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Lecture Notes
Chapter 8: Making a Love Connection: Styles of Love and Attachment
Chapter Outline
I. What Is Love?
A. Loving Versus Liking
1. Liking is not necessarily loving: Loving is more than an abundance of liking, and
loving and liking are related but distinctly different concepts. People can, in some
cases, love others without liking them very much.
2. Individuals tend to like people they love: People like their close friends and dating
partners about equally, but love their dating partners more.
3. Feelings and relationship characteristics:
a. Some of the key characteristics defining liking are affection, respect, trust,
feeling comfortable together, and enjoying each other’s company.
b. Love is a deeper and more intense bond than liking because it is characterized
by stronger attachment.
4. Passion is key in love:
a. It includes being fascinated by the loved one, feeling the relationship as
unique and exclusive, and experiencing strong sexual desire.
B. Love as a Triangle
1. Sternberg’s triangular theory includes three components related to love—(1)
intimacy, (2) passion, and (3) commitment—pictured as sides of a triangle.
2. The most complete type of love, consummate love, is based on having high levels
of all three components.
3. Intimacy: The “Warm” Component
a. Intimacy is based on feelings of emotional connection and closeness and has
therefore been called the “warm” part of love.
b. When passion is combined with intimacy, people experience romantic love.
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d. Manifest intimacy refers to how people communicate affection and
closeness to someone, such as disclosing intimate feelings to a partner or
spending extra time together.
4. Passion: The “Hot” Component
a. Passion is the “hot” component of love that consists of motivation and
arousal.
5. Commitment: The “Cool” Component
a. Commitment is based on cognition and decision-making and is most stable
over time. It builds gradually and then stabilizes, Sternberg referred to it as
the “cool” or “cold” component.
b. It is a stronger predictor of relationship satisfaction and longevity than either
intimacy or passion.
c. Fatuous love is rooted in commitment and passion without intimacy and
C. Finding Love and Falling in Love
1. Most modern arranged marriages allow the prospective bride and groom to make
the final decision regarding whether or not they will marry.
2. Modern arranged marriages not different:
a. At the end of the 19th century, courtship involved men “calling” on women at
their homes and the “call” often involved the woman inviting the man over
for dinner or tea in the presence of her family.
3. Twentieth century beginning until now:
a. Given the rise of the Internet and the ease with which people can
communicate through cell phones, potential relationships no longer usually
begin with a phone call and a date.
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4. People meet in different ways:
a. Meeting through one’s family, through church, or in high school were
common ways to meet your spouse for past generations, but all have declined
since the mid-20th century.
5. Internet and same-sex couples: Around two thirds of same-sex couples who were
interviewed in 2009 reported that they met online, but before the Internet, most
same-sex couples either met through friends or at bars or restaurants.
6. Lasting romantic relationships are distinguished from other types of love
relationships by the process of falling in love or being “in love.”
II. Love Styles
A. Lee’s Love Styles
1. Eros: Romantic Love
a. Eros, which has also been termed romantic or passionate love, is rooted in
feelings of affection, attraction, and sexual desire.
b. Eros lovers are “intense communicators,” show high levels of self-disclosure,
are able to elicit similarly high levels of self-disclosure from their partners,
and display high levels of touch and nonverbal affection.
c. Common in the initial stages of romantic relationships, eros love can also
evolve into a more friendship-based and secure style of love as the
relationship progresses.
d. Excess eros can negatively affect:
i. If you are only interested in someone because of the person’s beauty, the
attraction may fade quickly.
e. Dating couples are more likely to stay together if the partners are high in eros
and low in the ludic, game playing style of love, meaning that passion and
commitment are both important in many love relationships.
2. Storge: Friendship Love
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a. This type of love, also called companionate love, is based on high levels of
intimacy and commitment but comparatively low levels of passion.
b. Storgic love is based on shows of similarity, reciprocal self-disclosure, shared
activities, and mutual validation. If these activities wane, friendship love will
also wane.
c. Storgic lovers have relationships based on affection, shared values and goals,
and compatibility, endorsing their partners’ personality characteristics rather
than physical characteristics.
d. People with a storgic style tended not to report using secret tests, presumably
because they do not need to use secret tests as their relationships tend to be
secure with little uncertainty.
e. It is important that storgic individuals want the same things—perhaps a home
and family or perhaps independence and the ability to travel together to exotic
places.
i. Because storgic lovers trust each other and do not require high levels of
emotional stimulation and arousal, they are able to withstand long
separations.
