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
1. Passion: intense longing for another
person
2. Intimacy: feeling connected, enjoying
one’s company and support
3. 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.