Effects of Love and Liking in Premarital Dyads

Abstract

Rubin's love-liking scale (1970) is used to investigate the role of love (a concept specific to the Western world's romantic sentiment complex) and liking (a more general concept relating to bases of interpersonal attraction other than love) in premarital dyadic processes. Reinforcement theory (Miller and Siegel, 1972) is used to formulate hypotheses of four kinds of effects of love and liking: (1) Effects on stage of relationship and break-up of it. (2) Subjective effects, i.e., effects of loving and liking one's dating partner in terms of happiness, tension, and communicative agreement. (3) Synergic effects, i.e., effects of being loved and being liked in terms of the same variables. (4) Mutuality, the degree to which loving and liking and other feelings are reciprocated between partners. Love was found related to dating stage for both sexes but not related to break-up for either sex. Liking was found to be related to both dating stage and break-up for males but not for females. Neither subjective nor synergic effects were found for love, but both effects were found for liking. Mutuality was found for happiness and tension but not for love or liking. It was concluded that love is not dependent on reinforcement principles but that liking is. Futher discussion on detailed aspects is offered.