What is love? An empirically-based essentialist account
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What is love? An empirically-based
essentialist account
Kevin E. Hegi and Raymond M. Bergner
Illinois State University, USA
ABSTRACT
This two-part study investigates new possibilities in our under-
standing of the nature of love. Evidence collected lends pre-
liminary support to the following contentions: First, Persons’
concepts of human love of various kinds may not be, as widely
maintained, Roschian prototypical ones, but may instead be
definable, essentialist ones. Second, Foremost among love’s
essential characteristics in terms of transcending four different
kinds of love (romantic, parental, companionate, and altruis-
tic) may be “Investment in the well-being of the other for his
or her own sake.” Third, Persons’ models or prototypes of
romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic relationships
may be different from and broader than their essentialist
concepts of love itself of each of these kinds.
KEY WORDS: companionate love • compassionate love • essen-
tialist • love (nature of) • parental love • prototype • romantic
love
This study suggests new answers to the old question, “What is love?” Data
presented from two studies lend preliminary support to the following
contentions. First, persons’ concepts of human love of various kinds may not
be, as we and others have previously maintained, Roschian prototypical
ones (Aron, Fisher, & Strong, 2006; Fehr, 1993, 2006), but may instead be
definable, essentialist ones. That is, these concepts, unlike Roschian proto-
typical ones, may imply for persons that certain essential features must be
present if they are to judge that person A loves person B. Second, foremost
The authors wish to thank Sue Sprecher and Keith Davis for their valuable contributions in
designing and critiquing this research. All correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Raymond M. Bergner, Department of Psychology, Illinois State University, Normal,
IL 61790–4620, USA [e-mail: rmbergn@ilstu.edu]. Sandra Metts was the Action Editor on this
article.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships © The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav, Vol. 27(5): 620–636.
DOI: 10.1177/0265407510369605
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among these characteristics in terms of transcending four different kinds
of human love (romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic), may be
“Investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake” (“IWB”).
Third, persons’ models or prototypes of romantic, parental, companionate,
and altruistic relationships may be different from and broader than their
essentialist concepts of love itself of these kinds. These models may include
characteristics judged essential to the particular kind of love, but may also
include further characteristics deemed important to such relationships but
not essential to love itself. The present work is part of an ongoing body of
work undertaken within Descriptive Psychology (Bergner, 2000; Bretscher
& Bergner, 1991; Davis & Todd, 1982).
Love: Roschian prototype or essentialist concept?
The intellectual custom, dating back to Wittgenstein’s (1953) famous analysis
of the concept of a “game,” and introduced into psychology by the work of
Eleanor Rosch (Rosch, 1973; Mervis & Rosch, 1981), has been to posit two
distinct ways to articulate the meaning of a concept. The first and more
traditional of these is the essentialist one of giving a formal definition; i.e.,
of stating the necessary and sufficient conditions for the correct employment
of a term (Ossorio, 2006). The second is based on Wittgenstein’s (1953)
demonstration that most real world concepts cannot be formally defined
because there is no single feature that all instances of the concept have in
common. Thus, they lack the universal necessary and sufficient condition(s)
required for a formal definition. What they have instead are “family resem-
blances” that render them amenable to a procedure of articulating a proto-
type (e.g., “in depression, we generally but not always find a syndrome
comprising sadness, anhedonia, demotivation, fatigue, etc.”), resemblance
to which is what justifies our use of that term on any given occasion.
In the case of “love,” the recent tendency in psychology has been to view
it as a prototypical concept (Aron et al., 2006; Bergner, 2000; Fehr, 2006).
Aron et al. (2006) articulate this perspective well when they state that
“the longstanding philosophical controversies over the meaning of love and
the corresponding diversity of conceptual and operational definitions in the
scientific literature are due to the possibility that ordinary people recognize
instances of love not by their conforming to some formal definition but
rather by their family resemblance to a prototypical exemplar” (p.597).
In the present research, we reopen this issue of whether the concept of
love is essentialist or prototypical. We do so by hypothesizing that there may
be some feature or features of love that are regarded by persons as essen-
tial for them to judge that person A “loves” person B. Just as they would
judge that, “if it doesn’t have three straight sides, it can’t be a triangle,” so
they would judge that, “if person A’s relationship to person B lacks charac-
teristic(s) X, person A does not love person B.”
In addition, we hypothesize that prototypes may remain important, but
in a different way than previously proposed. People may have a second,
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broader model, or prototype, of what good relationships of different kinds
should embody. These models would include characteristics judged essen-
tial to love of whatever kind (e.g., romantic or parental), but also contain
further characteristics deemed important to such relationships but not
essential to love itself. In the absence of these latter characteristics, persons
will make judgments such as, for example, “Yes, his failure to communicate
intimately is certainly an important deficiency in their romantic relation-
ship, but it does not necessarily mean that he does not love her.” Further,
and seemingly paradoxically, if these relationship models are prototypical
in nature, nothing would be essential to them, including the presence of
love itself. Thus persons might make judgments such as “My model of a
good friendship relationship contains love as an element, but there are
certainly cases that I would regard as friendships where person A does not
love person B.” The content of these relationship models will be consistent
with previous work on prototypical conceptions of love (e.g., Davis & Todd,
1982; Fehr, 2006; Hassebrauck, 1997).
