INDIVIDUAL AND PARTNER LOVE STYLES - IMPLICATIONS FOR THE QUALITY OF ROMANTIC INVOLVEMENTS

The goal of this study was to explore the association between the love styles endorsed by respondents and their romantic partners on the one hand, and the quality of their romantic involvements on the other. A sample of 186 couples at a large southern university completed a quest ionnaire that included a shortened version of Hendrick & Hendrick's (1 986) Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) designed to assess six love styles ori ginally proposed by Lee (1973). Both the individual's and partner's sc ores on the six love scales (Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma, Mania, Agape ) were then examined as predictors of the structural qualities of the couple's relationship specified by Rusbult's (1980a, 1983) investment model. The results of correlational and multiple regression analyses i ndicated that the respondent's own love style scores were the best pre dictors of relationship quality. In particular, the endorsement of Ero s and Agape were associated with higher levels of rewards, satisfactio n, investments and commitment, lower levels of costs and poor alternat ive quality. Ludus showed the opposite associations with these same va riables. The partner's love styles were also related to a number of re lationship characteristics, although less strongly so. In addition, co uples showed evidence of matching of love styles (with the exception o f Ludus and Mania), and discrepancies in couples' love attitudes were related to negative outcomes for women but not for men. Finally, the a ssociations between several demographic variables (relationship status , age, relationship duration) and respondents' love styles suggest tha t individuals' love attitudes may be subject to change as a result of time and/or experience. These findings suggest that individuals' belie fs about love have important implications with regard to the relations hip outcomes experienced by both themselves and their romantic partner s.