Measuring Positive Emotionality: A Review of Instruments Assessing Love. (Assessment in Action)

Love is a multidimensional construct that has proven difficult to define and, consequently, challenging to measure. A variety of available instruments purport to measure aspects of love, 9 of which are reviewed and discussed in this article. Researchers and practitioners are advised to study definitions of the love construct as well as psychometric properties of instruments in selecting measures of love appropriate to their purposes. Article: The importance of love has been acknowledged for centuries in the writings of philosophers (e.g., Plato), theologians e.g., St. Paul, 1 Corinthians), and scholars (e.g., Maslow) (O'Sullivan & O'Leary, 1992). Yet love consistently has been defined as somewhat of ―a mystery‖ (Jung, 1961, p. 353) "with which we are psychologically preoccupied" (Powell, 1978, p. 14). Early researchers in the last century explained love as a unidimensional construct reflecting interpersonal attraction and viewed liking and loving as the anchors of a linear continuum (Huston, 1974): others considered movement on the continuum to be the result of interpersonal attraction, the latter consisting of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components (Berscheid & Walster, 1978). Lee's (1977) typology of six love styles has dominated much of the theory and research in the past 20 years; Sternberg's (1986) triangular theory of love and eight kinds of love also serve as the basis for research and clinical practice. Multiple definitions have resulted in multiple measures of lore, leaving researchers and practitioners with the dilemma of selecting the most appropriate measures for their purposes. There was a noticeable lack of research involving love during the 1950s and 1960s (Curtin, 1973; Elkins & Smith, 1979). Wrightsman and Deaux (1981) noted that during that period, researchers "believed love [was] too mysterious and too intangible for scientific study" (p. 170). However, during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, love became "respectable as an area for study by psychologists" (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986, p. 392). This professional acceptance resulted in a renewed focus during the 1990s on defining, measuring, and examining love's components, variables, and overall importance as part of holistic well-being (see, e.g., Beall & Sternberg, 1995; Thompson & Borrello, 1992b). Holistic approaches included love as a key life task that is necessary to achieve optimum individual wellness (see. e.g., Myers, Sweeney, & Witmer, 2000: Sweeney & Witmer, 1991). As we entered the new millennium, individuals promoting the "positive psychology" movement began encouraging psychologists to use similar strength-based practices in their work. Lead theorists and practitioners called for a new locus on the ―actions [that] lead to well-being, to positive individuals, and to thriving communities" (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000, p. 5) rather than on pathology and negativism. Finding ways to both assess and encourage love and loving relationships certainly falls within the framework of this overall trend in the field. The current view of love reflects a complex, multidimensional concept that is difficult, if not impossible, to define in a universal manner (Beall & Sternberg, 1995; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989). Thompson and Borrello (1992a) explained that scholars use "two distinct lines of inquiry regarding the nature of love" (p. 154): The deductive inquiry approach is grounded in theory and is used in more traditional classical quantitative research (e.g., Hendrick, Hendrick, & Dicke, 1998). Other researchers take an inductive inquiry approach, which involves fewer specific hypotheses within the context of exploratory research, with an overall goal of developing new theory. Beall and Sternberg (1995) provided a comprehensive review of definitions of love, arguing for a socialconstructionist view of this phenomenon. More specifically, they suggested "both the definition and the emotional experience of love are contextually bound" (p. 417). Noting that love is defined by a culture, they described how conceptions of love have changed over time as cultures have changed. Because people actively construct their perceptions of the world and use culture as a guide for these constructions (Gergen, 1985), it becomes impossible to understand love outside of the context of culture and culturally defined conceptions of acceptability. Beall and Sternberg identified love as "an idea that includes information about a) the beloved, b) the thoughts that accompany love, (c), the feelings that accompany love; and (d) the actions, or the relations between the lover and the beloved" (pp. 433-434). To study or measure any psychological construct, one must first start with a clear definition of that which is to be measured (Anastasi, 1997). Clearly, then one of the major problems in assessing, aspects of love relates to the lack of a universally accepted definition of this construct. At