Motivation and emotion/Book/2026/Love styles and relationships

Love styles and relationships:
How do love styles influence relationship satisfaction and stability?

Overview

Scenario

Maya and Noah have been together for two years. Maya expresses love through passion, affection and frequent emotional reassurance. Noah takes a more practical approach, showing commitment by planning for their future and helping with everyday responsibilities. Their different ways of expressing love demonstrate why communication may be important for understanding each other’s needs and expectations (see Figure 1). Maya sometimes interprets Noah’s behaviour as emotionally distant, while Noah feels that Maya expects constant intensity. Although they care deeply about each other, both are becoming less satisfied and are questioning whether their relationship will last. Could their different love styles be affecting how they understand and respond to one another?

Love styles ^{[clarification needed]} are different ways people approach, express, and experience romantic love. Lee’s colour wheel theory identifies six styles: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania and agape (Lee, 1977). These styles were later operationalised through the Love Attitudes Scale (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986).
Love styles often influence how individuals experience intimacy, commitment, communication and conflict. Research generally associates eros and agape with greater relationship quality, and ludus is associated with poorer relationship outcomes (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987).
Relationship satisfaction concerns how positively individuals view their relationships, while stability concerns whether relationships are maintained over time. Although these outcomes are related, a stable relationship is not necessarily satisfying, and a satisfying relationship is not guaranteed to remain stable.
Psychological research can help explain how love styles influence relationship outcomes directly and through processes such as communication, compatibility and coping. However, love styles do not determine whether a relationship will succeed or fail (Vedes et al., 2016)

Focus questions

What are the different love styles?
How do love styles influence relationship satisfaction?
How do love styles influence relationship stability?
How do partner compatibility and other psychological factors shape these relationships?

What are the different love styles?

Love styles describe attitudes and beliefs about romantic love rather than being fixed categories of people.
Lee’s colour wheel theory proposes six love styles: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania and agape (Lee, 1977).
Individuals can have several love styles, and their styles and attitudes may vary between relationships and across life stages (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986).

Lee's colour wheel theory

Eros is passionate love characterised by physical attraction, ludus approaches love as a game, and storge is love that develops gradually from friendship (Lee, 1977).
Mania combines intense emotion with possessiveness and dependency, pragma involves practical partner selection, and agape emphasises selfless and giving love (Lee, 1977).
Lee conceptualised eros, ludus and storge as primary styles, while mania, pragma and agape were formed from combinations of the primary styles (Lee, 1977; see Figure 2).
The colour-wheel model suggests that approaches to love can often overlap and mix rather than being completely separate categories (Lee, 1977).

Measuring love styles

Hendrick and Hendrick (1986) developed the Love Attitudes Scale to measure individuals' attitudes towards Lee’s six love styles.
The original scale measures each love style separately, meaning that a person can score highly on more than one style.
Hendrick et al. (1998) developed a 24-item short form containing four items for each of the six love styles.
The scale relies on self-reported attitudes and therefore may be influenced by social desirability, cultural expectations and participants’ relationship experiences.

Test your knowledge

How do love styles influence relationship satisfaction?

Relationship satisfaction refers to a person’s overall evaluation of the quality and fulfilment of their romantic relationship.
Love styles may influence satisfaction by shaping expectations, affection, intimacy, communication and responses to conflict.
Research generally identifies positive associations for eros and agape and negative associations for ludus, while findings for the other styles are less consistent (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987; Vedes et al., 2016).

Love styles associated with greater satisfaction

Eros is generally associated with intimacy, passion, commitment and positive evaluations of relationship quality (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987; Levy & Davis, 1988).
Agape may support satisfaction through care, concern and a willingness to provide support.
Eros and agape have been positively associated with constructive dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction (Vedes et al., 2016).
Storge may support trust and companionship because it develops from friendship, although its association with satisfaction is less consistent.

Love styles associated with lower satisfaction

Ludus is generally associated with lower intimacy, commitment and relationship satisfaction because it can involve game-playing and avoidance of dependence (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987; Vedes et al., 2016).
Mania may create passion but can also involve jealousy, possessiveness, anxiety and dependency, potentially reducing satisfaction.
Pragma’s practical approach may help with partner selection, but it does not consistently predict emotional closeness or relationship satisfaction.
These findings are associations and do not explicitly demonstrate that a particular love style inevitably causes a satisfying or unsatisfying relationship.

How do love styles influence relationship stability?

Relationship stability concerns whether a relationship is maintained over time, whereas satisfaction concerns how positively the relationship is evaluated.
Love styles may influence stability indirectly through commitment, trust, conflict, coping and relationship-maintenance behaviours.
Most love-style research examines satisfaction or relationship quality rather than actual separation over time.

