Chapter 6

Summary:

Chapter 6 is about love and relationships. It begins by naming different types of love.  First there is loves of one’s self and love of a friend and what that entails.  The difficult question, “What is love?” is then asked. It goes into a description of different types of love such as parental, romantic, and intimate.  Next, the chapter goes into lust and intimacy. Caring and intimacy go hand in hand. Both include feelings value towards a partner and understanding the partners needs is an integral part of caring and intimacy. Commitment is another huge part of caring and intimacy.

Next, the chapter goes into theories of love and loving.  The first theory is “The Biochemistry of Love,” which says that love has to do with biology and the natural importance of men and women to reproduce. It is also what attracts couples together and gives them the feelings of being “swept off their feet,” in love with each other.

The attachment theory is discussed next. According to psychologist Mary Ainsworth, she named three different attachment styles.  The first is the secure style in which a person thinks it is possible to get close to someone without ever feeling abandoned if a person were to leave. The second is the avoidant style, which means a person is not comfortable being close to someone because intimacy makes him or her uncomfortable. And the third is anxious/ambivalent style in which the person worries that people don’t actually like him or her and so they are pushed away.

The next theory is Reiss’s Wheel Theory of Love, which was created by sociology Ira Reiss in which he says there are four stages of love; “rapport, self-revelation, mutual dependency, and personality need fulfillment.” 

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love was created by psychologist Robert Sternberg and says that love is made of three parts. Part one is intimacy, second is passion and the third part is commitment or decision (either you stay together or it is over).

The most popular theory is Lee’s Style of Loving.  Sociology John Lee came up with six styles of loving, which are described in Table 6.1.  First is Eros, which is all about physical attraction and beauty.  Next is Mania is characterized by jealousy and dependency.  Third is Ludus, which means there a casual and fun-loving quality to the love.  Storge is peaceful love, which features “mutual trust and respect.” Agape is “altruistic love.” And finally, Pragma is realistic love.

Exchange theory is the next one discussed. This says that love is an exchange of costs and benefits between each partner.

The next section of the chapter discusses functions of love. The chapter says that love is an integral part of human survival and is actually very good for our health. Then, the chapter gets into the negative side of love and talks about barriers that people put up.  There are many factors that attribute to putting up walls to keep out love.  There are things such as financial issues, personality characteristics, society’s stereotypes, desires to put one’s self first. Things that go wrong in love include narcissism, which goes back to putting one’s self first and not being able to care about others. Another problem is jealousy.  This is something that comes in between a lot of couples and the chapter debates if one gender is more jealous than the other. There are also many examples of controlling behavior and abuse.

Romantic love is one of the last things discussed in chapter six. It is viewed differently throughout the world. Non-western countries have arranged marriages and therefore do not care or believe in romantic love.

What I learned:

I really liked Lee’s Styles of Loving.  I actually learned a lot from it and found myself trying to categorize my relationship and my friend’s relationships.  I realized my roommate’s relationship would be characterized as mania. I actually think a lot of her dependence comes from self-consciousness that has come out of her parent’s difficult divorce. She feels alone and family-less so she then depends on her boyfriend for attention and affection. She is jealous even when her friends get more attention from him that she does and spends all of her free time with him. She is a perfect case study for mania.

Question for discussion:

I don’t know if anyone else had problems with the myths about love at the beginning of the chapter. I have found this many times in the book but again; I found that it was super negative and bitter when talking about if people could really stay in love forever and such. I’m sure you have all seen this video of the couple trying to figure out their webcam together.  Obviously they are still very much in love. The book said that “love can be genuine but may not last forever,” but it doesn’t make a case for why it wouldn’t. Does anyone have any reasons why it wouldn’t?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYMlPqMnPXs

Gina Zidek