|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LOVE HURTS: EXPLORATIONS OF LOVE, VALIDATION, AND CONFLICT
|
|
|
David A. Winter*, Judy Duncan** and Emma Summerfield* |
|
|
*University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK, ** Hertfordshire Partnership Foundation Trust, UK |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Abstract
This
paper considers how love may be conceptualised from a personal construct theory
perspective, particularly in relation to experiences of validation and invalidation.
This model is applied to writings about love, and the findings of a repertory
grid and interview exploration of love, indicating differences in students’
construing of romantically and platonically loved figures and relationships
between grid scores and a measure of love styles, are presented. Illustrations
are provided from the clinical setting indicating how clients’ relationship
problems may be explained in terms of their constructions concerning love.
Keywords: love, conflict, validation, invalidation |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I hate and love. You may ask why I do so.
I do not know, but I feel it and am in torment.(Catullus)
Fair is my love, and cruel as she’s fair,
Her brow shades frowns, although her eyes
are sunny. (Samuel
Daniel)
For even as love crowns you so shall he
crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and
caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake
them in their clinging to the earth.(Kahlil Gibran)
Love’s pleasure lasts but a moment; love’s
sorrow lasts all through life.(Celestine)
Friendship is a disinterested commerce
between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.(Oliver Goldsmith)
There is no
love without hate!(Wilhelm Stekel)
The course of true love never did run
smooth.(William Shakespeare).
As the above quotes, and the title of this
paper, indicate, a favourite topic of literature and popular songs from time
immemorial is that love is not an easy ride. We shall consider how this
conflictual nature of the experience of love may be viewed in terms of personal
construct theory, and report the findings of two research studies conducted
from this perspective. Love has not previously received much attention in the
personal construct literature, as is also the case in the psychology literature
generally (Tallis, 2005). Butt and Burr (2004) suggest that this may be because
not only do psychologists shy away from areas that cannot be easily measured
but also because love is something of a taboo subject.
Although Kelly (1955) did not include love
in his original list of common emotional terms that he defined as constructs
relating to transition, he did acknowledge in his later work that ‘“Love” … may
hold an ever so important position in one’s construct system – as I, for one,
believe it should’ (Kelly, 1977, p. 3). He also raised, and answered, three
questions about love, namely:
…is
love actually
rational? The answer to this question must, I believe, remain unknown in our
generation. Yet our psychology must enable us to cope with such unknowns. If we
are careful to distinguish between love as an experience, on the one hand, and
our rational construction of it, on the other, the question need not arise.
Whatever it will turn out to be in the end, we should not be inhibited in
examining it through the spectacles of rationality. As long as we remember what
spectacles we are wearing, love, itself, need not be distorted by such
inspection.
…Can
love be completely understood if it is regarded in rational terms only?
Probably not; we have not yet developed a completely rational understanding of
much of anything, even things that seem much less complex than love…
…Is
not the understanding of love implicit in the experience of love? If you can
fall in love, does that not mean that you understand it? The experience does
provide a kind of understanding but being in love with someone does not always
carry with it a certain understanding of the love that another feels. And that
is the root of many a tragedy (Kelly, 1977, pp.
3-4).
Although in this passage Kelly provided an
argument for the psychological examination of love, he did not attempt such an
examination himself. Let us now accept Kelly’s invitation and consider how the
experience of love may be viewed in terms of personal construct processes.
Validation and
Invalidation
McCoy (1977, 1981) initially took up the
challenge of providing a personal construct understanding of love when she
extended Kelly’s list of emotional terms defined from a personal construct
perspective. Her definition of love was that it is ‘a state of awareness of the
validation of one’s core structure’ (McCoy, 1977, p. 109). It follows that ‘The
loved one is everything needed to be one’s whole and true self’ (p.109). McCoy
was thus able to explain the behaviour of clients who persisted in apparently
unsatisfying relationships in an attempt to defend their core structure.
The importance of mutual validation in
relationships of friendship and love has been indicated by a number of research
studies. Amongst their findings are that:
1. |
people seek out others with
similar constructs (Duck, 1973);
| 2. | advanced friendships are
associated with greater commonality in less superficial areas of construing
(Duck, 1973; Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1981);
| 3. |
friends and partners are more
satisfied with each other when they use constructs more similarly (Neimeyer &
Hudson, 1985; Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1981, 1985);
| 4. |
low similarity in construct use
characterises deteriorating relationships (Duck & Allison, 1978; Neimeyer &
Neimeyer, 1982);
| 5. | similarity in intimate
partners’ construing involves not only the content but also the structure of
their construct systems (Adams-Webber, 2001; Neimeyer & Neimeyer, 1983). | In the view of Neimeyer and Neimeyer
(1985), close relationships may be regarded as ‘forms of intimate colleagueship
in which two or more personal scientists collaborate in supporting and
extending one another’s critical life investments’ (p. 197). As these workers
have indicated, however, validation in a relationship may not only be achieved
by commonality in partners’ construing but also, in what they term ‘negative
relationships’, by each individual contrasting their ideal self with their view
of their partner. A personal construct perspective such as this can indicate
why a seemingly unsatisfying relationship can be very resistant to change.