Methodological requirements
Historically, the following methods have been the most frequently employed
in studies of love as a prototypical concept. First, researchers take a large
number of participants and ask them to generate descriptors for the target
concept (e.g., “romantic love”). Second, other participants are then asked
to rate these descriptors with respect to how central vs. peripheral they are
to the concept in question (see, e.g., Fehr, 1993; Fehr & Sprecher, 2004;
Hassebrauck, 1997).
These methodologies, however, could be employed with any concept,
regardless of whether that concept was essentialist or prototypical. One
could, for example, employ them for “triangle,”“vertebrate,” and “bachelor,”
all of which are classically definable concepts with necessary and sufficient
conditions for their correct application. The fact that participants could
proceed to follow these directions and generate data, and that researchers
could statistically analyze this data, would not be sufficient to establish
whether the target concept was a prototypical or an essentialist one.
An alternative means of capturing the conceptual meanings in actual use
by persons is anticipated in Fehr’s (2006) observation that “people may not
necessarily produce the full range of important features when asked (a
recall task), but ‘know them when they see them’ (. . . a recognition task)”
(p. 242). It is an observational commonplace that people use concepts that
embody criteria they are unable to articulate. Asked what time it is, they
correctly respond by telling us the time. Asked to describe their mother’s
personality, they tell us that she is shy, generous, and considerate of others.
Asked to give an example of humor, they tell us a joke. However, asked
to define or otherwise articulate the concepts of “time,” “personality,” or
“humor,” they are for the most part at a loss. They possess the correct
distinctions, they make correct judgments on the basis of them, but they
cannot articulate well the conceptual criteria they are using or the manner
in which they are using them.
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Thus, methodologically, if we wish to identify the conceptual criteria in
actual use by people, a logically compelling procedure would be to get
research participants to make judgments in which they utilize the concept
at issue (e.g., judgments about whether person A loves person B), and then
to make inferences from their judgments regarding the criteria they are
using and how they are using them. In the present instance, some way of
determining whether the concept at issue is being employed in an essential-
ist or a prototypical way must be built into the research tasks. Essentialist
concepts, as they have necessary criteria for their employment, are subject
to judgments of the form, “If it lacks characteristic X, then it cannot be a
case of concept Y” (e.g., “If John is married, then he cannot be a bachelor.”).
Prototypical concepts, per Wittgenstein and Rosch, have no such necessary
criteria, and thus are not subject to contradiction based on the presence or
absence of any feature. Nothing is a sine qua non for their employment.
Accordingly, a research task that involves participants making judgments
about the necessity or non-necessity of criteria will enable us to distinguish
essentialist concepts from non-essentialist ones. The procedures employed
in the present two studies are designed to enable us to determine (i) what,
if anything, is seen as essential to judging that person A loves person B; and
(ii) what, if any, other characteristics are seen as important, but not essen-
tial to love itself, in participants’ broader models of good romantic, parental,
friendship, and altruistic relationships.
Critical characteristic: Investment in the wellbeing of the other
Foremost among the proposed essentialist features explored in this research
is “Investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake” (“IWB”).
Singer (1984), in his classic three-volume study of the history of the concept
of love in Western culture, concluded that such investment was love’s essen-
tial feature, and articulated it as follows:
“The lover takes an interest in the other as a person, and not merely as a
commodity . . . He bestows importance on her needs and her desires, even
when they do not further the satisfaction of his own . . . In relation to the
lover, the other has become valuable for her own sake” (1984, p. 6).
In love, then, Mary is invested in the well-being of John for his own sake,
and not merely for how his well-being might benefit her. He is for her an
end and not merely a means to her ends. Such an investment in the well-
being of the other is most compellingly expressed as a willingness to act on
behalf of the other. This might include such things as supporting or assist-
ing him in times of need, acting to further his interests and goals, and
avoiding or preventing anything from happening that would harm or hurt
him. In love, John is not for Mary a “commodity;” that is, is not an entity
that has a place in her world which consists essentially of satisfying her
needs and desires. (This is not to say, of course, that in any real world love
relationship there is not some admixture of love and self-interest.)
Further bases for giving preeminence to IWB come from the work of
Margaret Clark and her associates (Clark & Mills, 1979; Clark & Monin,
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2006), and from that of Rempel & Burris (2005). The former, while they
have not promoted it as an essential feature in a formal definition of love,
have developed the concept of “communal responsiveness” that is very
similar to our concept of IWB. Indeed, given the degree of similarity, the
studies presented below can be seen as explorations of the essentialness of
communal responsiveness in human love. Rempel and Burris, in their
conceptually oriented 2005 account, argue extensively and persuasively for
an actual definition of love as “a motivational state in which the goal is to
preserve and promote the well-being of the valued object” (p. 299).
