Love types psychology

The Psychology of Love: Theories and Facts

Love has fascinated researchers for decades. We look at what experts have learned about the origins and psychology of love.

Love is a powerful, complex emotional experience that involves changes in your body chemistry, including your neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). It impacts your social relationships in varied ways, affecting how you relate to others around you.

There are many types — like the love you share with your partner, family, and friends — and each version you feel is unique. It can fill you with emotions ranging from joy to heartbreak.

Love is an emotion of strong affection, tenderness, or devotion toward a subject or object. When you love a person you experience pleasurable sensations in their presence and are sensitive about their reactions to you.

Research from 2016 points to neuropeptides and neurotransmitters as the source of love. Feelings of love help us form social bonds with others. As social creatures, these natural chemicals developed to help us survive by encouraging:

mutual support
reproduction
cooperation

It seems like so much more, though. Calling love an interaction of brain chemicals doesn’t quite describe how it can warm your heart and captivate your soul.

Attachment is a component of love. Strong attachment bonds set mammals apart from many other types of animals, though other groups — including fish and birds — also form strong social connections to help them survive.

A 2017 review describes four types of mammalian attachment bonds as:

pair bonds, where individuals form a close, long-term social connection
bonds between parents and their infants
bonds between peers
conspecific bonds, or bonds between individuals of the same species

Most instances of human love fall into one of these categories. For example, the love you feel for a close friend could be classed as a peer bond.

A romantic relationship is a type of pair bond. It can start as mutual attraction and evolve into love over time.

When you like someone, you enjoy their companionship and care about their well-being. When you love them, those feelings are unconditional.

Physical effects of love

Love can do more than help you bond with another person. It can even impact your physical health.

Love may affect your immune system. A 2019 study found that falling in love resulted in immune system changes similar to protective viral infection responses.

It might also safeguard against cancer, according to a 2021 study that found tissue from pair-bonded mice was less likely to grow tumors than tissue from mice with disruptions to their pair bonds.

Can you control whether you fall in love?

You might feel like you have no control over the love you feel, but research says otherwise. Love is like an emotion that you can regulate by generating new feelings or changing the intensity of the feelings you have.

Emotional regulation strategies include:

Situation selection: avoiding or seeking situations based on how they make you feel.

Distraction: engaging in another activity to reduce the strength of your feelings.
Expression suppression: hiding how you feel.
Cognitive reappraisal: changing your thoughts so that your feelings can change.

So, if you’re disappointed because the love you feel isn’t reciprocated, you may be able to take your mind off it.

American psychologist Dr. Robert Sternberg theorizes that love is based on three domains:

intimacy (emotional)
commitment (cognitive)
passion (physical)

Each domain represents a triangle corner in Sternberg’s triangular theory of love. The theory accounts for seven different kinds of love, based on which domains are involved. We look at these types of love below.

The seven kinds of love in Sternberg’s triangular theory cover a range of relationship types:

Liking. You share emotional intimacy, but there’s no physical passion or commitment. Friendship falls under this category.
Infatuation. Passion is the key component of infatuation. If you’re physically attracted to another person but haven’t developed emotional intimacy or established a commitment, this is infatuation.
Empty. What Sternberg calls “empty love” is a committed relationship that lacks passion or intimacy. Examples include an arranged marriage or a previously emotional or physical relationship that’s lost its spark.
Romatic. When you’re romantically involved with another person, you share physical passion and emotional intimacy, but you haven’t made any long-term plans or commitments.
Companionate. You are committed and emotionally connected, such as best friends or family. Marriages can also be companionate if the passion is gone, but you still share the commitment and emotional bond.
Fatuous. If you’ve been swept up by passion into an engagement or marriage without emotional intimacy, this is fatuous love.
Consummate. Consummate love is the goal for many when they envision marriage or a spousal partnership. This kind of love includes commitment, passion, and emotional intimacy.

Love comes in many forms. You can love more than one person simultaneously, in different ways.

Emotional intimacy is present in many relationships, but not all. The same is true for passion and commitment.

Attachment is another relationship element that may be present in love. Positive attachments are emotionally supportive and provide you with a feeling of security.