the same time, that love is ― the deepest and most meaningful of sentiments" (Rubin, 1970, p. 265), "a fundamental aspect of being human" (Murthy & Rotzien, 1996, p. 108), and, at least in Western cultures, the basis of marriage, suggests that it may be quite valuable for counselors to assess, in some manner, the nature and meaning of love as a basis for working with individuals, couples, and families. Assessing love requires the selection of suitable measures, clinical methods, or both. It is not surprising that the existence of multiple definitions of love has resulted in the development of a variety of instruments purporting to measure this phenomenon, A search of PsychFirst, ERIC, and related electronic databases for documents published in the last 25 years did not reveal a comprehensive review of available love instruments or studies that compared the psychometric and practica1 features of existing instruments. A notable exception is an article by Hendrick and Hendrick (1989) in which five measures of love were assessed and relationships between the measures were examined. The authors completed a factor analysis combining scores for the Love Attitudes Scale ( Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986), Sternberg's (1986, 1987) Triangular Love Scale, the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986, the Relationship Rating Form (Davis & Todd, 1985), and Hazan and Shaver's (1990) Adult Attachment Questionnaire. For the sample of 391 unmarried college students, five distinct factors emerged, reflecting the themes of passionate love, closeness, .ambivalence, secure attachment, and practicality. No rationale for the selection of these instruments was provided beyond noting the purpose to " compare and contrast these measurement approaches" (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989. p. 784). Both clinicians and researchers who work with or study aspects of love with individuals and couples require access to appropriate and psychometrically sound instruments. Given the lack of current literature comparing love measures, the purpose of this study was to review available instruments for use in clinical and research settings. The methodology for this review is described, and the criteria by which instruments were selected for inclusion and exclusion) are provided. A brief overview of each of the instruments selected is included and the relative strengths of the instruments are discussed. Implications for counselors and further research needs are considered. METHOD Following a review of existing electronic databases, a variety of articles were selected for review. Articles chosen were those in which love was defined (e.g., Beall & Sternberg, 1995; O'Sullivan & O'Leary, 1992), love instruments were developed or examined (e.g., Lemieux & Hale, 1999; Murphy & Rotzien, l996; Rubin, 1970; Thompson & Borrello, 1992b), or aspects of the love construct were explored (e.g., Sternberg, 1986, 1987). The purpose of this review was to gather general information about the various ways the construct of love had been defined, studied, and examined in the literature. Next, an electronic search of Buros's Mental Measurements Yearbook, Volumes 1 through 7, was also searched, resulting in the identification of an additional 16 instruments. Three phases were included in the review process. The first two reviews were designed to eliminate instruments that did not meet specified screening criteria (Step 1) or more in-depth review criteria (Step 2). Finally (Step 3), the instruments selected for inclusion were reviewed and compared. Step 1: Initial Review For each instrument identified in the searches, attempts were made to obtain corresponding test reviews, published articles describing the development of the instrument, and articles in which the instrument was used in research. If the instrument was published, attempts were made to access the manual or technical manuals. The purpose of the first level of review was to determine the purpose of the instrument, its intended uses as identified by the author or authors, the definition of love used to develop the scale, and the theory (if any) underlying the definition of the love construct. This initial review revealed that the primary purpose of some of the instruments was to measure aspects of love, whereas the purpose of other instruments identified in the search either included or was primarily directed toward the measurement of other characteristics. For example, love was one of 49 subscales in the Clinical Support System Battery (Cassel, 1991) that was developed for the purpose of assessing potential school dropouts, chemical dependency, or both. Several instruments commonly used in couple's counseling, such as the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976, 1989 and the Marriage Expectation Inventories (McDonald, Pirro, Cleveland, St McDonald, 1979), were eliminated because they were developed to assess marital characteristics and aspects of marital satisfaction and not primarily aspects of love. Because the purpose of this review was to identify instruments that measure the c