Sticking to the (romantic) script: an examination of love life scripts, stories, and self-reports of normality

Abstract

Life scripts represent cultural expectations regarding the events in the prototypical life whereas life stories represent narrative constructions of the events occurring in individuals' own lives. In Study 1, we generated an outline of the love life script and a list of the self-definitional events individuals tend to associate with their own love lives. Participants were prompted to produce and rate seven important events in the prototypical love life and several significant moments from their own love lives. Building upon these descriptive efforts, in Study 2, we developed self-report measures of perceived and desired love life normality. These characteristics positively predicted the conventionality of autobiographical narratives drawn from participants' love life stories. Furthermore, perceived normality and desired normality were positively and negatively related to functioning within the romantic domain, respectively. These results underscore the role love life scripts and love life stories play in functioning within the romantic domain.

Love as story, love as storytelling

“…Over the last several decades, psychology has exhibited an increased interest in the study of stories and storytelling (e.g., Buehlman et al, ; McAdams, ; Sternberg, ). This interest has manifested in most, if not all, corners of psychological science, including the study of close relationships (e.g., Dunlop et al, ; Dunlop, Hanley, & McCoy, ; Sternberg, , ). Despite the ground that has been covered at this nexus, however, researchers have yet to examine the correlates and implications of the degree to which individuals enjoy storytelling behaviors in their romantic relationships as well as the degree to which they view their current romantic relationships and broader love lives in narrative terms.…”

“…The former captures the degree to which individuals desire closeness with their romantic partners and fear losing them, whereas the latter captures the degree to which individuals are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness. When these dimensions, which tend to be moderately positively correlated (e.g., Dunlop, Hanley, & McCoy, ; Gray & Dunlop, ; Mikulincer & Shaver, ), are inverted, they provide an indication of a secure (relative to insecure) attachment style (Mikulincer & Shaver, ; Simpson, Rholes, & Phillips, ). Consistent with this framing, researchers have noted that anxious and avoidant attachment styles typically correspond negatively with romantic domain satisfaction (e.g., Butzer & Campbell, ).…”

The narrative identity approach and romantic relationships

“…Furthermore, in prioritizing participants' current romantic relationships, researchers have paid little attention to (i) the manner in which individuals' story their entire love lives and (ii) the romantic narratives constructed by single individuals (Dunlop et al, ; e.g., Dunlop et al, ; Dunlop et al, ). Speaking of the former, for most, one's current romantic relationship represents but a part of his or her entire history within the romantic domain.…”

“…Alternatively, more than one coder may be tasked with rating all relevant narrative materials (again allowing for determination of the reliability of this coding), and then the responses of these coders would be averaged. These averaged responses would then be considered in all subsequent analyses (e.g., Dunlop & Hanley, ; Dunlop, Hanley, McCoy, & Harake, ).…”

“…To this aim, a variant of the LSI targeting narrative representations of entire love lives—the Love Life Story Interview (LLSI; Dunlop et al, ; manual accessible here: https://osf.io/2edvg/)—has been developed. Among other insights, research relying on this measure has identified the manifest events people recognize as love life high points, low points, and turning points (Dunlop et al, ), explored thematic differences in the stories provided by single and coupled individuals (Dunlop et al, ), and identified a negative relation between levels of avoidant attachment and the communion and positive affective tone present in participants' romantic key scenes (Dunlop et al, ).…”