Measuring Romantic Love

From Zick Rubin, "Measurement of Romantic Love," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1970, Vol 16, No 2, pp. 265-273.

ABSTRACT:  This study reports the initial results of an attempt to introduce and validate a social-psychological construct of romantic love.  Starting with the assumption that love is an interpersonal attitude, an internally consistent paper-and-pencil love scale was developed.  The conception of romantic love included three components, affiliative and dependent need, a predisposition to help, and an orientation of exclusiveness and absorption.  Love-scale scores were only moderately correlated with scores on a parallel scale of "liking," which reflected a more traditional conception of interpersonal attraction.  The validity of the love scale was assessed in a questionnaire study and a laboratory experiment.  ON the basis of the emerging conception of love, it was predicted that college dating couples who love each other a great deal (as categorized by their love-scale scores) would spend more time gazing into one another's eyes than would couples who loved each other to a lesser degree.  The prediction was confirmed.

The Love Scale

Each item on the love scale should be responded to on a continuum ranging from "Not at all true; disagree completely," (Scored as 1) to "Definitely true; agree completely" (scored as 9), and total scale scores should be computed by summing scores on individual items.

1. If he/she was feeling badly, my first duty would be to cheer him (her) up.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

2. I feel that I can confide in him (her) about virtually everything.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

3. I find it easy to ignore him (her) faults.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

4. I would do almost anything for him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

5. I feel very possessive toward him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

6. If I could never be with him (her), I would feel miserable.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

7. If I were lonely, my first thought would be to seek out him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

8. One of my primary concerns is him (her) welfare.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

9. I would forgive him (her) for practically anything.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

10. I feel responsible for him (her) well-being.

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

11. When I am with him (her), I spend a good deal of time just looking at him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

12. I would greatly enjoy being confided in by him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

13. It would be hard for me to get along without him (her).

        Not at all true; disagree completely  1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8  9   Definitely True;  agree completely

SCALE SCORE:
 

Using this scale, Rubin tested the convergemt validity of the scale by ascertaining that it correlated as expected with other measures:

                      Intercorrelation Among Indexes of Attraction
                                         Women
                              1      2      3      4

1.  Love for partner

2.  Liking for partner       .39

3.  "In Love"                .59   .28

4.  Marriage Probability     .59   .32    .65

5.  Dating Length            .16   .01    .27      .46
 

Intercorrelation Among Indexes of Attraction
                                         Men
                              1      2      3      4

1.  Love for partner

2.  Liking for partner       .60

3.  "In Love"                .59    .28

4.  Marriage Probability     .59    .35    .62

5.  Dating Length            .04   -.03    .22     .38
 

"In Love" - Responses to the question, "would you say that you and X are in love?
"Marriage Probability" - Responses to the question, "What is your best estimate of the likelihood that you and X will marry one another.

To test the predictive validity, Rubin had observers watch the couples through a one-way mirror and press a button whenever they were looking at each other's face.  With two clocks and two observers, this provided measures of individual gazing and averaging them together provided a measure of mutual gazing.

         Mutual Gazing (in Seconds)

                               N      Mean   Standard Deviation
Strong Together couples:       19     56.2     17.1
Weak Together couples:         18     44.7     25.0
          (t = 1.52;  p < .07, one tailed)