We hypothesize, consistent with the authors just cited, that Investment in
the well-being of the other for his or her own sake (IWB) will be strongly
endorsed by participants as an essential characteristic of the four kinds
of love under consideration in this research. In a previous 4-part study
exploring this relationship characteristic with respect to romantic love only
(Bergner & Davis, 2007), it emerged as the single most strongly endorsed
feature in all four studies, with no fewer than 75% and as many as 84.9%
of participants endorsing it as essential to romantic love. In the present
research, we explore the possibility that IWB might prove the single char-
acteristic that transcends and is essential to four different varieties of love:
romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic.
Aside from the sources just cited, IWB enjoys a varied presence in
current research and theorizing on love. In one prominent approach, love
is conceived as a term that covers a diverse set of relationships, each of
which embodies some combination of three factors, Intimacy, Passion, and
Commitment (Aron et al., 2006; Sternberg, 1988, 2006). In this conception,
something akin to IWB is present as one subfactor, termed “caring,” con-
tained in the broader factor Intimacy, which also contains items relating to
trust, intimate disclosure, understanding, and feelings of closeness, warmth,
and comfort. Thus, on grounds of its tendency to modestly but significantly
covary with these other subfactors, IWB is incorporated into the Intimacy
factor in a manner such that it enjoys little visibility and little emphasis in
this approach to love.
In the current literature, finally, some theorists discuss IWB as a type of
love. For example, Fehr, Sprecher, & Underwood (2009) discuss it as
“compassionate love,” while Lee (1973) and Hendrick and Hendrick (2006)
discuss it as “agape” or “altruistic love.” In these accounts, IWB is posed as
a distinct kind of love, but not as an essential defining feature of love itself
or as one that possibly transcends many different kinds of human love.
From the present perspective, it is true that there are relationships in which
IWB exists in relative isolation from other relational qualities. Devoted
caretaking relationships such as those established by many nurses, hospice
workers, and in-home caretakers would be cases in point. IWB being their
cardinal characteristic, there is good reason to characterize these relation-
ships on the basis of this characteristic as “compassionate,” “altruistic,” or
“agapic.” However, going beyond such cases, we wish here to explore the
further possibility that IWB may well be, per Singer (1984) and Rempel
and Burris (2005), an essential dimension of love that, perhaps uniquely,
transcends a variety of important kinds of human love relationship.
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A note on lay versus scientific concepts of love
The central concern of this research is to capture people’s conceptions of
love and love relationships. Such conceptions are often correctly posed as
“lay” conceptions, as opposed to “expert” ones. However, to say that they
are lay conceptions is to say that they are the conceptions in actual use by
persons in the conduct of their lives (Kelley, 1983). They embody the
distinctions that people actually draw when they are trying to decide such
vitally important matters as whether their partners love them or they love
their partners.Thus, they have a critical impact on vital real world judgments,
decisions, actions, and emotions. For this reason, it may be argued that there
is no better scientific conception of love than that embodied in lay concep-
tions. There is no better conception – no better schema or cognitive struc-
ture – for helping us to predict and to understand how people actually make
judgments about the presence or absence of love, why they feel as they do,
and why they make the decisions that they do (Kelley, 1983).
Hypotheses
Studies 1 and 2 test the following hypotheses: First, With respect to love
itself of the four kinds under investigation (romantic, parental, companion-
ate, and altruistic), participants will employ it as an essentialist concept; i.e.,
they will judge one or more relationship characteristics to be necessary for
something to be regarded as a case of each of these kinds of love. Second,
Participants will endorse the characteristic Investment in the well-being of
the other (“IWB”) as essential to all four kinds of love, and will endorse it
more strongly than any other relationship characteristic. Study 2 examines
one additional hypothesis: Third, With respect to their conceptions of good
romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic relationships, participants
will have different and broader models or prototypes of what each should
embody. These will comprise not only those characteristics deemed essen-
tial to the kind of love at issue, but also further characteristics perceived as
important for such relationships, but ones whose absence would not neces-
sarily indicate the absence of love itself in those relationships.
Study 1
Methods
Participants. Students (N = 160) from a large midwestern state university
participated in Study 1. They were solicited by means of a campus-wide
email that went to all students who indicated at class registration time that
they were available to participate in research projects. Initially, 250 students
elected to participate; however, 90 of these failed to complete the study
materials, resulting in a final sample of 160 individuals (131 females and 29
males) who ranged in age from 18 to 54 years, (M = 22.0 years). The
majority identified themselves as Caucasian (88.1%), followed by Hispanic
(3.8%), African-American (2.5%), Asian-American (1.9%), and “Other”
(1.3%). Four participants did not provide their racial/ethnic identity.
