define love under one word, it has many
guises. Between friends and family members, love is deep without any sexual intimacy. It posses
feeling of safety, security, attachment, deep understanding with some fights. On the other hand love
is playful affection which includes flirting and fooling. Along with this, some love includes long
term of compromise, commitment, adjustment and deep understanding. It founds between couples
who wants to spend life with each other. In addition, there is love which is related to the humanity.
The Philosopher:

As per the view of philosophers, love have different qualities and values with various
persons like parents, neighbours, children, partner, God, nation, etc. Each type has its variants
which include one-sided, tragic, steadfast, misguided, unconditional and many more. But the main
thing is that all kind of love posses passionate commitment which makes it strong and develops
powerful feeling. It is important to have passionate and commitment as without the both love is
mere infatuation and dedication (Hall, 2013.).
The novelist:
According to the novelist, love depends upon the level you are in a relation. Love brings
various great and interesting stories which not only includes romantic ones but between parents and
their child, among family members, with nation, etc. Love is about how you are feeling secure,
pain, obsession, necessity, etc. There are various obstacles also which separates the love and
decreases this feeling among the individuals. It is important to understand them for resolving them
for effective love and relations (Al- Khalili and et.al., 2012).
The nun:
With respect to the religious context, love is unconditional with God. Love is easy to
experience and feel instead of explaining and defining. It includes kindness, generosity, self-
sacrifice, inner happiness, peace, etc. One can not either buy or sell the love and it is life's one of
the greatest blessing. Love never hurts anybody although it costs very dearly.
So from the above, it is clear that different people posses different perception towards the
definition and feeling of love. It is better to feel and experience love with parents, neighbours, God,
partner, siblings, etc instead of understanding and explaining it.
Theories of love
Triangular Theory of love: As per this theory, there are three components of love which includes
intimacy, passion and decision or commitment. Intimacy is related to the feeling of attachment,
closeness, connectedness and boundedness whereas passion includes limerence and sexual
attraction. At last, commitment is all about long term decisions and plans which remain with the
another for living together (Slife and Melling, 2012).

According to the Robert Sternberg, amount of love and experiences based upon the strength
of three components. If all the three components are strong then the experiences and feelings are
strong whereas if these components are weak then love includes pain and hurt. In the theory,
combination of different stages with type of love explains the different level of love. For example,
parental love in the children changes with time which results to become romantic love in their
adulthood. It is a blessing to survive with having all the three components of love instead of only
one (Vakola, Armenakis and Oreg, 2013). There are various types of love which are explained
below: Non Love: In this, all the three components of love remain absent which includes only
formal and casual interaction. Friendship or Liking: It includes feelings related to the closeness, bondedness, warmth, etc
which results to strength friendship. Infatuated Love: It develops from experiencing passionate arousal without any intimacy
and commitment (Schunk, Meece and Pintrich, 2012). Empty Love: It is a relationship in which there is commitment but lack of passion. With
respect to arrange marriage, relations between the spouses starts as empty love which
develops to another form with time. Romantic Love: This develops from the combination of intimate and passionate love
components which not only include physical feeling but emotional as well (Gill, 2013).. Companionate Love: This love is stronger than friendship due to the presence of long-term
commitment. This type of love used to present in long term marriages (Pervin, 2015). Fatuous Love: This consists of commitment on the grounds of passion without any intimate
Illustration 1: Triangular Theory of love
Source (Ordas, 2016)