As Bannister and Fransella (1986) have
pointed out, the role relationship of love provides not only the possibility of
validation and aggressive elaboration of core role structures (Bannister, 1977)
but also of invalidation of such structures. They consider that it is therefore
the relationship in which a person is likely to take their ‘greatest personal
risk’. In Epting’s (1977) view it is both the validation and the invalidation
that are provided in a loving relationship that enable us to experiment and to
elaborate our self-construing. Therefore, invalidation in such a relationship
need not necessarily be destructive. Indeed, a relationship which solely
offered validation might be experienced as exceedingly boring. As Hatfield
(1988) has indicated, this is the ‘maximally rewarding relationship’ described
by some behaviourists, in which couples are ‘locked in total agreement ,
smiling and nodding at one another, avoiding all stress’ (p. 207). That a
relationship of this type may be associated with psychological disorder rather
than optimal functioning has been indicated by research on people diagnosed as
agoraphobic (Winter & Gournay, 1987). This demonstrated a very high
commonality in their and their partners’ construing, and that the greater this
commonality the less likely was the agoraphobic to go out of the house.
A similar argument may be applied to
therapeutic relationships, which optimally, if they are to lead to any change,
must involve not merely validation but also experiences of invalidation (Walker
& Winter, 2005).
Terror
The contrasting experiences of core role
validation and invalidation have been most clearly described by Leitner (1985).
While the former experience may be one of love, the latter is likely to be
characterised by the conglomeration of negative emotions that Leitner describes
as terror. For some individuals, this may lead them to view role relationships
as too dangerous to contemplate, but they then deny themselves the opportunity
of experiencing love.
One of the major components of terror is
threat, the awareness of imminent comprehensive change in core structures. As
Hall, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1991) have indicated, the dissolution of a love
relationship in which one’s identity is immersed is likely to be threatening,
and individuals may remain in unsatisfying relationships rather than face this
threat (Neimeyer & Hall, 1987). They assessed threat using a repertory grid
by examining differences in the ratings on constructs of the self in and out of
the current relationship. High scores on this measure in men were associated
with low relationship satisfaction and valuing of love, and less likelihood of
engaging in rational, pragmatic love relationships.
Hostility
One of the strategies that may be used by
the person who is faced with core role invalidation in a love relationship is
hostility, the extorting of evidence for invalidated constructions. For
example, Bannister and Fransella (1986) described how the invalidated person
may terminate the relationship in such a way that “the authenticity of the
other person as a source of evidence” is denied (p. 25). These workers also
indicated that a love affair can be developed in a hostile way by each partner
bullying or bribing the other to validate their core construing. Kelly (1977)
himself had previously suggested that in some instances what one person regards
as love might better be construed as dependency or hostility. He illustrated
“loving” hostility by describing a parent who construes and treats her child as
being like a doll (Kelly, 1955).
Constriction
A further strategy of construing that is
often apparent in situations of passionate love is constriction, in that the
world of the person who is in love appears to be limited to the love object,
who becomes ‘the source of all meaning in the lover’s life’ (Brehm, 1988, p.
257). As Flaubert (1959) described this state in ‘Madame Bovary’:
[The] world,
for him, was all contained within the silky rondure of her skirts (p.
235).
However, Peele (1988) regards this type of
absorption in another person as more akin to addiction than to the expansive
experience which is genuine love, more consistent with Kelly’s notion of
dilation.
Preemptive construing
The apparently limited construing of some
people who are in love may also be manifested in a tendency to use preemptive
or constellatory constructions. As Kelly (1955) noted, while constriction
limits the number of elements in the person’s perceptual field, pre-emption
limits the number of constructs that are applied. McCoy (1977, p. 109) proposed
that in many cases of people who persist in apparently unsatisfying
relationships, love is “an element construed constellatorily as the ultimate
good as well as the name of a pre-emptive construct”. Preemptive construing may
be manifested in idealisation of the lover, but again Peele (1988) considers
this to be closer to addiction than to the truly helping relationship that he
regards as love.
Dependency
As Walker et al. (1988) have indicated,
preemptive construing also characterises relationships of undispersed
dependency, in which the individual places all his or her dependency eggs in
the basket of one other person. This other person may be a love object, but it
is to such a relationship that Kelly (1977) was probably referring when he
stated that what may be described by someone as love might instead be viewed as
dependency. As Hatfield (1988) has described, the individual who enters into
this type of relationship, and who is not capable of independence, is likely to
lack the capacity truly to be intimate since he or she cannot take any risks
for fear of losing their partner. The love concerned is what Maslow (1970)
termed ‘deficiency love’, contrasting it with the ‘being love’ of the more
self-actualised person.
While love has been viewed by some
researchers in terms of attachment (Shaver, Hazan, & Bradshaw, 1988), at
least one personal construct psychologist, Sean Brophy (2004), is very clear
that “Love is not about attachment” in that “it is not about having, in any
real sense, whether having persons or things” (p. 13).
Sociality
Kelly regarded the essence of intimate
relationships as sociality, the construing of the other person’s construction
processes. This view is supported by research findings that people are more
satisfied with relationships in which they feel that their views of themselves
and of desired personal changes, as well as their use of superordinate
constructs, are accurately understood (Neimeyer & Hudson, 1985; Williams &
Neimeyer, 1984). As Branden (1988) has described, one of the needs served by
romantic love is the experience of psychological visibility, effectively having
a ‘pychological mirror’ (p. 224).
