What is Love?

I Love Lamp from John M on Vimeo.

            So what is love? This is an age old question that people seem to avoid answering. Are we just saving face because we are afraid of being wrong? Do we feel awkward talking about it? Or do we simply just not know the answer? Well, in communication, the word is thrown around by everyone, numerous times every day. People say they love people, and they say they love things (Just like Brick loves ‘lamp’ in the video above), so the first thing communication scholars have done is distinguished loving from liking. Loving and liking are related, but they are qualitatively different. Liking is based on affection, respect, and enjoyable interaction, whereas loving is based on attachment, motivation and a deeper level of caring.

            So… What is love!?!? There are several theories in communication which have their own definition of what love is. They all seem to overlap, so I guess if you take bits and pieces from each theory there is a rough definition of what love is.

            Lee’s theory of love is easy to compare to how we learn about colors. Just like we have primary colors (red, yellow, blue), we have primary [love] styles (Eros: physical love, Storge: companionate love, Ludus: playful love). And just like the primary colors mix to make secondary colors (green, purple, orange), the primary love styles mix to make secondary styles (Mania: obsessive love, Pragma: realistic love, Agape: altruistic love). I will describe both primary and secondary sorts of love, according to Lee.

            Eros is based on physical attraction. People in this sort of love are eager to develop intense, passionate relationships and once the passion dies they are likely to end the relationship. They experience emotional highs and lows, similar to a bi-polar disorder. When the passion is there they are at an enormous high, but when the passion is gone they are at an all-time low. They always desire physical contact; holding hands, kissing, hugging, etc. and they experience high emotional distress when separated from their partner. They have a fast development of intimacy and connection, thus having high levels of self disclosure.

            Storge is based on security, task sharing, joint activity, and companionship. Storge is not so much based on excitement like Eros, but on stability and knowing what tomorrow brings. They experience more steady emotions as opposed to the emotional highs and lows of Eros. Storge lovers have a positive emotional connection and a high level of comfort around their significant other, but they do not communicate it. Their love is based on a mutual desire for the same goals.

            Ludus relationships are based on fun and playfulness. Often relationships are treated as casual and commitment is avoided. These are the type of people that love the chase, but when they get the girl/guy they become bored and end the relationship. Obviously, these people would place their goals and desires ahead of their relationships, disclose little to no information, and be slow to develop any sort of intimacy.

Barney Stinson Top 10 - The top video clips of the week are here

Now to the secondary styles. Mania is a demanding, dependent, and possessive type of love. They need a high level of control and self disclosure. They need to know what you’re doing, where you are, when you’re coming back, and god forbid you don’t text them back when they ask you any of these questions, the proverbial ‘poop will hit the fan’. In case you couldn’t tell from the earlier part of the Mania description, Mania lovers are highly obsessive and have a high need for contact with their partner. They also experience extreme highs and lows, based on their partner’s actions.

Agape lovers are unselfish, altruistic, and unconditional. They have an intense concern for the other in the relationship and will make personal sacrifices in order to satisfy them. They have high expectations for unconditional love, so if you think your partner is an Agape lover… get rid of them… just kidding, don’t disappoint them.

Pragma love is based on the degree to which the partner needs certain criteria. They are very aware of Social Exchange Theory when they are making decisions. Pragma lovers put intimacy and passion in the back seat to be careful with consideration and time in the relationship.

According to Sternberg’s Triangular Theory, love (and the type of love) is made up of three components; commitment (the decision to love and maintain), passion (psychological/physiological arousal), and intimacy (closeness/sharing/support). The presence or absence of one or more of these components determines the type of love that you are in. Here are the different types of love and their combinations of the above components:

• Non-love (none)
• Liking (intimacy)
• Infatuation (passion)
• Empty (commitment)
• Romantic (intimacy and passion)
• Fatuous (passion and intimacy)
• Companionate (commitment and intimacy)
• Consumate (all three)

Davis and Todd’s theory of love examines the differences between love and friendship. This theory assumes that love and friendship share many of the same characteristics, but love has more. Friendship is about enjoyment, acceptance, trust, respect, mutual assistance, confiding, understanding, and spontaneity. Love shares the above characteristics PLUS passion, fascination, exclusiveness, sexual desire, caring, giving, and advocating.

