Love and Structure

Lindholm, Charles

doi:10.1177/0263276498015003011

Cited by 48 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…"Sex" and "passion" fit with most of the definitions of romantic love that acknowledge the erotic/passionate aspect of romantic love (Sternberg, 1988(Sternberg, , 1996(Sternberg, , 2006, in his triangular theory of love posits passion as one vertex; Berscheid & Meyers, 1996;Berscheid & Regan, 2005, posit that love is a synthesis of companionate and passionate feelings). "Mutual" and "equality" fit with Lindholm's (1998aLindholm's ( , 1998b) discussion on the importance of equal status as a precipitating condition and attribute of romantic love, as well as de Korotayev's (1999) andde Munck et al's (2010) findings that romantic love, as a criterion for marriage, is causally related to an increase in female status and intimacy. While Sternberg views intimacy as a second vertex, he does not reflect on an assessment of mutuality as a necessary condition for intimacy.…”

Section: Examining Freelist Datasupporting

confidence: 60%

“…For instance, "being together" and "connection" fit with criteria of romantic love proposed by most sociologists or psychologists, particularly those who emphasize a "Platonic model of romantic love" that Kövecses (1987, p. 18) has identified as the "dominant metaphor" of romantic love in the United States (see also Lindholm, 1998aLindholm, , 1998bSinger, 1987Singer, , 1994Soble, 1990;Tennov, 1979). "Sex" and "passion" fit with most of the definitions of romantic love that acknowledge the erotic/passionate aspect of romantic love (Sternberg, 1988(Sternberg, , 1996(Sternberg, , 2006, in his triangular theory of love posits passion as one vertex; Berscheid & Meyers, 1996;Berscheid & Regan, 2005, posit that love is a synthesis of companionate and passionate feelings).…”

Section: Examining Freelist Datamentioning

confidence: 90%

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Romantic Love in the United States

Munck

Kronenfeld

2016

Sage Open

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We seek to advance cultural models theory by contributing to issues related to theory, methods, and testing the external validity of a cultural model. We propose that cultural models are learned as if they were truly properties of collectivities but have no primary existence except in individual representations of them. The shared aspect of cultural models also implies collective awareness of the if-then entailments of cultural models. We use inductive ethnographic methods of freelisting (n = 80) and pile sorting (n = 39) to derive a cultural model of romantic love in the United States. From these tasks, we developed a cultural model of successful romantic love consisting of normative scenarios. For successful romantic love relations, a person would feel excited about meeting their beloved; make passionate and intimate love as opposed to only physical love; feel comfortable with the beloved, behaving in a companionable, friendly way with one's partner; listen to the other's concerns, offering to help out in various ways if necessary; and, all the while, keeping a mental ledger of the degree to which altruism and passion are mutual. Our model is supported through an examination of two extended case studies. Further research is required, of course, but we believe we have a rather novel and dynamic cultural model that is falsifiable and predictive of successful love relationships. The model is unique in that it combines passion with comfort and friendship as properties of romantic love.

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Section: Examining Freelist Datasupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Examining Freelist Datamentioning

confidence: 90%

Romantic Love in the United States

Munck

Kronenfeld

2016

Sage Open

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“…The finding that passionate love is present in some form or another in most cultures around the globe (Jankowiak & Paladino, 2008;Jankowiak & Fisher, 1992) has produced a cottage industry of case studies exploring the ethnographic and theoretical implications of this new-found human universal (Ahearn, 2001;Cole & Thomas, 2009;Constable, 2003;De Munck & Korotayev, 2007;Hirsch & Wardlow, 2006;Lindholm, 1998a;Padilla, Hirsch, Munoz-Laboy, Sember, & Parker, 2007;Swidler, 2001). Psychologists working within a different conceptual framework have explored the meanings and embedded assumptions that Americans associate with being in the state of love (Berscheid, 2006;Dion & Dion, 2010;Gao, 2001;Fehr, 1994;Goodwin & Findlay, 2005;Hatfield, Rapson, & Martel, 2007;Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986;Kline, Horton, & Zhang, 2008;Lee, 1988;Riela, Rodriguez, Aron, Xu, & Acevedo, 2010;Tennov, 1979;Xu et al, 2011;Ze'ev, 2004;Zeki & Romaya, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Love’s Universal Attributes

