Research Support School of Business Administration December 1993 I LOVE IT! Towards a unifying theory of love across diverse love objects (Abridged) Working Paper #718 Aaron Ahuvia University of Michigan 6

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I love it! Towards a unifying theory of love across diverse love objects (Abridged) By Aaron Ahuvia ~ Copyright by Aaron Chaim Ahuvia 1993 All Rights Reserved

Abstract While many areas of consumer research touch on consumers' love of products (e.g., involvement, brand loyalty, impulse buying, materialism, favorite objects, and collecting), little consumer research has investigated love directly. Similarly, the psychological literature on love deals overwhelmingly with interpersonal relationships and almost never recognizes that the 'love object" can sometimes literally be an object. This dissertation brings together consumer behavior and psychological literatures to directly explore people's love of products and activities. Based on a series of sixty-nine interviews, a description is presented of the love prototype' through which people judge whether a given relationship should be considered love. This description of the popular prototype of love is then used to construct a theory of love as the conditional integration of the loved object into the self. This theory holds that love occurs when both the desire for integration with the love object into the self and the actual level of self integration with the love object are at a high level. This paper is an informal abridgement of a doctoral dissertation. Unfortunately, time constraints did not permit a full re-writing or the dissertation in abridged form. Rather, sections that were likely to be of specialized interest were simply deleted. As a result table and chapter numbers may not be in consecutive order and there may be references made to sections of the text that are not included in this version (e.g. "as was previously stated..."). Please forgive an inconvienence that this may cause. An unabridged version is available from the author. Nomenclature In doing this research it became apparent that a word was needed for the construct being studied. With the help of Gerda Seligson, Professor Emeritus of Classics from the University of Michigan, I have coined the term "philopragia" to describe a love for anything other than a person with whom one has a close personal relationship. In addition to the word philopragia, several other terms have special meanings in this dissertation. The phrase love object" (abbreviated as LO) will be used in the broadest sense to refer to anything, human or otherwise, that is loved. Similarly the term "object" used by itself will refer not only to physical objects but to ideas, abstractions, activities, etc. Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the respondents who generously gave their time and my committee of Sid Levy, John Sherry, Brian Sternthol, and Mara Adelman for their help and oversight with this project. Special thanks are also owed to Mara, who's energy, intellect, and friendship saw me through this program. On a more personal note I'd like to thank Aura, undoubtedly the most supportive dissertation widow the world has ever seen. And I'd also like to thank my parents both for their support and for their example. Finally I'd like to dedicate this dissertation to the anonymous respondent who spoke so eloquently of her love for writing saying: I love to write when I'm actually writing. I always need to go take a nap for that.

Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions...................................................................... 1 M ethodology.............................................................................................1 Results...................................................................................................................3 Chapter 5: W hat People Love...................................................................3 Chapter 6: Theoretical Preview.................................................................8 Chapter 7: Love's Hedonic Rapture.............................................................11 Chapter 8: The Need for Survival and Security...........................................14 Chapter 9: Social Needs.............................................................................15 LOs M ediate Interpersonal Relationships.......................................15 Relationships with LOs.................................................................18 Chapter 10: Esteem & Achievement Needs................................................21 Self Esteem and Admiration...........................................................21 Adornm ents.......................................................................... 21 Accomplishments...........................................................................22 Chapter 11: Self-actualization.............................................................24 Chapter 12: Existential Needs.......................................................27 Love is Sacred...........................................................................29 Chapter 13: Intrinsic Interest and Excellence.............................................34 Intrinsic Interest.............................................................................35 Perceived Quality: "You're the Top"...............................................37 Chapter 14: M echanisms of Integration......................................................37 Creation......................................................................................38 Physical Incorporation: Eating & Control.......................................39 Cognitive Incorporation.................................................................40 Contamination & Boundary Breaking Experiences...........................41 Investiture.....................................................................................42 Chapter 15: The Emic View of Self-Extension and its Outcomes...................42 Outcomes of Self-extension............................................................44 Chapter 16: Conclus ion...................................................................... 47 Placing the Conditional Integration Theory in Context....................47 Typologies Vs Single Definitions of Love........................................49 Loving Vs Liking............................................................................50 The Experience of Philopgragia and Interpersonal Love..................50 Bibliography............................................................................................53

1 Introduction The word love is applied in many different ways and in many different situations. We speak of romantic love and brotherly love, the love of our children and the love of our toys. The obvious importance of love has led to an upsurge of work on this topic in the past twenty years, yet this work has focused on love between persons, and has only given a passing mention to the fact that the object of love can often really be an object. The purpose of this research is to look specifically at peoples' love of products and services and place them in the context of interpersonal love. This research uses theory generating qualitative interview techniques to address on the following questions: How is the love of products understood by consumers? How can researchers best conceptualize product-love? Can a theory be devoloped that explains love in general and is not limmited to a narrow class of love objects? Research Questions The primary objective of this dissertation is to formulate a grounded theory of love capable of explaining love across diverse love objects. The first step towards this goal is determining the scope of love objects that the theory needs to cover. In other words, do people love things other than people and if so what? If people are always as loose with their language when they say 'I love swimming" as when they say "that comedian really kills me," it would not make sense to consider philopragia and interpersonal love as candidates for inclusion in the same theory. Once the existence of philopragia as a genuine form of love has been established, the next step is to describe the major themes of the love prototype. Fehr (1988) and Fehr and Russel (1984, 1991) present strong evidence that love is popularly understood through a prototype. While this prototypic conception of love is no doubt somewhat idiosyncratic to each individual, there is also a social construction (i.e. socially shared conception) of love that partially shapes each individual's experience and idea of love. As a prototype, this social construction takes the form of a list of attributes of love. For example, Fehr (1988) found that the most central attributes of the love prototype included trust, caring, honesty, friendship, respect, concern for the other's well-being, loyalty, and commitment. The more of these attributes are present in a given relationship, and the greater the intensity of their presence, the more likely it is that the relationship would be labeled love. The importance of understanding the love prototype is based in part on the assumption that the label "love" does not refer to a random amalgam of attributes. Rather, these attributes are grouped together because they are related to a fundamental underlying psychological process. The challenge then is to both describe the content of the love prototype and to explain how the pieces fit together in such a way that is a) parsimonious, and b) consistent with the evidence presented here and in previous research on love and consumer behavior. Methodology This research consisted of two studies. The first was a fairly large sample study conducted over the phone. The second was a series of 10 depth interviews conducted in respondents' homes. While the methodology for each study will be presented separately, they are not meant as discrete projects and the findings from each study significantly affected the interpretation and analysis of the data from the other study. Therefore, results of the studies will be presented together. Respondents were contacted through a snowball sampling procedure (Ford 1975; Lincoln & Guba 1985) that began by the author asking personal contacts for lists of friends who would be willing to serve as respondents. Upon completing the interview, respondents were asked for names of their friends or ~ } acquaintances who also might be willing to participate in the research. Although the search for respondents began with personal contacts of the author, the actual respondents had not met the author prior to the research. This procedure succeeded in obtaining a fairly homogeneous group of 69 respondents (Males= 36, Females= 33) who were predominantly white (white 56,black 10, Hispanic 2, other 1), ranged from 23 to 45 years of age (M= 32), and were well educated professionals (post college= 38, college=27, high school or less =5). In addition to providing the desired sample, this method allowed the interviewer to introduce himself as being referred by a friend of the respondent which resulted in a 99% response rate. Because this was not a random sample the love prototype uncovered by this investigation may be specific to the educated urban subculture from which it was drawn. To investigate the generality of this prototype, it will therefore be necessary to conduct further research. a

