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What is love? An empirically-based essentialist account

Kevin E. Hegi and Raymond M. Bergner Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 2010 27: 620 DOI: 10.1177/0265407510369605 The online version of this article can be found at: http://spr.sagepub.com/content/27/5/620

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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 understanding of the nature of love. Evidence collected lends preliminary 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 denable, essentialist ones. Second, Foremost among loves essential characteristics in terms of transcending four different kinds of love (romantic, parental, companionate, and altruistic) 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 essentialist 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 denable, essentialist ones. That is, these concepts, unlike Roschian prototypical 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 617904620, 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): 620636. 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 Wittgensteins (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 rst and more traditional of these is the essentialist one of giving a formal denition; i.e., of stating the necessary and sufcient conditions for the correct employment of a term (Ossorio, 2006). The second is based on Wittgensteins (1953) demonstration that most real world concepts cannot be formally dened because there is no single feature that all instances of the concept have in common. Thus, they lack the universal necessary and sufcient condition(s) required for a formal denition. What they have instead are family resemblances that render them amenable to a procedure of articulating a prototype (e.g., in depression, we generally but not always nd a syndrome comprising sadness, anhedonia, demotivation, fatigue, etc.), resemblance to which is what justies 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 denitions in the scientic literature are due to the possibility that ordinary people recognize instances of love not by their conforming to some formal denition 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 essential for them to judge that person A loves person B. Just as they would judge that, if it doesnt have three straight sides, it cant be a triangle, so they would judge that, if person As relationship to person B lacks characteristic(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 essential 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 deciency in their romantic relationship, 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 denable concepts with necessary and sufcient 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 sufcient 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 Fehrs (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 mothers 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 dene 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 essentialist 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 essential 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 loves essential 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 benet her. He is for her an end and not merely a means to her ends. Such an investment in the wellbeing 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 assisting 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 denition 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 denition 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 characteristic 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, contained 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 signicantly 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, nally, 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 dening 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 relationships 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 scientic concepts of love The central concern of this research is to capture peoples 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 scientic conception of love than that embodied in lay conceptions. There is no better conception no better schema or cognitive structure 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, companionate, 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 essential to the kind of love at issue, but also further characteristics perceived as important for such relationships, but ones whose absence would not necessarily 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 nal sample of 160 individuals (131 females and 29 males) who ranged in age from 18 to 54 years, (M = 22.0 years). The majority identied 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 Bergners (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 modied to include four different types of relationships: romantic, parental, companionate/friendship, and altruistic. These relationship types were included as representative of the four basic types of love identied 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, Preoccupation, and Commitment. Each of these characteristics is rst dened for participants (a list of all denitions is available from the second author). For example, the variable IWB is dened 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 others 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, nally, 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 denition 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 species a mother and her sixteen-year-old son; the companionate relationship example describes two adult female friends; and the altruistic relationship 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 relationship between the two persons. For each type of relationship, participants were asked to consider a scenario in which a specied 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 relationship, 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 nd it contradictory to say the following: Jill loves Jack, but she does not trust him. Each item is then accompanied by a veinterval 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 signies 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 cant 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 encountered 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 denitions of each relationship 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 debrieng statement concerning 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. Operationally then, with respect to IWB being regarded as the single characteristic 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 signicantly 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 participants 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 signicantly 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 signicantly 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 demonstrated that IWB did not receive signicantly 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 Characteristic Investment in well-being Enjoyment Exclusiveness Acceptance Affectionate feeling Respect Commitment Emotional intimacy Knowledge/understanding Freedom to be ourselves Sexual desire Trust Preoccupation Similarity
N = 160.

Parental M 1.07 1.92 4.64 1.96 1.74 1.96 1.50 3.49 2.76 2.74 4.91 3.76 2.62 4.16 % 93.1 40.6 1.9 39.4 55.0 38.8 68.8 1.9 10.6 19.4 0.0 2.5 14.4 1.9

Friendship M 1.29 1.38 4.56 1.71 2.76 1.62 2.14 2.47 2.32 1.95 4.85 2.35 3.43 3.80 % 73.1 68.1 1.3 45.0 16.3 51.9 32.5 11.9 16.3 36.9 0.0 18.8 1.3 2.5

Altruistic M 1.19 2.56 4.64 2.86 3.43 2.13 2.93 4.17 3.54 3.22 4.89 3.17 3.64 4.33 % 85.6 25.6 1.3 16.9 8.8 38.1 16.3 0.0 1.9 6.9 0.6 11.3 0.0 1.9

