Love styles, coping, and relationship satisfaction: A dyadic approach

Abstract

Romantic partners have different attitudes on what love is and what it means to be in a romantic relationship. These attitudes are conceptualized as love styles that relate to relationship-maintenance behaviors and relationship satisfaction. Specifically, love styles could be associated with how partners cope with stress (dyadic coping), which in turn may be associated with relationship satisfaction. Using self-report data from 92 heterosexual couples, findings showed that: (a) eros and agape love styles have positive direct effects on dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction, whereas ludus has a negative direct effect on dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction and (b) dyadic coping partially mediated the association between love styles and relationship satisfaction. Overall, associations were stronger for women than for men.Love styles are the attitudes that describe how individuals define love in the context of their romantic relationship. These attitudes affect how individuals feel about and behave in their relationship (Lee, 1977;Levine,

The role of personality and love style in marital satisfaction: Does similarity matter?

“…Game-playing love was negatively correlated with marital satisfaction for wives only. This is in line with the previous findings (Dinani, Zarbakhsh, Samkhaniyan, Hamidi, & Arkiyan, 2014) that ludic love has predictive value for marital satisfaction, and the association with relationship satisfaction is negative (Rohmann et al, 2016;Vedes et al, 2016). To explain why Ludus love style negatively affected marital satisfaction for wives' only, we rely on the life history theory Figueredo et al (2006), which states that men and women differ in their psychological systems that outline the different life strategies.…”

“…Agape and Mania are most evident during the maintenance period of a relationship, which is confirmed by having indicators such as involvement and loyalty. Romantic and altruistic love overall shows positive associations with relationship satisfaction, whereas the association with possessive and ludic love is negative (Rohmann, Führer, & Bierhoff, 2016;Vedes et al, 2016).…”

Love Styles in Couple Relationships: A Literature Review

“…In a study by Galinha et al [ [25]. As recorded by Vedes et al [33], a high level of Agape facilitates support to a stressed partner, and the joint effort to avoid stressors, although the latter coping type seems to be rarer in couples who have been together for longer. Furthermore, couples adopting such love type do not seem to show negative relational behaviour, such as jealousy or spying [32].…”

“…At the same time, it allowed us to quote the reviewed articles more than once in case they dealt with more than one love style. [29], the desire for intimate closeness to the partner [31], positive strategies for conflict resolution such as compromise [25], and dyadic coping, namely the joint effort by both partners to face a stressful situation lived by one of the two [33]. Besides, this love style is correlated to commitment in a relationship [20] expressed by a couple, which has expectations in terms of its duration, coherently with a romantic conception of love, as proved by the presence of negative emotions upon conclusion of the relationship [39].…”

“…Moreover, in terms of the connection between Agape style and relational satisfaction, Fehr et al [20] observed it does not exist, Vedes et al [33] found a greater presence in women, and Kimberly and Werner-Wilson [24] found a greater presence in men. This last result has been confirmed also in the research of Gana et al [23] who used the actor-partner interdependence model.…”