2 The goal of the second study was to get a more in-depth understanding of how the respondents experienced and thought about love. To this end, a series of 10 face to face interviews ranging in length from 2 to 4 hours were conducted with selected respondents from the first study. Interviews were conducted in the respondents homes and respondents were paid $20 for their time and cooperation. A purposive sampling design (Arnold 1970; Brewer & Hunter 1989; Glaser & Strauss 1967; Lincoln & Cuba 1985; Strauss & Corbin 1990; Patton 1980) was used to select respondents for the'depth interviews based on the initial phone interviews. The goal of the respondent selection process was to provide fairly even coverage of commonly mentioned love objects and redundancy on some of the most frequently mentioned items. In addition, the two respondents who claimed not to love anything aside from people were interviewed to explicate the meaning of this response. The respondents for the depth interviews are listed in tables 8 and 9. Table 8. Depth interview respondents Pseudonym Pam Cindy Josh Susan John Sex F F M F M DOB (Age) 6-62 (29) 2-57 (35) 3-60 (31) 7-55 (36) 4-55 (36) Education MA BA MA MA MA Occupation Freelance Marketing Technical Teacher K-8 Freelance writer & Manager director for writer composer theater company Race Filipino White White White White Loved items Cigarette Baseball Home Paper with mona lisa Books (lit. discussed in cases and memor-abilia Made baby's Hist) long purses crib Glass frame "100% interview. Antiques american" 15mm Dixon-Carr Building stage miniature Items in bold novels Parents ranch sets Perfume bottles (armies) were analyzed Composing Cooking Lamps Writing through music projective Watching Watching tv in bed Playing war techniques. Bach's music baseball games Students Bugs bunny Computer cartoons 'The forum" a self (mac) development workshop

3 Table 9. Depth interview respondents continued Pseudonym Joe Julie Linda Kim Phil. Sex M F F F M DOB (age) 10-61 (30) 2-62 (30) 9-52 (39) 2-55 (37) 10-62 (29) Education HS MA BA BA BA Occupation Undergrad Pastoral Proof-reader Student Fund raiser student counselor Race White White White White White Loved items Furniture & Books Food Ethnic foods Chicago discussed in home Wrigley field long interview decoration Being a Fish Books therapist Chicago skyline Items in bold Food House plants Astrology were analyzed Collection of Literature through Music photos To entertain/ Music projective cook 2 cats techniques. Dancing Plants Goddess Outdoors Movies Nature Writing Travel Camping Conversations Political correctness Results This section is divided into 12 short chapters. The first chapter (chapter 5) looks at what people loved. Its focus is mainly descriptive and answers the questions: Do people claim to really love things other than people, and if so what? Chapter 6 provides a very brief preview of the major theoretical conclusions from this research. The goal of this chapter is to aid in the reader's comprehension of chapters 7 - 15 by giving them a conceptual framework within which to place the data. Chapters 7- 15 rely most heavily on emic analysis but contain etic elements as well. These chapters provide a detailed description of what respondents meant when they said they loved something by summarizing major themes reflecting respondents' motivations for love and their experiences with LOs. These themes are also discussed in terms of their relationship to the larger theoretical conclusions and prior research. Chapter 16, the conclusion, moves from a primarily emic to an etic perspective and presents a more detailed description of the theory of love developed herein. Chapter 5: What People Love The results of quantifying the LOs by type are presented in tables 10 and 11. Table 10 presents the analysis in terms of items mentioned, and table 11 presents the same analysis in terms of the number of respondents mentioning at least one item in the given category. The first column in both tables provides the total number of loved items that fell into that category, or the total number of respondents mentioning at least one item in that category, respectively. The second column gives the total number of items that respondents claimed were "real" or "true" love, as opposed to situations where they might say "I love " but are just using the word love loosely. The third column indicates the total number of items in that category given as a percent of all 360 items mentioned by respondents. The forth column indicates how many items in that category were deemed to be real love, again as a percentage of all 360 items. The fifth and final column is a A

4 measure of how many items in that category were considered real love, as a percentage of all the items in that category. The main fact that stands out from these figures is that the majority of respondents loved things other than people. Only two respondents claimed not to love anything aside from other people. Even when only items constituting "real love" are considered, 72% of the respondents still said that they loved something other than a person with whom they had a close personal relationship. Therefore, at least in terms of the popular prototype of love, it is possible for people to love a wide variety of things beyond family, friends, and lovers. Table 10. What peole love oranized by item Item s Total Real Real + Real as a % of items Items Love Loose as a % of total in category % of total items that are items real love All 360 196 100.00% 54.44% 54.44% Objects 192 104 53.33% 28.89% 54.17% Natural 45 36 12.50% 10.00% 80.00% Plants 6 4 1.67% 1.11% 66.67% Water 7 4 1.94% 1.11% 57.14% Places, "Nature", Landscape 10 10 2.78% 2.78% 100.00% Clouds 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Colors 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Animals 20 16 5.56% 4.44% 80.00% Wild 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Pets 20 16 5.56% 4.44% 80.00% Products 126 53 35.00% 14.72% 42.06% Commercial 69 14 19.17% 3.89% 20.29% Clothing 7 0 1.94% 0.00% 0.00% Drugs 2 0 0.56% 0.00% 0.00% Food 24 4 6.67% 1.11% 16.67% Housing 8 1 2.22% 0.28% 12.50% Collections 7 2 1.94% 0.56% 28.57% Car 8 2 2.22% 0.56% 25.00% Other 13 5 3.61% 1.39% 38.46% Artforms 45 31 12.50% 8.61% 68.89% Music 17 12 4.72% 3.33% 70.59% Books 8 4 2.22% 1.11% 50.00% Movies 6 4 1.67% 1.11% 66.67% TV 4 1 1.11% 0.28% 25.00% Photos 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Visual arts 3 3 0.83% 0.83% 100.00% Theater 2 2 0.56% 0.56% 100.00% Other Art 5 5 1.39% 1.39% 100.00% Places 10 7 2.78% 1.94% 70.00% Cities 4 3 1.11% 0.83% 75.00% Other 6 4 1.67% 1.11% 66.67% People 16 10 4.44% 2.78% 62.50% Celebrities 7 3 1.94% 0.83% 42.86% Humanity 9 7 2.50% 1.94% 77.78% God 4 4 1 1.111% 100.00%

5 Table 10 continued Item s Total Real Real+ Real as a %ofitems Items Love Loose as a % of total in category % of total items that are items real love Activities 124 70 34.44% 19.44% 56.45% Recreational 92 48 2556% 13.33% 52.17% Reading 10 5 2.78% 1.39% 50.00% Listening to music 2 1 0.56% 0.28% 50.00% Watching movies 2 2 0.56% 0.56% 100.00% Athletic activities 18 7 5.00% 1.94% 38.89% Spectator sports 4 2 1.11% 0.56% 50.00% Dancing ___5 2 1.39% 0.56% 40.00% Shopping 3 1 0.83% 0.28% 33.33% Travel 13 8 3.61% 2.22% 61.54% Entertaining others & 12 7 3.33% 1.94% 58.33% socializing Eating 3 2 0.83% 056% 66.67% Theater 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Camping/walking 6 4 1.67% 1.11% 66.67% People watching 2 1 0.56% 0.28% 50.00% Sex 4 3 1.11%.83% 75.00% Watching T.V. 1 0 0.28% 0% 0% Games 2 0 0.56% 0.00% 0.00% Other 3 2 0.83% 056% 66.67% Creative 23 17 6.39% 4.72% 73.91% Writing 4 4 1.11% 1.11% 100.00% Making art 4 3 1.11% 0.83% 75.00% Learning __________ 2 2 0.56% 0.56% 100.00% Playing or writing music 3 2 0.83% 0.56% 66.67% Coodking _____3 2 0.83% 0.56% 66.67% Job 6 3 1.67% 0.83% 50.00% Other 1 1 0.28% 0.28% 100.00% Political/Social/Religious 3 2 0.83% 0.56% 66.67% OTHER 3 2 0.83% 0.56% 66.67% Sleep 2 1 0.56% 0.28% 50.00% Experiences 13 8 3.61% 2.22% 61.54% Being Alive 5 4 1.39% 1.11% 80.00% Feelings 3 3 0.83% 0.83% 100.00% Other 5 1 1.39% 0.28% 20.00% Values 12 6 3.33% 1.67% 50.00% Memories 1 0 0.28% 0.00% 0.00% Abstraction 3 1 0.83% 0.28% 33.33% EVENTS AND TIMES 10 4 2.78% 1.11% 40.00% Seasons 5 2 1.39% 056% 40.00% Times of the day 2 1 0.56% 0.28% 50.00% Parties 1 0 0.28% 0.00% 0.00% Other 2 1 0.56% 0.28% 50.00%