involvement.
 Comsummate Love: It is complete form of love which represents an ideal relation between
two individual. The people having this love posses great relationship with more than fifteen
years and remain happy with each other over the long period of time. It is difficult to
maintain and manage this love but it results to a very strong attachment and bondedness .
Social influence processes
Social influence can be defined as process in which emotions, opinions and behaviour of one
person is affected by others (Goldstein, 2013). It can occur in any form such as conformity, impact
of socialization, pressure from peers, interpersonal relationship's persuasion and obedience.
According to Vakola, Armenakis and Oreg, 2013 the social influence process has been broadly
divided into three varieties. These divisions are compliance, identification and internalization.
Compliance is the act of responding to different situation which tends to change the behaviour of a
person but do not bring about changes in his/her behaviour at the same moment (Vakola, Armenakis
and Oreg, 2013). For example a person can comply with various decision de to social pressure or
obedience but will not accept the decision completely from his mind. In many cases people comply
with certain decisions or situations in order to get rid of punishment or to get a reward for certain
work (Pervin, 2015). Identification is process of social influence that tends to change the behaviour
and attitude of a person in both negative as well as positive ways. For example celebrities are hired
to promote various products and items with the help of advertisements. This brings about
considerable change in behaviour and attitude of a person. Conformity can further be classified
under informational conformity and normative conformity. Conformity can be defined as type of
social process which brings about changes in behaviour, attitude, belief and thinking of an
individual (Schunk, Meece and Pintrich, 2012).
In majority of cases it is noticed that a person tends to do a particular activity because he/
she thinks it is necessary to perform these activities in order to maintain a positive relationships
between friends and other people of the community. Minority influence occurs when minor group
influences a majority group depending upon different types of situations (Gill, 2013). Various
factors such as size of both the groups, and level of consistency have both negative as well as
positive impact on individuals. Minority influences is more commonly noticed in informational
social influence that is not accepted by normative social influence (Hall, 2013). One of the main
reason behind this is that majority can be same towards liking and thinking associated with the
minority group. Obedience is also form of social influence that is generally noticed in the presence
of authority figure. Various experiments such as Milgram Experiment, Zimbardo’s Stanford prison
experiment, and the Hofling hospital experiment were conducted to understand the nature of
obedience that has an impact on human behaviour in many ways (Earp and et.al, 2015). Based on

the studies it was concluded that a person tends to behave obediently in the presence of various
authority figures.
Persuasion is also another form of social influence that tends to guide oneself or the other
individuals so that they are able to develop certain attitude with the help of rational or symbolic
means. According to Hook, 2016 sex different weapons of social influence can be adopted by
individuals such as reciprocity, social proof, authority, liking, commitment and scarcity. These
weapons are influential to a considerable level that brings about conformity in various ways.
Empirical research is based on analysing empirical evidence which can be done through direct or
indirect means of observation or experience (Slife and Melling, 2012). Empirical studies are more
valued than any other studies. Empirical studies can be analysed in two different ways that is
quantitatively and qualitatively. An empirical cycle is developed in order to conduct empirical
research. The initial step of empirical cycle is observations which is based on collecting and
organising empirical facts so that hypothesis can be formed. The next step of empirical cycle id
induction which is helpful in formulating hypothesis (Hall, 2013). Deduction is based on reducing
down the consequences of hypothesis. Testing the formulated hypothesis by utilising empirical
material is also very important. In the last stage of empirical testing the evaluation is conducted so
that outcomes of the testing are announced (Vakola, Armenakis and Oreg, 2013).
Scientific approach in accounting for the phenomenon of love
Various scientific approaches have been adopted to understand the concept and phenomena
of love. Love is a common human emotion but some people experience it in later stages while some
experience it in early stages of life (Buunk, Gibbons and Buunk, 2013). Phenomena of love is not
only based on developing interpersonal relationships between two individuals of opposite sex but it
can be exist in any form between a son and a mother, a father and a daughter, between sister and
brother and many more (Gross, 2015). Different scientist have proposed various theories related to
love and emotional attachment between individuals. The first theory is based on liking vs.loving.
This theory is generally based on three major elements of attachment, caring and intimacy. At
certain level, individuals starts experiencing great amount of admiration and appreciation which is
responsible to drift the person emotionally towards another person. Due to this the person enjoy
each other's company but this necessarily do not qualify as love (Goldstein, 2013). This can be
qualified as liking for each other. On other hand love demands more attention, care, intense
emotions, sentiments and physical intimacy between two individuals. Person who like each other
enjoy spending time with each other but individuals who are in love care much more about their
partners so that they are able to be compatible to one another.
Attachment is the key requirement in love which is based on receiving care, approval and
physical contact with other individual. Both attitude and behaviour of individuals changes when