M 1.07 1.18 1.20 1.23 1.24 1.26 1.43 1.59 1.71 1.74 1.83 2.20 2.36 3.10

% 93.1 87.5 89.4 78.8 83.8 81.9 70.0 57.5 49.4 50.6 48.8 30.0 15.6 10.6

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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 signicantly 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 signicantly 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 solicitation. Initially, 250 students elected to participate; however, 83 of these failed to complete the study materials, resulting in a nal sample of 167 individuals (137 females and 30 males) ranging in age from 18 to 57 years, with a mean age of 22.2. The majority of participants identied 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 nal task. Following their reading of the denition of each relationship characteristic, they were asked to make judgments about the degree to which the absence of that relationship characteristic represented a deciency 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 ve-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 deciency 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 essentialist 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 deciency from their models or prototypes of what such a relationship should be, but not necessarily 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 signicantly 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 specic 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 characteristic to be regarded as essential. Also meeting this criterion were Enjoyment (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%), Acceptance (M = 1.41, 62.9%), and Respect (M = 1.46, 57.5%). A series of dependent samples t-tests indicated that IWB was not signicantly 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, participants 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 signicantly 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/Understanding, 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 prototypical of a parental relationship. Friendship/companionate love. No characteristic met our essentialist criterion 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 signicant 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 Characteristic Investment in well-being Enjoyment Commitment Affectionate feeling Acceptance Exclusiveness Respect Sexual desire Emotional intimacy Freedom to be ourselves Knowledge/understanding Trust Preoccupation Similarity
N = 167.

Parental M 1.29 2.05 1.35 1.84 2.06 4.37 1.98 4.92 3.48 2.68 2.54 3.06 3.04 3.94 % 71.9 29.9 73.7 41.3 24.6 1.2 24.0 0.0 1.8 8.4 8.4 0.6 7.8 0.6

Friendship M 1.72 1.63 1.87 2.80 2.08 4.54 1.84 4.92 2.98 2.12 2.63 2.49 4.02 3.74 % 45.5 47.9 46.1 20.4 26.3 0.0 31.7 0.6 3.6 16.8 5.4 10.2 1.8 0.0

Altruistic M 1.54 3.01 2.49 3.36 3.17 4.65 2.29 4.93 4.28 3.32 3.43 3.01 3.84 4.40 % 57.5 15.6 30.5 10.8 10.8 1.8 19.8 0.6 0.6 4.8 3.0 5.4 1.8 0.6

M 1.19 1.23 1.25 1.32 1.41 1.43 1.46 1.81 1.91 1.92 1.95 1.96 2.89 3.08

% 83.8 77.8 79.0 70.7 62.9 71.3 57.5 31.7 25.1 23.4 23.4 13.8 16.8 3.6

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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 Similarity, 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. Dependent samples t-tests indicated that IWB received signicantly stronger ratings for essentialness than any other characteristic; e.g., gures 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 altruistic 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 signicantly 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 dened in a classical, essentialist way. Of particular interest was the relational characteristic stressed as most central to love by Singer (1984), Clark and Monin (2006), and Rempel and Burris (2005), which we termed Investment 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, companionate, 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 As 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 characteristic that achieved essential status, with group means of 1.15 (Study 1) and 1.44 (Study 2); in both cases, these proved signicantly 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 rst of these is denitional 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 ndings, results obtained for altruistic and companionate love in Study 2 were less supportive than those from Study 1. The same features were most universally endorsed as essential in both studies (IWB and Enjoyment for companionate love; IWB for altruistic love); however, they failed to meet the essentialness 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 participants 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 deciency

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from a relationship, then asked to consider a specic situation (e.g., Jill does not trust Jack), and only after two additional sentences called upon to judge if such a deciency would represent an absence of love. The juxtaposition 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 relationships. 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 ndings for romantic and parental love between studies 1 and 2; and (ii) the inconsistencies for companionate and altruistic relationships. No rm conclusions can be drawn on these issues. However, the possibilities just cited suggest that designing clear experimental tasks is essential to future exploration of these issues. Necessary and sufcient? Formal denitions are specications of the necessary and sufcient conditions 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 sufcient 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 nality regarding sufciency 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 denition 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 ndings lend support to a certain set of characteristics being regarded as necessary to four kinds of human love, they do not establish sufciency. 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 ndings 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 different 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 stimulate further research. The concept of love (of four different kinds) may be, contrary to what we have widely supposed, a denable, 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 characteristic. 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 seless 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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