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Love as Union and Affiliation

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Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Experience and Expression of Love

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Abstract

This chapter describes the idea that love is an interpersonal union that includes affiliative processes. Research demonstrated that love, as a unity, is a cross-cultural idea. Longing to be together is natural for lovers. Communication develops many bonds and connections. The attitudes of equality lead to deeper partnership and friendship ties, yet leaving the room for autonomy. Scholarship also highlights that the important aspects of love as a union are emotional investment and appreciation for what a partner did. The chapter reviews cross-cultural studies of friendship-based love in multicultural settings and across nations.

The chapter reviews the variety of experience and expression of union and affiliation in love, the methods and measures, which researchers employed to study those, and the results that they obtained in their studies. The chapter describes in detail (1) the research designs, (2) methods, (3) instruments and measures, (4) samples (including their location, sample size, and other details), (5) the data and results of studies (including descriptive statistics, such as means and size of correlations).

The details of descriptive statistics help readers understand what the differences in the means for cultural samples are, what is the size of correlations, and other statistics. These details allow readers to make independent judgments about reliability and validity of results.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The items of LAS were rated and scored with 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly disagree. Therefore, the lower score stands for the higher love style measured by a given item. The agreement side of the scale (positive endorsement of an item) was indicated in scores below 3 – the neutral point.

  2. 2.

    The items of LAS were rated and scored with 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly disagree. Therefore, the lower score stands for the higher love style measured by a given item.

  3. 3.

    The items of LAS were rated and scored with 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly disagree. Therefore, the lower score stands for the higher love style measured by a given item.

  4. 4.

    The items of LAS were rated and scored with 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly disagree. Therefore, the lower score stands for the higher love style measured by a given item.

  5. 5.

    The items of LAS were rated and scored with 1 = strongly agree, and 5 = strongly disagree. Therefore, the lower score stands for the higher love style measured by a given item.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI, USA

    Victor Karandashev

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Karandashev, V. (2019). Love as Union and Affiliation. In: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Experience and Expression of Love . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15020-4_8

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