Romantic love is an interesting topic. I wonder how many people still find it in our modern society. My grandparents were together for over 50 years and their love never seemed to weaken, it kept growing stronger the older they got. They are dead like all of my grandparents though. My guess is not many
There are a lot of theories and general discussion about what is romantic love compared to something else called love. It's a multidimensional concept and that makes it so interesting imo.
the following is from wikipedia:
These are the major theories associated with current research on romantic relationships, especially in the context of positive psychology.
Attachment patterns
As mentioned in the introduction, attachment styles that people develop as children can influence the way that they interact with partners in adult relationships, with secure attachment styles being associated with healthier and more trusting relationships than avoidant or anxious attachment styles. Hazen and Shaver found that adult romantic attachment styles were similar to the categories of secure, avoidant, and anxious that had previously been studied in children’s attachments to their caregivers, demonstrating that attachment styles are stable across the lifespan. Later on, researchers distinguished between dismissive avoidant attachment and fearful avoidant attachment. Others have found that secure adult attachment, leading to the ability for intimacy and confidence in relationship stability, is characterized by low attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, while the fearful style is high on both dimensions, the dismissing style is low on anxiety and high on avoidance, and the preoccupied style is high on anxiety and low on avoidance.
Romantic love definition/operationalization
Singer (1984a, 1984b, 1987) first defined love based on four Greek terms: eros, meaning the search for beauty; philia, the feelings of affection in close friendships, nomos, the submission of and obedience to higher or divine powers, and agape, the bestowal of love and affection for the divine powers. While Singer did believe that love was important to world culture, he did not believe that romantic love played a major role (Singer, 1987). However, Susan Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick at Texas Tech University (1992, 2009) have theorized that romantic love will play an increasingly important cultural role in the future, as it is considered an important part of living a fulfilling life. They also theorized that love in long-term romantic relationships has only been the product of cultural forces that came to fruition within the past 300 years. By cultural forces, they mean the increasing prevalence of individualistic ideologies, which are the result of an inward shift of many cultural worldviews.
Passionate and companionate love
Researchers have determined that romantic love is a complex emotion that can be divided into either passionate or companionate forms. Berscheid and Walster ( 1978 ) and Hatfield ( 1988 ) found that these two forms can co-exist, either simultaneously or intermittently. Passionate love is an arousal-driven emotion that often gives people extreme feelings of happiness, and can also give people feelings of anguish. Companionate love is a form that creates a steadfast bond between two people, and gives people feelings of peace. Scientists have described the stage of passionate love as "being on cocaine," since during that stage the brain releases the same neurotransmitter, dopamine, as when cocaine is being used. It is also estimated that passionate love lasts for about twelve to eighteen months. Psychologist, Robert Firestone, has a theory of the fantasy bond, which is what is mostly created after the passionate love has faded. A couple may start to feel really comfortable with each other to the point that they see each other as simply companions or protectors, but yet think that they are still in love with each other. The results to the fantasy bond is the leading to companionate love. Hendrick and Hendrick (1995) studied college students who were in the early stages of a relationship and found that almost half reported that their significant other was their closest friend, providing evidence that both passionate and companionate love exist in new relationships. Conversely, in a study of long-term marriages, researchers (Contreras, Hendrick, and Hendrick, 1996) found that couples endorsed measures of both companionate love and passionate love and that passionate love was the strongest predictor of marital satisfaction, showing that both types of love can endure throughout the years.
The triangular theory of love
Psychologist Robert Sternberg (1986) developed the triangular theory of love. He theorized that love is a combination of three main components: passion (physical arousal); intimacy (psychological feelings of closeness); and commitment (the sustaining of a relationship). He also theorized that the different combinations of these three components could yield up to seven different forms of love. These include popularized forms such as romantic love (intimacy and passion) and consummate love (passion, intimacy, and commitment). The other forms are liking (intimacy), companionate love (intimacy and commitment), empty love (commitment), fatuous love (passion and commitment), and infatuation (passion). Studies on Sternberg’s theory love found that intimacy most strongly predicted marital satisfaction in married couples, with passion also being an important predictor (Silberman, 1995). On the other hand, Acker and Davis (1992) found that commitment was the strongest predictor of relationship satisfaction, especially for long-term relationships.
The self-expansion theory of romantic love
Researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron (1986) theorized that humans have a basic drive to expand their self-concepts. Further, their experience with Eastern concepts of love caused them to believe that positive emotions, cognitions, and relationships in romantic behaviors all drive the expansion of a person’s self-concept. A study following college students for 10 weeks showed that those students who fell in love over the course of the investigation reported higher feelings of self-esteem and self efficacy than those who did not (Aron, Paris, and Aron, 1995).
Mindful relationships
Harvey and Ormarzu (1997) developed a model of minding relationships with five key components: seeking to know and be known by the other; using knowledge learned in a relationship to enhance the relationship; accepting the other person; being motivated to continue this process of learning, enhancing, and accepting; and developing a sense of appreciation in the relationship. Each of these components is considered adaptive, however, nonadaptive steps to minding a relationship were also theorized by the research team. The five nonadaptive components include: one or both partners out of step in seeking to know and be known by the other; not using the knowledge learned in a relationship to enhance the relationship (or using that knowledge to hurt the other); low acceptance and respect for the other person; not being motivated to continue the process of learning, enhancing, and accepting; and failing to develop a sense of appreciation in a relationship. Gottman studies the components of a flourishing romantic relationship have been studied in the lab (1994; Gottman & Silver, 1999). He used physiological and behavioral measures during couples’ interactions to predict relationship success and found that five positive interactions to one negative interaction are needed to maintain a healthy relationship. He established a therapy intervention for couples that focused on civil forms of disapproval, a culture of appreciation, acceptance of responsibility for problems, and self-soothing (Gottman, Driver, & Tabares, 2002).
Relationship behaviors
The most recent research on romantic love and relationships focuses on behaviors that either sustain a relationship or aid in its dissolution. These behaviors can be considered either appetitive or aversive. Appetitive relationship processes are considered the promotion of positive relationship behaviors, as determined by psychologists Gable and Reis (2001, 2003). Aversive relationship processes are described as eliminating behaviors that have a negative effect on relationships (Gable and Reis 2001,[61] 2003). This new research has also allowed relationship success to be predicted as a function of these appetitive and aversive processes. This is all related to research that shows that sharing positive life events with one’s partner is related to greater relationship satisfaction and intimacy (Gable et al., 2004). In research by Gable et al. (2003) appetitive (promotion of positive relationship behaviors) and aversive (elimination of negative relationship behaviors) processes are independent constructs. A specific type of appetitive processing, capitalization, leads to increased relationship satisfaction and intimacy when one member of the relationship tells the other about positive life events and receive quality reactions and feedback from the partner (Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004).