Incomplete Experience Cycles
Central to optimal functioning, according
to Kelly (1970), is the completion of Experience Cycles. In these, the person
anticipates an event, invests him- or herself in the anticipation, actively
encounters the event, assesses whether the anticipations have been confirmed,
and revises his or her construing accordingly. From this perspective, the
experience of love may sometimes appear far from optimal. Stendhal (1926)
described a stage model of passionate love in which a stage of anticipation
follows an initial admiration of the beloved and is followed by hope and
romantic attraction. However, there is then a process of crystallisation,
essentially involving idealistic construing of the beloved, followed by doubt
concerning whether one’s love will be reciprocated and a second crystallisation
where there is obsessive concern with fear of rejection. This would seem to
indicate that the original anticipations of the beloved are never fully tested
by the completion of an Experience Cycle. As Brehm (1988, p. 238) describes it,
“The imaginative construction of the beloved takes on a life of its own, free
from the constraints of the individual who is the beloved.” In her view, “the
core of passionate love lies in the capacity to construct in one’s imagination
an elaborated vision of a future state of perfect happiness” (p. 253). Indeed,
the essence of passionate love may be the maintenance of uncertainty, and
associated Kellyan anxiety, by avoidance of testing out of idealistic
constructions of the beloved and of a future life with him or her. In the words
of Flaubert (1959, p. 310), “We must beware of touching the idol for fear the
gilt may come off in our hands”. Similarly, Lazarus (1985) considered that “Romantic
love thrives on barriers, frustrations, separations and delays. Remove these
obstacles, replace them with the everyday-ness of married life, and ecstatic
passion fades”. This may be likened to the ‘if only’ fantasy described by
Fransella (1970) in which an idealistic construction of how one’s life might
be, for example without a particular symptom, is maintained by never testing it
out. It may explain the endurance of passionate love, as in a man described by
Stendhal (1926, pp. 53-4) whose passionate love of his wife survived for twenty
five years because “she was unpredictable” and he “lived in constant fear of
divorce”.
Given Kelly’s (1955) view of a
disorder as “any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of
consistent invalidation”, and Walker’s (2002) elaboration of this notion as
involving ‘non-validation’, the failure to test out construing, it is perhaps
not surprising that individuals may sometimes be regarded as love sick (Tallis,
2005; Tennov, 1979).
Slot Rattling
In the view of Tallis (2005), the
psychiatric ‘sickness’ that is most similar to love is bipolar disorder, with
its alternation of periods of mania and depression. He makes the point that
both in poetry and ancient medicine a language of dichotomy has tended to be
used to describe love, including such oppositions as heaven and hell, hot and
cold, and bliss and misery. From a personal construct perspective, the lover
may be considered to engage in constant slot rattling, Kelly’s (1969) term for
the reassignment of an element, in this case the beloved, from one pole of a
construct to the other.
Varieties of love
Perhaps all that may be concluded from this
personal construct consideration of love is that love comes in many forms and,
of course, is subject to numerous alternative constructions, by lovers, poets,
novelists, and academics alike. Implicit in many of the writings on love is the
view that, as Lee (1988, p. 66) puts it, “the kind of love the researcher likes
best is the only ‘true’ love”. To quote further from this author, “How ironic,
that in the glorious activity of loving, so many still refuse to celebrate the
wondrous human capacity for variety”. Butt and Burr (2004) make a similar point
in relation to the various available socially shared categories of love, and
the anxiety experienced by the individual whose form of loving does not neatly
fit into one of these categories. Some of these alternative forms of loving
were discussed in the special issue of the Journal
of Constructivist Psychology edited by Butt (2005) on ‘The construction of
sexualities’. For example, Barker (2005) explored how polyamorous individuals,
who believe that it is possible to love and maintain sexual relationships with
many people, construct their identities in a monogamous world.
Various taxonomies of love have been
proposed by different authors (Weis, 2006), and one that has received some
attention in the personal construct literature is Lee’s (1973) differentiation
between six love styles. These are Eros, which begins with powerful physical
attraction; Ludus, game-playing, pluralistic love; Storge, a slowly developing
loving affection; Mania, obsessive, possessive love; Pragma, rational love; and
Agape, altruistic love. A Love Attitudes Scale was developed by Hendrick and
Hendrick (1986) to measure these love styles, which, together with several
relationship variables, were found by Hall, Hendrick, and Hendrick (1991) to be
related to aspects of construing, as measured by a repertory grid.
A simpler distinction between different
types of love is that between passionate and companionate love (Hatfield &
Walster, 1978). Passionate love, on which we have largely focused above, is
defined by Tallis (2005, pp. 47-8) as:
a
state of intense longing for the beloved. When reciprocated, passionate love is
associated with joy, euphoria and ecstasy. However, these feelings are almost
invariably shadowed by darker emotions such as anxiety, jealousy and sadness.
Therefore, it is difficult to experience passionate love in the absence of at
least some psychological pain…Passionate love is all-consuming, tending to
dominate an individual’s life to the exclusion of everything else; however, its
intensity is short-lived.