3. Ludus: Game Playing Love
a. Fun, playful, and casual relationships: Ludic lovers view relationships as
games to be played and are less committed and less securely attached to
relationships than are people with other love styles.
b. Ludic lovers communicate in ways that highlight the game playing aspect of
this love style and are more likely to use cute or flippant opening lines when
meeting people.
c. Ludic lovers also report desiring less closeness with their partners and when
ludic lovers do want to intensify their relationships, their preferred strategies
are to be more affectionate and sexually intimate.
d. Slow to develop intimate relationships:
i. Trying to get information indirectly by asking third parties, checking for
fidelity or jealousy, and increasing the costs in the relationship to see
whether the partner would still stick around.
e. Personal goals ahead of relationships:
i. Some ludic lovers are self-sufficient individuals who may feel that school
or career takes precedence over relational involvements.
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ii. When these individuals are ready and meet the right person, they are
likely to move out of the ludic style and into a more committed style of
loving.
4. Mania: Possessive Love
a. Combination of eros and ludus:
i. Manic lovers tend to be more demanding, dependent, possessive, and
jealous, often feeling a strong need to be in control and to know
everything that the partner is doing.
ii. This desire to be close to and control a partner stems from the high levels
of physical attraction and passion manic lovers have for their partners.
b. Manic lovers are not particularly interested in finding partners who are
intelligent or good lovers; instead, they want sensitive partners who
understand their feelings.
5. Agape: Compassionate Love
a. Agapic love revolves around caring, concern, and tenderness, and is more
focused on giving than receiving. Individuals with this style cope with stress
in a positive fashion to keep their relationships satisfying.
c. These individuals look for partners with a host of positive personal
characteristics, including a sense of humor, intelligence, understanding,
compassion, caring, communication skills, and sensitivity.
d. Associated with prosocial behavior: Agapic lovers report that they use the
most communication designed to intensify their relationships but not by use
of secret tests or manipulation in their relationships.
e. Has some drawbacks:
i. As they seem to be “above” everyone else, their partners often have
trouble matching their high level of unconditional love, which can lead to
feelings of discomfort and guilt.
ii. Agapic lovers sometimes put their partners on too high of a pedestal,
leading their partners to worry that they cannot live up to such an
idealized image.
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6. Pragma: Practical Love
a. Storge comes into play because pragmatic lovers are seeking a compatible
partner, while undertones of the ludus style are evident in their avoiding of
emotional risk taking and committing to a relationship only after careful
thought and considerable time.
b. Pragmatic lovers have a “commonsense, problem-solving approach to life and
love” that is reflected in their communication style.
c. Sometimes engage in secrets tests: Pragmatic lover might introduce her new
7. Differences Due to Sex and Culture
a. Difference among men and women: Women score higher than men on
pragma, while men tend to score higher in ludus and agape.
b. Men fall in love faster: Men usually say “I love you” first in heterosexual
romantic relationships, which could help explain why some studies have
shown men to be more agapic than women.
c. Similarity across different cultures: Romantic love is nearly universal.
i. Friendship love also appears to cross-cultural boundaries—people from
many different cultures around the globe embrace the warmth and
security that storgic love offers.
d. Cultural differences in love styles:
i. French were higher on agape whereas people from the United States
scored higher on storge and mania.
ii. People from cultures that endorse arranged marriages believe more
strongly in pragmatic love than do people from cultures where people
marry for love alone.
iii. In India, almost three fourth of young adults (35 years old and younger)
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v. The expectations set during the initial stages of a relationship fueled by
passion and romantic love may be harder to sustain past the honeymoon
stage.
e. Pragma versus agapic styles:
i. Pragma is also a popular love style in China, where people tend to
endorse both pragmatic and agapic types of love more than people from
the United States.
f. How love is communicated differs:
i. Dating relationships characterized by either friendship or romantic love
contain higher levels of self-disclosure than same-sex or cross-sex
friendships for U.S. and Japanese students.
ii. Across China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States, people reported
g. Verbal versus nonverbal expressions: In individualistic cultures, where self-
expression and individual feelings are valued, people are especially likely to
verbalize their love by saying “I love you.”
i. Nonverbal expressions of love may be valued more in cultures where
people pay especially close attention to subtle contextual cues, which is
B. Ways to Communicate Love
1. In his bestselling book, Chapman suggested that there are five love languages that
represent preferred ways of communicating and receiving love.
2. Marston, Hecht, and their colleagues identified love ways that represent different
styles of communicating and experiencing love, which augment Chapman’s
descriptions of five love languages.
3. Language of Affirmation and Support:
a. Communicating love through affirmation commonly includes being
encouraging, supportive, and complimentary.
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b. The work on love ways suggests that people who use this type of affirming
communication tend to regard relationships as partnerships where people
build one another up.
