Question

Compare and contrast the 4 different kinds of love identified by Berscheid. 

Answer 1

Attachment Love:

This type of love is good and stemmed from the need for infants to stay close proximity to a protector in order to survive. The immediate cause of behaviors that are associated with this kind of love is a threatening situation; its characteristic behaviors are those that will promote the proximity to the protector, and its overall interpersonal target is usually a familiar person who is older, stronger, and wiser than the individual. For example, a mother and her baby.

Compassionate Love:

This second type of love involves concern for another’s well-being and taking actions to promote it, regardless of whether those actions are perceived to result in being beneficial for oneself. This type of love system could not be evolved without the complement of a caregiving system.

Compassionate Love/Liking:

This one is known as friendship love/liking. This type of love is also known as pragmatic love. It is based on a reward and punishment principles, it is well established that we feel positive affect for “like” those who reward us, and we dislike those who punish us. Its historical cause is again, our evolutionary heritage, and the pain pleasure principle that has worked to serve as the basic motivating principle underlying almost all psychological theories of behavior, especially the learning theories.

Romantic Love:

This fourth kind of love known as romantic love appears in virtually every taxonomy of love. This love more than most leads to marriage in many societies Sexual desire is frequently associated with this type of love.