6 Table 11. What people love organized by respondent' People # of # of %of o f people with people people people people real love for giving at giving at who gave who category as least 1 least 1 category gave % of people item in real love as real or category with any category in loose love as real love for category love category All 69 50 97%, 72% 72% Objects 54 41 78% 59% 76% Natural 28 24 41% 35% 86% Plants 6 4 9% 6% 67% Water 6 4 9% 6% 67% Places & Nature 9 9 13% 13% 100% Clouds 1 1 1% 1% 100% Colors 1 1% 1% 100% Animals 16 13 23% 19% 81% Wild 1 1 1% 1% 100% Pets 16 13 23% 19% 81% Products 50 28 72% 41% 56% Commercial 39 10 57% 14% 26% Clothing 7 0 10% 0% 0% Drugs 2 0 3% 0% 0% Food 22 4 32% 6% 18% Housing 7 1 10% 1% 14% Collections 5 2 7% 3% 40% Car 8 2 12% 3% 25% Other 9 3 13% 4% 33% Artforms 30 21 43% 30% 70% Music 16 12 23% 17% 75% Books 8 4 12% 6% 50% Movies 4 4 6% 6% 100% TV 4 1 6% 1% 25% Photos 1 1 1% 1% 100% Visual arts 3 3 4% 4% 100% Theater 2 2 3% 3% 100% Other Art 4 4 6% 6% 100% Places 8 6 12% 9% 75% Cities 4 3 6% 4% 75% Other 5 4 7% 6% 80% People 11 8 16% 12% 73% Celebrities 6 3 9% 4% 50% Humanity 6 6 9% 9% 100% a

7 Table 11 continued People #of #of %of %of people with people people people people real love for giving at giving at who gave who category as least 1 least 1 category gave % of people item in real love as real or category with any category in loose love as real love for category love category God ___4 4 6% 6% 100% Activities 53 31 77% 45% 58% Recreational 46 29 67% 42% 63% Readin 10 5 14% 7% 50% Listening to music 2 1 3% 1% 50% Watching movies 2 2 3% 3% 100% Athletic activities 16 7 23% 10% 44% Spectator sports 4 2 6% 3% 50% Dancing 5 2 7% 3% 40% Shopping 3 1 4% 1% 33% Travel 13 8 19% 12% 62% Entertaining others & 12 7 17% 10% 58% socializing Eating 3 2 4% 3% 67% Theater 1 1 1% 1% 100% Camping/walking 6 4 9% 6% 67% People watching 2 1 3% 1% 50% Sex 4 3 6% 4% 75% Watching T.V. 1 0 1% 0% 0% Games 2 0 3% 0% 0% Other 3 2 4% 3% 67% Creative 20 14 29% 20% 70% Writing 4 4 6% 6% 100% Making art 4 3 6% 4% 75% Learning 2 2 3% 3% 100% Playing or writing music 3 2 4% 3% 67% Cooking 3 2 4 % 3% 67% Job 6 3 9% 4% 50% Other 1 1 1% 1% 100% Political/Social/Religious 3 2 4% 3% 67% OTHER 3 2 4 % 3% 67% Sleep 2 1 3% 1% 50% Experiences 10 6 14% 9% 60% Being Alive 5 4 7% 6% 80% Feelings 2 2 3% 3% 100% Other 4 1 6% 1% 25% Values 9 5 13% 7% 56% Memories 1 0 1% 0 % 0% Abstraction 3 1 4 % 1% 33% EVENTS AND TIMES 9 3 13% 4% 33% Seasons 5 2 7% 3% 40% Times of the day 2 1 3% 1% 50% Parties 1 0 1% 0% 0% Other 2 1 3 % 1% 50% I - I

8 The fact that only 2 respondents denied loving anything aside from people raises an interesting question. Do they feel differently about objects than those who said they loved things, or do they simply have a definition of love that categorically excludes philopragia from being real love? To investigate this question depth interviews were conducted with both of these respondents. Findings from these interviews were split. Julie clearly had very strong emotional involvements with many objects. However, she was also studying to be a pastoral counselor and had developed even stronger convictions about the meaning of love which definitionally excluded philopragia. In contrast, Josh genuinely seemed not to have particularly strong attachments or feelings for objects. This fact was displayed in two particularly telling sections of his interview. In one, he was asked if he ever used the phrase "I love X" in regards to anything other than people. He assured me that he did, but that all he meant by it was that X was of the highest quality. He then gave me the example of a stunning wooden crib with hand-done decorative inlay that he had built for his baby daughter. My own reaction upon seeing the crib was mild surprise that anyone could have made such a gift and not feel that he loved it. When he began describing his personification of the crib, my surprise increased to disbelief. I expected that any personification of a crib would describe a soft nurturing caretaker. But he anthropomorphized the crib as a female James Bond. It's hobbies? "Backgammon, polo, gambling, I don't know, the crib that gambled it's life away." My initial reaction was to wonder if I was being teased. But later in the interview I gained an insight into his relationship with the crib that allowed these comments to make sense. I had expected him to focus on the crib as a caretaker for his baby, but he was focused entirely on the formal aesthetic properties of the object. From that perspective, given the clean elegant lines of the crib's design and the black diamond inlaid border, its personification as a smooth, classy, high-living sophisticate was not at all far-fetched. By not recognizing the crib as a matron, his relationship with the object lacked the emotional significance needed to qualify as love. The other incident occurred when his wife got home and poked her head into the room to say hi. We were seated in the living room which was filled with art and were discussing several objects in the room. When I asked him where some of the objects had come from he could not remember. His wife then proceeded to tell me in detail about the histories of all the objects in the room; even the ones that had been gifts from his friends before they had met. From what turned into a fairly extended conversation it became clear that she was the keeper of the relationships in the family. Just as with the crib, he didn't relate to the art at any level aside from its formal aesthetics to the point where he couldn't even remember who gave him what gifts. A recurring finding in this research was that for an object to be loved it must appeal to the respondent on multiple levels. Just being beautiful isn't enough if the object lacks strong personal meanings. In this case Josh had stripped all objects of any personal significance. Hence it is entirely plausible that he might not love anything at all aside from people. Chapter 6: Theoretical Preview Figures 4 and 5 summarize the theory of love developed in this research. Arguments for this theory will be presented in the following chapters. The current objective is limited to providing a brief theoretical preview which will serve as a road map through the subsequent analysis. As a starting point this theory uses Aron and Aron's (1986) thesis that love is the inclusion of others within the self. However, unlike Aron and Aron (1986) who see love as identical with self extension, present theory sees love as a function of two variables; the actual level of integration into the self and the desired level of integration into the self (see figure 3). (These theories are compared in more detail at the beginning of chapter 16). Passion is experienced when the desired level of integration is higher than the actual level. The amount of passion or yearning (Shimp, & Madden, 1988) can be measured by drawing a vertical line up from the appropriate point on the X axis representing the actual level of integration and ending the line at the point where it equals the desired level of integration. The amount of yearning is then represented by the distance along this line above the diagonal zone labeled "warmth." Whereas the desired level of integration can fluctuate fairly rapidly, the actual level of integration changes more slowly via the mechanisms listed in figure 4. This explains why passion is generally highest in the early stages of a' romantic relationship, just as ones fascination with a newly purchased product tends to fade over time. In both cases passion is highest when the desired level of integration is high but one has not had enough time to fully integrate the LO into the self. Similarly, this also explains Stendhal's observation that passionate love is often fueled by distance, not integration (Brehm, 1988). By keeping desire for integration high through fantasies about the loved one, and keeping the actual level of integration low by maintaining limited contact