Passionate
love is similar to Lee’s (1973) manic love, in many cases of which ‘the lover
doesn’t even like the beloved and
would not choose him or her as a lasting friend.’
By contrast, Tallis (2005, p. 48) considers
that:
Companionate
love may be less intense than passionate love, but it is more stable. It is
generally associated with commitment and feelings of profound closeness. This
level of intimacy can only be achieved in a relationship that evolves over an
extended period of time. The companionate couple enjoy a symbiotic partnership,
sustained by common goals and shared experiences. Although companionate love
may never recover the heady heights of passionate love, neither does it plumb
its depths.
Personal Construct Investigations of
Passionate and Compassionate Love
Hypotheses
The distinction between passionate and
companionate love allows some synthesis of the personal construct
conceptualisations of love, and leads to questions for research. Thus, the
former type of love would appear to be characterised by a high risk of core
role invalidation, or ‘terror’, coupled with strategies to avoid such
invalidation, such as hostility, constriction, failure to complete Experience
Cycles, and slot rattling in construing of the beloved. By contrast, the
experience of companionate love would seem to be more one of mutual validation.
This has led to the following hypotheses, which we have investigated in two
research studies:
1. | there is a higher degree of
conflict in the way in which a passionate, as opposed to a companionate, love object
is construed; | 2. | there is greater conflict in
construing of the romantic partner in people who favour a more passionate love
style, as reflected in Lee’s Eros and Mania categories.
|
Study 1
Participants
The participants were 20 female and 4 male
undergraduate psychology students, with a mean age of 22.6 years (s.d. 3.5
years).
Measures
- Personal information sheet:
this included questions concerning the stability of the participant’s current
romantic relationship and his/her past relationships.
- Relationship Assessment Scale
(Hendrick, 1988): this measures relationship satisfaction, higher scores
indicating greater satisfaction.
- Loving and Liking Scales
(Rubin, 1973): these measure attitudes towards the partner, higher scores
indicating greater loving or liking.
- Love Attitudes Scale (Hendrick &
Hendrick, 1986): this measures Lee’s (1973) love styles, lower scores
indicating greater endorsement of the love style concerned..
- Repertory grid: the grid
elements were the participant’s romantic partner; an ex-partner; mother;
father; self; ideal self; the closest person to the participant with whom s/he
had had no sexual involvement; and three significant others.
10 constructs were
elicited by triadic comparison of these elements, and the constructs ‘affectionate
– unaffectionate’ and ‘honest – dishonest’ were supplied. Elements were rated
on constructs on a 7-point scale. Conflict was assessed by a repertory grid
measure devised by Bell (2004), which defines conflict as occurring when:
1. | an element is at the same time
similar or close to two construct poles which are themselves different or
distant; or
| 2. | an element is similar or close
to one construct pole and at the same time is different or distant from another
construct pole, where the two construct poles are similar or close. |
Conflict scores for elements were derived
from the GRIDSTAT package (Bell, 1998), and the following scores were entered
into the analysis:
- the mean conflict score for the
current and ex-partner;
- the conflict score for the
closest significant other;
- the mean conflict score for
family members;
- the mean conflict score for the
non-romantic partner and non-family significant others.
Results
Table 1: Mean
conflict scores for grid elements in Study 1
Statistic
| romantic
partners | closest
friend | family
| non-family | Mean
| 11.2 | 9.6 | 10.5 | 9.2 | Std.Dev. | 1.9 | 3.2 | 2.1 | .7 |
partners>friend (t = 2.18; 1-tailed p<0.05)
partners>non-family (t = 3.37; 1-tailed
p<0.01) N = 24
family>non-family (t = 2.16; 1-tailed p<0.05)
As indicated in Table 1, the mean conflict
score for the current and ex-romantic partners (regarded as representing
passionate love objects) was, as hypothesised, significantly higher than that
for the closest significant other (regarded as representing a companionate love
object). It was also significantly higher than the average conflict score for
non-family significant others. The mean conflict score for the romantic
partners was not significantly higher than that for family members, which in
turn was significantly higher than that for non-family members.
The only significant correlation between
the conflict score for the current romantic partner and the questionnaire
measures was on the Love Attitudes Scale, and indicated that participants who
endorsed an Eros, or passionate, love style tended to have more conflictual
construing of their partner (r = -0.50; p<0.01; 1-tailed).
Study 2
Participants
These were 24 female and 13 male
undergraduate psychology students, with a mean age of 20.95 years (s.d. 4.62
years).
Measures
The participants completed the same
measures as were used in Study 1, with the exception that in the grid the
supplied construct ‘honest – dishonest’ was replaced by ‘sexually attractive –
unattractive’. GRIDSTAT was used to partition the conflict, as defined by Bell (2004), attributable
to each construct in the grids, and thus to identify the conflict associated
with the ‘sexually attractive – unattractive’ construct.
In addition, participants completed an
interview in which, drawing upon a method used by Viney and Westbrook (1981),
they were asked to talk about the good and the bad things in their
relationships with their current partner, each of their parents, and the
closest other person with whom they had a platonic relationship. Responses to
these questions were content analysed using a set of scales developed by Viney
(1983). Participants were also asked to define love, to describe their ideal
relationship, and to talk about the differences between the love that they felt
for the various significant people in their lives.
