Content provided in partnership with
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS RESEARCH: A RESOURCE FOR COUPLE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS
Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Jan 2004 by Hendrick, Susan S
Personality
Linking love styles to personality has yielded some interesting findings. Self-esteem, considered an aspect of personality, has been related positively to passionate love and negatively to manic love (C. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986), consistent with Eros as an intense but ego-secure love style and Mania as a jealous, worried, and less secure love style. The love styles have also been related to self-disclosure (Self Disclosure Index; Miller, Berg, & Archer, 1983) and sensation-seeking (S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1987c). For example, passionate love was related positively to self-disclosure, but game-playing love was related negatively. Yet game-playing was positively related to several dimensions of sensation-seeking, a finding consistent with other research (Richardson, Medvin, & Hammock, 1988). Woll (1989) also found links between love styles and personality, as did Hall, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1991), who used the Repertory Test, based on Kelly's (1955) Personal Construct Theory.
- More Articles of Interest
- Attachment and family systems: Conceptual, empirical, and therapeutic...
- LOVE STYLES AND ROMANTIC LOVE EXPERIENCES IN JAPAN
- Sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and mate selection
- LOVE TYPES AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY
- A study of men and women from different sides of earth to determine if men...
More recently, White (2003) related the love styles to aspects of personality as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (Form S; Costa & McRae, 1985, 1992). The NEOPI-R is widely used and measures five factors: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Several of the factors were correlated significantly with several of the love styles. Eros (passion) was negatively related to Neuroticism and positively related to Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Storge (friendship) was related similarly, but with no correlation with Agreeableness. Ludus (game-playing) was related positively to Neuroticism and negatively to Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Pragma (practicality) was related negatively to Openness but positively to Conscientiousness. Mania (possessiveness) was related positively to Neuroticism, and Agape (altruism) was unrelated to the factors. These findings do indicate some links between love styles and personality, particularly Neuroticism.
Love Styles in Diverse Couples
Religion is an important consideration for many people, and, although we have not found people of different religious backgrounds to differ on their love styles, we found that a person's degree of religiosity (how religious a person considered her or himself to be) was important. More religious persons were more endorsing of friendship, practical, and altruistic love and less endorsing of game-playing love than were less religious persons (S. Hendrick & Hendrick, 1987b).
Race/ethnicity is an emerging focus for us. In a study of Mexican American (both bicultural and Hispanic oriented) and Anglo married couples, Contreras, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1996) found only modest love and sexual attitude differences between the couples. The three groups did not differ in relationship satisfaction and were also similar in passionate love, friendship love, and altruistic love. Murstein, Merighi, and Vyse (1991) found some similarities between French and American college students, although French students were more altruistic, and American students were more manic and friendship oriented. (For other cross-cultural research with the love styles, see Cho & Cross, 1995; Goodwin & Findlay, 1997; Sprecher et al., 1994).
Find Research Guides for:
Find Featured Titles for: Business
- Academy of Marketing Science Review
- Accounting Historians Journal, The
- Accounting History
- AgExporter
- Agricultural Research
- Agricultural and Resource Economics Review
- Air Force Comptroller
- Air Safety Week
- Airline Industry Information
- American Demographics
- American Journal of Potato Research
- Architectural Review, The
- Asian Economic News
- Entrepreneur
Most Popular Articles in Reference
- The importance of understanding organizational culture
- Credit card attitudes and behaviors of college students
- What factors attract foreign direct investment?
- Libraries Need Relationship Marketing - mutual interest marketing concept, ...
- How to set performance goals: employee reviews are more than annual critiques
- More »