Types of Love | Developmental Psychology

Sternberg’s Triangle of Love: Three Components

Sternberg (1988) suggests that there are three main components of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Love relationships vary depending on the presence or absence of each of these components. Passion refers to the intense, physical attraction partners feel toward one another. Intimacy involves the ability the share feelings, personal thoughts and psychological closeness with the other. Commitment is the conscious decision to stay together. Passion can be found in the early stages of a relationship, but intimacy takes time to develop because it is based on knowledge of the partner. Once intimacy has been established, partners may resolve to stay in the relationship. Although many would agree that all three components are important to a relationship, many love relationships do not consist of all three. Let’s look at other possibilities.

Liking: In this relationship, intimacy or knowledge of the other and a sense of closeness is present. Passion and commitment, however, are not. Partners feel free to be themselves and disclose personal information. They may feel that the other person knows them well and can be honest with them and let them know if they think the person is wrong. These partners are friends. However, being told that your partner ‘thinks of you as a friend’ can be a devastating blow if you are attracted to them and seek a romantic involvement.

Infatuation: Perhaps, this is Sternberg’s version of “love at first sight”. Infatuation consists of an immediate, intense physical attraction to someone. A person who is infatuated finds it hard to think of anything but the other person. Brief encounters are played over and over in one’s head; it may be difficult to eat and there may be a rather constant state of arousal. Infatuation is rather short-lived, however, lasting perhaps only a matter of months or as long as a year or so. It tends to be based on chemical attraction and an image of what one thinks the other is all about.

Fatuous Love: However, some people who have a strong physical attraction push for commitment early in the relationship. Passion and commitment are aspects of fatuous love. There is no intimacy and the commitment is premature. Partners rarely talk seriously or share their ideas. They focus on their intense physical attraction and yet one, or both, is also talking of making a lasting commitment. Sometimes this is out of a sense of insecurity and a desire to make sure the partner is locked into the relationship.

Empty Love: This type of love may be found later in a relationship or in a relationship that was formed to meet needs other than intimacy or passion (money, childrearing, status). Here the partners are committed to staying in the relationship (for the children, because of a religious conviction, or because there are no alternatives perhaps), but do not share ideas or feelings with each other and have no physical attraction for one another.

Romantic Love: Intimacy and passion are components of romantic love, but there is no commitment. The partners spend much time with one another and enjoy their closeness but have not made plans to continue ‘no matter what’. This may be true because they are not in a position to make such commitments or because they are looking for passion and closeness and are afraid it will die out if they commit to one another and start to focus on other kinds of obligations.

Companionate Love: Intimacy and commitment are the hallmarks of companionate love. Partners love and respect one another and they are committed to staying together. But their physical attraction may have never been strong or may have just died out. This may be interpreted as ‘just the way things are’ after so much time together or there may be a sense of regret and loss. Nevertheless, partners are good friends committed to one another.

Consummate Love: Intimacy, passion, and commitment are present in consummate love. This is often the ideal type of love. The couple shares passion; the spark has not died, and the closeness is there. They feel like best friends as well as lovers and they are committed to staying together.

Types of Lovers

Lee (1973) offers a theory of love styles or types of lovers derived from an analysis of writings about love through the centuries. As you read these, think about how these styles might become part of the types of love described above.

Pragma is a style of love that emphasizes the practical aspects of love. The pragmatic lover considers compatibility and the sensibility of their choice of partners. This lover will be concerned with goals in life, status, family reputation, attitudes about parenting, career issues and other practical concerns.

Mania is a style of love characterized by volatility, insecurity, and possessiveness. This lover gets highly upset during arguments or breakups, may have trouble sleeping when in love, and feels emotions very intensely.

Agape is an altruistic, selfless love. These partners give of themselves without expecting anything in return. Such a lover places the partner’s happiness above their own and is self-sacrificing to benefit the partner.

Eros is an erotic style of loving in which the person feels consumed. Physical chemistry and emotional involvement are important to this type of lover.

Ludus refers to a style of loving that emphasizes the game of seduction and fun. Such a lover stays away from commitment and often has several love interests at the same time. This lover does not self-disclose and in fact may prefer to keep the other guessing. This lover can end a relationship easily.

