Passionate and companionate love

Passionate love feelings are most commonly measured by psychologists with a questionnaire called the Passionate Love Scale (PLS). Passionate love is linked to passion, as in intense emotion, for example, joy and fulfillment, but also anguish and agony. Hatfield notes that the original meaning of passion "was agony—as in Christ's passion." Passionate love is said to usually only be present (or the most intense) in the early stage of love, when a relationship is new or before a relationship has started. In contemporary literature, the original characteristics of passionate love are seen to some degree as being a mixture of things. For example, it's been determined that the PLS has questions which measure companionate love, which led Sandra Langeslag and colleagues to develop the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS) as a newer measure of passionate and companionate love. Finally, while Elaine Hatfield originally described passionate love as having a component of sexual attraction, Infatuation Langeslag et al.'s Infatuation Scale (analogous to passionate love) has items asking about: Albert Ellis and Robert Harper conducted interviews and concluded that the only difference is that people use the word "infatuation" in hindsight to refer to a relationship after it ends and "love" to refer to a relationship still in progress. Hatfield suggests that when parents and friends say somebody is "just infatuated" they're just saying they don't approve of the relationship. Obsession Passionate love is described as having an obsessional element characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings. Studies by Bianca Acevedo & Arthur Aron found that the obsessional component of the PLS can be separated from the non-obsessional component. These authors (Acevedo & Aron, Graham) have speculated that continued romantic obsession within a relationship could be connected to attachment style. Attachment style refers to differences in attachment-related thoughts and behaviors, especially relating to the concept of security vs. insecurity. People can also have different attachment styles with different partners, for example an avoidant partner can cause a secure partner to feel and act anxious. A brain scan experiment also found that couples who were still in love after four years (as compared to those who weren't) showed activation in a region associated with suspending negative judgment and over-evaluating a partner. While Elaine Hatfield and others have traditionally associated idealization with passionate love, studies on positive illusions have looked at couples in varied stages of their relationships, including long-term couples. == Companionate love ==

Companionate love is said to be felt less intensely than passionate love, Companionate love is more about long-term relationships, and Hatfield emphasizes partner compatibility as being important. Ellen Berscheid comments that companionate love "may be the 'staff of life' for many relationships and a better basis for a satisfying marriage than romantic love." although James Graham has argued on the basis of a meta-analytic factor analysis that the storge love attitude most corresponds to practical friendship which lacks qualities of companionate love (such as intimacy and commitment). as an exaptation or co-option, whereby a given trait takes on a new purpose. However, companionate love has also been characterized as being more like strong friendship, and Ellen Berscheid suggests that it's unproven whether all adult relationships are attachments in the sense meant by attachment theory. Berscheid writes that the assumption that romantic partners are each other's attachment figures is "in dire need of empirical scrutiny." == Timeline ==

While passionate love is sometimes associated with the phenomenon of love at first sight, Intense attraction can also last much longer in rarer cases, as in the phenomenon of long-term intense romantic love. These lovers tend to show lower levels of obsession than in the early stage, however. In the past, some have thought companionate love to be stable after it develops, but for example one study of new marriages found a decline after a 1-year period. ==Causal conditions==

A number of theories exist about the causal conditions surrounding these types of love (i.e. who people feel a certain love towards and when), Studies show that love and conflict can sit side-by-side in a relationship, Liking According to Ellen Berscheid, companionate love "follows the pleasure-pain principle; we like those who reward us and dislike those who punish us." In an experiment by Arthur Aron & Christina Norman, couples doing an exciting task (as opposed to a boring one) experienced increased feelings of relationship satisfaction and romantic love. Elaine Hatfield has even suggested that negative or mixed emotions can amplify feelings of passionate love. In A New Look at Love, she writes "Passion demands physical arousal and unpleasant experiences are just as arousing as pleasant ones." Hatfield cites animal studies, such as one study in which puppies that were inconsistently either rewarded or maltreated were the most attracted to and dependent on their trainer. People who behave consistently generate little emotion, she says, and "What would generate a spark of interest, however, is if our admiring friend suddenly started treating us with contempt—or if our arch enemy started inundating us with kindness." In some cases, love feelings may be stronger than desired such as after a breakup, or love feelings may be weaker than desired such as when they decline throughout a long-term relationship. Negative reappraisal decreases feelings of infatuation and attachment, but decreases mood in the short term. Negative reappraisal can be useful, for example, to those who want to ameliorate heartbreak or put an end to an abusive relationship. • In positive reappraisal, one focuses on positive qualities of the beloved ("he's kind", "she's spontaneous"), the relationship ("we have so much fun together") or imagined future scenarios ("we'll live happily ever after"). ==Biology==

Passionate and companionate love are thought to be interrelated but involve different brain systems and serve different purposes. or to initiate a pair bond, People in the early stages of romantic love share similar traits with addicts (for example, feeling rushes of euphoria, or craving for their beloved), but this tends to wear off over time, while the condition of a drug addiction tends to worsen. Helen Fisher has suggested romantic love is a "positive addiction" (i.e. not harmful) when reciprocated and a "negative addiction" when unrequited or inappropriate. ==See also==