9 with the beloved, passion is kept at its apex. Perhaps then, distance may make the heart grow fonder - or at least hotter. Figure 3. Proposed nature of love Conditional Integration Theory of Love Love Hig Desired level of integration into the self Low Actual level of High integration into the self Rejection occurs in the opposite situation when one desires a lower level of integration than is currently the case. When the actual level of integration is much higher than the desired level, rejection can become highly emotional and is termed "hate." This is not meant to imply that one can only hate that which is part of the self. In chapter 151 will discuss a distinction between on object being 'part of ones self and it being 'part of ones life'. In some cases we hate something because we reject it from our life or even from the potential of entering our life, although we need not see it as part of ourselves. Warmth can be seen as an equilibrium condition which occurs when the actual level of integration into the self approximately matches the desired level. If the actual and desired levels of integration are not at equilibrium the individual will usually alter the actual level of integration to bring them into alignment. However, if this is not possible an individual may subconsciously change the desired level of integration to bring the two into balance. For example, a rejected lover may decide that the beloved really wasn't so wonderful after all. Within the diagonal warmth region the higher the level of integration the more warmth is experienced. Love then, can be defined as the situation in which both the desired and the actual level of integration are high. As a result, this theory will be called the "conditional integration theory of love," because self-extension only equals love when the condition of a high level of desired self-integration is also met. Even within love, there will be times when the actual and desired level of integration are not at equilibrium and the lover moves slightly outside of the warmth region. In these instances the lover may feel a surge of passion for the beloved or need "a little more space" depending on the direction of the disequilibrium. The core of the theory presented in figure 3, models an underlying psychological process that the respondents in this research need not have had direct access to. Therefore many respondents did not talk about this process specifically (although chapter 15 describes how several respondents did see love as involving self extension). What all respondents did discuss was their feelings about the LOs, the history of their relationships with them, things they loved and didn't love about them, etc. These respondent protocols were analyzed in terms of themes and the conditional integration theory was developed to make sense of the interrelationships between these themes as well as account for previous research (see figure 4). Chapters 7 - 13 discuss what motivated respondents to desire to incorporate an item within themselves. The first six of these chapters work through themes which describe how loved objects meet respondents needs (see figure 4, left margin). Most of these needs correspond to Maslow's hierarchy (Maslow 1943, 1970/1954) which has been criticized but still widely used and is well-suited for organizing many of the respondent protocols in this study. Two of these themes, however, pleasure and existential meaning, are not part of Maslow's typology. Maslow was aware of the importance of hedonic activity, but he did not consider

10 it to be goal-directed and therefore excluded it from his typology. As the term self-actualization has moved into common use, it has come to include the need for a sense of meaning in life. However, Maslow's original use of the term is not this broad. Thus a seventh category was added to include respondents' existential needs for meaning and purpose. Chapter 13 completes the discussion of the motivations for self-extension by analyzing the role of perceived quality and intrinsic concern. Figure 4. Summary of the conditional integration theory of love Love Pleasure ~ --- —I-1) Felt loyalty Survival and High.........and achievement * d =rntegrations l interest in LO Sel uality self ~~~~~Exin~~~~~~~~~~~ste~comentinal.. t 3...............~:~x ~~ ~~~ ) Would Social needs miss the LO meatrinsic Desired EstLow Actual level of High self integratorest in LO Perceivedl into the Self q[uality 1 self actualizationI:`:: -- - -- Existential ] meaning ) Low Actual level of High self integration Mechanisms of Integration 1) Creation 2) Physical incorporation 3) Cognitive incorporation 4) Contamination & boundary breaking experiences 5) Investiture Chapter 14 describes various mechanisms through which this integration can occur (see figure 4, bottom). Generally the desire for incorporation precedes and motivates incorporation, however this is not always the case. For example in familial love the causal ordering may be just the reverse. Parents usually feel that their children are part of themselves. This sense of self extension can in turn cause the parents to include the children in the various cognitive and affective biases that pertain to the self. Particularly relevant here is the bias to "see the self as effective and competent" (Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984, p. 139) and the finding that "perhaps the most prominent feature of the self is the positive affect that is normally attached to one's own actions, attitudes, attributes and memories" (Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984, p. 166). Taken together this suggests that parents may not integrate their children into themselves because they see them as effective and competent or because they feel positive affect towards them, rather parents may see their children as effective and competent and feel positive affect towards them because they are viewed as extensions of the parents selves. Chapter 15 discusses the emic perspective on the meaning of self-extension and how this is reflected in two "tests of love" used repeatedly by respondents to classify their relationships as either love or some other phenomena. In conclusion, chapter 16 compares the conditional integration theory to some of the major previous theories of love, and then finishes with a speculative discussion of the relationship between philopragia and interpersonal love. Throughout the subsequent chapters the findings are organized by themes which both emerged from the data and guided its further interpretation. The bulk of these themes relate to the reasons why the desired level of integration would be high, the experiences and activities that have led to integration, or outcomes of the integration process. Frequently, any one theme might relate to multiple aspects of the theory.

11 For example, a long history of shared experiences with a LO may increase the desire for integration by increasing the sense of familiarity with the object. At the same time this shared history may also be a mechanism through which the LO is integrated into the self. Chapter 7: Love's Hedonic Rapture While love may frequently involve pain (Baumeister, Wotman, and Stillwell, 1993), one of the foremost images associated with it is pleasure (Fehr & Russell, 1991). Research has even shown that love is almost always accompanied by elements of positive affect even if it is an unrequited passion that also leads to humiliation and a loss of self esteem (Baumeister, et al., 1993). Many theories, such as Freud's (1930) pleasure principle and behaviorism see the pursuit of pleasure as a fundamental motivation1 for activity. More recently, Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) noted the importance of 'fantasies, feelings, and fun' in calling for increased research in this area2. As mentioned above, while Maslow recognized the importance of hedonic behaviors such as play, he considered them to be "unmotivated" in that they are not goal directed (Maslow, 1970/1954; pp. 229-239) and hence outside the boundaries of his needs hierarchy. Therefore, the role of hedonic experience in motivating self-extension will be discussed separately from Maslow's needs. Throughout the interviews, hedonic experience was widely reported in connection with the LOs (see table 12). Almost all the respondents (84%) described their experience with the LO in hedonic terms such as pleasurable, exciting, and fun, or referred to the beauty of the LO or to its ability to alter their moods or feelings. Many of the LO discussed by respondents were 'hedonic products' (e.g. art, food, recreational activities); hence it is not surprising that hedonic experience played an important role in motivating love for these items. Generally speaking, the specific type of hedonic experience flowed in a natural way from the type of object being loved: food and sex provided pleasure, recreational activities were fun, and art and nature were beautiful, etc. However, references to positive hedonic experiences were not limited to these dearly pleasurable objects and were made in connection with half of the items mentioned (51%). For example, one respondent loved "hearing about people doing good deeds" because "it makes me feel good inside" (Male, Entrepreneur, 30 Yrs). Table 12. Freuencies for love's hedonic rapture _All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People was pleasurable, exciting, fun, 181 58 94 37 52% 64% beautiful, or altered or enhanced a mood was beautiful 43 22 24 15 56% 68% altered or enhanced mood 84 44 50 29 60% 66% was a full engrossing experience 11 8 6 5 55% 63% was too abstract to be real love 11 9 0 0 0% 0% Along with the experience of love's positive hedonic tone was often a sense of full involvement and fixated attention (for interpersonal love see Tennov 1979). This is consistent with research on interpersonal love that found fixated thought is the best predictor of future love (Shea & Adams, 1984). In the case of philopragia, this fixation of attention seems to be an instance of what Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow." Flow occurs "when a person perceives that the environment contains high enough opportunities for action (or challenges), which are matched with the person's own capacity to act (or skills). When both challenges and skills are high, the person is not only enjoying the moment, but is also stretching his or her capabilities with the likelihood of learning new skills and increasing self-esteem and personal complexity" (Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre, 1989, p. 816). Examples of flow included a respondent who loved to "immerse" himself in cooking (Male, Office Associate, 44 Yrs), an artist who talked about becoming "very present to the moment" when she paints (Female, Teacher k-8, 37 Yrs), and a woman who loved "teamwork" because "I enjoy the sense of involvement that comes with having ideas bounced off me, or, with being the person who catches the pass and 1 This is using the word "motivation" in a very loose sense. The behaviorists adamantly tried to avoid discussion of internal psychological states such as motivation, but their theories of human behavior were built on the premise that people seek pleasure and avoid pain. 2 In a particularly appropriate section of this paper these authors made a specific reference for the need to look at peoples love of products.

