Romantic relationship: Love styles, Triangular Love and Relationship Satisfaction

Objectives. This study examined how the love variables (intimacy, passion, commitment and the six love styles) are differences between genders and relationship stages. In addition, associations between love variables and relationship satisfaction among local romantic partners were studied. Method. Participants were eighty-two couples who have involved in a romantic relationship (dating or married). They completed questionnaire which assessed their love styles, level of intimacy, passion, commitment, and relationship satisfaction. Results. Gender differences in love styles and stage effect on the triangular love components were found. Participants’ scores on all love components were found to be positively related to satisfaction. Specific love styles, Eros was found to be positive predictor on satisfaction for men and women. Agape was found to be a positive predictor, but only for men. Ludus, was found as a negative predictor for satisfaction and commitment for both genders. Discussion. Results suggested love styles, Eros, Storge and Agape, as well as intimacy, passion and commitment were positively related to satisfaction. A distinct finding of the discrepancy in passion leaded to higher satisfaction raise an interesting issue to be discussed. Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 3 Table of contents Page Abstract 2 Table of contents 3 List of Tables 4 Introduction 6 Literature Review 7 A general look at love theories 7 Styles of Romantic Love 8 Gender differences in Love styles 9 The Triangular Theory of Love 10 Time courses of love 11 Triangular love changes across stages 11 Association of Love Styles and Triangular Love 12 Love Styles predict Relationship Satisfaction 13 Intimacy, passion, commitment, and relationship satisfaction 14 Study overview 15 Method 18 Participants 18 Measurements 18 Procedure 20 Results 21 1. Internal reliabilities 22 2. Gender differences in love styles 22 3. Love styles differences across relationship stages 23 Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 4 4. Triangular love changes across stages 24 5. Association of love styles and triangular love 25 6. Partners’ similarity in love endorsements 28 7. Correlations of love styles and relationship satisfaction 28 8. Correlations between Triangular components and satisfaction 31 9. Correlations of discrepancies in love triangle and satisfaction 33 Discussion 34 Conclusion 42 Reference 44 Appendix 47 List of Table Table 1 Descriptive statistics of scales 22 Table 2 Paired sampled t-test for love styles among genders 23 Table 3 Means and F ratio for love styles across relationship status 23 Table 4 Means and F ratio for love components across relationship status 25 Table 5 Linear regression analyses testing love styles in love components 27 Table 6 Correlations of Love styles and Triangular love among couples 28 Table 7 Correlations among love styles and relationship satisfaction 29 Table 7.1 Linear regression analyses: love styles as predictors of relationship satisfaction among men and women 31 Table 8 Correlations of Triangular Love with men and women satisfaction 32 Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 5 Table 9 Correlation of discrepancies in Triangle love with relationship satisfaction 33 Table 9.1 Linear regression of discrepancies in Passion onto relationship satisfaction 34 Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 6 Romantic relationship: Love styles, Triangular Love and Relationship Satisfaction There have been a number of theories of love emergence to study close relationships in recent decades. Based on love theories from the west, it is interesting to study romantic relationships in our local society. The purpose of the present study is trying to bring concepts from two dominate love theories, Lee’s (1973) styles of love and Sternberg' (1986) Triangular theory of love, together. The present study is based on information obtained from local intimate couples, one goal is to examine how love is different across gender and relationship stages. Moreover, and the more important is to ascertain how love styles and components are associated with relationship satisfaction. Love characterizes intimate relationship, despite the fact that the meaning and how people experience it, may vary across cultures, and individuals. Number of studies about romantic relationship showed that intimacy, passion and commitment vary across relationship stage and they are related to satisfaction. Men and women do show different in love beliefs. For most people, it is desirable to have a fruitful and intimate relationship. However, couples may find their love fade or alter with time. Those who find their loves differ with their past may influence their relationship. With more understanding of gender differences and love change across different stages may help romantic partners to understand their intimate relationships from more perspectives. Moreover, findings from a local perspective may help to contribute for professional field, such as pre-marital counseling and marital counseling. Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 7 Literature Review A general look at love theories Earlier publication, Colors of Love which was originally proposed by Lee in 1973, defined love as six different styles. These love styles include Eros, Ludus, Storge , Pragma, Mania and Agape. They are considered as attitudinal, and not mutually exclusive within a person (S. S. Hendrick & C. Hendrick, 1997). This multidimensional approach gives an inclusive framework to view individual differences in love. In a separate line of studying love, Sternberg’s (1986) Triangular Theory of Love viewed love as a triangle, formed by three elements, which are intimacy, passion and commitment. He suggests different combinations of the three components yield different kinds of love. All three components are also associated with satisfaction in relationships and vary from time (Sternberg, 1986) and stage of relationship development (e.g., Acker & Davis, 1992; Gao, 2001). Lee’s and Sternberg’s theories are two comparable empirical approaches. Based on these two theories, we can study love from different perspectives and broaden the conceptions of love. Such as, romantic love is a kind of love characterized with intimacy and passion, it is also classified as Erotic love. Companionate love emphasizes intimacy and commitment, the love grown from committed friendship is also know as storgic love. The triangular theory of love views passion, intimacy, and commitment as essential components for love relationships, which is parallel to Hendrick’s et al (1988) findings. Hendrick’s finding shows Eros (romantic love), Agape Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 8 (companionate love) are positive love styles for relationship satisfaction. Lee’s theory seeks for what love attitudes that a person adopts to constitute what sort of lover. Sternberg’s theory seeks an integration of actions into love. Elements under both perspectives can be predictors for relationship satisfaction. Styles of Romantic Love Lee (1973) proposes six love styles analogous to primary and secondary styles. He defines the three primary styles as (1) Eros, is a style of loving begins with strong physical attraction, it can be known as “love at first sight”. Erotic lovers enjoy intense emotion and desire exclusivity with partner; (2) Ludus, is a love styles views love as a game. Ludic lovers are playful and refuse to commit the whole life to develop a love relationship; (3) Storge, is a love relationship developed slowly from friendship. Storgic lovers were often affectionate initially and finally settle down together. The secondary styles are derivatives of the primary styles, known as (4) Pragma, is a practical approach of love. Pragmatic lover is a combination of Ludus and Storge (Lee, 1988). This love style is not specially emphasis on intense physical attraction, but is a conscious search for compatible partner; (5) Mania is the style characterized by obsession and anxiety to the partner (Morrow et al, 1995). Although manic lover is possessive and jealous, people may get benefit from mania love experience. It is beneficial to realize how deeply and intensely one is capable of loving one another (Lee, 1988); (6) Agape is combination of Eros and Storge (Lee, 1988). It is a selfless, giving and Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 9 altruistic love. People with this style view it is a duty to love. Emotional intensity is described as vary across each love styles. Eros and Mania are in intense emotion, Agape is mildly intense, Ludus, Storge and Praga are low in intensity (C. Hendrick, S. Hendrick, 1986). The typology of six love styles stimulated the later research interests. Based on this typology, a set of forty-two items scale, known as Love Attitude Scale (LAS), was standardized by Hendrick and Hendrick (1986). It attempted at quantifying the love styles. Numbers of studies by using the LAS have explored gender differences in love beliefs and association between different love styles and relationship satisfaction (e.g., Hendrick, Hendirck, & Adler, 1988; Frazier & Esterly, 1990; Morrow, Clark & Brock 1995). Gender differences in Love styles Gender is intertwined with attitudes and behaviors in love, and also with regarding to social expectations. Although romantic partners always show similar patterns in love attitudes, there are gender stereotypes. Consistently, mens are found to be more endorsing of erotic love game-play love and agape while womens are more endorse with storgic, manic and pragmatic love (Frazier & Esterly, 1990, Hendrick & Hendrick, 2006). It may not be a particular phenomenon in western societies. In our culture, traditional men’s roles are more sexually permissive and responsible to take care partner or as a bread earner in a family. Men also place more importance on sexuality within relationship, it causes them are more emotionally dependent on their partners. It is reasonable to believe Eros, Ludus and Agape are mens’ Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 10 general traits. For women, they are expected to be less sexually permissive, but more friendship oriented regarding to their intimate relationship. It is also a cultural norm for women to choose a partner who can be a provider for living. In women’s choice of partners, they may be more practical and rely on their partners in aspects of lives. Though present study examines intimate relationships in local culture, it is believed that local situation might also follow the gender traits found in previous studies. The Triangular Theory of Love The second theory of interest in this study is Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love. It holds that love can be understood as three components that together to be viewed as vertices of a triangle (Sternberg, 1998). Intimacy involves feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness in a romantic relationship. It includes feelings of experienced happiness with a partner, mutual understanding and intimate communication with the loved one (Sternberg, 1986). Passion involves drives that lead to romance, physical attraction and sexual consummation (Sternberg, 1986). Hatfield defines passionate love as the profound desire to be with another which through a combination of emotions and behaviors (Hatfield, 