What is Love?

1. Michael Hoerger What is Love?

2. Introduction • “Work and love, that’s all there is” – Freud • Finding love is a key developmental event in early adulthood • Psychologists and the public use the word “love,” so it must have some meaning • Today’s lecture is intended to challenge your preconceptions and help you to establish a working definition of love

3. Monogamy • Only 5% of species, those where both parents needed for child’s survival • Pair-bonding: having an emotional attachment to another • Oxytocin, vasopressin, dopamine release during sex; feels addicting • Good feelings associated with partner (classical conditioning) • Tells you “Gee sex with this person feels great” rather than just “Geez sex feels great”

4. Montane vole Prairie vole Pair-bond vs. No pair-bond

5. Sternberg’s Triangular Theory • Love is multifaceted, with up to 3 central components • Passion: intense longing for another person • Intimacy: feeling connected, enjoying one’s company and support • Commitment: obligations and responsibilities to one another

7. Peck’s Criticisms of “Love” • Falling in love (passion) ≠ love • Excitement related to new, attractive person • “We fall in love when we are consciously or unconsciously sexually motivated” • The honeymoon always ends • Dependency ≠ love • “I need him” or “I’d die without her” • “What you describe is parasitism, not love” • Love is based on choice, not necessity

8. Love ≠ a feeling • Love is an action, characterized by treating someone well • Having strong feelings that someone is important or needed doesn’t mean you love them • Myth of Romantic love • Story that two people are “meant to be,” that it is predetermined “in the stars” • If it doesn’t end up working out, people say it wasn’t “true love” after all (hindsight bias) • Realistically, there are many suitable partners

9. Love is… • An action, not a feeling • Attention • A risk of rejection • Independence, not dependence • Commitment • Self-disciplined …hard work

10. Happy Couples • Partner’s know each other’s hopes, quirks, likes, dislikes • Secret Weapon: ritualized “repair attempts” to prevent increased negativity • Shared, deep sense of meaning • 5 : 1 ratio

11. Unhappy Couples • Arguments characterized by… • Harsh setup: negative and accusatory • 4 types of negative interactions: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling • Flooding  Stonewalling • Failed repair attempts • Bad memories

13. Love Quotes “I define love thus: The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” - M. Scott Peck “Love is the subtlest force in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi “By accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love he may rule the world forever” - Lao-tzu “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” - Martin Luther King Jr.

14. “It’s a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous, that you realize just how much you love them” - Agatha Christie “One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night” - Margaret Mead “Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own” - Robert Heinlein “Whoso loves… Believes the impossible” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

15. “Love doesn’t have to feel dizzying” - Michael Levine “Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness that it pours into everything” - Annie Sullivan “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh” - W. H. Auden

16. “Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge “True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked. - Erich Segal “Love talked about can be easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible” - W. Stanley Mooneyham

17. Michael Hoerger To cite this lecture: • Hoerger, M. (2007, March 28). What is Love? Presented at a PSY 220 lecture at Central Michigan University.

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