12 makes the next pass3" (Female, salesperson, 30 Yrs). The power of this almost trance like experience is vividly conveyed in this quote about the love of gambling. (Winning) is one of the most intense natural highs I've ever experienced. I've been able to do it for 12 hours at a time, straight, except for going to the bathroom. It's just very exciting, making little bets, more and more each time, more and more money on the line, risking more and more. Winning, it just got every aspect of adrenaline flowing in my body. I don't get tired. (Male, Stock Broker, 25 Yrs) The importance of flow in philopgragia is also contrastingly illustrated by the comments of respondents who denied that their feeling constituted real love because the level of involvement was not sufficiently high. Take for example the following respondent's comparison of sex (a real love) to eating, which doesn't quite qualify. When you're having sex, there's more of a concentrated effort to enjoy it Whereas eating can be... You can do other things while eating- You know, you can rush eating while you're working on something or walking down the street because you're late for an appointment or something. Sex, pretty much, requires your total concentration. (Male, Artistic Director at theater, 31 Yrs). Flow refers specifically to challenging activities that allow individuals to stretch their abilities and gain a sense of accomplishment. While the LOs mentioned by the respondents contained many such activities, they also contained a large number of physical objects and consumption activities that lacked the sense of challenge characteristic of the flow state. What seems to unite the hedonic objects such as art and food, the challenging activities which generated the flow state, and the other LOs mentioned by the respondents, was the LO's ability to have a strong experiential impact on the individual. This impact could be emotional, aesthetic, physiological, or even cognitive in the sense that LOs would change the way respondent looked at and thought about the world (see need for achievement). Forty four respondents (29 real) mentioned 84 LOs (50 real) as specifically having a strong effect on the way they felt, either in terms of emotions, moods, or physiological body sense (Gould, 1991). Mood research has found 2 major dusters of moods and emotions, "an affect or hedonic valence factor (i.e. the variables happy, cheerful, sociable, satisfied) and a potency or arousal factor (i.e., active, alert, strong, excited, etc.)" (Csikszentmihalyi & LeFevre, 1989, p. 816). LOs were used frequently to create a desired state along both of these dimensions. For example, the first of the following respondents explains how photographs can be used to enhance an emotional experience (the hedonic valence factor), and the second respondent explains how music can be used to manipulate her level of arousal. Whether it's a happy moment or a sad moment, again, (a photo) inspires emotion in me. I can look back on something and say, "oh that was a happy time in my life" or "oh that was a sad moment." I guess we really don't take pictures at funerals the way we do at weddings. (Female, Salesperson, 30 Yrs). (Music) makes me happy... It gives me energy... Some really makes me want to dance, and that makes me feel really good- it relaxes me. In fact, some music really pumps me up, and gives me a lot of energy and makes me want to dance and exert myself. Other music makes me just want to lay back and close my eyes and enjoy it. (Female, Unemployed, 26) Given art's ability to stir emotion, it is not surprising that there were 37 artistic objects and activities in the list of 84 LOs noted for their emotional impact. Many respondents did not mention both an emotional and an aesthetic impact of their LOs (perhaps feeling this would be redundant), so only 11 items overlapped between the 37 emotionally charged artistic objects just mentioned and the 43 LOs that were loved specifically for their aesthetic content. This prevalence of aesthetic experience is particularly interesting given the central role of beauty in the selection of romantic partners (Dion & Dion, 1987; Feingold, 1988, 1990; Folkes, 1982; Harrison & Saeed, 1977; Hirschman, 1987; Shea & Adams, 1984; Sitton & Rippee, 1986; Walster, Aronson, & Abrahams, 1966). - Evolutionary theorists (for review see Buss, 1988) posit that this focus on good looks is a result of an - b The respond is referring to playing "ultimate Frisbee", a team sport involving frequent passing of a Frisbee between teammates.

13 evolutionary pressure to select younger, healthier mates. The importance of physical attractiveness in the experience of loving nature, art, architecture, music, and baseball indicates that other explanations may be needed to augment this evolutionary interpretation even in the case of interpersonal sexual attraction. In the case of philopragia, I believe that this common aesthetic experience is one method of generating the experiential impact needed to characterize something as love. So far we have seen how philopgragia is characterized by a strongly positive hedonic experience which fully engrosses the person's attention or has some other powerful impact on them. While it is possible for respondents to love abstractions (Singer, 1984), it seems that when LOs are viewed as too abstract they aren't able to generate this sense of experiential impact and hence aren't considered real love. This is very similar to some activities not being considered real love because they didn't generate the requisite flow experience. But whereas flow referred only to activities, this sense of abstractness having a negative impact on love applied to a wide variety of LOs such as travel, justice, the ocean, life, architecture, memories, and conversations. In this quote, we see how this sense of abstractness can be generated by a physical distance from the LO and an inability to interact with it, both of which lead to a lack of fully engrossing experience. Here the respondent compares his love of the Chicago skyline which he only loves in the loose sense of the word, to his true love of his cats and Wrigley Field. Because of the detachment, the skyline is very removed from me, whereas the cats are very tangible... I'm hooking it on the things that are very tangible and available... And Wrigley Field, sitting in a seat, watching a game take place, seeing the ivy, having so many visceral, visual, experiences. The dotted line in my mind between the real and the loose use of the word (love) would be the very tangible hold it in your hand, as opposed to the detached, removed and the intellectual sphere. (Male, fund-raiser, 30 Yrs) This emphasis on tangibility is reiterated in the following quote. But here we also see how the lack of tangibility precludes a sense of relationship (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992) and hence prevents the LO from meeting the respondent's needs to receive and express affection. Memories are something that are much less tangible and different. There nothing that they comfort me or nothing that I can comfort. They are much more abstract. They're not real. That's all I can say. (Female, Social Worker, 29 Yrs) While the general view was that abstraction and distance from a LO hindered love by reducing the LO's impact on the respondent, two respondents had the opposite reaction. In keeping with Stendhal's (1822) notion of idealization, these two respondents found that maintaining a distance from the LO allowed them to ignore its negative aspects and increased its hedonic potency. In fact they contended that they loved these items more in the abstract then they did in the flesh. (Baseball) really is the closest th n that there is on earth. Because, I think when it's played well, its almost like artistic in the sense that its played correctly its beautiful.... I guess the reason why I love it is that I enjoy it so much. It gives me joy... when I think of baseball in abstraction. Cause you know what happens? I get involved with the Cubs, and they usually end up playing badly. And it takes the enjoyment away from me. And it's really the joy that makes me say that I love it.... I really do think that there is a part of it that is true love, that gives me pure joy, but then when I get too involved in it I sort of lose it. So when I get too involved with it I actually lose the love. When I'm less involved and more removed, I say its a purer love than when I'm actually involved iin a team. (Male, Lawyer, 29 Yrs). There's something about baby animals, and puppies in particular, just because dogs are so great that it just wells me up with happiness. I can just stop dead in my tracks if I see a puppy, anywhere within sight, just because they make me so happy. I was trying to figure out... I really feel actual, genuine love for the concept of puppies. I don't know - If I actually had a puppy, if it would be complete and unqualified [laugh]. (Femrnale, Unemployed, 26 Yrs) As a final note on the hedonic experience of philopragia, it is interesting how uniformly positive these descriptions are. Interpersonal love is also very pleasurable, but interpersonal love relationships are often filled with pain. To create a balanced picture of philopgragia it must be said that many respondents spoke about the willingness to make sacrifices if needed as a hallmark of their relationships with their LOs