1988). It includes the most intense feelings. Commitment consists of two aspects, in the short term, is the decision to love someone, and in the long term, is the decision to maintain that love (Sternberg, 1988). This aspect includes the exclusivity and fidelity. These two aspects of commitment do not necessary go together. A person decides to love someone can without a Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 11 commitment to that love. A consummate, complete love is characterized as full combination of the three components. It is also difficult to maintain (Sternberg, 1986). Time courses of love An attained consummate love is no guarantee that it will last, because the three triangular love components are varying from different stage of relationship development. Levels of components are predictable with time course (Sternberg, 1986, 1988). To delineate how different which lovers experience their love across the relationship development is interesting. According to Sternberg’s prediction (Sternberg, 1986), for example, if a relationship is to become a long-term one, level of commitment will be gradually increase and then speed up. If the relationship keeps on over the long term and even it does not begin to fails, the amount of commitment will generally level off. Passion develops rapidly is followed by fades with habituation. For the level of intimacy (Sternberg, 1988), he assumes that intimacy declines as a relationship develops over time. He also argues that in a successful relationship, although manifest intimacy declines, latent intimacy continues to grow. However, Sternberg’s prediction was lack of a time frame. It is quite abstract to tell how the duration of a relationship is a long enough to show a specific pattern that he predicts. Triangular love changes across stages Acker and Davis (1992) reported partners in longer relationships showed less behavioral intimacy and less behavioral passion than those with shorter relationships. It supports Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 12 Sternberg’s concept, which is decline in manifest behaviors with relationship development. In spite of taking relationship length as a measurement, they found that level of commitment is higher for married partners. Passion also follows the predicted pattern, it declines over time emerged, but only among women. Gao (2001) provides support to show changes in stage of romantic relationship are closely related to intimacy, passion and commitment. The study compared romantic partners from casual dating, serious dating and at engaged stage. These three component increase as the relationship becomes more serious. And these findings are significant in both US and Chinese cultures. In the light of the argument and previous finding, it can be argued that relationship stage is also an important factor as well as length in predicting love. Association of Love Styles and Triangular Love Lee’s love styles and Sternberg’s Triangular theory of love are different in nature, but can be a direction to study love and predict relationship satisfaction. Love styles are expected as internal attitude-based, which are personal and tend to be stable as one’s relationship “theme” (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1997). People may simultaneously hold different love styles with two different partners (Hendick et al, 2006). Triangular theory of love emphasizes on expressing intimacy, passion and commitment through action in order to maximize happiness (Sternberg, 1986). People’s behaviors are changing with relationship dynamic. From a microscopic perspective, associations can be derived from those concepts. It is believed that Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 13 there are correlations between how one’s beliefs and their actions. The present study tries to sort out which certain love styles might be associated with love components specifically. Such as, Eros as described as intense emotional and strong physical attraction, undoubtedly, it is concerning the intimacy and passion. Agape is a love style placing loved person’s welfare above one’s own. Agape is consistently found to be higher in men. Men are more likely to treat their partners with their commitment of caring. It is believed that commitment plays a more important role on intimate relationship for men. On the contrary, commitment is predicted as increase with the passion die down across relationship stages, it give rises to companionate love which may bring to increase in storgic love. Although love components are hypothesized that increase across relationship development, there is not much empirical support for love styles will be also changed across stages. Love styles are linked with personal attitude and it is believed that they tend to be stable across stages for both genders. Love Styles predict Relationship Satisfaction The 42-item LAS (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986) is always used to examine the six love styles in research. Previous studies showed general associations between individuals’ love attitudes towards relationship satisfaction. Relationship satisfaction is always found to be positively related to Eros and negatively related to Ludus for both men and women (eg. Hendrick et al., 1988; Frazier & Esterly, 1990). Morrow et al. (1995) also report similar findings. In particular, it shows Eros and Agape were also associated with higher levels of Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 14 commitment. In contrast Ludus was negatively associated with it. Moreover, these studies found relationship partners show similar attitudes regarding to love and certain relationship qualities, such as commitment. Similarities in attitudes are