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Measures. Two revised versions of Bretscher and Bergner’s (1991) “Factors
in Intimate Relationships” (FIR) scale were used for this research. These
scales were presented to participants with the title “Personal Meanings of
Love.” While the FIR focused exclusively on romantic relationships, the
Factors in Loving Relationships (FLR) Scale was modified to include four
different types of relationships: romantic, parental, companionate/friend-
ship, and altruistic. These relationship types were included as representa-
tive of the four basic types of love identified by Berscheid (1985, 2006).
The FLR includes relationship characteristics derived from the earlier
research of Davis and Todd (1982), Bretscher and Bergner (1991), and Fehr
(1988): Trust, Respect, Acceptance, Investment in the Well-being of the Other,
Enjoyment, Emotional Intimacy, Knowledge/Understanding, Exclusiveness,
Freedom to be Ourselves, Affectionate Feeling, Sexual Desire, Similarity, Pre-
occupation, and Commitment. Each of these characteristics is first defined
for participants (a list of all definitions is available from the second author).
For example, the variable IWB is defined as follows: “In some relationships,
we have a sense that each of us truly cares about the well-being of the other.
We have a sense that each of us genuinely cares about, and is willing to
make personal efforts when needed, to further the other’s welfare and
happiness. Such caring may be expressed in various ways. For example, it
might be expressed in a desire to give to the other in ways that will make
him or her happy . . . or in wanting to help and to stand by each other when
the other is hurt or ill or unhappy . . . or in being willing to do things to assist
each other in important matters. In all of this, finally, our sense is that the
other is not just giving to get. They are not just doing all of this because
there is something in it for them. Rather, they are doing it because our
welfare and happiness genuinely matter to them.”
Following their reading of the definition of each characteristic, the FLR
contra scale calls for participants to consider hypothetical examples of each
of four different kinds of relationship. The romantic relationship example
portrays a young, engaged couple; the parental relationship example speci-
fies a mother and her sixteen-year-old son; the companionate relationship
example describes two adult female friends; and the altruistic relation-
ship example portrays a caregiver and a chronically ill man in his care. In
all these cases, nothing more is described than the nature of the relation-
ship between the two persons.
For each type of relationship, participants were asked to consider a
scenario in which a specified relationship characteristic (e.g., Trust, Respect,
or IWB) is missing on the part of one individual in his or her relationship
to the other. For example, for the factor Trust within the romantic relation-
ship, the example reads as follows: “Consider a romantic relationship in
which trust was missing on the part of one or both partners. For example,
suppose that in the case of our engaged couple, Jill did not trust Jack. To
what degree would you find it contradictory to say the following: “Jill loves
Jack, but she does not trust him.” Each item is then accompanied by a five-
interval scale ranging from “very contradictory” to “not contradictory at all,”
and participants are asked to judge the case at issue on this dimension.
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Items for symmetrical relationships (romantic and companionate) were
systemically varied so that the featured person in the hypothetical situation
(e.g., the male or female romantic partners) occurred 50% of the time.
Items for nonsymmetrical relationships (parental and altruistic) were not
varied; the parent and the caregiver, respectively, were the target relaters
in all of the items.
The rationale for this form of question is that it distinguishes between
whether or not the concept of love of each of these kinds is essentialist or
prototypical. Essentialist concepts, since they have necessary criteria for
their employment, are subject to contradiction (e.g., “John is a bachelor, but
he is married.”). Prototypical concepts, since they have no such necessary
criteria, are not subject to contradiction based on the presence or absence
of any feature. Accordingly, the selection of option “very contradictory”
signifies that the participant views the concept of love as an essentialist one,
in which the relationship characteristic in question is seen as necessary for
love of that kind. Participants are in effect endorsing the proposition that,
“You can’t say that person A loves person B in this way (e.g., romantically)
if element X is missing from his or her relationship to B.” The endorsement
of any other response option indicates that the factor in question is not
viewed, in varying degrees, as essential to person A loving person B.
Procedures. Upon entering the online research site, participants encoun-
tered an informed consent page and selected an option button indicating
that they had read this page and voluntarily consented to participate in the
study. Participants then provided demographic information (age, gender,
ethnicity, year in school, and current relationship status) and proceeded to
the FLRcontra scale. Here, after reading the definitions of each relation-
ship characteristic, they answered the four items pertaining, respectively, to
the hypothetical romantic, parental, friendship, and altruistic relationships.
If they failed to do so, the program did not permit them to progress to the
next item. Participants could discontinue their participation at any point.
They could log on to the FLRcontra scale only once, and were not allowed
to change responses once submitted or the web page was closed. Upon
completion, participants were provided with a debriefing statement concern-
ing the purpose of the research as well as information about how to obtain
class research credit.
Results
Given that the range of possible group mean ratings for any relationship
characteristic could extend from 1.0 (essential) to 5.0 (not at all essential),
any group mean of less than 1.5 would indicate that the entire sample of
participants, on average, viewed that characteristic as essential. Opera-
tionally then, with respect to IWB being regarded as the single character-
istic most strongly endorsed as essential, our hypotheses were: (i) that the
group mean ratings for IWB will be less than 1.5 for all 4 kinds of love;
and (ii) that these means will be significantly lower than those for any of
the other 13 characteristics.