14 (see chapter 15, outcomes of self extension). And some respondents spoke about having made sacrifices in the past, such as artists, writers or musicians who struggled with the creative process. But there was still a sense that philopragia, unlike family relationships, is freely chosen primarily to attain the hedonic rapture described here or to meet other psychological needs. Like interpersonal relationships there is often a sense of commitment that hinders the rapid dissolution of an unsatisfying tryst. But perhaps because the lover in philopgragia doesn't have to consider the LO's feelings, this sense of commitment is less than in interpersonal love and unsatisfying relationships can be more easily done away with. Chapter 8: The Need for Survival and Security Some LOs, such as food, exercise, housing, and employment contributed directly to the physical wellbeing of the respondent. Interestingly, there was sharp disagreement among the respondents as to the implications of this fact. For ten respondents, the ability of a LO to meet their basic survival needs was seen as a legitimate basis for love, and in some cases an inevitable one. Here is how one respondent described his love of his career. It enables me to live. It's kind of hard not to love something that enables you to survive. (Male, photographer, 43 Yrs). On the other hand, two respondents did not love food, specifically because it was a necessity. (Love) is such an intense feeling. I think it's because I don't think about (food) intensely. That's how I look at it. I mean I need it just to sustain myself more than anything else. (Female, Bond Analyst, 35 Yrs) I would say because food can also many times be just a necessity. You have to eat to stay alive, so many times it can be disappointing- you just grab something and it's awful, and "oh well." (Male, Artistic Director at Theater, 31 Yrs) Table 13. Frequencies for survival and securi ' ___________________All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People contributed to physical health 19 10 8 3 42% 30% harmed physical health 7 5 0 0 0% 0% was a source of comfort or solace 17 15 12 11 71% 73% Ehm 1EEhmhI MhhIjIhIIIIIhnihnhnmE- I -- I The idea being expressed here is that love is special and transcends the everyday (the sacredness of love will be discussed in a later section). The respondents in this study were fairly economically secure and even those who were unemployed had no concerns about malnutrition. Therefore, when LOs primarily meet pragmatic concerns such as health, they may not be seen as generating the intensity of experience needed to qualify a relationship as real love. While only two respondents directly mentioned the LO's connection to lower order needs as a factor inhibiting their love for it, very few of the respondents citing the ability of a LO to meet their basic survival needs thought this relationship constituted real love. At the very least, then, one can surmise that meeting survival needs may not be a strong motivator of love among these moderately affluent respondents. Even though getting health benefits from the LO does not seem to be a strong motivation for love, being harmed by the LO is a major obstacle. Five respondents brought up the negative effects of LOs such as fattening foods, cigarettes, and drugs. In every case the LO did not qualify as real love, primarily because the harmful impact of the LO was so sharply inconsistent with the love prototype being used by these respondents. Here, a woman talks about her love of ice cream. It's kind of hard to put a food, a fattening thing, on the plane of what you really love because it's just so destructive too. (Female, Lawyer, 32 Yrs). The significance of LOs' harmful effects is also consistent with the surprising finding that of the 22 people mentioning food as a LO, only 3 specifically included a dessert in their list of loved foods. Furthermore, two of these respondents did not see the food as real love because it wasn't healthy, and the X

15 other one loved frozen yogurt because it gave her the "taste without the guilt" (female, lawyer, 29 Yrs). In thinking back on her interview, one respondent offered the following interpretation of her own comments. "For me, what that implies about love is love is life-enhancing behavior" (Female, Proofreader/editor, 40 Yrs). This insight was made in reference to ethical behavior, but it may serve as a thread that helps tie the findings about physical needs into the findings about higher order motivations. The need for security goes beyond one's immediate physical health to include the need for a "safe, orderly, predictable, lawful, organized world, which (one) can count on and in which unexpected, unmanageable, chaotic, or other dangerous things do not happen, and in which, in any case, (one) has powerful parents or protectors who shield him from harm" (Maslow, 1970/1954 p. 41). The literature on transitional objects (for review see Litt, 1986) describes how children and sometimes adolescents use objects such as blanket or soft toys to reduce anxiety and enhance this sense of security. While the respondents in this study were too old for objects to play the same kind of transitional role that security blankets do, 13 respondents still spoke specifically about gaining a sense of comfort or solace from their LOs. Interestingly, these comfort objects included but went beyond the predictable LOs such as food or God to include books, art, creativity, architecture, and in the following quote, antique furniture. "They bring me a great sense of comfort I think. And I don't know why that is. Kind of soothing" (Female, Lawyer, 26 Yrs). Chapter 9: Social Needs Loved objects met social needs in several ways. Frequently they helped define or create social relationships between people. In this role they served both as social bridges and also symbolic walls that enhanced individuation. LOs also met social needs by serving as social partners themselves. These relationships highlighted the importance of a sense of responsiveness from the LO along with personification and the experience of exchanging affection with the beloved. LOs Mediate Interpersonal Relationships Social Connection: One of the most consistent findings in the literature on favorite objects is the key role that they play in forming bonds between people (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Hirschmnan and LaBarbera, 1990; Mehta, R. & Belk, R.W., 1991; Schultz, Kleine, and Kernan, 1989; Wallendorf and Arnould, 1988). Since love is a primary mechanism for forging social connections, one should expect that this would be at least as true if not more so in the case of LOs. In confirmation of this expectation, the ability of an LO to promote socializing or social connection was cited 44 times, making it one of the most commonly given reasons for loving an object or activity (see table 14). Sometimes the importance of social connection was addressed head-on, as when socializing itself, "the concept of family," sex, flirting, or a related idea was the LO. More commonly though, social activities such as travel or objects such as food which can serve as social props were loved for their ability to bring people together and to allow the respondent to express love. For example, one woman discussed her love of food as follows. One of my favorite ways to spend my time is having dinner with a bunch of friends and not just going out to eat somewhere but having a big kitchen where we can all contribute to preparing the dinner, sitting down, and going through several courses, just spending a whole evening around the table which I guess brings in more than food, but food's like the reason we come together-again harkens back to my love for friendship, people. (Female, salesperson/writer, 30 yrs) Table 14. Frequencies for mediates interpersonal relationships __All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO.....Items People Items People Items People promoted socializing or social 44 30 27 21 61% 70% connection allowed the respondent to express 24 19 18 14 75% 74% love Another way that objects are used to create social connections is through gift exchanges (Sherry, 1983; Sherry and McGrath, 1989; Hirschman and LaBarbera, 1989). The following example shows how a gift (in this case twice given, from a friend to a mother and from mother to daughter) can take on intense emotional significance.

