Day 11: What is Love: a scholastic definition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love

English Definition of Love
1) intense feeling of affection,
2) an emotion or emotional state.
3) A mamallian drive, just like hunger or thirst and is influenced by hormones and pheromones.

Characteristics of Love
1) Love is one of the most common themes in art, modern movies and pop music.
2) There are many forms of love, but they have some common factors and issues.
3) Each language and culture has different words to descrive love. See Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

Models/Views/ Forms of Love
1) Descriptive View

a)Inter-personal Love
What is Interpersonal Love?
- love between two human beings, (between family members, friends, couples)
- Can be seen through charity and volunteerism
- deeper than merely liking someone a lot.
- Can be reciprocal or unrequited

Some elements in interpersonal Love
-Affection: appreciation of other
-Attachment: satisfying basic emotional needs
-Reciprocation: if love is mutual
-Commitment: a desire to maintain love
-Emotional intimacy: sharing emotions and feelings
-Kinship: family bonds
-Passion: sexual desire
-Physical intimacy: sharing of personal space
-Self-interest: desiring rewards
-Service: desire to help

b)Impersonal Love
What is Impersonal Love?
- A value system or deep commitment to a country, principle, or goal
- can also be conferred upon material objects, animals or activities.

c)Religious Love
What is Religious Love?
- As an expression of devotion of the follower to their deity, a living guru or religious teacher.
- The love of God is often selflessly placed above personal needs, prayer, service, good deeds, and personal sacrifice
- Followers may also believe that the deity loves the followers and all of creation.

2) Scientific/Psychological Models
a)Liking Vs Loving Rubin (1973) :attitudes that a person holds toward another person; consisting of varying packages of feelings, thoughts, and behavioral predispositions within an individual.

b) Companionate vs passionate love: A biological view of 2 major drives consisting of principles that lead an infant to become attached to their mother.

c) Lee's color wheel model of lovestyles (1973): Primary love: Eros (love of an ideal person), Ludus (love as a game), Storge (love as friendship). Combinations of these primary styles create the secondary styles

d) Sternberg's (1986) triangular theory of love: three major components of love: intimacy, passion and decision or commitment

3) Cultural Views

a) Chinese
b) japanese
c) Ancient Greek

4) Religious Views
a) Christian
b) Buddhist
c) Hindu
d) Islamic
e) Jewish

5) Mythological Views
a) Roman: Cupid/Amor, Venus
b) Greek: Aphrodite, Eros
c) Hindu: Rati, Kama
d) Aztec: Xochipili
e) Norse: Freya

6) Philias
What are Philias?
- love or obsession with a particular thing or subject.
- greek word for love, either brotherly love, including friendship and affection.