Storge is a style of love that develops slowly over time. It often begins as a friendship and becomes sexual much later. These partners are likely to remain friends even after the breakup.

Frames of Relationships

Another useful way to consider relationships is to consider the amount of dependency in the relationship. Davidson (1991) suggests three models. The A-frame relationship is one in which the partners lean on one another and are highly dependent on the other for survival. If one partner changes, the other is at risk of ‘falling over’. This type of relationship cannot easily accommodate change and the partners are vulnerable should change occur. A breakup could be devastating.

The H-frame relationship is one in which the partners live parallel lives. They rarely spend time with one another and tend to have separate lives. What time they do share is usually spent meeting obligations rather than sharing intimacies. This independent type of relationship can end without suffering emotionally.

The M-frame relationship is interdependent. Partners have a strong sense of connection but also are able to stand alone without suffering devastation. If this relationship ends, partners will be hurt and saddened, but will still be able to stand alone. This ability comes from a strong sense of self-love. Partners can love each other without losing a sense of self. And each individual has self-respect and confidence that enriches the relationship as well as strengthens the self.

We have been looking at love in the context of many kinds of relationships. In our next lesson, we will focus more specifically on marital relationships. But before we do, we examine the dynamics of falling in and out of love.

The Process of Love and Breaking Up

Reiss (1960) provides a theory of love as process. Based on the wheel theory of love, love relationships begin with the establishment of rapport.

Rapport involves sharing likes, preferences, establishing some common interests. The next step is to begin to disclose more personal information through self-revelation. When one person begins to open up, the social expectation is that the other will follow and also share more personal information so that each has made some risk and trust is built. Sexual intimacy may also become part of the relationship. Gradually, partners begin to disclose even more about themselves and are met with support and acceptance as they build mutual dependency. With time, partners come to rely on each other for need fulfillment. The wheel must continue in order for love to last. It becomes important for partners to continue to establish rapport by discussing the day’s events, communicating about their goals and desires, and showing signs of trust. Partners must continue to rely on one another to have certain needs fulfilled. If the wheel turns backward, partners talk less and less, rely less on one another and are less likely to disclose.

Process of Disaffection: Breaking Up

When relationships are new, partners tend to give one another the benefit of the doubt and focus on what they like about one another. Flaws and imperfections do not go unnoticed; rather, they are described as endearing qualities. So, for example, the partner who has a very large nose is described as ‘distinguished’ or as having a ‘striking feature.’ This is very exhilarating because features that someone may have previously felt self-conscious about are now accepted or even appreciated. However, once partners begin the process of breaking up, these views are abandoned and questionable qualities are once again flaws and imperfections.

Kersten (1990) provides a look at the dynamics of breaking up. Although this work is primarily about divorce, the dynamics of dissolving any long-term relationship are similar. The beginning phase of breaking up involves seeing imperfections in the relationship but remaining hopeful that things will improve. This improvement will require the partner’s cooperation because they are primarily at fault. So, as long as the offending partner makes the necessary changes, and of course the offended partner will provide the advice, support, and guidance required, the relationship will continue. (If you are thinking that this is not going to work-you are right. Attempts to change one’s partner are usually doomed to failure. Would you want your partner to try to change you?)

Once it becomes clear that efforts to change are futile, the middle phase is entered. This phase is marked by disappointment. Partners talk less and less, make little eye contact, and grow further apart. One may still try to make contact, but the other is clearly disengaged and is considering the benefits and costs of leaving the relationship.

In the end phase, the decision to leave has been made. The specific details are being worked out. Turning a relationship around is very difficult at this point. Trust has diminished, and thoughts have turned elsewhere. This stage is one of hopelessness.

We will explore marriage, divorce, and cohabitation more fully in our next lesson.

7 varieties of feelings between a man and a woman

Love can be different. It is foolish to think that there is only one true way of love that drives everyone. How many people - so many types of feelings, which are imprinted by personal experience, worldview, character and the objective situation that develops between lovers. In this article, we will reveal the types of love that the ancient Greeks spoke about, describing the versatility of the human soul. Can you find yourself?