16 When I first found out I was pregnant, I wasn't very happy, because it was sort of a surprise. I had other things planned; 20 years of my life. But I decided I was married, and we were stable, economically and emotionally, that the wise thing to do would be to have this baby. My best friend a day or so after I made this decision brought me this teddy bear. I didn't think anything of it at the time, she was like, "Well look, you've been angsting over this, and everybody in your family's been talking about this; you've been crying, and your husband's been crying, and everyone's been concerned, and I just thought that somebody should be happy, so here's this teddy bear." I didn't think anything of it... It was sitting there. But, my daughter just adores it. It's just the perfect size for her. And it's a super-plain teddy bear. It's just a little teeny teddy bear, so that even from the time she was very little, it wasn't so big that it overwhelmed her. And now, it looks sort of in proportion, so if she were to have a child, it would be about that size. Of course now, it's very beautiful. It's not a plain teddy bear at all- It's very beautiful to me because I can see that it's not distracting or overwhelming or overstimulating in any way. It's a teddy bear who does it's job. It knows exactly what it's job is, and it does just that. It's like some poignant little children's booklet; the velveteen rabbit comes alive. (Female, Student, 33 Yrs) Despite this example, gifts were most conspicuous in their absence from the list of loved objects garnered in the phone interviews. In these interviews, only three of the over 350 things people loved were gifts. And in both cases other than the teddy bear, gift-giving was not a central issue. The second case involved the same woman quoted in the teddy bear example. However, in this case she made a point of saying that the fact that it was a gift had little influence on her feelings. (The crystal ball) was given to me. It's not so much the person who gave it to me, or anything, but it was bought in Venice at a glass factory, and this person gave it to me not especially because it was bought for me or anything, but because it seemed like the right thing to do. I came to love it because I worked with it. (Female, Student, 33 Yrs) The third case involved a woman who made kites and gave them as gifts to friends. She spoke at some length about the kites, explaining how she learned to make them from her grandfather and how she enjoyed making them both for the sense of peace the process gave her and as an outlet for creative expression. She also talked about the pleasure she got out of flying her kites, but her only mention of giving them as gifts was in her initial description of them as "the kites I make which I give to friends." Part of this failure to mention gifts may have been due to a methodological bias in the phone interviews. In these interviews, respondents tended to discuss categories of objects (e.g. books, food, music, etc.) rather than individual items. Therefore, even if some of the respondents books or records were gifts, this fact may have been omitted. In the depth interviews where individual items were often discussed, gifts came up much more frequently, getting at least a passing mention in 5 of the ten interviews. But even here they were a major concern to only two respondents, one of whom was the kite maker. Furthermore, some of these mentions served to downplay the gift's importance. Josh's only mention of a gift was in giving an example of an object he felt - neutral about (recall that respondents were asked to discuss objects they felt neutral about in order to allow for comparisons between loved and neutral objects). This gift (a brightly painted comic figurine of a smiling dinosaur) had come from a co-worker with whom he was no longer dose, and the significance of the object may have faded as the relationship became more distant. John also attached little importance to gifts per se. He talked at great length of his love for his books, but only identified some as gifts when he was explaining why he owned books that he might never read. Just as the books he received as gifts were singled out as the ones that he didn't much care for, so too were the miniature model soldiers he received as gifts the least favorite members of his collection. In this case, their second tier status came from the fact that they were commercially painted, whereas he had hand painted his favorite solders himself. For a third respondent, Susan, the fact that some items were gifts seemed totally incidental to her feelings for them. For the gift she cared the most about, a square note pad with the Mona Lisa printed on the side, she had taken a liking to it and asked her brother if she could have it. While his giving it to her made

17 this technically a gift, it is not surprising that an item of such token value that was given in direct response to a request would lack many of the significant meanings generally associated with gifts. Given the nature of the feeling expressed by Josh, John, and Susan, it is reasonable to conclude that receiving an object as a gift was not an important source of attachment for these respondents. In contrast, Pam (the kite maker) and Julie placed great importance on the fact that several LOs were gifts. In a closely related phenomenon, Cindy placed tremendous value on a collection of antiques that came from her family's ranch. While it is not clear how many of these antiques were technically gifts and how many were inheritances, the psychological meaning of receiving the object from someone else is similar in both cases. From among the 10 respondents, these three stood out for consistently stressing the importance of social relationships in their lives and in the meanings associated with loved objects. For example, Pam mentioned several objects for which the fact that they came from other people was of central importance. In her discussion of her antique purse collection she talks about one of her favorite gifts. Question: Are there instances where you really enjoyed using them or being with them? Pam: I guess it was that blue bag over there. I haven't even used it, but John gave it to me for a Christmas present. Question: Who's John? Pam: My ex-boyfriend. I'm very close to him. He is notoriously bad with presents. He is in many ways this sort of pie in the sky guy. Mr. sailor guy. He's big like a jock. He's never very good at buying things for women. In many ways, I'm not the most feminine woman you'll ever meet, as far as being real frilly and stuff, but I do have feminine weaknesses. For him to actually sit down and buy a purse, I thought was almost monumental. And the fact that he, #1 bought me a purse that was so very beautiful so very original - I've never seen anything like it except in the collection books- and #2 that he found one that was in reasonably good shape and then made it better by repairing it —in fact I could show you the inside. He bought silk, purple silk and recut the inside and sewed me - actually he's really good at sewing- a brand new change purse that fits into the bag. You can't open it all the way because they put a stiff cardboard interior in there, but it is a really nice little bag. Very pretty nice..... He took really good care of the bag which really impressed me. Somehow it's really hard to imagine this guy lumbering over this bag, but that's what his mom said..... It's one of the most perfect gifts I've received from somebody outside of my family. I mean, they don't get it right, boyfriends stuff. I mean, they usually botch it up the first couple of years. But he got this one right. It still amazes me. In many ways this quote is archetypal of the "perfect gift". In this classic story of self sacrifice, the boyfriend goes beyond what is usual and comfortable for him ("it's really hard to imagine this guy lumbering over this bag") to make her a gift that he hopes will delight her. Equally important, though, is that the bag is "so very beautiful... so very original." It is not just the thought that counts. Not only is the bag a representation of the thought and hard work that went into finding it and sewing a new change purse for it, but the recipient has "never seen anything like it except in the collection books." This is an example of a theme that re-appeared consistently throughout the data. In order for an object or activity to be loved, it must appeal on multiple levels. Just being beautiful, or just representing an endearing sentiment on the part of the boyfriend is not enough. Individuation: Mirroring the role of LOs in establishing social connections is their role in affirming individuation (Levy, 1981; McCracken, 1986; Rook, 1985). While individuation was an important benefit gained from both loved activities and physical objects, respondents viewed these two types of LOs in significantly different ways (see table 15). For example, a 26 year old actress elaborated on her love of her favorite dress, saying, "It makes me feel special, because I've never seen anybody else with it on," and a health care consultant explained her love for her car, saying, "I love my car because it's the first thing I