4. Language of Time Together:
a. For some people, spending time together participating in shared activities is
an essential way to express love.
b. Marston et al. identified a similar love way that involves engaging in joint
activities and feeling strong and self-confident.
5. Language of Gifts and Tokens of Affection:
a. Bringing one’s partner flowers or a surprise gift (even if there is no special
occasion), creating and posting a collage of pictures for an anniversary, and
giving one’s partner personal items to wear such as a ring or watch.
6. Language of Physical Touch:
a. Holding hands, cuddling, sitting close to one another, and engaging in sexual
activities are just a few ways that people communicate love through physical
contact.
b. Marston et al.’s work on love ways suggests that when love is grounded in
touch, it is also experienced through physical reactions such as feeling warm
all over, getting nervous, and losing one’s appetite.
7. Language of Acts of Service:
a. This love language involves helping with necessary tasks by doing things
such as washing one’s partner’s car, helping with housework or homework,
and running errands for one’s partner.
b. Although some people see acts of service as a primary way of communicating
love, others do not, which can cause misunderstanding.
III. Attachment Theory
A. The Propensity for Forming Attachments
1. Although parent–child and romantic relationships have received the most
attention, attachment theory applies to all types of close relationship, including
friendships and sibling relationships.
2. Necessary in childhood: In childhood, the need to develop attachments is an
innate and necessary part of human development.
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b. Children use their caregivers as secure bases that allow them to feel
comfortable exploring their surroundings, which eventually leads to self-
confidence and autonomy.
3. Influences relationship type in adulthood:
a. Bowlby and Ainsworth believed that attachment typifies intimate adult
relationships, with Bowlby arguing that attachment is characteristic of all
individuals from the cradle to the grave.
B. Internal Working Models and Attachment Styles
1. People have different attachment styles: According to attachment theorists,
depending on how people perceive themselves and others, models of both self and
others fall along a positive–negative continuum.
2. Positive versus negative self-model:
a. Positive self-model is “an internalized sense of self-worth that is not
dependent on ongoing external validation,” in which individuals view
themselves as self-sufficient, secure, and lovable.
3. Positive versus negative model of others:
a. Positive model of others reflects expectations that people will be supportive,
receptive, and accepting, and that relationships will be rewarding. Individuals
with positive models of others see relationships as worthwhile and possess
approach orientations toward intimacy.
4. Attachment style is a social interaction style that is consistent with the type and
quality of relationship one wishes to share with others, based on working models
of self and others.
C. Attachment Styles in Childhood
1. Early communication with primary caregivers shapes children’s internal models
of themselves and others and sets the stage for later attachments.
2. Healthy attachments to caregivers: If most children emerge from the first 2 years
of life with secure attachments to caregivers, they have developed positive models
of both themselves and others.
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3. Children who were raised in institutions and deprived of their mother’s care for
extended periods of time were more likely to develop insecure attachments. The
type of care children receive at home influences their attachment style.
4. Secure Children
a. Category of majority of children: Secure children tend to have responsive and
warm parents, to receive moderate levels of stimulation, and to engage in
synchronized interaction with their caregivers.
b. Fit between caregiver and child: Caregivers may need to adjust their style of
communication to accommodate the child and children from the same family
environment may develop different attachment styles.
5. Avoidant Children
a. Develop insecurity and flight response: Some insecure children develop an
avoidant attachment style and tend to have caregivers who are either
insensitive to their signals or try too hard to please.
b. When overstimulated, avoidant children retreat from social interaction to
avoid being overloaded. When understimulated, they learn how to cope
without social interaction.
6. Anxious-Ambivalent Children
a. Anxious-ambivalent attachment style tends to be the product of sometimes
appropriately responsive caregiver communication, which is at other times
neglectful or overstimulating, or caregivers are preoccupied with their own
problems.
b. Instead of blaming caregivers or their situation for this inconsistency, they
blame themselves and develop self-models of doubt, insecurity, and
uncertainty.
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d. These children protest separation from caregivers vehemently yet are both
relieved and angry when the caregiver returns, and sometimes develop
positive models of others because they do receive comfort.
D. Attachment Styles in Adulthood
1. Love experience differs among people: Hazan and Shaver conceptualized love as
an attachment process that is “experienced somewhat differently by different
people because of variations in their attachment histories.”
3. Bartholomew proposed four-category system, arguing that the working models a
person holds about self and others combine to produce four, rather than three,
attachment styles: (1) secure, (2) preoccupied, (3) dismissive, and (4) fearful.