The issue of intimacy is that whether we are motivated towards love or liking is partly determined by several needs, and as these needs are met, intimacy increases. The needs that need to be met are; affection, self-esteem, security, freedom, and equality. So basically no matter which theory you agree with most, love is always going to be a full time job… that stinks. Just kidding, if your loves style is compatible with your partners, you should have a very enjoyable relationship, but please don’t break up with your partner on account of my blog J

Communication Is No Accident

            We are taught communicative rules from the moment we begin to string together sentences. Cultures have different rituals and traditions, which give us communicative and social norms. We are taught to give eye contact, talk in turns, and not interrupt. Without simple rules like these, communication would be impossible. Communication rules can be either implicit or explicit. Implicit rules are implied or “unwritten” rules, whereas explicit rules have actually been stated between relational partners. These rules are expected in any relationship and it is our responsibility to follow them. If we behave the expected way, people will feel more comfortable around us, and we become more attractive to them. Conversely, if we do not follow these rules, we become weird, and people distance themselves from weird people.

            Along with rules comes politeness, which leads me to talk about politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Brown and Levinson say that politeness is all about “face”. Face involves an awareness or concern concerning our self image or the self image of others. According to this theory, we have both a positive and negative face; however, this does not mean we have a good and a bad face. Positive face is our self image, or our belief about our self, how we value our self, and how we want to be viewed. Our negative face is our independence; can we do what we want, when we want, how we want? There are several assumptions that this theory is based on, they are as follows; (1) positive and negative face threats are a part of social interaction, (2) within interaction faces can be threatened or validated, and (3) we generally try to avoid threatening our own face or others sense of face in interactions. The video below shows how we might avoid threatening the face of others (skip to 3:20).

Free Video Hosting

            Have you ever heard of the expression “saving face”? Saving face is the notion of leaving your identity unharmed and maintaining a good self image. To save face we use strategies known as preventative facework’. A common type of preventative facework is disclaimers, where we make excuses for our actions ahead of time. Some types of disclaimers are; hedging, where we save face by starting with, “I might be wrong but. . .” because if we are wrong we do not look stupid. Sin licensing is recognizing that you are saying something politically incorrect but saying, “I shouldn’t say this but. . .” beforehand to save face. Cognitive disclaimers are when you use your cognitive ability as an excuse for what you have said/are going to say. There is also a type of preventative facework called verbal self-handicapping. This is when you might make a physical excuse to save face ahead of time. For example, if I tell everyone that I am having terrible knee problems before our season opener, I have an excuse for playing bad, but if I play well people will think I triumphed over the pain.

            Now, if we have damaged our face, we use “corrective facework strategies. The first of these strategies is avoidance, where if a situation has the potential to make you look bad, you will do anything to avoid that situation. We may use humor and turn our mistake into a joke. We may apologize for our actions. We may give our account, or make excuses for our actions. My personal favorite is physical remediation, where we adjust something physically as if that is the reason for our actions, for example, if we trip we might look at our shoes like there is something wrong with them. Finally there is aggression, where we just get so mad at the situation that it distracts from our mistakes and makes people feel sorry for us.

            Obviously face saving is not all there is to politeness theory. As I said earlier, we have communicative rules and rituals that society expects us to follow. We use all kinds of greetings so we are not thought of as impolite. Without greetings we will not communicate, thus rituals are culturally dependent. The most common form of greeting is the verbal salute, such as “Hey,” or any other variation. A more personal option is direct reference, where we call names. If we are in a really good mood and have a minute or two to spare, we might use personal enquiry, like “Hey Luke, how are you today?” We might also express our desire to continue the relationship with greetings like “It’s great to see you! It’s been too long!” We might apologize for not seeing them in so long, we might even refer to the situation, like the weather for instance. Finally, we might use compliments, jokes or even just non-verbals, such as a wave or a nod etc. Of course all of these greeting depends on your relationship with the other person, obviously professors or bosses will have to be addressed more formally.

            Relational openings are rituals that are created in which a desire to form a relationship is indicated. Usually these are directed towards romantic relationships, this is where we see pick up lines.

            If we are as successful as the Fresh Prince, our pick up lines may lead to small talk. We use small talk as a proving ground for new and established relationships, as it satisfies our inclusion needs. It is a safe procedure for telling about ourselves and learning about others, although it can become uncomfortable if too much information is disclosed. From small talk we can progress to more integrating and penetrating topics. The primary basis for small talk in initial interactions is uncertainty reduction, because if we are uncertain about someone, we are uncomfortable and they become unattractive, which leads back to rules and rituals and becoming familiar with our new and established relational partners.

            I have definitely used a number of these strategies to save my face, however, when people spit on my face I usually have something to say about it (see first video if you don’t understand the reference)!