Commitment and relationship maintenance

Eros and agape are associated with commitment and constructive responses to relationship difficulties, which may support relationship maintenance (Levy & Davis, 1988; Vedes et al., 2016).
Dyadic coping partially explains the association between eros, agape and relationship satisfaction because supportive partners manage stress together (Vedes et al., 2016).
Ludus may weaken stability when game-playing, emotional distance or limited commitment reduces trust between partners.

Mania may create a strong desire to preserve a relationship, but jealousy and dependency can also contribute to conflict and instability.

Satisfaction and stability

Satisfaction and stability are connected but distinct: a relationship may continue despite dissatisfaction, while a satisfying relationship may still end.
Greater satisfaction may encourage commitment, but stability is also shaped by investments, alternatives, shared responsibilities and barriers to leaving.
Love styles should therefore be understood as one possible influence on stability rather than a complete explanation.
Longitudinal research is needed to determine whether love styles can reliably predict changes in relationship satisfaction and stability over time.

How do compatibility and other psychological factors shape relationship outcomes?

Relationship outcomes may depend on the combination of both partners’ love styles rather than one individual’s style alone.
Compatibility does not necessarily require partners to have identical styles; it may involve understanding and responding effectively to different expectations.
Attachment, communication, coping, culture, age and relationship stage may also influence the connections between love styles, satisfaction and stability.

Compatibility between partners

Couples have demonstrated similarity in several love styles, but similarity does not consistently guarantee greater relationship quality (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987).
Differences between partners in eros, agape and ludus have been associated with aspects of relationship quality.
A dyadic approach considers how each partner’s love style may affect both their own satisfaction and their partner’s satisfaction ((Agus et al., 2021; Vedes et al., 2016).
Communication may help partners interpret different expressions of love without automatically viewing those differences as rejection or incompatibility.

Individual and contextual factors

Attachment styles overlap with love styles and can independently influence closeness, trust and satisfaction (Fricker & Moore, 2002; Levy & Davis, 1988).
Cultural influences on romantic love may shape which love styles individuals endorse and how love is understood and expressed.
Age, gender, relationship duration and previous relationship experiences may also shape love attitudes.
Much of the earlier research used Western, heterosexual and student samples, which limits the generalisability of its findings.
Love styles should be used for reflection and understanding, not as diagnoses or fixed predictions of relationship success.

Conclusion

Love styles influence how individuals understand and express romantic love, which may shape communication, intimacy and expectations within relationships.
Eros and agape are generally associated with greater relationship satisfaction, whereas ludus tends to be associated with poorer outcomes; findings for storge, pragma and mania are more complex (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987; Vedes et al., 2016).
Love styles may affect relationship stability indirectly through commitment, trust, conflict management and dyadic coping.
Compatibility does not necessarily require partners to share identical love styles; communication and understanding may help partners navigate different expectations.
Love styles are only one influence on relationship outcomes, alongside attachment, culture, life stage and other contextual factors.
Overall, no individual love style can guarantee whether a relationship will be satisfying or stable.

References

Agus, M., Puddu, L., & Raffagnino, R. (2021). Exploring the similarity of partners’ love styles and their relationships with marital satisfaction: A dyadic approach. Sage Open, 11(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440211040785

Davis, K. E., & Latty-Mann, H. (1987). Love styles and relationship quality: A contribution to validation. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 4(4), 409–428. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407587044002

Fricker, J., & Moore, S. (2002). Relationship satisfaction: The role of love styles and attachment styles. Current Research in Social Psychology, 7(11).

Hendrick, C., & Hendrick, S. (1986). A theory and method of love. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(2), 392–402. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.2.392

Hendrick, S. S., Dicke, A., & Hendrick, C. (1998). The relationship assessment scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 15(1), 137–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407598151009

Lee, J. A. (1977). A typology of styles of loving. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 3(2), 173–182. https://doi.org/10.1177/014616727700300204

Levy, M. B., & Davis, K. E. (1988). Love styles and attachment styles compared: Their relations to each other and to various relationship characteristics. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 5(4), 439–471. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407588054004

Neto, F. (2007). Love styles: A cross-cultural study of British, Indian, and Portuguese college students. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 38(2), 239–254. https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.38.2.239

Vedes, A., Hilpert, P., Nussbeck, F. W., Randall, A. K., Bodenmann, G., & Lind, W. R. (2016). Love styles, coping, and relationship satisfaction: A dyadic approach. Personal Relationships, 23(1), 84–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12112

External links

Love Attitudes Scale (short form) (PsyToolkit)
When are you sacrificing too much in your relationship? (Greater Good Science Center)