So, 7 types of love:

• Ludus — consumer love

In such relationships, there is no true intimacy between partners, only the desire to take what is yours. For example, intimacy, emotions, a sports trophy. By itself, a person does not intend to invest something, to share experiences and responsibility. He wants to play, enjoy attention, freedom and flaring passions. Love in this situation is superficial, people like the feeling of excitement, the anticipation of the new, a tick in the next list of victories. But, as soon as the result is achieved, they will switch to a new object of fantasy.

• Mania - love as an addiction

Present in many romantic relationships at an early stage. The threat begins when the obsession with a partner drags on in earnest. Such love has a destructive effect on all participants, because it is built on the desire to possess and control. As a result, feelings are sucked into a whirlpool, forced to suffer, to suffer, to give up on oneself, to live in constant tension. One gets pressured and runs away. The other pursues with all passion, losing himself, tormented by jealousy. Such love is destructive, somewhat reminiscent of the relationship between the tormentor and the masochist.

• Eros – passionate love

Similar mechanisms operate here as in mania, but without a negative accent — love is mutual, lovers want to possess each other, enjoy the joys of intimacy, idealizing relationships. It is from eros that families are often born: the attraction is so strong that you want to constantly be near, stroke each other, bask in the rays of love. And partners run down the aisle in order to perpetuate these feelings. Alas, over the years, eros fizzles out, stumbling over children, everyday life, life crises and the emerging imperfection of a partner. True, some manage to carry passion through many years of relationship.

• Agape – selfless love

This kind of love can be most clearly seen between a mother and a child, when an adult accepts his child with all his heart, putting up with his imperfections, giving him all his tenderness, warmth and care. Alas, in the relationship between a man and a woman, agape can also have negative consequences - the imbalance of the energies of “give” and “receive”. When a lover is so devoted to a soul mate that he is ready to make any sacrifices for her happiness: to forgive everything, accept everything, be an eternal donor and support, spitting on himself. This is bad, because it exhausts the relationship, the giver quickly fizzles out, constantly bends, loses boundaries. But in love, a two-way exchange of energies and the preservation of the individuality of each partner are important.

• Storge - love based on a sense of duty

There is no romance or animal passion in such relationships. It’s just that two people have been together for so long, experienced so much that they have become part of each other, “grown together with roots”. Together they make up a well-functioning mechanism, where each has its own role and a large share of responsibility. They will tear anyone for their family, because they are an extension of each other. And even if their life does not boil with emotions, a sense of duty will not allow betraying a partner, even if these two did not choose each other, even if they do not correspond to ideals. The promise to be together in sorrow and joy is more important than any emotions.

• Philia - friendly love

And who said that only passion or a sense of duty can unite? Sometimes people are so interested together - to speak and be silent, to study the world, to create - that more is not needed. In such a relationship there is no physical attraction (or it was, but subsided over the years). But there is harmony of souls, equality of thoughts, separation of interests. A partner just likes to be together - listen to music, watch movies, go hiking, raise children, take care of everyday life, act in a team. They have the same attitude towards life. Therefore, in partnership, they receive support for their ideas, views and projects.

• Pragma - rational love

This type of love is obtained when people are looking for comfortable relationships. But not for the sake of financial gain (although not without it), but to meet an ally with whom you can confidently go through life. In such a pair, love is not as valuable as the coincidence of views, role models, and worldview in general. So that both spouses look at life in the same direction and do not devalue each other's achievements. She is a housewife, he is a breadwinner. And everyone plays their part. This is an important quality, because without pragma, spouses will not have understanding. For example, why does he not want children, but she does; why she spends all her time in the kitchen, and does not travel with him along the mountain prairies; why does he spend the last money on development instead of investing in a family? Without a match in views, criticism, quarrels, and condemnation begin - and the family quickly becomes unhappy.

As you can see, there are a lot of types of love, everyone chooses something of their own in accordance with values, age, experience. But it is best to alternate one with the other, without taking any one idea to extremes, developing passion, friendship, flirting, and responsibility.

Relationships are multifaceted, do not lock yourself in one role, otherwise you will quickly get tired. And remember: not only love for your loved one is important, but also for yourself.

