Love styles of young adults in a metropolitan city of India

Abstract

Background: Biological approaches tend to treat love as a brain generated physiological process like hunger or thirst. On the other hand, psychologists have created many descriptive theories of love in an effort to understand the full range of experience and behaviours associated with love. One of the most prominent and interesting models is the John Alan Lee’s theory called “love styles”. According to him, there are six love styles, named: eros, ludus, storge, pragmatic, maniac, and agape. Aims and objectives: This study aimed to assess the love styles of young adults and assess its relationship with their personality traits. Materials and methods: A total of 120 young adults were taken as the sample using purposive sampling technique. Socio-demographic profile, relationship status, and attitude towards sex were assessed through semi-structured questionnaire. Love Attitude Scale was applied and clinical assessment of personality traits was done using the text revision of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) after taking their informed consent. Data was pooled and statistical analysis was done, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-square tests. Results: The most preferred love style in the study population was eros, while the least preferred was ludus. Extramarital relationship and premarital sex was positively associated with ludus love style. Subjects with borderline and narcissistic personality traits scored significantly high on the ludus love styles. Conclusion: Love styles differ between the two sexes and also changes with their age. Personality trait influences the love style of a person.

Keywords

• Personality
• Relationship
• Sex
• Age