Theories of Love Development, Maintenance, and Dissolution: Octagonal Cycle and Differential Perspectives

Love presents itself as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that has been considered one of the most intense and powerful of all human emotions. This text book is a comprehensive compilation, analysis and evaluation of existing views and theories about love development, maintenance and dissolution. Part 1 introduces a proposed psychosemantic paradigm and its two love-specific models as a common theoretical framework for evaluating the major theories regarding love and intimate relationships. Part 2 presents 21 love formation and development theories organized under seven paradigms for evaluation: personality attribution, introspective approach, psychophysiology, behavioural reinforcement, comparative/cognitive judgement, psychometric development, and structural components. Part 3 presents theories of love maintenance and confict (a family system paradigm and its member approaches), love and marriage dissolution, and theological perspectives on human love and intimate relations. Part 4 introduces a common methodological framework for generating a summative evaluation, in terms of major strengths and weaknesses, of contemporary love theorizations. It also suggests future directions for developing love studies as a comprehensive, multidisciplinary scientific discipline.