believed to be important in an intimate relationship. During the early stage of a romantic relationship, partners come together may be possibly due to physical attractiveness or similar interests. While relationship is developing, partners concern how they can meet other’s needs, which involves commitment and investment. Therefore, romantic partners are expected to show similarity in their love attitudes, and indeed it was occurred from previous findings (e.g. Hendrick et al., 1988; Morrow et al., 1995). Eros, Ludus and Agape are always found to have significant correlations on predicting relationship satisfaction and gender differences. One goal of the present study is to replicate these earlier findings, to examine if the predictive abilities of love styles on satisfaction are obvious and the gender differences in the local culture. Intimacy, passion, commitment, and relationship satisfaction Sternberg pictures love as a triangle, as the three components are the vertices of the triangle, he suggests that the larger the person’s area of the triangle, the greater the amount of love can be experienced (Sternberg, 1986). It can be understood as the more the endorsement of the components, more love is experienced. To examine the predictive ability of the love components on satisfaction, Acker and Davis (1992) did the regression analysis and separate Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 15 analyses, showing that three components display a significant association with satisfaction. In particular, commitment is the most consistent and strongest predictor for both genders. Love as Sternberg describes as a triangle, but it does not only involve one triangle with an intimate relationship, because there are always involve two persons in a love relationship. Another consideration of this study is the “self and other triangles” (Sternberg, 1988). When comparing partner’s “triangle”, there may be discrepancies in shape (the balance of the three components) or in size (the amount of level of each component), Sternberg suggests that greater unmatched in three components endorsement tends to be associated with lesser satisfaction (Sternberg, 1986). Sternberg and Barnes (1985) study shows the absolute difference associated with lower satisfaction. Consider this study, which used the general scores of absolute differences of love scales as measurements. However it cannot show the how differences are the “self” and “other” triangles and disregard the gender difference. The effect from each component is not shown clearly. To more ascertain the contributions of each love components on relationship satisfaction, the present study will sort out and examine the discrepancies from each element and its effect on relationship satisfaction. Study overview Based on the previous findings and reasoning, the present study is divided into two areas. The first part concerns the love varies across gender and relationship stages. Gender differences of love styles will be tested following the previous directions which literature Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 16 offered, involving Eros, Ludus and Agape. Besides, gender differences in other love styles will be also explored. Concerning the time courses of triangular love, previous study is partially replicated. Gao (2001) reports all three components increased from state of casual dating, serious dating to engaged. In his study, participants’ relationship length from 1 month to 5.5 years, (SD=1.29). In the context of present study, participants’ ranges of age and relationship duration are much wider. Participants with serious dating will be further divided as either “less than 2 years” group or “more the 2 years” group, in order to compare the effect from relationship stages as well as relationship duration. Although Sternberg predicts passion decline as time course, there is no clear time frame. It is unsure to make hypothesis regarding to the change in passion across stages in the present study. Compared with the triangular love, love styles are believed as personal love beliefs. Love styles are rather stable. To address these phenomenons, three hypotheses are made. H1: Mens have higher scores than women on Eros, Ludus and Agape scales. H2: There is no significant difference in scores of love styles scales across relationship stages. H3: Level of intimacy and commitment increase across relationship stages. The second area was about the association betweens the love styles as well as the love components with the relationship satisfaction. Before testing whether love beliefs were related to relationship satisfaction, the correlation between the love styles and the triangular Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 17 love was one of the interests. Previous research studied the characteristics either of the love styles or the triangular theory of love. It is seldom to examine the correlations between these two dominant love theories from a same group of participants. An individual’s attitude is believed to affect one’s performance or behaviors. It is strongly believed that the two theories are not just conceptually related but also could be shown by empirical findings. Furthermore, consistent with prior findings, three love styles, Eros, Ludus and Agape, will be tested for their predictive ability on relationship satisfaction. Following Sternberg’s prediction, relationship satisfaction is related to the amount of the love components endorsed and affected by the matching of the triangles among the couples, present study also addressed this issue. H4: There are correlations between love styles and love components between an individual. H5: Eros, Agape are positively related to relationship satisfaction