Results
As in Study 1, the mean conflict score for
partners was significantly higher than that for non-parent significant others
(see Table 2). However, it was not significantly higher than the conflict score
for the closest significant other nor than the conflict score for parents, which
was higher than the conflict scores for significant others.
Table 2: Mean conflict scores for grid
elements in Study 2
Statistic
| romantic
partners | closest
friend | parents
| significant
others | Mean
| 10.77 | 9.84 | 11.61 | 9.37 | Std.Dev. | 2.42 | 3.67 | 2.32 | 1.42 |
partners>sig. others (t = 2.76; 1-tailed
p<0.05)
parents>friend (t = 2.32; p<0.05) N = 37
parents>sig. others (t = 4.42;
p<0.01)
Although
this study failed to replicate the relationship found in Study 1 between Eros love
style and conflict, various other significant correlations were apparent
between love styles and conflict scores (see Table 3). The obsessive love style
that Lee (1973) termed Mania was, as predicted, correlated with a high mean
level of conflict in construing of the current and ex-partners in females. The
game-playing love style termed Ludus was associated with a low level of
conflict in construing of the ex-partner in the group as a whole and in females,
and low mean conflict in the construing of the current and ex-partner in females.
Table 3: Significant Pearson correlations
between repertory grid conflict scores and love styles in Study 2
| Love Styles | Conflict
Scores | Mania
| Ludus
| Storge
| Pragma
| Partner Mean | F -0.36* | F 0.47(*) | F -0.49(*) | M 0.58(*) | Ex-Partner | | T 0.39(*) F 0.55(*) | T -0.43(**) M -0.56(*) | | Closest Person | | | | M -0.57(*) |
F = females; M =
males; T = total sample
() = 2-tailed tests; * = p<0.05; ** =
p<0.01
Correlations were also demonstrated between
Storge, a friendship-based love style, and conflict with the ex-partner in the
whole sample and males, and between Storge and the mean conflict in construing
of the current and ex-partner in females. The remaining significant
correlations between love styles and conflict scores were between a Pragma love
style in men and a low mean level of conflict in construing of the current and
ex-partner but a high level of conflict in construing of the closest person
with whom there was no sexual involvement.
A further significant finding was a correlation
between high relationship satisfaction, as measured by the Relationship
Assessment Scale, and conflict associated with the supplied construct ‘sexually
attractive – unattractive’ (r = 0.39; p<0.05; 2-tailed).
Table 4: Significant Pearson correlations between interview content analysis
scales and love styles in Study 2
| Love Styles | Content Analysis Scales | Mania
| Pragma | Agape | Pawn | -0.36(*) | -0.34(*) |
| Origin | | | -0.34(*) | Cognitive anxiety | | | -0.48(*) |
() = 2-tailed; * =
p<0.05; ** = p<0.01
Turning to participants’ interview responses,
the content of their descriptions of their relationships with their partners,
when coded using Viney and Westbrook’s content analysis scales, was found to
show some relationships with love styles (see Table 4). The scales with which
significant correlations were obtained were Origin and Pawn (indicating,
respectively, whether the person considers that s/he has choice or is
controlled) and Cognitive Anxiety (indicating an inability to anticipate
events). Of rather more interest were participants’ definitions of love and
descriptions of their ideal relationships. For example, the vast majority of
them defined love in companionate rather than passionate terms, and also viewed
their ideal relationship in this way. The percentages of responses to these two
interview questions that were classified by the researcher (ES) as falling in
the category of companionate love were 83.8 and 94.6 respectively. Despite this
finding, the interview responses of our participants displayed a clear
acknowledgement that there may be numerous alternative constructions of love.
To quote Steve,
love
is more a category than something itself, it could be lots of different things.
I think most of the time love is when you think you are in love..like strong
feelings which we consider as love when we endure them like jealousy and things
like that but when it’s finished you don’t think that’s love before..What I
really think is that love is an illusion so it only works if you believe in
it.
Similarly Kate said that:
I
think that there is different types of love, some people I know it’s purely
physical but I don’t personally see that as love, I see that more as lust
personally and there’s different…like in the sense that if you know that the
other person needs you more than them…some people are the sort of people that
really need to help someone so they fall in love with the people that need
help, there are probably people who argue all the time and stuff…even though I
know those people love each other I don’t think they love each other in the
right sense sort of thing.
Other participants appeared to view love in
terms of a progression from a passionate to a companionate relationship. For
example, in Anne’s view:
love
comes in two forms: lust love, when you want to be with someone I suppose, you
lust after them, you find really attractive, and when you are with them it
develops into a friendship love, a mutual understanding, you can confide in
each other and talk to each other.’
For Jill,
there
is one love, but people have different perspectives so it’s about finding
someone with the similar view of what love is to you because that way you can
compromise the least, so it’s about having the same expectations.
Discussion
Only in Study 1 was there direct support
for the first hypothesis, in that greater conflict was associated with romantic
partners than with closest significant others. However, in both studies
conflict associated with romantic partners was greater than that associated
with significant others who were not family members, whereas construing of
family members was as conflictual as that of romantic partners.
