What leads us to love and interpersonal relationships?

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What leads us to love and interpersonal relationships?

Can Love be control'd by Advice?

Will Cupid our Mothers obey?

Though my Heart were as frozen as Ice,

At his Flame 'twould have melted away.

When he kist me so closely he prest,

'Twas so sweet that I must have comply'd;

So I thought it both safest and best

To marry, for fear you should chide.

John Gay 1728

Love, what is it and do we really need it? If so, how do we get it and how can we survive it? For centuries it has provided poets, musicians, writers and artists with their primary source of material. The puzzle for Polly in John Gays eighteenth century farce "The beggars opera" is "can love be controlled by advice?" She herself goes on to answer her own question. But what exactly is it that does lead us to love another person? How do we get close enough to someone for that emotion to develop, and does love come in different guises? This essay will discuss different psychological theories around the vexing question of how interpersonal relationships and love develop, how they are sustained and what can ultimately lead to their breakdown.

The western society's notion of love as a prerequisite for long term relationships such as marriage is not one which is shared by all cultures. Many Asian families still arrange marriages for their children, sometimes choosing the lucky partner at birth, and often the first sight a young man or woman has of their intended is at the actual ceremony. These cultures are often suspicious of romantic love and rely more on factors such as tradition, loyalty and religious faith to sustain the relationship and lead to a more enduring kind of love.

The need for loving and intimate relationships stems from our need for affiliation and the nature of man as a social being. It has been suggested that this requirement for "love and belongingness" is quite distinct from our instinct for sex as a means of procreation and gene survival and is in fact a basic psychological need. This was recognised by Abraham Maslow who proposed a hierarchy of needs identifying survival and self-actualisation motivation in humans. Affiliation, giving and receiving love, he placed on the survival scale.

We share the need for food with all living things, the need for love with

(perhaps) the higher apes, [and] the need for Self-Actualisation with [no

other species]. (Maslow in Gross,1996, p.97)

The ability to successfully fulfil this need for intimacy has also been cited as an indicator of having become a mature, well-balanced adult.

Our personal identity only becomes fully realised and consolidated

through sharing ourselves with another and if a sense of intimacy is

not established with friends or a marriage partner, the result, in

Erikson's view (1980), is a sense of isolation, of being alone without

anyone to share with or care for. (Gross, 1996, p. 599)

Given this need for affection and intimate relationships are there different levels of intimacy and love? One concept recognises love as having different characteristics to liking. This led to the development of a "love scale" by Rubin in his study "Liking and loving" (1973). This study differentiated between the "positive evaluation of another" (liking) and the "Attachment, caring and intimacy" required for love. According to Rubin love displays the desire to be with the loved one along with a mutual concern for each other's emotional and physical welfare. There is also the security of trust in intimate and confidential exchanges. The measurement of love, therefore, according to Rubin depends on the intensity of the feelings required for love. This differs from later suggestions which argue that rather than different kinds of love being merely an increased or decreased form of the same emotion, there are definite differences in the type of love displayed. One of these ideas, put forward by Sternberg (1988), illustrates love as a triangular model with the attributes of different kinds of love at the points. These attributes are listed as Passion, also thought of as infatuation (physical attraction and sexual arousal), Intimacy, akin to liking (deep feelings of closeness and responsibility) and commitment, or empty love (a decision made to be with, and stay with, another). The number and type of attributes determine the love type, i.e. A love displaying passion and intimacy is a typical romantic love, whereas intimacy and commitment typifies companionate love. Fatuous love is said to include passion and commitment, and a love made up of all three attributes would be truelove or consummate love. This illustration does appear to be recognisable and certainly leads the way to explaining how and why relationships change over time. From the heady nature of infatuation enjoyed in the early days of a relationship through to the to companionate love of a couple who have been together for many years and have had the security of that commitment to see them through rocky patches. This illustrates a marked difference between passionate, romantic love and the deep affection and intimacy of companionate love. Berscheid and Walster (1978) defined romantic love as "A state of intense absorption in another" (Berscheid and Walster in Gross 1996,p. 382) while denying that true or conjugal love involves the same kind of physiological arousal. Many psychologists have supported this view including Hogg and Vaughan (1995) who described romantic love as:-
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...thinking of the lover constantly, wanting to be with him or her...This

usually results in the lover becoming the focus of the other persons life, to

the exclusion of other friends. It is perceived as a very intense emotion and, moreover, one over which the individual has very little control.

This contrasts sharply with the description of companionate love suggested by Hatfield (1987)

...a less intense emotion, combining feelings of friendly affection and

deep attachment. It is characterised by friendship, understanding, and a

concern for the welfare of others. ...

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