The Love Test: Love Styles & Attitudes

Love comes in many shapes and sizes and hopefully, everyone reading this has experienced it at some point in their life. Love can be wonderful, freeing and exciting. It can also be hurtful and difficult.

In order to understand love better, copious amounts of research has gone into developing different theories and assessments of it. One of the most famous concepts is love languages, but there is a scientifically-backed alternative: The Love Attitudes Scale¹.

The Love Attitudes Scale was developed in the 1980s and aims to capture the way people express and experience romantic love. It offers an assessment on six different types of love.

FIND OUT YOUR ATTITUDE TO LOVE

What Is Love?

A question for the ages, love means many different things to many different people. For some, it means passion, and for others, it means family. In modern day times, we refer to many forms of love simply with that one word. In Ancient Greek times, there were many words for love.

Regardless of era, love has been around in some way, shape or form for centuries. It bonds us to another person with an emotional attachment, often resulting in a range of positive mental states and a feeling of certainty and stability.

The Psychology of Love

Love, as a concept and seemingly universal feeling, has attracted a lot of research attention across the years. Love features in many popular models of psychology, such as:

• Biological model.
• Cognitive and social psychology.
• Evolutionary psychology.

Each of which has a specific and unique lens with which love is assessed and understood.

Biological Psychology and Love

Researcher Helen Fisher divides love into three partly overlapping stages²:

1. Lust
2. Attraction
3. Attachment

In the lust stage, there is an initial passionate desire that promotes mating. Hormones such as testosterone and estrogen are released into the body at this time to drive this behavior. In the attraction stage, there is more nuance. The desire moves beyond just mating and becomes more selective in nature; focused on establishing a longer term commitment with a partner. In the attachment stage, there is a bonding that promotes much longer relationships (years and potentially decades). Commitments such as children, marriage and shared interests often form the foundation of this stage.

Cognitive, Social Psychology and Love

Researcher Robert Sternberg developed the triangular theory of love and argued for three different components of love³:

• Intimacy
• Commitment
• Passion

In this case, intimacy refers to the details and experiences of personal lives being shared in confidence. Commitment refers to an expectation and desire for the relationship to be long-lasting. Passionate love refers to a romantic love, also possibly an infatuation.

Evolutionary Psychology and Love

Evolutionary perspectives on love suggest that it may be a mechanism to promote support for children from their parents. Generally this perspective sees love as being advantageous in the development of human social support systems, which allows for humans to evolve rapidly.

The Love Attitudes Scale

The Love Attitudes Scale was designed by researchers Hendrick & Hendrick in 1986¹. They researched the way people express and experience romantic love and their work made a significant contribution to the field.

They developed a 42-item questionnaire designed to measure people’s attitudes towards love; based on the current/recent/hypothetical partner, as well as general attitudes towards love. The scale is divided into six separate subscales, that each represent a different love style:

• Eros (passionate love).
• Ludus (game-playing love).
• Storge (friendship, familial love).
• Pragma (practical love).
• Mania (possessive, dependent love)
• Agape (altruistic love).

Six Love Styles

The six love styles or “love attitudes” that are represented as subscales on the scale were proposed by sociologist John Lee. They are also sometimes referred to as colours of love, and were published in his book Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving in 1973⁴.

Eros Love

Eros love refers to an intense or profound romantic, sensual form of love, which is often characterized by desire and attraction. In modern times, we often see Eros depicted in film and TV in a classic romantic story; two people meet and fall in love, and all they want to do is spend time together. They become infatuated with each other and can think of nothing else to do apart from spend time together.

Eros may look like people experiencing a strong desire for the other person; potentially even leading to idealizing the partner. They may also have a strong focus on physical attraction; physical intimacy is important. Lastly, eros can come with a sense of urgency, and feel like everything has to happen immediately; likely because of the intensity of the love.

Ludus Love

Ludus love refers to a spontaneous and carefree romantic experience, which is often built on a foundation of having fun and playing games. The classic example of ludus love comes from the school playground; when we had a crush on someone, we played a game with them as a way to express our emotion. As we grow up, we still may express ourselves through playing games in ludus love.

Ludus may look like a playful and fun type of love; it’s not serious, and is more like a game to be played. At its core, it is casual and can lack serious emotional involvement, actually gaining strength through unexpected encounters. This kind of casual approach often leads to a lack of exclusivity, resulting in multiple partners at the same time.

Storge Love

Storge love refers to an affectionate feeling towards our family and friends, in fact, we may also call it “familial love”. Anyone we consider our family may be on the receiving end of storge love; that can include close friendships and communities. At its core, storge love is a compassionate type of love, caring in nature.

Storge may look like loyalty and acceptance; those people who always have your back. They are supportive and there for the long-term; deep down they want the best for you and accept you for who you are. This kind of love is non-judgemental and is based on trust. This type of love fosters appreciation for each other and shines through in forms of gratitude.

Pragma Love

Pragma love refers to a logical, realistic and rational form of love. it is not romantic or passionate in nature, rather well thought-through and for a specific reason. Compared to something like ludus love, pragma looks more long-term to future interests and compatibility. Pragma focuses on values and interests, rather than any physical or sexual chemistry; looking to base the partnership on the objective qualities of a partner and seeing how the connection can develop over time.

Pragma can look like a value-focused, cooperative approach to love. It’s focused on how two partners can be good companions for each other, and how they fit together. Pragma love places less importance on sexual chemistry, and sees more of a long-term future on how the relationship can build up as the bond strengthens over time.

Mania Love

Mania love refers to an possessive, intense and even sometimes obsessive type of affection. This kind of love can completely take over, because of the strength of the desire felt and experienced. Its foundations, coming from Ancient Greek times when mania was used in relation to people having a mental disorder, relate to some kind of madness of affection.

Mania may look like a strong need for reassurance and validation, which may lead to erratic behaviors in an attempt to get that. It can feel overwhelming when the connection is not there, which can lead to fluctuating emotions. They may fear abandonment, which may also influence their jealous and/or possessive nature.

Agape Love

Agape love refers to a kind of selfless love that is based on the receiver’s needs. It stems from a place of responsibility and sacrifice for others; agape love comes with complete acceptance of who the person is and being loved for who they are. In Greek, agape means “brother love” or “charity”.

Agape looks like unconditional acceptance; a service to others regardless of any reciprocation. This kind of love is kind and patient, as an agape lover always sees the strengths of the receiver, even if they can’t see it themselves.

Final Thoughts on Love Styles & Attitudes

We all experience love differently. Some may find love to be intense and passionate, and some may experience it as a source of stability. The Love Attitudes Scale provides us with a reliable and validated measure to understand how we experience and express love on six subscales: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania and agape.

References

1. Hendrick, C., Hendrick, S. S., & Dicke, A. (1998). The love attitudes scale: Short form. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(2), 147-159.
2. Fisher, H. (2004). Why We Love: the nature and chemistry of romantic love. Henry Holt and Company.
3. Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological review, 93(2), 119.
4. Lee, J. A. (1973). Colours of love: An exploration of the ways of loving. New Press.