Brief presentation on LOVE

1. LOVE
Presented by
Ronald Howard Kelley
at Sydney University

2. Love Outline
• What is LOVE?
• LOVE historically
• Research on LOVE
• LOVE in coaching

3. “Love is composed of a
single soul inhabiting two
bodies.”
(Aristotle)

4. What Is LOVE?
Love is a Drug
Love is colour.
Love is an intense feeling.
Love is art.
Love is beauty.
Love is children.
Love is Family
Love is Sex/Lust
Love is animals.
Love is nature.
Love is God.

5. 3 Stages of Love Drugs
• Stage 1: LUST
Lust is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen.
• Stage 2: ATTRACTION
This is the truly love-struck phase where a group of neuro-transmitters
called 'monoamines' play an important role: Dopamine - Also activated by
cocaine and nicotine; Norepinephrine – adrenalin that gets us ‘hot and
bothered’; and, Serotonin – a chemical that makes us temporarily insane!
• Stage 3: ATTACHMENT
Attachment is a longer lasting commitment and is the bond that keeps
couples together when they go on to have children. Important in this stage
are two hormones released by the nervous system:
• · Oxytocin – cements strong mother /child. bonding as well as with adults
through sexual act at orgasm. – i.e. more sex, more bond! Vasopressin – an
important chemical for the long-term commitment stage.

6. Five Types of Love Historically
The ancient Greeks defined five types of
love that exist in human relationships:
Philia
Eros
Agape
Storge
Xenia

7. EROS
• Eros is affectionate love that tends to be
possessive and intimate; it is far more
inclusive than just sexual love, an example is
Romeo and Juliet. The Scandinavian
theologian Anders Nygren describes how
“Eros bases its interest in a single other instead
of all others; Eros is hence limited,
conditioned and pre-eminently calculating.”

8. Philia
• Philia is about special friendships;
they might be mates, team members,
sisterhood, brotherhood, fellowship
or the like where people share
intimacy and equality with trust and
respect for each other.

9. AGAPE
• Agape is a non-possessive love and concern
for the well being of others; a selfless love
for humanity and the will of the self in
‘devotion to neighbour’. This is a
therapeutic attitude to be developed, what
Carl Rogers encourages in his client-centred
therapy. Nygren sees Agape “as
spontaneous, unmotivated, indifferent to
value, creative, unlimited, unconditioned,
and un-calculating.”

10. STORGE
• Storge is the love found in
families: the love of parent for
child and child for parent.

11. XENIA
• Xenia is LOVE that manifests
as hospitality. Through
hospitality XENIA, strangers
become grateful friends in a
world that is not always
friendly.

12. Research on LOVE
Since antiquity there has been much ado about LOVE. Philosophers,
theologians, artists have all pondered LOVE in life. Scientific research
is relatively recent, limited to the last century.
• 1904-27 - Spearman - Love is a unitary, undifferentiable emotion (Structural Model #1)
• 1922-55 - Freud - Love is sublimated sexuality
• 1939 - Thomson - Love is a sampling of many overlapping bonds (Structural Model #2)
• 1938 - Thurstone - Love is a set of several primary factors (Structural Model #3)
• 1958 - Harlow - love is attachment
• 1962 - Maslow - Love is either deficiency love of being love
• 1963 - Burton - Love is a disease
• 1965 - Askew - Love is a neurosis
• 1967 - Koenigsberg - Love is a projection of competitiveness with a parent
• 1969 - deRougement - Love is the enshrinement of suffering and death
• 1970-3 - Rubin - love can be measured on a LOVE SCALE vs. LIKING scale
• 1977 - Lee - Six kinds of love can be divined from the Colours of LOVE
• 1977 - Levinger, et al. - Interpersonal involvement love cost in relationship
• 1980 - Livingston - Love is a process of uncertainty reduction
• 1980 - Lasswell & Lobsenz - Love scale questionnaire
• 1982 - Strernberg & Grajek - the nature of love (3 structural models study) Commitment)
• 1990 - Hazen & Shaver - LOVE and WORK
• 2002 – Campbell et al. – Self-Love
• 2004 – Park, Peterson & Seligman - Strength of Character and Well-Being
• 1986 - Sternberg - Triangular theory of Love (Intimacy, Passion, and Decision//Commitment
Hendricks and Hendricks (1986, 1992)

13. John Lee’s Colours of Love
EROS is a MANIA is
romantic and possessive and
passionate dependent love
EROS love. (EROS+LUDUS)
16 2/3 %
MANIA
16 2/3 % AGAPE
16 2/3 %
LUDUS is AGAPE is selfless
game playing love
lvoe. (EROS+STORGE)
LUDUS
16 2/3 % STORGE
16 2/3 %
16 2/3 %
PRAGMA STORGE is PRAGMA is
friendship shopping list love
love. (STORGE+LUDUS).
Lee (1973, 1988),

14. Sternberg’s 3 Styles of LOVE
• Intimacy: “In-to-me-see.”
• Passion: Intensity and arousal. Ecstasy or despair.
• Commitment: Anything for love.
• Come together to create seven styles:
• Liking: Intimacy alone
• Infatuation: Passion alone
• Empty love: Commitment alone
• Romantic love: Passion + Intimacy.
• Companionate love: Intimacy + Commitment
• Fatuous love: Passion + Commitment
• Consummate love: Intimacy + Passion + Commitment
Sternberg and Barnes (1988)

15. Peterson & Seligman 3
Prototypical forms of LOVE
Romantic love
A child’s love for a parent
A parent’s love for a child
•
Peterson and Seligman (2004)

16. ATTACHMENT
• Hand-in-hand with all forms of LOVE is the
theory of attachment and style that go with it.
• Attachment Styles (developed in early parental
relationships) include:
• Secure : Trusting, without concerns for abandonment, feeling
self-worth and being liked.
• Avoidant : Suppression of needs due to repeated rejection.
Difficulty in forming intimate relationships.
• Anxious/Ambivalent : Worry that others will not reciprocate
intimacy. Caused by inconsistent experiences.
• Research Hazan and Shaver (1987) surveyed adults and found 56% were
secure, 25% avoidant and 19% Anxious.

17. .
“Love loves to love love”
.
James Joyce in Ulysses

18. How LOVE can be applied to
Coaching:
· Research Shows:
Gallup shows that if you work with ‘best friends’ you are safer,
more productive and have higher customer satisfaction (Rath,
2004)
Peterson and Parks (2006, p. 1151) found that “love predicts
accomplishments as a leader” when studying cadets at West Point
Military Academy.

19. How LOVE can be applied to
Coaching through reframing:
– Love is not a word that is used much in the workplace . Love has
been and is viewed as a weakness and softness not appropriate in
the ‘dog-eat-dog’ world of commerce.
VIA strength “Capacity to Love and Be Loved” can reframe
old attitudes:
• • Feeling taken for granted? Feel truly appreciated!
• Feeling isolated? Feel connected to co-workers!
• Stuck in your functional silo? Collaborate with others!
• Working with enemies and competitors? Work with
friends!
Peterson, C. & Park, N. (2006). Peterson, C. & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004).

20. How LOVE can be applied to
Coaching:
As a coach, learn what love is for yourself.
Learn what love is for your coachees.
Some people you work with may be so damaged
by love: a schema that says ”I am not loved
and can not love” from the past.
Your act of love may be to refer them on…
Or maybe demonstrate how powerful and
Healing love can be.·