Both studies also provided some support for
the second hypothesis in that conflict associated with romantic partners was
related to passionate love styles, namely Eros in Study 1 and Mania, albeit
only in females, in Study 2. The relationship in Study 2 between low conflict
in construing of partners and a game-playing love style, Ludus, is perhaps also
not unexpected. Hall et al. (1991) consider the ludic individual to be low in
complexity of construing and to have relationships based on a shallow
foundation in which at any hint of conflict he or she will move on to another
relationship. There is therefore less likelihood of such an individual
experiencing conflict in a romantic relationship.
The relationships in Study 2 between
Storge, the friendship-based love style, and conflict in the construing of
partners, particularly ex-partners, are harder to explain. However, in the view
of Hall et al. (1991), storgic individuals are likely to have complex love
construct systems and their relationships ‘should withstand conflict’. It may
be that for such individuals a considerably higher level of conflict in
construing of their partner would be necessary to lead to a breakdown of the
relationship than would be the case in non-storgic individuals. If this were
so, it would follow that storgic individuals would show more conflict in their
construing of their ex-partner than would people who do not subscribe to this
love style.
Further significant correlations between
love styles and conflict in Study 2 were those between Pragma and low conflict
in construing of partners but high conflict in construing of the closest other
person. It is not surprising that there is little conflict in the way in which
a pragmatically chosen partner is construed since, to quote Hall et al. (1991,
p. 143), ‘Conflict should not threaten an intellectually based relationship’.
Such pragmatism may not be so evident in the individual’s choice of close
friends.
The relationship in Study 2 between
relationship satisfaction and a high degree of conflict associated with the
construct concerning sexual attraction may at first sight appear surprising.
However, it may be speculated that a high level of conflict in construing of
sexual attraction could indicate that that this in an area associated not only
with anxiety but also with a degree of excitement, and hence possibly a more
fulfilling sexual relationship.
Some of the relationships between scores on
the interview content analysis scales and love styles are difficult to explain.
It was not unexpected, though, that those who saw themselves as pawns, with
little control, in their relationships with their partners also tended to show
the consuming, mania love style. Perhaps more surprising is that these young
people, in their interviews, appeared to favour companionate rather than
passionate love. However, this finding is consistent with some previous
research (Fehr, 2006). The emphasis by some of the participants on the importance
of sharing, or at least understanding, one’s partner’s construction of love has
also been pointed out by researchers on the topic. For example, Murstein (1988)
considers that:
..many
couples believe that they share a common definition when in fact they do not.
Both may argue that they love the other, but the other does not love them, and
if they have different definitions of love, they are probably correct. Couples
probably need to be educated to respect their partner’s differences,
particularly in their concept of love (p. 34).
A similar point has been made by Sternberg
(1998) in relation to the stories about love that individuals develop and then
attempt to live out. He has found relationship satisfaction to be less when there
is a discrepancy in the partners’ stories (Sternberg, Hojjat, & Barnes,
2001).
Commonalities and contrasts in partners’
construing of love relationships may therefore be a useful focus of therapy for
couples. Amongst the methods that may be used to explore this area, in addition
to interviews and love style measures, is Ryle and Breen’s (1972) double dyad
grid. This involves each member of a couple completing a repertory grid in
which the elements are relationships, and then another grid as they imagine
their partner would have completed it. For example, use of this method with
Joan and Chris, whose two-year marriage was unconsummated, ostensibly because
of Joan’s vaginismus, indicated that their construing of relationships was very
dissimilar. Of particular note was that Chris viewed ‘affectionate’
relationships as being associated with ‘worrying about the least little thing’,
and being ‘frightened of hurting’ the other person, but not being ‘sexually
attracted’ to them. Joan, however, did not contrast affection and sexual
attraction and was unaware that her husband did this. While they both
considered that when their relationship was going well they were more
affectionate towards, and more frightened of hurting each other, Chris was
considerable less sexually attracted to Joan at such times. In view of his
apparent inability to associate sexual and affectionate feelings, it was not
surprising that Chris decided to terminate sex therapy as soon as this appeared
to be making some progress. A similar pattern of contrasting of affection with
sexual attraction, which in turn was associated with feelings of hostility, was
shown by Pete, who sought help together with his wife, Sheila, because of her
lack of sexual interest in him. They argued constantly, but Pete’s grid
indicated that at such times, when their relationship was viewed as going
badly, he felt much more sexually attracted towards her, this perhaps giving
him some reason to precipitate and perpetuate conflict situations between them.
As with Joan and Chris, Sheila was quite unaware of this aspect of her
husband’s construing.
Conclusions
We have provided some evidence that
romantic love is associated with conflict in construing of the beloved, and
that such a pattern is more likely in individuals with particular love styles. Romantic
love would therefore not appear to be purely an experience of validation, as
McCoy’s personal construct definition of love might imply. Instead the
excitement that it offers might be more a result of a bitter-sweet mixture of
validation and invalidation (although the emphasis on validation and
invalidation should not be taken to imply that we view love as necessarily only
a dyadic phenomenon).