Coming Together

            Have you ever consciously thought about the reason why we get into the relationships we get into? Well, other than our own personal qualities and the qualities of others, there are two things that drive us to talk to people; identity and attraction. Please keep in mind that in the field of interpersonal communication “attraction” is not only used in romantic relationships, but it is used as an adjective in the development of all relationships.

            Now first and foremost, our identity is socially defined. What this means is that how we see ourselves must be agreed upon by our peers or even society as a whole. For example, I would not be identified as an ‘emo’ because I do not fit the criteria that society has placed on the emo culture. However, if I wore black and white makeup, got a specific haircut that fits with the emo culture, and dressed in all black clothing with a glum facial expression; I would obviously view myself as an emo, and so would society.

            Our identities are also maintained through communication. People will start to identify us based on actual or imaginary conversations. For example, if I was to have a conversation with someone dressed very respectfully, I might expect them to speak with eloquence, however, if they begin to speak with a ton of slang and sound like they were raised by the streets, I would change my perception and identification of them. And on the imaginary side, if I think people say certain things about me relating to my identity, I may act to change what I think they are saying, or act to reinforce their idea of me.

            Identity is often confused with self-esteem and ego, but the truth is that these are both built off of our identity. Self-esteem is how we perceive ourselves, and ego is when we compare our perception of ourselves to our perception of others. Depending on what our identity is, or what we want it to be, can affect our self-esteem and ego, but our self-esteem and ego cannot affect our identity.

            Our identity gives us structure. It is impacted by feedback; we need confirmation by others to verify our identity. Our identities help us interpret the feedback we receive because we have general expectations of how some people will behave or communicate. Our identities also impact our self evaluation, our goals (how high we should reach, and our belief that we can reach that far), and our relational choices. Our identities will make us wonder if we are being treated they way we believe we deserve to be treated based on our identity. Similarly, we will ask ourselves if others look at us the way we look at ourselves. If somebody questions our identity, we may remove ourselves from that relationship, thus our identities are a key component in relational development.

            There are some concerns about identity perception. We have all met people who we consider ‘fake’, is this a mistake in how we read their identity, or are they being deceptive in an attempt to fit in to society? Our identity is dependent on the social interactions we have with others, but to what extent are we influenced by these interactions? We all have different groups of friends for a reason, and we don’t spend time with these groups at the same time for the very same reason. Our friendship groups have different characteristics, as an extreme example; you would not mix your book club friends with your sports team friends. Obviously one group is going to be more extraverted than the other and there would be some serious personality clashes. We form these groups to give us an option of who to spend time with based on our mood or maybe even changes (temporary or permanent) in our identity. We are attracted to different qualities in different social situations. We would obviously look for different qualities in co-workers, friends, partners, and hook-ups.

            We are attracted (not romantically) to everyone we share relationships with. There are different types of attraction for the earlier mentioned relationship types. These attraction types consist of; physical, social, task, sexual, relational, and fatal. With these attractions come expectations. We assume some type of reward from most relationships, based on subjective requirements within the relationship. Our expectations can be violated in both a positive and a negative manner. For example, if we have a professor who we expect to be a jerk, but they end up being really nice and informative, our expectations have been violated in a positive way. However, if we have the opposite expectation and they end up being a terrible professor with a bad attitude, our expectations have been violated in a negative way. Nevertheless, if we know we have to stay in that class for the whole semester, we will tolerate the bad professor and try to find positive traits about them because we feel like we have to.

            Interactive and environmental qualities have a significant effect on our relational choices. Interactive qualities include similarity and complimentary behaviors. The “birds of a feather. . .” saying implies that we want to be around people similar to ourselves. We search for communicative and attitudinal similarity, physical similarity (research says we date people a similar ‘hotness’ to ourselves), and implicit egotism (share a birthday, went to the same school etc.). “Opposites attract” is of course the opposite of “birds of a feather. . .” As a final point on interactive qualities, the relational length plays a major role in attractiveness. The more time we invest in a person, the more attractive they become. The most common of the environmental qualities are networks and distance. If our social networks approve of our newfound relationships, we will most probably proceed with them. And finally, distance/proximity affects frequency of contact, and frequency of contact has the power to increase or decrease attraction.

            So what is your identity? Does it match the identities of those who you are close with? Do you show different parts of your identity around different friends or different sexes? How often have you made a comment or observation when you have seen a couple walking down the street who are at different ends of the ‘hotness scale’? “How did HE get HER!?” is a common one, my friends and I call it ‘careering’. Maybe I should send that to Oxford English Dictionary. . .