Hatfield's 'Measuring Passionate Love'

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Although literature is littered with examples of good and bad relationships, there are many more examples in the real world. Sociology, the study of people in groups, sheds light on the anomaly of the monogamous relationship. As the study of groups of people, sociology helps the reader develop a unique perspective of the choices that people make while in the midst of other people. This is very useful when trying to answer the question of why people do what they do in social interactions in front of people. An example of this is when Hamlet tries to trick Polonius by acting as if he is no longer infatuated with Ophelia. This also explains the way that Ophelia reacts, not knowing the truth about Hamlet’s underlying motivation of tricking her …show more content…

Psychology helps explain the motives behind the actions. There are many research papers about having a long lasting relationship, include one by paper. In this paper titled Measuring Passionate Love, Hatfield explains that both mind and body aid in getting and maintaining a long and meaningful romantic relationship. In this paper, Hatfield describes passionate love as “reciprocated love (union with the other) is associated with fulfillment and ecstasy”(Hatfield 3). This passionate love is comparable to an amphetamine high, leading to the conclusion that drug addicts’ and newly formed couples’ brains are highly related. Fletcher notes, as would be assumed, those not affected by passionate love were not affected severely by the …show more content…

This is because, as stated in Arriaga’s Fluctuation in Satisfaction, “individuals who had highly fluctuating levels of satisfaction were more likely to be in relationships that ended than [the] individuals who exhibited stable levels of satisfaction over time”(10). This however does not mean there cannot be disagreements or even fights, but that there needs to be a resolution. Allowing the fight to linger warrants a festering of resentment of what could have been said instead of looking to the future. The last step of a fight is to do something to make up towards one another, to acknowledge that there is a resolution and that there was a wrong. This action can be as simple as a hug and a kiss to a grand gesture of a large planned out date. The longer the relationship has gone on, the harder it is to do spontaneous or new things. This is the companionate form of love. Companionate love is “no less committed but has lost its urgency and fire” and is “linked to the later stages of the relationship”(Fletcher 3). As stated, it is the comfortable stage of a relationship, where new information is deep and there is little to no spontaneity and this may be the stage where there will be more disagreements and work will need to be put into the relationship. This change is where the

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