they are in love. On other hand intimacy can be defined as sharing of personal views, desires and
feelings with one another (Vakola, Armenakis and Oreg, 2013). In yet another theory of love is
compassionate love vs. passionate love. Compassionate love can be characterized by mutual
understand, compatibility, respect attachment , affection and trust between two individuals. On
other hand the characteristics of passionate love are different from compassionate love. They can be
intense emotions, physical or sexual attraction, anxiety and affection towards one another. There are
many negative consequence of passionate love if the desired are not elated or fulfilled. It may lead
to despondency and despair (Pervin, 2015) . There are six styles of loving that are discovered. They
can be classified as eros that is based on loving and ideal person, ludos in which a person considers
loving as a game, storge in which a person regards love as friendship. All the above three
characters are primary styles whereas secondary styles are Mania which is also called obsessive
love, pragma that is based on realistic and practical love and agape which is based on selfless love.
Triangular theory of love is mainly based on intimacy, passion and commitment (Schunk, Meece
and Pintrich, 2012). The combination of all these three components leads to love. One of the best
example is the combination of intimacy and commitment leads to compassionate love whereas a
combination of passion and intimacy leads to passionate love. A collective term for intimacy,
passion, and commitment is used which is also known as consummate. Based on the research it was
concluded that combination of these components leads to more enduring relationships which is very
rare in other cases (Gill, 2013).
CONCLUSION
The overall essay was based on phenomenon of love. Different person have different
opinion about the love but the main thing is that it is easy to feel but hard to explain. Love is all
about attachment, bondedness, deep understanding and passion which can be with parents, God,
friends, partner, etc. It stated that these characteristic tends to change the behaviour and attitude of
an individual depending upon the situations and cases. In another part of the essay scientific
approach in accounting the phenomena of love was discussed. Different theories were also includes
in the essay. Different theories were based on liking and loving, compassionate love and passionate
love and love triangle theory.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Buunk, B.P., Gibbons, F.X. and Buunk, A., 2013. Health, coping, and well-being: Perspectives from
social comparison theory. Psychology Press.
Gross, R., 2015. Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour 7th Edition. Hodder Education.
Goldstein, J.H. ed., 2013. The psychology of humor: Theoretical perspectives and empirical issues.
Academic Press.
Vakola, M., Armenakis, A. and Oreg, S., 2013. Reactions to organizational change from an
individual differences perspective: A review of empirical research. The Psychology of
Organizational Change: Viewing Change from the Employee's Perspective, pp.95-122.
Pervin, L.A. ed., 2015. Goal concepts in personality and social psychology. Psychology Press.
Schunk, D.H., Meece, J.R. and Pintrich, P.R., 2012. Motivation in education: Theory, research, and
applications. Pearson Higher Ed.
Gill, M.M., 2013. Heinz Kohut’s Self Psychology. Progress in Self Psychology, V. 10: A Decade of
Progress, 10, p.197.
Hall, D., 2013. Religion and psychology in the age of emotional capitalism: The case of the Master
Academy of Love. Social Compass, 60(2), pp.174-188.
Earp, B.D. And et.al., 2015. Addicted to love: What is love addiction and when should it be treated.
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.
Hook, D., 2016. A pragmatic Lacanianism, or: Lacan in the clinic–Let’s keep talking: Lacanian tales
of love, sex and other catastrophes. Psychodynamic Practice, pp.1-4.
Slife, B.D. and Melling, B.S., 2012. Method decisions: Quantitative and qualitative inquiry in the
study of religious phenomena. Pastoral Psychology, 61(5-6), pp.721-734.
Online
Ordas, R. M., 2016. According to Sternberg’s Love Theory, There are Three Components of Love:
Commitment, Passion and Intimacy. [Online]. Available Through:
<http://www.psych2go.net/according-sternbergs-love-theory-three-components-love-commitment-
passion-intimacy/>. [Accessed on 4th July 2016]
Al- Khalili and et.al., J., 2012. What is love? Five theories on the greatest emotion of all. [Online].
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love-five-theories>. [Accessed on 4th July 2016]
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