Jankowiak

Shen

Yao

et al. 2015

Cross-Cultural Research

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There are no cognitive studies of love conducted in an Asian culture. Our study is the first to probe the cognitive qualities that urban Chinese youth associate with what it means to be in love. To this end, we build on de Munck et al.'s pioneering studies in two European cultures (Russia, Lithuanian) and in the United States. Expanding on their study, we used a similar questionnaire that also includes additional questions designed to probe the youth of urban China's perception and understanding of romantic love as an emotional and psychological force. We found that Chinese youths' responses are similar to the Euro-American five core findings that all individuals, regardless of gender, experience when "in love." These core attributes are as follows: "I will do anything for the person I love" (or altruism), "I constantly think about the person I am in love with" (or intrusive thinking), "romantic love is the supreme happiness of life" (or self-actualization), my "love makes my partner stronger and a better person," (or emotional fulfillment), and "sexual attraction is necessary for love" (biology).

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“…Jankowiak and Fischer (1992) write that for romantic love to be present the other must be ''idealized. '' For Lindholm (1998, 1995, a critic of the idea that romantic love is a cultural universal, the kernel feature of romantic love is a feeling of transcendence that comes from perceiving the other, and the relationship, as unique. Gottschall and Nordlund (2006) describe the importance of both intimacy and idealization when, in their cross-cultural analysis of texts of oral folktales on romantic love, they begin their article by noting that to be in love .…”

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confidence: 99%

Romantic Love and Family Organization

2016

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We propose that romantic love is a biosocial phenomenon that may well be a universal and that its cultural aspects are a product of social conditions. This position is unique because romantic love is promoted as a cultural rather than social universal. We argue that culture, social, and psychological phenomena are too frequently conflated and their core definitional features underdefined by researchers. Culture refers to learned practices that have collectively shared meanings to the members of a society. Under social conditions in which romantic love does not confer reproductive and health advantages to a mother and child, it will often be suppressed, undeveloped, and rejected as a cultural component. Through a cross-cultural study, we show that female status and family organization are important features that help in regulating the sociocultural importance of romantic love as a basis for marriage. The authors propose that romantic love is more likely to be a biosocial universal than a biocultural universal. We understand that there is a great deal of overlap between social and cultural, but we intend to make clear the distinctions, as we see them, between these two concepts. Richerson (1985, 2005) and Boehm (1999Boehm ( , 2012 have been proponents of a biocultural approach to the study of ''the origin and evolution of cultures.'' These researchers have developed a biocultural approach that remains true to the ethnographic cross-cultural approach of anthropology first advocated by Tylor (1889). Our work fits into this model for cross-cultural research, with the notable addition that the focus is on social conditions and practices from which cultural configurations emerge. In this study, we hope to accomplish the following tasks: First, we intend to demonstrate that the social aspect of romantic love has been neglected in cross-cultural research on love and is just as important as culture, if not more so, for the study of romantic love; second, we intend to show that female status and family organization are important features in regulating the sociocultural importance of romantic love, particularly (but not exclusively) as a basis for marriage; third, in our discussion, we present an argument for attending more carefully to definitions of core concepts (e.g., culture, romantic love) and the explanatory limits and strengths (or parameters) of those definitions; and fourth, we seek to stimulate interest in developing better (i.e., more reliable and valid) codings of the concept of romantic love (and other expressive/subjective concepts) in the cross-cultural databases. We began such studies over 15 years ago (de Munck &

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Love and Structure

Cited by 48 publications

References 18 publications

Romantic Love in the United States

Romantic Love in the United States

Investigating Love’s Universal Attributes

Romantic Love and Family Organization

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