Psychology Essay Sample about Love

Love. Love is a universal experience, that can look quite different from culture to culture, and even on the individual level. You can have love for family, partner(s), pets, money, working, and the list goes on and on. But the everlasting question is what is love? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, love as a noun is “a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person” (). This definition of love still did not answer the question of what is love? The field of social psychology began to study love in the 1970s. Zick Rubin viewed love systematically, he believed that love should and can be quantified, which led him to develop a love scale consisting of a 13 point scale of “liking”. From Rubin’s perspective, there are three elements of love: caring (feelings that other person’s satisfaction is as important to you as your own), attachment (the drives and motives that bring people together), and intimacy (the subjective sense of connection between you and another person). One of the main critics of this approach is that it is missing the variation of love, that there are various ways to love.

During the same period in the 1970s a social psychologist, by the name of John Alan Lee decided to study love from a different perspective than how it previously had been studied by social psychologist, Zick Rubin. Lee views love as an experience, rather than an emotion, that is shaped by history and culture. There are countless possible interpersonal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that could be considered elements of love, which are already defined for us by our culture. Lee looks for types of relationships that people have in terms of styles rather than presuming that there is only one real love. The love styles are patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that both individuals and/or cultures consider to be love. Lee observed six basic love styles by conducting historical analysis and structure interviews: Eros/Erotic (passionate love), Ludus/Ludic (game-playing love), Storge/Storgic (friendship love), Pragma/Pragmatic (logical, shopping list love), Mania/Manic (possessive, dependent love), and Agape/Agapic (all-giving, selfless love). 

Now in regard to my breakup, Noah would be considered a manic lover (possessive, dependent love), whereas I would consider myself a storgic lover  (friendship love). The very nature of manic love is obsessive, jealous, and possessive. For a manic lover, love is always like a roller coaster, essentially never going smoothly, intense and rousing. A manic lover needs those extreme ups and downs, and when the relationship becomes stagnant a manic lover will often do something to increase the intensity again. One example of this is when Noah and I were having a nice phone call, he asked how I was and I spoke about how I had a good time at the movies with my roommate. That is when Noah accused me of hiding that from him and went on to exclaim that I never tell him anything, that I am being sneaky and shady, and probably went with some guy instead of my roommate. I was taken aback because this accusation came out of nowhere during the phone call. Noah did this frequently with minuscule things, and it always ended up in a heated argument. From Lee’s perspective, this was Noah’s way of igniting the love again. Another aspect of manic love is possession. Since Noah and I were long-distance he asked that I share my phone location with him, I did not think anything of it at first until he began checking my location throughout the day asking where I am, what I am doing, and who I am with. He was the jealous type as well, told me I could not wear certain clothes because I was his, and he did not want other men to look at me. According to Lee’s love styles, Noah fits perfectly into the category of a manic lover, possessing the aspects of obsession, possessiveness, jealousy, and picking arguments when the relationship is calm.

For a storgic lover like myself, love starts with friendship and slowly over time turns into something more. According to Lee, true love for a storgic lover requires time, trust, and self-disclosure and is displayed through little everyday gestures rather than public display. Noah moved faster in the relationship than I did. After just after two months of officially dating, Noah thought he was in love with me, I for one did not feel the same way and felt as if we were still building a friendship. It takes time for me to be able to fully trust someone and begin to feel comfortable enough to open up to them. I am also not a fan of public display of affection (PDA), instead, I show my love in little everyday things, like ordering a large fry instead of a medium because I know Noah would eat some. Those little gestures were not considered love to Noah, rather he preferred when I posted pictures of him on social media and held hands in public. Part of it was also due to the fact that he is a manic lover and wanted everyone to know I was his, and one way of doing that is by displaying our love openly in the public eye. Based on Lee’s love styles, I fit in the storgic love style because I need time to build trust in order to participate in self-disclosure and show my love through little, everyday gestures.

Considering that Noah is a manic lover, and I am a storgic lover, there were numerous issues in our relationship that contributed to eventually breaking up, some of which were due to our differences in love styles. We both displayed our love in different ways; Noah felt loved when we showed affection for others to see, whereas I preferred more subtle gestures. We were not fulfilling each other’s needs and this led to a multitude of arguments where we thought the other person did not love us. In addition, Noah preferred the relationship with intense ups and downs, and I felt exhausted in the relationships during bouts of intensity. Even though there were a lot of factors that strained our relationship, we ended dating for eight months, ¾ of a year. According to Lee, a manic lover’s relationship will not last long when dating someone of another love style, a couple of months as a maximum. Lee’s love styles fail to explain is why our relationship lasted for a long as it did, even with such drastically different love styles.

A possible explanation as to why our relationship lasted for eight, long miserable months could have been because typically the more investment a person puts into a partner, the less likely they will want to leave due to the progression bias, evolution, and societal standards. Progression bias is the tendency to make decisions that move romantic relationships forward instead of ending them (Renaud, 2021). From an evolutionary standpoint, humans’ purpose is to procreate, however, women are on a biological clock, meaning they are not physically able to reproduce children their whole lives. If women waited too long for an ideal partner they were not able to pass down their genes (Renaud, 2021). Some argue that evolution and the biological clock have contributed to the progression bias (Renaud, 2021). A consequence resulting from this bias is people staying in lamentable relationships (Renaud, 2021). People do not like to waste their time, and deciding to end a relationship after investing a considerable amount of time, energy, emotion, and maybe money can feel like a major loss. As a means of avoiding that feeling, people will increase their investment and commitment to the relationship, rather than ending it. I participated in this behavior by apologizing to Noah after intense arguments, even when I felt like he was in the wrong, instead of calling it quits because I did not want all the ups and downs we went through to be wasted. Lastly, I might have felt pressured subconsciously to continue an unhappy relationship because of societal pressures to be in a relationship. In addition, there are social benefits of being in a relationship, one of which is that others will perceive you as a “legitimate social unit” and therefore be accepted by society (Renaud, 2021). It is not easy to leave a partner especially after you have given them your time and effort because you might feel as if you have wasted your time, in addition, there are also societal pressures to be in a relationship and a biological clock that is ticking, which is a reason why unhappy couples stay together for as long as they do.

The Comparison Level Theory might be another possible explanation as to why Noah and I dated for eight months even though we were not happy or satisfied for the majority of the time. The Comparison Level Theory, developed by John Thibaut and Harold Kelley, argued that two standards, comparison level (CL) and comparison level of alternatives (CLalt), determine satisfaction (happiness) and commitment in relationships. CL is the average level of rewards a person believes they are entitled to in any relationship and emerges from individual experiences. CLalt is the rewards a person believes are attainable in other relationships that are perceived as available. If rewards are greater than CL, people are satisfied with their relationships, whereas if the rewards are less than CL, people are dissatisfied with their relationship. If rewards are greater than CLalt, people are committed to their relationship, whereas if the rewards are less than CLalt, people are not committed to their relationship. The ideal place to be in a relationship is when rewards are greater than CL and CLalt, also referred to as the “sitting pretty” phase.