for both men and women. H6: Ludus is negatively related to relationship satisfaction for both men and women. H7: Intimacy, passion and commitment are positively related to relationship satisfaction for both men and women. H8: Participant’s love styles and love components are correlated to partner’s scores. H9: Discrepancies in level of intimacy, passion and commitment are negatively related Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 18 to relationship satisfaction both men and women. Method Participants Participants were 82 couples who involved in a romantic relationship of either stage, which is in regular dating or marriage while they were involving in the study. Men participants ranged in age from 19 to 52 years (M= 27.3, SD = 8.75). Women participants ranged in age from 19 to 52 years (M= 25.95, SD= 7.88). The mean duration of their romantic relationship was 4.9 year (SD=6.35). 75.6 percent of the couples were unmarried. 24.4 percent of couples were married. Measurements Background information This set of items collected information about participant’s relationship, which include length of their relationship and relationship stage. Length of the relationship was asked for how many years and months. Relationship stage was initially determined by five categories, Casual Dating, Serious Dating, Engaged or Plan to get married, Cohabitation and Married Couple. Due to none of the participant was in the “Casual Dating” group, and a relative small number of them fall in the “Cohabitation” group (N=1). Therefore, that particular couple was integrated into “Married” group. Moreover, the participants fall in the “serious dating” group was having their relationship length widely ranged from 1 month to 84 months. This group Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 19 was further split into 2 groups. The five categories were regrouping as four groups; they are “Serious dating with two years or less”, “Serious dating with more than two years”, “Engaged or Plan to get married”, and “Married”. Triangular Theory of Love Scale (TTLS) The Triangular Love Scale (TTLS) (Sternberg, 1988) is a 45-items scale measures the three components of love. Each component, intimacy, passion and commitment is measured by a 15-item subscale. Each scale is rated on 5-point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree, 3= neutral, 5 = strongly agree). TTLS is reported with high internal consistency, alpha coefficients for three subscales are above .90 (Tzeng, 1993). The full scale is shown in Appendix1. Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS) Relationship Assessment Scale is a brief, appropriate measure for romantic relationship (Hendrick, Dicke & Hendrick, 1998). It is a 7-item scale measures relationship satisfaction. The scale is rated on 5-point Likert scale with different descriptions for each item. The scale reported the mean inter-item correlation of .49 and an alpha of .86 (Hendrick, 1988). The full scale is shown in Appendix 2. Love Attitude Scales (LAS) The Love Attitudes Scales (LAS) (Hendick & Hendrick, 1986) measures the beliefs about romantic relationships. It consists of six 7-item subscales to measure the six love styles: Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 20 Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, and Agape. Each scale is rated on 5-point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree, 3= neutral, 5 = strongly agree). Full scale is shown in Appendix 3. Reliability analyses of LAS produced the alpha coefficient for the entire scale is .70, and coefficients for the six subscales are ranged from .62 to .84. (Tzeng, 1993). A Chinese version of LAS is translated with a reference of Dong’s (2004) research in this study. In Dong’s research, reliability coefficients of the six subscales were reported ranged from .55 to .76. In the present study, LAS consists of 39 items, with 5 items in Ludus subscale, 6 items in Storge subscales and 7 items for the rest of the subscales. Pilot study A pilot study was carried out on STLS, RAS and LAS to access if there was any technical problem when fill in the questionnaire. Thirty participants were recruited to do the questionnaire which was translated into Chinese scales. They were ranged in age from 20 to 25 year (SD= 1.76) with involving in a romantic relationship. Participants found the wordings in the questionnaire were easily understood. No major problem was found. Procedure 82 couples were recruited by snowball sampling techniques. The initial participants were college students and friends of researchers. Participants with romantic relationships were approached directly by researchers. After the data collection, participants were asked for recommendations if they knew other romantic couples who might be also interested to the Love styles, Triangular love and Relationship satisfaction 21 study. Before the distribution of the questionnaire, participants were asked if they were having heterosexual romantic relationships. Questionnaires were enclosed in separate envelopes to keep confidentiality. All participants were instructed to fill in the questionnaire individually with their partners. Participants were requested to fill in a questionnaire with four parts. The first part was about the background information. Following this were three scales, the 45-item Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love Scale (Sternberg, 1986), the 7-item Relationship Assessment Scales (RAS) (Hendrick, 1988), and 42-itme Love Attitude Scale (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). The questionnaire was translated from English to Chinese with back-translation to ensure the equivalences. The questionnaires used in this study is shown in Appendix 4.