Passionate and companionate love
[8] This led the team to develop the Infatuation and Attachment Scales (IAS), measuring what they call:[8] The IAS is designed for more refined measurements than the PLS,[8] but infatuation and attachment can otherwise be considered synonymous as a concept with passionate and companionate love.
[21] Passionate love is described as having an obsessional element characterized by intrusive thinking, uncertainty, and mood swings.
[23] These authors (Acevedo & Aron, Graham) have speculated that continued romantic obsession within a relationship could be connected to attachment style.
[13][23][24] Attachment style refers to differences in attachment-related thoughts and behaviors, especially relating to the concept of security vs.
[25][26] This can be split into components of anxiety (worrying the partner is available, attentive and responsive) and avoidance (preference not to rely on others or open up emotionally).
[26] Study results reported by Victor Karandashev found correlations between the Mania love attitude and attachment anxiety of 0.19, 0.24 and 0.52.
[14] Similarly, Acevedo & Aron's analyses of psychometric scores showed that people can stay in love (as measured by the PLS) in the long term.
"[32] A brain scan experiment also found that couples who were still in love after four years (as compared to those who weren't) showed activation in a region associated with suspending negative judgment and over-evaluating a partner.
[1] Elaine Hatfield writes that companionate love is "a steady burning fire, fueled by delightful experiences but extinguished by painful ones"[34] Companionate love is more about long-term relationships, and Hatfield emphasizes partner compatibility as being important.
[4][26] A prominent theory suggests this system is reused for adult pair bonds,[26] as an exaptation[11] or co-option,[6] whereby a given trait takes on a new purpose.
[4] Berscheid writes that the assumption that romantic partners are each other's attachment figures is "in dire need of empirical scrutiny.
[30][38] Intense attraction can also last much longer in rarer cases, as in the phenomenon of long-term romantic love.
[13][14] Companionate love is thought to build over time as a relationship progresses, but then decrease very slowly over the course of several decades.
[7] In the past, some have thought companionate love to be stable after it develops, but for example one study of new marriages found a decline after a 1-year period.
[40][41] According to Ellen Berscheid, companionate love "follows the pleasure-pain principle; we like those who reward us and dislike those who punish us.
"[4] Examples of factors include similarity, familiarity, expressions of self-esteem and validation one's self-worth, physical attraction and mutual self-disclosures.
[17][5][37] Ellen Berscheid writes that emotional arousal, such as happy surprises, contributes to eliciting passionate feelings.
[42] In an experiment by Arthur Aron & Christina Norman, couples doing an exciting task (as opposed to a boring one) experienced increased feelings of relationship satisfaction and romantic love.
[43] Elaine Hatfield has even suggested that negative or mixed emotions can amplify feelings of passionate love.
[4] With both of these theories, it's predicted that passion wanes in a relationship as partners get to know each other and the increase in intimacy tends to stabilize.
[10] In another technique called cognitive reappraisal, one focuses on positive or negative aspects of the beloved, the relationship, or imagined future scenarios:[46] Love regulation doesn't switch feelings on or off immediately, so Langeslag recommends, for example, writing a list of things once a day to feel a lasting change.
[51] People in the early stages of romantic love share similar traits with addicts (for example, feeling rushes of euphoria, or craving for their beloved),[30] but this tends to wear off over time, while the condition of a drug addiction tends to worsen.
