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Agape Love: Altruistic and Selfless

Agape love traits and meaning

When you’re in a relationship, do you express your affection through giving selflessly without expecting anything in return? Do you feel it is part of your responsibility to look after your partner unconditionally? If so, then you may have the love style Agape (pronounced uh-GAH-pay).

Agape is the type of love that goes beyond physical attraction and is unconditional in its nature. It appears in Greek literature and religious contexts, but here we’ll discuss the meaning of Agape in psychology and relationships. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what exactly Agape love is, how it shows up in relationships, and how it might relate to your attachment style.

What is Agape Love?

Agape is one of the 6 love styles that describe the different ways we approach romantic relationships, outlined by John Alan Lee and later validated by Clyde and Susan Hendrick 1, 2. There are 3 primary styles: Eros (passionate love), Storge (platonic love), and Ludus (game-playing love). The combinations of these each give 3 secondary styles, of which Agape is one alongside Mania (possessive love) and Pragma (practical love).

Lee theorized that we each have one main love style in our approach to romantic love, and these patterns show up in how we look for, find, and behave with partners.

Agape Love Meaning

Agape love may be defined as a selfless, sacrificial service to others; completely accepting and embracing the person receiving the love for who they are, without judgement. Lee described it as “gentle, caring, and guided by reason more than emotion.”

Agape Traits

If you have this love style, your attitude towards love might have these characteristics:

  • Unconditional acceptance. Agape lovers give without expecting anything in return.
  • While Agape lovers put their partners before themselves, they do this because they want to, without neglecting their own needs. Their sacrifices are healthy.
  • Agapic lovers are emotionally mature and sometimes older.
  • A sense of duty – Agapic lovers feel that everyone is deserving of love and giving it is part of their responsibility.
  • Can be attracted to different types of people and makes connections with strangers easily.

Challenges of Agape Love

Although Agape love is mature and selfless, it still comes with its own challenges. The recipient of Agapic giving can feel guilty if they’re unable to reciprocate, or, alternatively, they can take advantage of their partner’s will to serve them. An imbalance in giving and receiving can work if both partners are happy, but if the relationship couldn’t survive without it then the dynamic may be unhealthy.

Examples of Agape in Relationships

Within relationships, people with the Agape love style can be exceptionally understanding and compassionate with their partners. They offer more support to their partners, feel closer to their partners, and foster greater relationship satisfaction 3.

Attachment and Agape Love

Our attachment style is impacted by our early childhood experiences with our primary caregivers. During this time, we form an emotional bond with them, which lays out a kind of “mental map” of how we make sense of the world, how we can meet our needs, and how relationships work. Generally speaking, attachment theory has a big impact on our ability to love and also how we love.

One paper found that the Agape love style was negatively related to attachment avoidance and positively associated with attachment security, with no strong association with attachment anxiety 3.

Other studies haven’t found any correlation, but our own research at The Attachment Project did find some interesting results 4. Although the correlations we found were on the weaker side, Agape was associated with lower relationship avoidance and higher relationship anxiety. This was the only love style to correlate with both dimensions of attachment in opposite directions – it’s possible that, because people with high relationship anxiety can have a tendency to put their partner’s needs before their own, they can score higher on this domain in the Agape love style.

Final Thoughts on Agape Love

Non-judgemental and compassionate, Agape love comes from a place of deep kindness and love for the receiver. It’s not focused on any physical characteristics, rather completely embracing and accepting the other person for who they are as a whole.

Agape is just one of the 6 love styles. To learn more about the other 5 love styles and how they relate to your attachment style, including more about our own research at The Attachment Project, check out our other articles on love styles or take the love styles quiz.

References

  1. Lee JA. A typology of styles of loving. Personality and social psychology bulletin. 1977 Jan;3(2):173-82.
  2. Hendrick C, Hendrick S. A theory and method of love. Journal of personality and social psychology. 1986 Feb;50(2):392.
  3. Levy MB, Davis KE. Lovestyles and attachment styles compared: Their relations to each other and to various relationship characteristics. Journal of social and Personal Relationships. 1988 Nov;5(4):439-71.
  4. Regan PC. Loving unconditionally: Demographic correlates of the agapic love style. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships. 2016 May 12;10(1):28-35.

 

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