Love in psychology Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Love in psychology - Coursework Example Love is too enthralling that millions of people resulted to find varied ways and strategies just to find the idealized partner. Many have strong preference to look at love as a positive force that fills the existential vacuum, but many of them are also experientially eluded to truly feel and perceived true love. At times, gender relations illustrate power play in relationships: of submissiveness and domination. Female does the former and the male does the later. It has varying perception from male, female, gay, lesbian or of those coming from transsexual gender. But most of them felt how love entails joy, happiness, and hurt. There is a mystical concept in it, maybe because of its association to fantastic fairy tales. Lovers would even seize distance just to be with the beloved; or to find wisdom from good or bad relationship; or to simply feel the void in the lover’s absence. But its amazing how one could find someone to love from billions of people walking in all busy lanes. Love’s history is immortalized by time and its details are enshrined in all historic evolution of events in many civilizations. Rubin (1975) thought that romantic  love  is made holistic by three elements: attachment, caring, and intimacy. Attachment is a state of belongingness where care is felt and there is direct communication for cognitive and emotive responses. It is a comfort zone, a security base, a sacred breathing space. It is considered as passion. The absence of attachment caused certain level of instability of emotions and psyche. Caring on the other hand relate to humanistic-altruistic value of being sensitive to another’s happiness. Intimacy refers to the bond established through sharing of thoughts, desires, and feelings with each other.  Hatfield, Cacioppo, Rapson, and Clark (1992) categorized love into compassionate  and passionate  love. Compassionate love refers to the capacity of person to understand and to be receptive of the language of the heart with respect and trust. Compassionate  love  usually develops out of feelings of mutual understanding and shared respect for each other.  Passionate  love  on the other hand is an intense feeling with physiological awareness of the beloved. Reciprocation of these feelings meant fulfillment and the person is preconceived as an ideal lover. Hatfield et.al. (1992) believed that passionate  love  is transitory and could only last within the period from 6 to 30 months. Meanwhile, Lee (1973) explicated love by associating its concepts to primary colors: eros, ludos, and storge.  He believed that love is a combination of these three. For instance, the combination of eros and ludos meant an obsessive love. A combination of ludos and storge could result to realistic love, a pragma. Eros and storge combined would also mean selfless love. Religious leaders call this agape, an ideation of love in the image of God. Lee (1973) further explained that eros meant loving an ideal person; ludos meant love as a game; and storge meant love as friendship. Sternberg (1996) professed that relationships are built on elements that endure and are called consummated love as a description of intimacy, passion, and commitment. Rubin (1973), a social psychologist