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Romantic love. The group mean ratings (as well as the percentage of parti-
cipants who rated each of the characteristics as essential to romantic love)
are displayed in Table 1. As predicted, IWB (M = 1.07, 93.1%) met the
criterion for a characteristic to be regarded as essential and was rated as
the highest of all the features of love. In addition to IWB, Enjoyment (M =
1.18, 87.5%), Exclusiveness (M = 1.20, 89.4%), Acceptance (M = 1.23, 78.8%),
Affectionate Feeling (M = 1.24, 83.8%), Respect (M = 1.26, 81.9%), and
Commitment (M = 1.43, 70.0%) met the criterion for essentialness. A series
of dependent samples t-tests indicated that IWB received significantly lower
average ratings (indicating greater essentialness) than any of the other six
characteristics that met the criterion.
Parental love. As shown in Table 1, IWB exceeded the criterion for being
regarded as essential and received the highest ratings of all 14 features (M
= 1.07, 93.1%). Only one other relationship characteristic, Commitment
(M = 1.50, 68.8%) equaled the criterion.A dependent samples t-test revealed
that IWB received significantly higher average ratings for essentialness than
Commitment, t(159) = 6.25, p = .001.
Friendship/companionate love. As shown in Table 1, IWB met the criterion
for essentialness (M = 1.29, 73.1%). One additional feature, Enjoyment, also
met this criterion (M = 1.38, 68.1%). A dependent samples t-test demon-
strated that IWB did not receive significantly higher average ratings for
essentialness than Enjoyment, t(159) = 1.65, p = 0.102.
TABLE 1
Group means and percentage of participants rating factor essential (Study 1)
Romantic Parental Friendship Altruistic
Characteristic M % M % M % M %
Investment in well-being 1.07 93.1 1.07 93.1 1.29 73.1 1.19 85.6
Enjoyment 1.18 87.5 1.92 40.6 1.38 68.1 2.56 25.6
Exclusiveness 1.20 89.4 4.64 1.9 4.56 1.3 4.64 1.3
Acceptance 1.23 78.8 1.96 39.4 1.71 45.0 2.86 16.9
Affectionate feeling 1.24 83.8 1.74 55.0 2.76 16.3 3.43 8.8
Respect 1.26 81.9 1.96 38.8 1.62 51.9 2.13 38.1
Commitment 1.43 70.0 1.50 68.8 2.14 32.5 2.93 16.3
Emotional intimacy 1.59 57.5 3.49 1.9 2.47 11.9 4.17 0.0
Knowledge/understanding 1.71 49.4 2.76 10.6 2.32 16.3 3.54 1.9
Freedom to be ourselves 1.74 50.6 2.74 19.4 1.95 36.9 3.22 6.9
Sexual desire 1.83 48.8 4.91 0.0 4.85 0.0 4.89 0.6
Trust 2.20 30.0 3.76 2.5 2.35 18.8 3.17 11.3
Preoccupation 2.36 15.6 2.62 14.4 3.43 1.3 3.64 0.0
Similarity 3.10 10.6 4.16 1.9 3.80 2.5 4.33 1.9
N = 160.
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Altruistic love. As shown in Table 1, IWB was the only characteristic to
exceed the requirement for essentialness (M = 1.19, 85.6%). A dependent
samples t-test revealed that IWB received significantly higher average ratings
for essentialness than the next highest rated characteristic, Respect, t(159)
= 9.32, p = .000.
Relative ability of characteristics to transcend relationship types. In order
to assess the degree to which any given characteristic transcended the four
different types of love relationship, group mean ratings for each were
obtained across the four types of love relationship. On this analysis, only
IWB (M = 1.15) exceeded the criterion for essentialness. A dependent
samples t-test revealed that IWB received significantly higher levels of
endorsement than the second most endorsed characteristic, Respect (M =
1.74, t(159) = 14.53, p = .000).
Study 2
Methods
Participants. For study 2, performed at the same university as Study 1,
participants were again solicited by means of a campus-wide email solici-
tation. Initially, 250 students elected to participate; however, 83 of these
failed to complete the study materials, resulting in a final sample of 167 indi-
viduals (137 females and 30 males) ranging in age from 18 to 57 years, with
a mean age of 22.2. The majority of participants identified themselves as
Caucasian (92.2%), followed by African-American (2.4%), Asian-American,
(2.4%), “Other” (2.4%), and Hispanic (0.6%).
Measures. The FLR version used in Study 2, “FLRdef,” was identical to that
used in Study 1, except that participants were posed a different final task.
