What is the role of love in relationship satisfaction?

Before critically discussing the role of love in relationship satisfaction, it is firstly important to establish what love is. Zeki et al., 2012 stated that when someone is in love, multiple parts in the brain “light up” even though a large section of the brain becomes deactivated. He found that those in love have lower activity in their frontal cortex compared to those who are not in love. Deactivation in the frontal cortex means they have lesser ability to reason and make judgement as they are the roles of the frontal cortex, however due to the decreased ability to form judgments and reason can impact one’s relationship and cloud judgement which may cause relationship dissatisfaction.

Love in relationship satisfaction is the; fluid nature of love, measuring love and love taxonomies. Sternberg 1988 curated his “triangular theory of love” as he discovered it was difficult to define love, therefor taxonomies were set out to form the triangle that consists of three components: passion, intimacy and commitment. The sides of the triangle are the combination of the corresponding edges such as intimacy and infatuation have a combined midway point of romantic love. Sternberg’s theory has three love styles; intimacy alone, which build friendships but then fades, passion alone which is passion where intimacy and commitment continue to build and the third is commitment alone which is empty love that varies in different kinds of love. Fluid nature of love are our ideas and expectations of love and relationships influenced by cultural changes and social changes. Huston and Chorost, 1994 made stages of fluid of nature which are initial stages of passionate love, overtime strong emotions begin to evolve and the later stages where the love has more stability and the love is companionate.

Relationship satisfaction is the influence of attachment, the role of intimacy and cost-benefits exchange models. Ainsworth (1978) attachment styles are; secure, insecure and anxious-ambivalent. Secure attachments involve trust and emotional support in the relationship where there is a mutual feeling of comfort and closeness. Anxious ambivalent includes desire for closeness but also has disbelief of people wanting to be close with them, they fear abandonment which can lead to a jealousy-based relationship with emotional shifts and obsessive sexual attraction. Avoidant attachments are fearful relationships of intimacy and love that can create uncomfortable surroundings when around others.

Interpersonal processes have an influence through cost-benefit exchange models, the social exchange theory (Thibaut and Kelley, 1959) and equity theory. The social exchange theory has four points; sampling, bargaining, commitment, and institutionalization. Sampling is when people consider the potential benefits they can get out of a new relationship and compare it to others that are also available and previous relationships. Bargaining is when people get deeper into the relationship which causes them to test whether they are worth being in the relationship or not. Commitment is the predictability of a relationship when two people get to know each other more where costs are then lowered. Institutionalisation is when there are new norms where they are used to each other’s behaviours and patterns and it is easier to establish costs and rewards for each partner. The equity theory of interpersonal processes having influence on relationship satisfaction is the ratio of input of the relationship to output such as emotional support, finances and love. Inequitable relationships can cause discomfort whereas a partner may feel guilty for not contributing enough which can cause a loop and distress.

Positive intimacy influences satisfaction through the importance of intimacy. Buunk and Van Yperen, (1991) said that those in long-term relationships make less effort to calculate the ratio of input and output. Self-disclosure has intimate aspects of oneself and can lead to a more trustworthy and satisfactory relationship (Sanderson and Cantor, 2001). The overlapping of self can create a greater relationship satisfaction as there is more commitment an investment towards the relationship (Smith, Coates and Walling, 1999). Realization of being understood by your partner and the having goals for your relationship pursuits positive experiences such as intimacy, higher quality time spent together, trust and increases the closeness and quality of the relationship which has an overall increase on relationship satisfaction.

Rahmat Kaur Kochar and Dr Daisy Sharma conducted a study on adolescents to test the role of love in relationship satisfaction using Sternberg’s love triangle and a Hendrick S. S. (1988) relationship satisfaction scale. The questionnaire using the triangular love scale consisted of 45 questions with a 9-point scale. Each 15 questions had different scales, the first 15 items were an intimacy scale, second was passion and third was reflect on commitment. Each 15 items were scored and added together to gain an overall score. The correlations between subscales were 0.71 of passion and intimacy, 0.73 of passion and commitment and 0.73 of intimacy and commitment. The coefficient alpha was 0.97 which demonstrates high levels in commitment, passion and intimacy the relationship assessment scale by Hendricks was used to figure out the levels of satisfaction with their romantic associates. Seven self-reported questions with 5-point scales (1=low, 5=high), An average of 4 or above means satisfaction in the relationship whereas 3.5 or under scores dissatisfaction in their relationship. The scale demonstrated an alpha of 0.86 which shows a positive and great satisfaction in the mean of relationships. Results show from this study high means of intimacy, passion and commitment pairing with a low mean of relationship satisfaction. Both male and female indicated the same levels of all four variables. The means of the triangular variables being all above 110 indicates no role in relationship satisfaction due to the means of 26.78 and 28.42.

Christine Mc Walter explored the influences of attachment, love styles and religiosity of relationship satisfaction. The four scales to measure relationship satisfaction are Bartholomew & Horowitz 1991 Relationship Questionnaire, Hendrick, Dick & Hendrick 1998 Love attitude scale and relationship assessment scale and Rohrbaugh & Jessor 1975 religiosity measure. The relationship questionnaire is a self-report questionnaire that tests adult attachment, the attachment styles are rated on a 7-point ordinal scale. The highest scores links to overall attachment styles. The Love attitudes scale is a short form that measures the belief of romance about each participants relationship such as passionate love, logical love and friendship love. High scores show higher levels of belief in the relationship. The relationship assessment scale tests satisfaction of the relationships romance by rating a 5-point questionnaire. The religiosity measure assesses the impact on someone’s life, it is measured with a 4-point scale that explore rituality, consequential, ideological and experimental. 4 indicates highest levels of impact by religion. 102 participants took part in all assessments. Attachment styles show that male participants do not show preoccupied attachments unlike women, and more women show attachment styles of secure, fearful and preoccupied, men and women showed the same amount of dismissive attachment. Women also expressed more belief in their love-styles than men. Each participant demonstrated the six love styles, passionate love and self-giving love being the most common love style. A weak coefficient correlation was found between religion and relationship satisfaction. Religion and attachment and love styles found no significant correlations, significant associations were found between attachment and love styles. Overall, results show that those in high secure attachment relationships have higher satisfaction levels, those with high passionate love styles associate with relationship satisfaction and there was a weak relationship between religiosity and relationship satisfaction.

The role of love in relationship satisfaction is the amount of commitment, passion, attachment and emotional support. Studies mentioned explored the role of love, in which they measured variables such as love styles, expectations and intimacy and attachments. Both studies provided results of positive levels of love satisfaction which increased levels of relationship satisfaction. Important correlations from Christine Mc Walter’s study were the connections between attachment and love styles. Individually, love styles and satisfaction and attachment and satisfaction had positive strong correlations towards relationship satisfaction. Love styles and attachments also had strong impacts on each other, such as love styles impact attachments and vice versa., the levels of relationship satisfaction have an increased likelihood as they are both valuable attributes. In the first study mentioned, Sternberg’s triangular love theory was applied to calculate “love”. Results demonstrated high levels of the passion, commitment and intimacy which was in this case love. The mean values of love were then contrasted with the means of relationship satisfaction which proved to be low, there was still a significant relationship, therefor variables that make up love such as passion, intimacy and commitment contribute to relationships by making them stronger and more satisfactory.

References

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