Skip to main content Skip to search
Love and the commitment problem in romantic relations and friendship
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Format: Journal Article
Publication Year: n.d.
Pages: 247-262
Sources ID: 22924
Visibility: Private
Zotero Collections: Contexts of Contemplation Project
Abstract: (Show)
On the basis of the proposition that love promotes commitment, the authors predicted that love would motivate approach, have a distinct signal, and correlate with commitment-enhancing processes when relationships are threatened. The authors studied romantic partners and adolescent opposite-sex friends during interactions that elicited love and threatened the bond. As expected, the experience of love correlated with approach-related states (desire, sympathy). Providing evidence for a nonverbal display of love, four affiliation cues (head nods, Duchenne smiles, gesticulation, forward leans) correlated with self-reports and partner estimates of love. Finally, the experience and display of love correlated with commitment-enhancing processes (e.g., constructive conflict resolution, perceived trust) when the relationship was threatened. Discussion focused on love, positive emotion, and relationships.
Zotero Collections