Following their reading of the definition of each relationship characteristic,
they were asked to make judgments about the degree to which the absence
of that relationship characteristic represented a “deficiency from your
model of what a good relationship of this kind should be” For example, the
query for Trust in romantic relationships now read as follows: “Consider a
romantic relationship in which trust was missing on the part of one or both
partners. For example, suppose that, in the case of our engaged couple,
Jack did not trust Jill. Which of the following statements would be closest
to what you would think?” Then, a five-item interval scale was presented in
which options ranged from, (a) “If this were missing, I would have a hard
time believing that Jack actually loved Jill,” to (e) “If this were missing, I
could still believe that Jack loved Jill, and I would consider the lack of trust
as being no deficiency at all in their relationship.”
This form of question was intended to provide an alternative way of
establishing whether or not the concept of love was perceived as essential-
ist or prototypical. As noted previously, essentialist concepts have necessary
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criteria for their correct employment – criteria such that, if they are absent,
the phenomenon at issue cannot be a case of X at all – while prototypical
concepts have no such necessary conditions. Thus, the endorsement of
response option “a,” in which a participant would indicate that the absence
of the characteristic would lead him or her to judge that person A did not
love person B, would demonstrate that the participant viewed the relational
characteristic as essential to the type of love in question. The endorsement
of any other response option would indicate the degree to which the
absence of the factor in question would be viewed as a deficiency from their
models or prototypes of what such a relationship should be, but not neces-
sarily as indicative of the absence of love.
Procedures. Aside from the administration of a different version of the
FLR, the procedures employed in Study 2 were identical in all respects to
those employed in Study 1.
Results
Given that the group mean rating for any relationship characteristic could
again range from 1.0 (essential) to 5.0 (not at all essential), any mean of less
than 1.5 would indicate that the entire sample of participants, on average,
viewed that characteristic as essential. Thus, our hypotheses were (i) that
group mean ratings for IWB will be less than 1.5 for all four kinds of love,
and (ii) that these means will be significantly lower than those for any other
characteristic.
The wording of the items in Study 2 permits the drawing of some further
conclusions regarding the distinction between participants’ conceptions of
love itself (of any of the four kinds) and their broader models or prototypes
of different kinds of relationships. Characteristics which receive overall
group mean ratings greater than 1.5, but equal to or less than 3.5, may be
categorized as “very important” or “moderately important,” though not
essential, features of participants’ prototypes of these relationships. We
make no specific predictions regarding the content of these prototypes,
merely permitting the data to speak for itself in this regard.
Romantic love. Mean ratings and percentage of participants who rated
each of the relationship characteristics as essential are displayed in Table
2. As predicted, IWB (M = 1.19, 83.8%) met the criterion for a character-
istic to be regarded as essential. Also meeting this criterion were Enjoy-
ment (M= 1.23, 77.8%), Commitment (M = 1.25, 79.0%), Affectionate
Feeling (M = 1.32, 70.7%), and Exclusiveness (M = 1.43, 71.3%), Accep-
tance (M = 1.41, 62.9%), and Respect (M = 1.46, 57.5%). A series of depen-
dent samples t-tests indicated that IWB was not significantly more strongly
endorsed as essential than either Enjoyment, t(166) = 1.04, p = .298 or
Commitment, t(166) = 1.14, p = .258. It was, however, more strongly
endorsed than the other characteristics that met both essentialness criteria;
e.g., Affectionate Feeling, t(166) = 2.70, p = .008, and Exclusiveness, t(166)
= 3.17, p = .002.
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In addition to the characteristics judged essential to romantic love, parti-
cipants rated all of the remaining 7 characteristics as “very important” or
“moderately important” features in their prototypes of a good romantic
relationship. In order of perceived importance, these were Sexual Desire,
Emotional Intimacy, Freedom to be Ourselves, Knowledge/Understanding,
Trust, Preoccupation, and Similarity.
Parental love. As shown in Table 2, IWB (M = 1.29, 71.9%) met the criterion
for essentialness, along with the characteristic Commitment (M = 1.35,
73.7%). A dependent samples t-test revealed that IWB was not signifi-
cantly more strongly endorsed as essential than Commitment, t(166) = .99,
p = 0.325.
In addition, participants regarded nine other characteristics as “very
important” or “moderately important” features in their prototypes of a
good parental relationship. In order of perceived importance, these were
Affectionate Feeling, Respect, Enjoyment, Acceptance, Knowledge/Under-
standing, Freedom to be Ourselves, Preoccupation, Trust, and Emotional
Intimacy. Not surprisingly, Similarity, Exclusiveness, and Sexual Desire were
regarded by participants as neither essential to parental love nor proto-
typical of a parental relationship.
Friendship/companionate love. No characteristic met our essentialist cri-
terion for companionate love. Enjoyment (M = 1.63, 47.9%) and IWB
(M = 1.72, 45.5%) were the two highest rated characteristics. A dependent
samples t-test revealed no significant differences between the response
ratings for Enjoyment and IWB, t(166) = 1.30, p = 0.194.