Text: Flytothesky.ru

Read also:
How to attract love into your life: 5 effective techniques

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6 types of love

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For students

These are rather different feelings, similar only in appearance, in the development of the plot and in the characters. If agape, storge and pragma are love in all respects, then the other types: mania, ludus and eros are love-like feelings; poor-quality loves, in the most exacerbated forms - mental illnesses, from which you can get rid of only with the help of specialists.

Love-agape. She is focused on "you", full of altruism and adoration, she is patient and full of undying affection. He who loves with such love is ready to forgive everything. Agape - based on the traditional Christian view, according to which love does not require anything in return, it is kind, patient and constant. This love is associated with Jesus Christ. For lovers, there is no life, they like the usual course of household chores, the habit does not extinguish their feelings. They experience pleasure knowing a loved one, foreseeing how he will respond to their actions. They deeply trust each other, they are not afraid of infidelity.

Love-storge is love, similar to parental tenderness, understanding, guardianship love, patronage, adoration "without fever, without confusion and recklessness, peaceful and enchanting affection." It develops gradually - not like an "arrow strike", but like a slow flowering of a bud, germination of roots and their withdrawal into the depths. Storge is a strong and stable type of love that can withstand any test. Such love can endure even a long separation, as did the famous love of Penelope for Odysseus, the ancient prototype of the storge.

Love-pragma - balanced and in a certain sense "practical" love. Pragma is not only a type of love, but also a way of finding it, a lover selects a partner based on well-thought-out requirements for him. When a suitable candidate is finally found and an understanding is reached, pragmic love develops into a stronger and deeper feeling. A true pragmic cannot love someone who is not worthy of love. He sees to the smallest detail the whole value or non-value of a person. Love for him is as much a matter of the head as of the heart, and he consciously directs his feelings. He disinterestedly treats his beloved: he helps him to reveal himself, does good, makes life easier, remains devoted to him in trials. Pragma has an advantage over other love feelings: over time, it tends to become warmer, more soulful, more desirable. Pragma is not a “lower” at all, but a full-fledged, natural feeling for a person, giving positive emotions, healthy, full-fledged offspring.

Mania - stormy and all-consuming feeling. It is associated with madness and confusion. The lover is constantly seized by the desire to "demand signs of love and attention from the beloved." In this state, ecstatic outbursts are punctuated by plunges into despair. It feels like a rollercoaster: steep, dizzying ups and downs leading to a sudden and swift end.

Ludus is a kind of feeling that resembles flirting. According to this scheme, lovers are easily involved in the game and, as a rule, do not require any serious obligations from each other. A human can have several partners, which makes it possible to choose, and avoids dependence on one person. People assign to sex the role of an amusing game, a hobby, rather than a deep intimate feeling.

Eros implies a feeling based on physical attraction and accordingly manifests itself in a strong sensual, sexual attraction. "Erotic love" is like a spark: it flares up easily and immediately goes out. It rarely leads to deep and lasting relationships.

Lovers of the type mania, ludus and eros get sick more often than others, their life often ends prematurely, even violently. Such people have a reduced, somewhat painful self-esteem, they are often ruled by a feeling of inferiority, hidden or conscious. They are highly anxious, vulnerable, and because of this they have psychological breakdowns and sexual difficulties. Their self-doubt can be militant, they can be ruled by a sickly self-centrism. Neurasthenicity gives rise to broken love in them - hatred, painful attraction - repulsion - a fever of incompatible feelings.

But those who love like agape, storge and pragma, on the contrary, get sick less often than usual, their life is longer, happier, more harmonious, healthy offspring await them. Agape, storge and pragma, who experience love, were brought up in favorable conditions from birth, such conditions mean loving father and mother, a warm and reliable atmosphere in the parental family. But those experiencing the feeling of mania, ludus, eros during their upbringing did not receive spiritual attention, warmth, care, they experienced excessively strict or, on the contrary, indifferent, other types of complicated, deviant upbringing. From this, a conclusion was drawn - the first group of feelings is specific, innate, the second - a consequence of negligent, complicated education.

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