`True Love Ways': The Subjective Experience and Communication of Romantic Love

Abstract

Whereas previous research into romantic love has focused upon the traits of love objects, beliefs about love and/or types of loving relationships, these two studies examine the subjective experience of love and the manners in which love is communicated. In Study I seventy-six respondents participated in face-to-face interviews. Responses were content and cluster analysed. Cluster analysis revealed six `ways of romantic love': Collaborative Love, Active Love, Secure Love, Intuitive Love, Committed Love and Traditional Romantic Love. In Study 11185 respondents completed a questionnaire version of the Study I interview. Respondents then employed the six love clusters in self-coding their responses, providing representational validity for the previous cluster analysis. Further, a confirming cluster analysis - using a subset of the Study II data - provided construct validity for four of the six love clusters. A fifth cluster split into two new clusters. These studies support two general conclusions. First, love may be experienced in a variety of different ways: in terms of relational constructs, physiological responses, behavioural actions and/or non-verbal perceptions. Second, there is a strong coherence in lovers' experience of love and in their reports of how love is communicated.

Maintenance strategies and physical affection as predictors of love, liking, and satisfaction in marriage

“…Nevertheless, Marston et al (1987) also found that individuals show love by doing things for the partner, spending time with the partner, and touching the partner. Despite the links between Marston et al's findings and the possible behaviors utilized in this research (e.g., sharing tasks, social Downloaded by [UQ Library] at 01:25 18 November 2014 networks, and physical affection), however, only sharing tasks contributed to feelings of love in any way, and its contribution to the total equation was virtually negligible.…”

“…One reason communication researchers may have shied away from utilizing love as a relational characteristic is the plethora of contradictory conceptualizations of love. For example, love has been operationalized as behaviors, as physiological responses, and alternatively as a relational construct (see Marston, Hecht, & Robers, 1987, for an overview).…”

“…rather than looking at an alternative question: what aspects of interaction predict love? One exception to the general preoccupation with the question of "what is love" is a study by Marston et al (1987;Hecht, Marston, & Larkey, 1988) that asked respondents how they communicated love to their partner. Responses included telling the partner how they felt, touching the partner, being supportive, doing things for the partner, and spending time with each other.…”

Relational implications of communication skill evaluations and love styles

“…For example, Perlman and Fehr (1987) identified ten distinct definitions of intimacy. Moreover, Lee (1973) and Hecht, Marston, and their colleagues (e.g., Hecht, Marston, & Larkey, 1994;Marston, Hecht, & Robers, 1987) identified half a dozen or more love "styles" or "ways" that intimacy and romantic love are enacted, expressed, and experienced.…”

The subjective experience of partnership love: A Q Methodological study

“…The ‘love ways’ researchers followed a similar path, employing a content analysis of open‐ended interviews designed to elicit ‘the respondent's own experiential definition of love’ (Marston et al , 1987, p. 393). The resultant category system was then used to code the interviews and these codings were employed as the basis for a final factor (or cluster) analysis.…”