TABLE 2
Group means and percentage of participants rating factor essential (Study 2)
Romantic Parental Friendship Altruistic
Characteristic M % M % M % M %
Investment in well-being 1.19 83.8 1.29 71.9 1.72 45.5 1.54 57.5
Enjoyment 1.23 77.8 2.05 29.9 1.63 47.9 3.01 15.6
Commitment 1.25 79.0 1.35 73.7 1.87 46.1 2.49 30.5
Affectionate feeling 1.32 70.7 1.84 41.3 2.80 20.4 3.36 10.8
Acceptance 1.41 62.9 2.06 24.6 2.08 26.3 3.17 10.8
Exclusiveness 1.43 71.3 4.37 1.2 4.54 0.0 4.65 1.8
Respect 1.46 57.5 1.98 24.0 1.84 31.7 2.29 19.8
Sexual desire 1.81 31.7 4.92 0.0 4.92 0.6 4.93 0.6
Emotional intimacy 1.91 25.1 3.48 1.8 2.98 3.6 4.28 0.6
Freedom to be ourselves 1.92 23.4 2.68 8.4 2.12 16.8 3.32 4.8
Knowledge/understanding 1.95 23.4 2.54 8.4 2.63 5.4 3.43 3.0
Trust 1.96 13.8 3.06 0.6 2.49 10.2 3.01 5.4
Preoccupation 2.89 16.8 3.04 7.8 4.02 1.8 3.84 1.8
Similarity 3.08 3.6 3.94 0.6 3.74 0.0 4.40 0.6
N = 167.
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Participants rated ten characteristics as “very important” or “moderately
important” characteristics in their prototypes of companionate relationships.
In order of perceived importance, these were Enjoyment, IWB, Respect,
Commitment, Acceptance, Freedom to be Ourselves, Trust, Knowledge/
Understanding, Affectionate Feeling, and Emotional Intimacy. Only Simi-
larity, Preoccupation, Exclusiveness, and Sexual Desire were not regarded
as prototypical for this kind of relationship.
Altruistic love. No characteristic met the essentialist criterion for altruistic
love (see Table 2). Although IWB narrowly missed criterion (M = 1.54,
57.5%), it did receive the lowest mean rating of all characteristics. Depen-
dent samples t-tests indicated that IWB received significantly stronger
ratings for essentialness than any other characteristic; e.g., figures obtained
were the next most strongly endorsed characteristics were for Respect (M =
2.29), t(166) = 8.92, p = .000 and Commitment (M = 2.49), t(166) = 9.36,
p = .000.
In order of perceived importance, IWB, Respect, Commitment, Trust,
Enjoyment, Acceptance, Freedom to be Ourselves, Affectionate Feeling, and
Knowledge/Understanding were all regarded by participants as “very
important” or “moderately important” features in their prototypes of altru-
istic relationships. Only Emotional Intimacy, Similarity, Exclusiveness, and
Sexual Desire were not regarded as prototypical.
Relative ability of characteristics to transcend relationship types. In order
to assess the degree to which any given characteristic transcended the four
different types of love relationship, group mean ratings for each were
again obtained across the four types of love relationship. On this analysis,
only IWB (M = 1.44) exceeded the criterion for essentialness. A dependent
samples t-test revealed that IWB received significantly higher levels of
endorsement than the second most endorsed characteristic, Commitment
(M = 1.74, t(166) = 7.53, p = .000).
Discussion
The purpose of this research was to shed light on the perennial question,
“What is love?” We were interested in determining whether or not certain
relationship characteristics were viewed by people as essential to human
love of four different kinds, and therefore if these kinds of love could be
defined in a classical, essentialist way. Of particular interest was the rela-
tional characteristic stressed as most central to love by Singer (1984), Clark
and Monin (2006), and Rempel and Burris (2005), which we termed Invest-
ment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake (IWB). In addition,
we wished to determine if people had prototypes of romantic, parental, com-
panionate, and altruistic relationships that included, but were broader than,
their conceptions of what is essential to love itself of each of these kinds.
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Love as an essentialist concept
Overall, the present studies lend strong support to our hypothesis that
people hold an essentialist view of four important kinds of love. In both
studies, when certain characteristics were described as missing from person
A’s relationship to person B, both group mean and percentage data
revealed that participants consistently: (i) found it contradictory to assert
that person A loved person B (Study 1); or (ii) judged that person A did
not love person B (Study 2). Data from both studies were most supportive
for romantic and parental love, but less so for companionate and altruistic
love (strongly supported in study 1; less so in study 2).
Investment in the well-being of the other
As predicted, IWB was the characteristic most strongly and consistently
endorsed as essential to the four kinds of love under investigation. In Study
1, participants strongly endorsed IWB as essential to all four kinds of love.
In Study 2, the same pictures were obtained for romantic and parental
love, and were robust but sub-criterial for altruistic and companionate love.
When averaged across the four relationship types, IWB was the only char-
acteristic that achieved essential status, with group means of 1.15 (Study 1)
and 1.44 (Study 2); in both cases, these proved significantly lower than those
for the next most strongly endorsed variable. Thus, IWB emerges here as
the single factor most universally perceived as essential to these four kinds
of love.