Our research has also provided further
indications of the usefulness of Bell’s (2004) grid measure of conflict. However,
it is, of course, absurd to think that the essence of love could ever be
captured with a repertory grid or by the ‘rational’ examination discussed by
Kelly (1977). For a fuller understanding of love, there is still no better
place to turn than art and literature, and it is therefore no surprise that
some personal construct psychologists (e.g. Brophy, 2004; Mair, 1989) have
chosen poetic means to provide eloquent explorations of this subject. We shall
therefore leave the last words to one of these authors:
Love and pain live together
Love destroys just as it makes
To live in love is
To live with pain
Why would
anybody do it?
Why go in
For all that pain?(Mair, 1989, p. 158)
| |
|
|
|
|
REFERENCES |
|
|
Adams-Webber, J. (2001). Cognitive
complexity and role relationships.
Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 14, 43-50.
Bannister, D. (1977). The logic of passion.
In D. Bannister (ed.), New perspectives in personal construct
theory, (pp. 21-37). London:
Academic Press.
Bannister, D. & Fransella, F. (1986). Inquiring man. London: Croom Helm.
Barker, M. (2005). This is my partner, and
this is my…partner’s partner: constructing a polyamorous identity in a
monogamous world. Journal of
Constructivist Psychology, 18, 75-88.
Bell, R.C. (1998). GRIDSTAT: a program
for analysing the data of a repertory grid. Melbourne: R.C. Bell.
Bell, R.C. (2004). A new approach to measuring conflict or inconsistency
in grids. Personal Construct Theory and
Practice, 1, 53-59.
Branden, N. (1988). A vision of romantic
love. In R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (Eds.), The Psychology of Love, (pp. 218-31). New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Brehm, S.S. (1988). Passionate love. In
R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (eds.), The psychology of love, (pp. 232-63). New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Brophy, S. (2004). Girl through my window and other poems. Dublin: Rainsford Press.
Butt, T. (ed.) (2005). Special issue: The
construction of sexualities. Journal of Constructivist
Psychology, 18.
Butt, T. and Burr, V. (2004). Invitation to personal construct psychology.
London: Whurr.
Duck, S.W. (1973). Personal relationships and personal constructs: A study of friendship
formation. London:
Wiley.
Duck, S.W. & Allison, D. (1978). I
liked you but I can’t live with you. A study of lapsed friendship. Social Behavior and Personality, 8,
43-47.
Epting, F.R. (1977). The lovely experiences
and the creation of love. Paper presented at Southeastern Psychological
Association, Hollywood, FL.
Fehr, B. (2006). A prototype approach to
studying love. In R.J. Sternberg & K. Weis (eds.), The New Psychology of Love, (pp. 225-46).
New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Flaubert, G. (1959). Madame Bovary. New York:
Dell.
Fransella, F. (1970). Stuttering: not a
symptom but a way of life. British
Journal of Communication Disorders, 5, 22-29.
Hall, A.G., Hendrick, S.S.,& Hendrick,
C. (1991). Personal construct systems and love styles. International Journal of Personal Construct Psychology, 4, 137-155.
Hatfield, E. (1988). Passionate and companionate
love. In R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (eds.), The Psychology of Love, (pp. 191-217). New
Haven: Yale
University Press.
Hatfield, E. &
Walster, G.W. (1978). A New Look at Love. Lantham,
MA: University Press of America.
Hendrick, C. & Hendrick, S. (1986). A
theory and method of love. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 50, 392-402.
Hendrick, S.S. (1988). A generic measure of
relationship satisfaction. Journal of
Marriage and the Family, 50,
93-98.
Kelly, G.A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York: Norton (republished by Routledge,
1991).
Kelly, G.A.
(1969). Personal construct theory and the psychotherapeutic interview. In B. Maher (ed.) Clinical psychology and
personality: The selected papers of George Kelly. (pp. 224-264). New
York: Wiley.
Kelly, G.A. (1977). The psychology of the
unknown. In D. Bannister (ed.), New Perspectives
in personal construct theory, (pp. 1-17). London: Academic Press.
Lazarus, A.A. (1985). Marital myths. San Luis
Obispo, CA: Impact.
Lee, J.A. (1973). The
colors of love: An exploration of the ways of loving. Don Mills, Ontario: New Press.
Lee, J.A. (1977). A topology of styles of
loving. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 3, 173-182.
Lee, J.A. (1988).
Love-styles. In R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (eds.), The psychology of love (pp. 38-67). New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Leitner, L.M.
(1985). The terrors of cognition: on the experiential validity of personal
construct theory. In D. Bannister (ed.) Issues
and approaches in personal construct theory (pp. 83-103). London:
Academic Press.
McCoy, M. (1977).
A reconstruction of emotion. In D. Bannister (ed.) New perspectives in personal construct theory
(pp. 93-124). London:
Academic Press.
McCoy, M. (1981).
Positive and negative emotion: a personal construct theory interpretation. In H. Bonarius, R.
Holland, & S. Rosenberg (eds.) Personal construct psychology: Recent advances
in theory and practice (pp. 95-104). London: Macmillan.
Mair, M. (1989). Between psychology and psychotherapy: a poetics of experience.
London:
Routledge.
Maslow, A.H. (1970). Motivation and personality. New
York: Harper.
Murstein, B.I. (1988). A taxonomy of love.
In R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (eds.), The
Psychology of Love, (pp. 13-37). New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Neimeyer, G. & Hall,
A.G. (1988). Personal identity in disturbed marital relationships. In F. Fransella & L.
