The document discusses different perspectives on the concept of love. It begins by challenging preconceptions of love and establishing a working definition. Love is described as multifaceted, involving passion, intimacy, and commitment. Criticisms are made that falling in love is not the same as love, and that dependency does not equal love. Real love is defined as an action characterized by treating others well through commitment, attention, and risk of rejection. Happy couples share a deep understanding while arguments in unhappy couples involve harsh criticism and failed repair attempts. In the end, love is described as subtle yet transformative force for good.

1. What is Love?

2. “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
Introduction

3. 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”
Monogamy

4. Montane vole Prairie vole
Pair-bond vs. No pair-bond

5.  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
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory

7. 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
Peck’s Criticisms of “Love”

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. 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
Happy Couples

11. Arguments characterized by…
◦ Harsh setup: negative and
accusatory
◦ 4 types of negative interactions:
criticism, contempt, defensiveness,
stonewalling
◦ Flooding  Stonewalling
Unhappy Couples
◦ Failed repair attempts
◦ Bad memories

13. “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
Love Quotes
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