Two different concepts: Love itself and relationship prototype
Data from Study 2 supports the hypothesis that people have two distinct
concepts pertaining to love. The first of these is definitional and has to do
with what is essential to love itself of the four kinds under investigation.
The second is prototypical, and has to do with what would appropriately be
embodied in a good relationship of each of these kinds. The latter includes
the essential aspects of love, but includes other features as well. Thus, these
two conceptions are distinct, the former set of characteristics constituting a
subset of the latter.
Differences across studies
Despite the overall strength and consistency of the above findings, results
obtained for altruistic and companionate love in Study 2 were less sup-
portive than those from Study 1. The same features were most universally
endorsed as essential in both studies (IWB and Enjoyment for compan-
ionate love; IWB for altruistic love); however, they failed to meet the essen-
tialness criterion in Study 2 (although IWB was quite close for altruistic
love).
One reason for this discrepancy may lie in the fact that, in Study 1, love
is stipulated at the outset of each probe (“Jack loves Jill . . .”), and partici-
pants are given an immediate possible contrast to consider (“but he does
not trust her”). In Study 2, the word “love” does not appear in the item stems.
Instead, participants are instructed to examine a potential “deficiency”
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from a relationship, then asked to consider a specific situation (e.g., “Jill
does not trust Jack”), and only after two additional sentences called upon
to judge if such a deficiency would represent an absence of love. The juxta-
position of the key concepts is far less sharp and immediate, thus perhaps
impairing participants’ ability to consider the contrast at issue.
A second reason may lie in the fact that, in western cultures, romantic
and parental relationships are almost tautologically considered love rela-
tionships. Friendships and caregiver relationships do not automatically
carry this connotation. Told of a romantic or a parental relationship, we
tend automatically to think of it as a love relationship; told of a friendship
or caregiver one, we do not. Thus, when considering the romantic and
parental relationships in Study 2, even though the word “love” does not
occur in the initial probes, participants may far more readily read it in, thus
creating more of the kind of immediate contrast present in Study 1. If so,
this might help account for: (i) the consistency of the findings for romantic
and parental love between studies 1 and 2; and (ii) the inconsistencies for
companionate and altruistic relationships.
No firm conclusions can be drawn on these issues. However, the possibil-
ities just cited suggest that designing clear experimental tasks is essential to
future exploration of these issues.
Necessary and sufficient?
Formal definitions are specifications of the necessary and sufficient condi-
tions for the correct employment of a concept (Ossorio, 2006). In the present
two studies, the preponderance of evidence suggests that people view
certain features as necessary for them to judge that a given relationship is
an instance of the concept of “love” (of the four kinds examined). What is
less clear is whether or not this research has established sufficient conditions.
Might there be other relational characteristics that would have proven
essential for one kind of love or another? This question should and will be
explored in future research on this topic. However, this lack of finality
regarding sufficiency should not obscure the conclusion that, once one has
established the presence of necessary conditions, one has ipso facto shown
that a concept is not prototypical in character. Prototypical concepts, per
Wittgenstein and Rosch, are by definition concepts without necessary
conditions.
Limitations and future directions
Important limitations of the present research, to be addressed in our future
work, are the following. First, as just noted, while findings lend support to
a certain set of characteristics being regarded as necessary to four kinds of
human love, they do not establish sufficiency. Thus, consideration of further
characteristics is needed. Second, the research explores four important
kinds of human love, but does not look into further forms (e.g., the love of
a child for his or her parents). Third, our samples were restricted to college
students at a large United States public university. As such, they consisted
heavily of persons who were young, relatively limited in life experience,
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primarily Caucasian, socialized in a single western culture, and relatively
successful and advantaged in life. In future research, we plan to explore the
generality of our findings to a sample of individuals who are older, more
relationally experienced, and more demographically and culturally diverse.
An especially important need is to replicate the present research in differ-
ent cultural settings (e.g. Asian or Middle Eastern ones) where conceptions
of love as having essential characteristics, as well as what these might be,
may be quite different.
Conclusion
The present results suggest a portrait of human love that we hope will stim-
ulate further research. The concept of “love” (of four different kinds) may
be, contrary to what we have widely supposed, a definable, essentialist one,
and Investment in the well-being of the other for his or her own sake is an
important candidate for being considered its most transcendent character-
istic. It is the characteristic found here to be most universally viewed as
essential to romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic love, and the
only characteristic that transcended these four different relationship types.
As such, IWB may be the one characteristic that provides commonality
between the love of one romantic partner for another, of a parent for his
or her child, of one close friend for another, and of those persons, such as
devoted caretakers, who in many contexts exhibit a selfless caring for others
in their worlds. Finally, beyond their possible employment of love as an
essentialist concept, people may possess related, but different and broader
models or prototypes of what different kinds of good human relationships
would ideally embody.
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