Thomas (eds.). Experimenting with personal
construct psychology (pp. 297-307). London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Neimeyer, G.J. &
Hudson, J.E.
(1985). Couples’ constructs: personal systems in
marital satisfaction. In D. Bannister
(ed.) Issues and approaches in personal
construct Theory (pp. 127-141). London:
Academic Press.
Neimeyer, G.J. &
Neimeyer, R.A. (1981). Functional similarity and interpersonal
attraction. Journal of Research in Personality,
15, 427-435.
Neimeyer, R. A. &
Neimeyer, G.J. (1982). Interpersonal relationships and personal elaboration: a construct theory model.
Paper presented at International Conference on
Personal Relationships, Madison,
Wisconsin.
Neimeyer, R.A. &
Neimeyer, G.J. (1983). Structural similarity in the acquaintance
process. Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology, 2, 1-6.
Neimeyer, R.A. &
Neimeyer, G.J. (1985). Disturbed relationships: a personal construct view. In E. Button (ed.) Personal
Construct Theory and Mental Health (pp. 195-223). London: Croom Helm.
Peele, S. (1988). Fools for love: the
romantic ideal, psychological theory, and addictive love. In R.J. Sternberg &
M.L. Barnes (eds.), The psychology of
love (pp. 159-188). New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Rubin, Z. (1973). Liking and loving: an invitation to social psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston.
Ryle, A. &
Breen, D. (1972). A comparison of adjusted and maladjusted couples
using the double dyad grid. British
Journal of Medical Psychology, 45, 375-382.
Shaver, P., Hazan, C., & Bradshaw, D.
(1988). Love as attachment: the integration of three behavioural systems. In
R.J. Sternberg & M.L. Barnes (eds.), The
psychology of love, (pp. 68-99). New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Stendhal (1926). The red and the black. New
York: Liveright.
Sternberg, R.J. (1998). Love is a story. New
York: Oxford
University Press.
Sternberg, R.J., Hojjat, M.,& Barnes,
M.L. (2001). Empirical aspects of a theory of love as a story. European Journal of Personality, 15,
1-20.
Tallis, F. (2004).
Love Sick. London:
Arrow.
Tennov, D. (1979). Love and limerence: The experience of being in love. New York: Stein and Day.
Viney, L.L. (1983). The assessment of psychological
states through content analysis of verbalizations. Psychological Bulletin, 94, 942-63.
Viney, L.L. &
Westbrook, M.T. (1981). Measuring patients’ experienced quality of
life: the application of content analysis
scales in health care. Community Health Studies, 5, 45-52.
Walker, B.M. (2002). Nonvalidation vs.
(in)validation: implications for theory and practice. In J.D. Raskin & S.
Bridges (eds.), Studies in Meaning:
Exploring constructivist psychology, (pp. 49-60). New
York: Pace
University Press.
Walker, B.M., Ramsey, F.L., & Bell,
R.C. (1988). Dispersed and undispersed dependency. International Journal of Personal Construct Psychology, 1, 63-80.
Walker, B.M. & Winter, D.A. (2005).
Psychological disorder and reconstruction. In D.A. Winter & L.L. Viney
(eds.), Personal construct psychotherapy:
Advances in theory, practice and research, (pp. 21-33). London: Whurr.
Weis, K. (2006). Conclusion: The nature and
interrelations of theories of love. In R.J. Sternberg & K. Weis (eds.), The new psychology of love, (pp. 225-46).
New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Williams, S.H. &
Neimeyer, G.J. (1984). Personal identities and personal constructs. Unpub. MS, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida.
Winter, D. & Gournay, K. (1987).
Constriction and construction in agoraphobia. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 60, 233-244.
| |
|
|
|
|
ABOUT THE
AUTHORS
David
Winter is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Programme
Director of the
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University
of Hertfordshire
and Head of
Clinical
Psychology Services for Barnet in Barnet, Enfield
and Haringey Mental Health
National Health Service Trust. He has worked in the British National
Health
Service for 35 years, applying personal construct psychology in his
clinical
practice and research, and has over 100 publications in this area and
on
psychotherapy research, including Personal
Construct Psychology in Clinical
Practice: Theory, Research and Applications (1992/4; Routledge)
and Personal
Construct Psychotherapy: Advances in Theory, Practice and Research
(with Linda
Viney; 2005; Whurr/Wiley). He is a Fellow of the British Psychological
Society
and has chaired its Psychotherapy Section. He is registered as a
personal
construct psychotherapist with the UK Council for Psychotherapy and
chaired the
Council’s Research Committee. He is also a Director of the Centre for
Personal
Construct Psychology. Email: d.winter@herts.ac.uk
Judy Duncan
Emma Summerfield
|
|
|
|
|
|
REFERENCE
Winter, D. A., Duncan, J., & Summerfield, E. (2008). Love hurts: Explorations of love, validation, and conflict. Personal
Construct Theory & Practice, 5, 86-98.
(Retrieved from http://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp08/winter08.html)
|
|
|
|
|
|
Received: 18 January 2008 – Accepted: 17 October 2008 –
Published: 23 December 2008
|
|
|
|
|
|