Difference Between Liking and Loving, According to Rubin

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At a GlanceZick Rubin created a scale from “liking” to “loving” to show the differences between these close feelings we have for the other people in our lives.

At a Glance

Zick Rubin created a scale from “liking” to “loving” to show the differences between these close feelings we have for the other people in our lives.

Researchers have proposed different theories to explain the nature of love. Some have attempted to come up with ways to measure feelings of love.The first to develop an instrument to empirically measure love wassocial psychologistZick Rubin.

This article discusses Rubin’s scales for measuring liking and loving and his theories of the main components of love. You’ll learn how the scale shows the difference between liking and loving.

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Rubin’s Elements of Love

According to Rubin, romantic love is made up of three elements:

The Difference Between Liking and Loving

Based on this view of romantic love, Rubin developed two questionnaires to measure the variables of “like” and “love.” At first, Rubin came up with about 80 questions to assess the attitudes a person holds about others.

The questions were sorted according to whether they reflected feelings of liking or loving. The two sets of questions were administered to 198 undergraduate students.

Rubin first introduced his liking and loving scale in a 1970 article published in theJournal of Personality and Social Psychology.

After analyzing the responses, Rubin identified 13 questions for liking and 13 questions for loving that he believed were reliable measures of these two variables.

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Questions in Rubin’s Liking and Loving Scale

These examples are similar to the questions used in Rubin’s Liking and Loving Scale:

Items Measuring LikingI feel that ____________ is a very stable person.I have confidence in ____’s opinions.I think that ______________ is usually well-adjusted. is one of the most likeable people I know.Items Measuring LovingI feel strong feelings of possessiveness towards ____________.I like it when __________ confides in me.I would do almost anything for _____________.I find it easy to ignore __________’s faults.

Items Measuring Liking

Items Measuring Loving

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Rubin’s Research on His Theory of Love

Rubin’s scales of liking and loving provided support for his theory of love.

In a study to determine if the scales could show the difference between liking and loving, Rubin asked participants to fill out his questionnaires based on how they felt about their partner and agood friend. The results revealed that good friends scored highly on the liking scale, but only significant others rated highly for loving.

Rubin identified several characteristics that distinguished degrees of romantic love. For example, he found that participants who rated highly on the love scale also spent more time gazing into each other’s eyes compared to people who rated only weakly in love.

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Other Theories of Love

Other researchers introduced other theories related to the concept of love.

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Lovesuggests that romantic love is composed of passion and intimacy. This theory suggests that when romantic love also includes commitment, it becomes consummate love—the ideal type of relationship.

John Lee’s Color Wheel Model of Love suggests that there are three main love styles: eros (passionate), ludus (playful), and storge (family love). Later, Lee introduces Styles of Loving, which combines the elements of his model into three styles: mania (eros and ludus, a kind of obsessive love), pragma (ludus and storge, a realistic and practical love), and agape (eros and storge, a selfless kind of love).

PsychologistHarry Harlowalso believed that our early attachments to caregivers influenced our later relationships. Hisexperiments with monkeysemphasized the importance of close, safe, and loving contact between caregivers and offspring.

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Summary

Rubin’s scales of liking and loving give us a way to measure the complex feelings of closeness we have for others. Rubin’s research also marked an important step in our understanding of romantic love and paved the way for future research. Today, psychological and sociological researchers are still interested in studying the difference between liking and loving as well as understanding how these intimate feelings affect our physical and mental well-being.

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6 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Kapusta ND, Jankowski KS, Wolf V, et al.Measuring the capacity to love: Development of the CTL-Inventory.Front Psychol. 2018;9:1115. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01115Rubin Z.Measurement of romantic love.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1970;16(2):265-273. doi:10.1037/h0029841Sternberg RJ.A triangular theory of love.Psychol Rev. 1986;93(2):119-135. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119Cramer K, Marcus J, Pomerleau C, Gillard K.Gender invariance in the Love Attitudes Scale based on Lee’s color theory of love.Test Psychomet Methodol App Psychol. 2015;22(3):403-413. doi:10.4473/TPM22.3.6Hazan C, Shaver P.Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.J Personal Social Psychol. 1987;52(3):511-524. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511Harlow HF.The nature of love.American Psychologist. 1958;13(12):673-685. doi:10.1037/h0047884

6 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Kapusta ND, Jankowski KS, Wolf V, et al.Measuring the capacity to love: Development of the CTL-Inventory.Front Psychol. 2018;9:1115. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01115Rubin Z.Measurement of romantic love.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1970;16(2):265-273. doi:10.1037/h0029841Sternberg RJ.A triangular theory of love.Psychol Rev. 1986;93(2):119-135. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119Cramer K, Marcus J, Pomerleau C, Gillard K.Gender invariance in the Love Attitudes Scale based on Lee’s color theory of love.Test Psychomet Methodol App Psychol. 2015;22(3):403-413. doi:10.4473/TPM22.3.6Hazan C, Shaver P.Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.J Personal Social Psychol. 1987;52(3):511-524. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511Harlow HF.The nature of love.American Psychologist. 1958;13(12):673-685. doi:10.1037/h0047884

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

Kapusta ND, Jankowski KS, Wolf V, et al.Measuring the capacity to love: Development of the CTL-Inventory.Front Psychol. 2018;9:1115. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01115Rubin Z.Measurement of romantic love.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1970;16(2):265-273. doi:10.1037/h0029841Sternberg RJ.A triangular theory of love.Psychol Rev. 1986;93(2):119-135. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119Cramer K, Marcus J, Pomerleau C, Gillard K.Gender invariance in the Love Attitudes Scale based on Lee’s color theory of love.Test Psychomet Methodol App Psychol. 2015;22(3):403-413. doi:10.4473/TPM22.3.6Hazan C, Shaver P.Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.J Personal Social Psychol. 1987;52(3):511-524. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511Harlow HF.The nature of love.American Psychologist. 1958;13(12):673-685. doi:10.1037/h0047884

Kapusta ND, Jankowski KS, Wolf V, et al.Measuring the capacity to love: Development of the CTL-Inventory.Front Psychol. 2018;9:1115. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01115

Rubin Z.Measurement of romantic love.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1970;16(2):265-273. doi:10.1037/h0029841

Sternberg RJ.A triangular theory of love.Psychol Rev. 1986;93(2):119-135. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.119

Cramer K, Marcus J, Pomerleau C, Gillard K.Gender invariance in the Love Attitudes Scale based on Lee’s color theory of love.Test Psychomet Methodol App Psychol. 2015;22(3):403-413. doi:10.4473/TPM22.3.6

Hazan C, Shaver P.Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process.J Personal Social Psychol. 1987;52(3):511-524. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511

Harlow HF.The nature of love.American Psychologist. 1958;13(12):673-685. doi:10.1037/h0047884

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