4. Secure: The Prosocial Style
a. Individuals with a secure attachment style have positive models of
themselves and others.
b. These individuals are likely to have realistic expectations, be satisfied with
their relationships, and be comfortable depending on others and having others
depend on them.
c. Secure individuals seek social support when distressed and know how to
provide support and comfort to their relational partners.
5. Preoccupied: The Emotional Style
a. Individuals with a preoccupied attachment style have positive models of
others but negative models of themselves and are overly dependent on
relationships.
b. Need relationship to feel worthwhile: They also are likely to cling to their
relationships in times of trouble and to resist any attempts by a partner to de-
escalate or terminate close relationships.
c. Preoccupied individuals exhibit mixed messages that reflect their high need
for intimacy coupled with low self-confidence.
i. In everyday interactions, they often appear pleasant, attentive, and
expressive, but when they become anxious their communication can
become unpleasant and self-focused.
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ii. Preoccupied individuals exhibit low levels of enjoyment when talking
about relationship issues with their romantic partners, and although
expressive, they show low levels of composure and alter-centrism (a
focus on the partner).
6. Fearful: The Hesitant Style
a. Individuals with a fearful attachment style have negative models of both
themselves and others.
b. Afraid of hurt and rejection: Often because they have experienced painful
relationships in the past, fearful individuals want to depend on someone but
find it difficult to open up to others.
c. Tend to avoid social situations:
i. Even when in relationships, they tend to be hesitant to communicate
emotions or to initiate escalation of the relationship.
7. Dismissive: The Detached Style
a. Individuals with a dismissive attachment style have positive models of
themselves but negative models of others.
b. Counterdependence is a defensive strategy that allows people to feel good
about themselves without opening themselves up to the criticisms and
scrutiny of others.
c. Dismissives neither desire nor fear close attachments but rather lack the
motivation to build and maintain intimate relationships.
e. Avoid difficult conversations:
i. In addition to using less personal communication, dismissive individuals
tend to withdraw and dislike having to accommodate their partners
during conflict.
ii. When dismissive individuals experience emotional distress, they often
deny their feelings and insist on handling their problems without help
from others.
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E. Attachment and Relational Satisfaction
1. Security influences relational satisfaction: In fact, studies have shown that people
in Australia, Iran, the United States, and Turkey all report being happier in their
relationships if they have a secure attachment style.
2. People report more relationship satisfaction when their partners are high in
security and low in dismissiveness and preoccupation.
a. Men are happier when their partners are low in attachment anxiety and
women are happier when their partners are low in attachment avoidance.
3. Communication may be “the underlying mechanism” that explains why secure
partners have better relationships.
a. Secure individuals engage in patterns of communication that promote
closeness and cooperation, whereas insecure individuals engage in
communication patterns that are more distant or demanding.
4. Emotional communication and security:
a. Women report being happier in relationships with secure men because those
men are more likely to communicate sadness and other emotions directly and
openly.
b. Secure partners were seen as engaging in more prosocial emotional
communication, such as discussing feelings in an open and calm manner,
which led to more relationship satisfaction.
F. Stability and Change in Attachment Styles Across the Life Span
1. Explanations for Stability
a. Early interactions with caregivers provide a mental blueprint for thinking
about oneself and others that carry into adulthood.
i. An avoidant child thus has many obstacles to overcome to develop into a
secure adult, including learning to trust others and being comfortable
with closeness.
ii. An anxious-ambivalent child needs to become self-confident and self-
sufficient to achieve security.
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b. Reinforcement effect: When this effect occurs, people communicate in
cycles that reinforce their attachment style.
i. Secure individuals are self-confident, readily approach others, more
likely to make friends, develop relationships, and thus feel even better
about themselves and others.
ii. Preoccupied individuals, by contrast, continually reach for higher levels
of intimacy, a process reinforces that individual’s negative model of self
and positive model of others.
c. Paradoxical interaction patterns:
i. Fearful individuals’ fear of pain and rejection keeps them from reaching
out to others and developing the kind of intimate relationship that would
bring them out of their protective shells.
2. Explanations for Change
a. Significant events such as divorce, marriage, reunion after a long separation,
development of a new relationship, or the death of a loved one may modify a
person’s attachment style.
i. A fearful man may become more secure after reuniting with his ex-wife,
and a secure young woman may become more dismissive when she heads
off to college and away from those who love her.
ii. Women report less attachment anxiety and avoidance over time if they
are in a stable relationship.
b. Men’s attachment styles become increasingly avoidant if their relationship is
characterized by demand–withdrawal conflict; when one person demands
change and the other person withdraws.
c. Relationship type: In the movie Good Will Hunting, Will exhibits classic