What Kind of Love?

Instead of all the crazy Facebooking quizzes, this one actually is made and designed by experts. This scale is adapted from “What Kind of Lover Are You?” from “A Relationship: Specific Version of the Love Attitudes Scale” by C. Hendrick and S. Hendrick, from the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 1990, Vol. 5. Printed in “Human Communication” by Joseph Devito, Seventh Edition, Addison Wesley Longman Publishers Inc.

The Types of Love:

Loving, of course, means very different things to different people. To illustrate this important concept, take the self-test "What Kind of Lover Are You?"

SELF-TEST:

Respond to each of the following statements with T (if you believe the statement to be generally accurate representation of your attitudes about love) or F (if you believe the statement does not adequately represent your attitudes about love).

1. My lover and I have the right physical 'chemistry' between us.
2. I feel that my lover and I were meant for each other.
3. My lover and I really understand each other.
4. My lover fits my ideal standards of beauty/handsomeness.
5. I try to keep my lover a little uncertain about my commitment to him/her.
6. I believe that what my lover doesn't know about me won't hurt him either.
7. My lover would get upset if he/she knew of some of the things I've done with other people.
8. When my lover gets too dependent on me, I want to back off a little.
9. To be genuine, our love first required caring fro a while.
10. I expect to always be friends with my lover.
11. Our love is really a deep friendship, not a mysterious, mystical emotion.
12. Our love is the most satisfying because it developed from a good friendship.
13. In choosing my lover, I believe that it was best to love someone with a similar background.
14. A main consideration in choosing my lover was how he/she would reflect on my family.
15. An important factor in choosing a partner is whether or not he/she would be a good parent.
16. One consideration in choosing my lover was how he/she would reflect on my career.
17. When things aren’t right with my lover and me, my stomach gets upset.
18. Sometimes I get so excited about being in love with my lover that I can’t sleep.
19. When my lover doesn’t pay attention to me I feel sick all over.
20. I cannot relax if I suspect that my lover is with someone else.
21. I try to always help my lover through difficult times.
22. I would rather suffer myself than let my lover suffer.
23. When my lover gets angry with me, I still love him/her fully and unconditionally.
24. I would endure all things for the sake of my lover.

Check your answers:

If you have agreed to statements through 1-4, you have a strong Eros love component.
If you have said false to statements through 1-4, you have a weak Eros love component.
5-8 refer to Ludus Love,
9-12 refer to Storge Love,
13-16 refer to Pragma Love,
17-20 refer to Manic Love, and
21-24 refer to Agapic Love.

The True answers represent your agreement and False answers represent your disagreement to the various kinds of love present.

1. Eros: Beauty and Sensuality.
Erotic love focuses on beauty and physical attractiveness, sometimes to the exclusion of qualities you might consider more important and more lasting. The erotic lover has an idealized image of beauty that is unattainable in reality. Consequently, the erotic lover often feels unfulfilled. In defense of Eros, however, it should be noted that both male and female Eros lovers have the highest levels of reward and satisfaction when compared with all other types of lovers (Morrow, Clark and Brock, 1995).

2. Ludus: Entertainment and Excitement
Ludus love is often seen as fun, a game to be played. To the ludic lover, love is not to be taken too seriously; emotions are to be held in check lest they get out of hand and make trouble. Passions never rise to the point at which they cannot be controlled and consciously aware of the need to manage love rather than to allow it to control him or her. The ludic lover is manipulative and the extent of one's ludic tendencies has been found to correlate with the use of verbal sexual coercion (Sarwer, Kalichman, Johnson, Early et al 1993). Ludic-oriented sexually coercive men also experience less happiness, friendship and trust in their relationships than do non-coercive men (Kalichman, Sarwer, Johnson & Ali, 1993). Ludic lover tendencies in women are likewise related to dissatisfaction with life (Yancy & Berglass, 1991).

3. Storge Love: Peaceful and Slow.
Like ludus love, storge love lacks passion and intensity. Storgic lovers do not set out to find lovers but to establish a companion-like relationship with someone they known and with whom they can share interests and activities. Storgic love develops over a period of time rather than in one mad burst of passion. Sex in storgic relationships comes late, and when it comes it assumes no great significance. Storgic love is sometimes difficult to separate from friendships; it is often characterized by the same qualities that characterize friendship: mutual caring, compassion, respect and concern for the other person.

4. Pragma: Practical and Traditional.
The pragma lover is practical and wants compatibility and a relationship in which important needs and desires will be satisfied. In its extreme, pragma may be seen it eh person who writes down the qualities wanted in a mate and actively goes about seeking someone who matches up. The pragma lover is concerned with the social qualifications of a potential mate even more than personal qualities; family and background are extremely important to the pragma lover, who relies not so much on feelings as on logic. The pragma lover views love as a necessity - or as a useful relationship - that makes the rest of the life easier. The pragma lover therefore asks such questions about the potential mate as, "Will this person earn a good living?" "Can this person cook?" "Will this person help me advance in my career?"

5. Manic Love: Elation and Depression.
The quality of mania that separates it from other types of love is the extremes of its highs and lows, its ups and downs. The manic lover loves intensely and at the same time worries intensely about and fears the loss of love. With little provocation, for example, the manic lover may experience extreme jealousy. Manic lover is obsessive; he/she has to possess the beloved completely - in all ways at all times. In return, manic lover wishes to be possessed, to be loved intensely. It seems almost as if the manic lover is driven to these extremes by some outside force or perhaps by some inner obsession that cannot be controlled.

6. Agape: Compassionate and Self-less
Agape (uh-GAH-pay) is a compassionate, egoless, self-giving love. Agape is non-rational and non-discriminative. It creates value and virtue through love rather than bestowing love on that which is valuable and virtuous. The agapic lover loves even when people with whom he or she has no close ties. This lover loves the stranger on the road, and the fact that they will probably never meet again has nothing to do with it. Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi practiced and preached this unqualified love. Agape is a spiritual love, offered without concern for personal reward or gain. That agapic lover loves without expecting that the love will be returned or reciprocated. For women, agape love is the only love style positively related to their own life satisfaction (Yancy and Berglass, 1991).