18 bought on my own, so to me, it's basically a symbol of independence" (female, 26 yrs). However, neither of these women saw their feelings about these physical objects as real love. Table 15. Frequencies for individuation All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People promoted individuation 11 10 6 6 55% 60% was a physical object that promoted 5 5 1 1 20% 20% individuation was an activity or experience that 6 6 5 5 83% 83% promoted individuation On the other hand, almost all of the people who saw loved activities as a means of individuation did consider them real love. Perhaps this is because these loved activities often had a creative or productive element, for example the two women who loved their jobs or the man who loved running. This creative rather than consumptive focus strengthens the legitimacy of the claim to self-expression (discussed below). While buying one's identity off the rack in the form of commercial products is an inescapable element of our consumer culture, nevertheless it is generally seen as more desirable to produce one's identity through individual creative effort. Relationships with LOs Although the use of products to serve as bridges or barriers between people has been the focus of increasing research (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, 1981; Hirschman and LaBarbera, 1990; Schultz, Kleine, and Keran, 1989; Wallendorf and Arnould, 1988), the ways in which people form relationships with the objects or activities themselves has received less attention (Shimp and Madden, 1988). In this section I will address two issues relating to peoples' relationships with products. First I will discuss the importance of "having a relationship" with a LO in the love prototype, and why the level of importance differed between respondents. Then I will discuss the personal significance this sense of relationship had for respondents. The importance of relationship in defining love: For 18 of the respondents, the fact that the LO was not a person or their sense of having a "one-way relationship" disqualified the relationship from being real love. Similarly, for 27 respondents, their ability to personify the LO or in some other sense feel that they had a two-way relationship was an important motivation for saying they loved the object In contrast, many other respondents seemed to feel that philopgragia was different from interpersonal love in that you could omit a reciprocal relationship and still have it be an instance of real love. Prototype theory may be able to explain why some respondents felt that having a two way relationship was a key factor in determining if something was real love whereas other respondents did not. Prototype theory suggests that, in trying to decide if they really loved an object, respondents will compare their relationship with that object to their version of the love prototype. The exact nature of this prototype will differ between individuals as will the specificity of prototypes that they have to choose from. For example, some respondents may have just two prototypes relating to love: romantic love and familial love. Other respondents may have several versions of the love prototype, such as infatuation, romantic love, maternal love, paternal love, neighborly love, etc. It is doubtful that any of the respondents had a special prototype of philopgragia before being interviewed for this study. However, when asked to list love objects and determine if they are "real love", some respondents seem to have created an ad hoc philopgragia prototype, as evidenced by comments like "I would say in terms of inanimate objects, I love that car. (Male, Computer programmer, 34 Yrs). Other respondents, however, reported comparing their object relationship to the most applicable existing interpersonal love prototype. It is possible that respondents who created a special prototype for philopgragia were less concerned about the one-way nature of their relationships with objects than were respondents who compared their relationships with LOs directly to their prototypes of interpersonal love. The meaning of relationship: What did respondents mean when they talked about having a relationship with something other than a human being? The answer partly depends on the type of LO in question. One large category of LOs were pets. Sixteen respondents talked about loving their pets, and all but 3 of them felt this was real love. In the case of pets most respondents defined the existence of a relationship in terms of the pet having certain feelings about them which reciprocated their feelings towards the pet. For

19 example, ten of the pet lovers emphasized receiving love from their animals; "she loves me, she gives me affection" (Female, hospital administrator, 40 yrs), and five of these respondents focused on what they saw as the unconditional nature of that love; "they don't question anything I do. They sort of give me unconditional love in return. It's very fulfilling" (female, marketing consultant, 45 yrs). In some ways this unconditionality made philopgragia easier than other forms of love; "It's an easy relationship, because it's unconditional love back" (Female, free-lance journalist, 32 Yrs). Not all respondents agreed, however, that pets are really capable of human-like feelings. In keeping with the importance of this reciprocation of feeling in defining love, the one respondent who denied the ability of pets to feel love also denied feeling real love for his family's dog. (I'm using the word love) loosely. I think the key here... is that it's incapable of returning the feeling towards people. I think that it would only be (love) in the truest sense if this thing were capable of returning or reciprocating. The idea of having a relationship with a pet is fairly straightforward, but understanding the meaning of "relationship" for the 13 people who talked about relationships with non-living objects requires more explication. In interpreting both the telephone and the depth interviews related to this topic several themes appeared: responsiveness, partnership, personification, and exchanging love. Responsiveness:In an extensive literature review, Kelley, Berscheid, Christensen, Harvey, Huston, Levinger, McClintock, Peplau, and Peterson (1983) found that virtually all definitions of the term "relationship" include the idea that persons who are in a relationship have a causal impact on each other. The theme of responsiveness expresses this notion of reciprocal causal impact or dialog. Here an artist talks about her love of painting. Now that I'm saying that it's (really love), one of the reasons that I'd say that 'I love it" is there's a great deal of interaction, and even when I don't like it, it's something that I continue to do. So it has a pretty full involvement in my life. [With my collection of perfume bottles]... there's a visual interaction, but it's not like it responds back to me. The perfume bottles are stagnant, but the process of painting isn't. (Female, K-8 art teacher, 38 Yrs) This sense of responsiveness may be important for two reasons. First, when objects are responsive they more closely resemble people and therefore fit more neatly with the prototypes of love developed primarily in interpersonal situations. Second, research in social psychology has shown that a partner's level of responsiveness is related to marital adjustment (Gottman, 1979; and Koren, Carlton, and Show, 1980), interpersonal attraction (Davis and Perkowitz, 1979), and even attraction between rats in animal studies (Latane and Hothersall, 1972; Werner and Latane, 1974). Berscheid (1984) hypothesizes that the appeal of responsiveness may be tied to effectance motivation (White, 1959). Beyond the secondary rewards that may be obtained in social interaction only if the other is responsive, there may be something fundamentally rewarding about the responsiveness of one's environment, whether that environment be physical or social. To have one's person or behavior make a difference in the world would seem to be rewarding in itself. (Berscheid, 1984; pp. 447) This affectance motivation explanation is particularly valuable in interpreting the interview data. While a sense of relationship may have been important to many respondents who failed to mention it explicitly, it is interesting that most of the best quotes on this topic come from creative artists. Art can be viewed as the intimate self made manifest in the world and is therefore directly related to the construct of effectance motivation. Perhaps then, the experience of producing art makes the artist particularly aware of an object's ability to respond to one's will, both as the product of artistic creation and as a partner in the creative process. The idea of partnership is illustrated in the following two quotes. I'm a bass player. I have an upright bass. It's a beautiful piece of work, vibrating strings and we've been very dose for many years.... The experience of producing music is very personal and very intimate, and the bass is really a partner in that. (Male, Computer programmer, 34 Yrs) I came to love it (a small crystal ball) because I worked with it. I used it as a prop. And it was such a successful collaboration, it was so satisfying a collaboration between I and the crystal ball. This character who I'm to this day very fond of, Mercrucio in Romeo & Juliet, a real

20 attachment to that character... It really was a partnership of equal parts. The crystal ball was actively a trigger for much of the work that I did. (Female, 33, Drama student) The responsiveness of the LO is implicit in the dialog between lover and object. As the player bows the bass, the strings vibrate in response. Hearing the sounds caused by his actions, the musician re-adjusts his fingering and bowing, which in turn creates new tones. The actress describes a similar process, but places greater emphasis on how the crystal ball had a causal impact on her as she prepared for a play. These quotes illustrate how a person can view an object as a team-mate, because they contribute together towards a joint outcome that neither could accomplish alone. This sense of partnership can also be reflected in a feeling that bonds have developed over a long period of shared history. Take, for example, this quote about a beloved 1964 Dodge Valiant. While that relationship may be coming to an end, I would say in terms of inanimate objects, I love that car.... It's been a traveling companion. (Male, Computer programmer, 34 Yrs). Personification: Referring to an object as one's partner or traveling companion is also a form of personification. Contrary to my expectations, personification was fairly rare throughout both sets of interviews. When it did occur, it tended to be in relation to pets, or to be attributing an interdependence to LOs that was not necessarily tied to personhood. Take for example this quote about dancing. It's just like a giving thing.... It's heaven.... In it's own energy, in it's own force, in it's own life. (Female, Actress, 26 Yrs) Attributing life and energy to an activity is a form of personification. But with the possible exception of the ability to give, these are traits that would be equally true of any living thing, not just humans. Therefore, I see this quote as giving dancing a life of its own, but not necessarily making it a direct projection of humanity. Exchanging love: Finally, relationships with LOs allow the respondents to both give and receive love. As with pets, the notion of receiving unconditional love surfaced with nonliving objects. One respondent talked about how food loved him unconditionally because "it makes no demands in return, so it's easy to love" (Male, Lawyer, 41 Yrs). The previous discussion regarding the use of LOs as a source of security and solace is also relevant to the current point. Receiving comfort is one of the primary manifestations of receiving love. To the extent that LOs function as sources of comfort, warmth, and solace, respondents gain a sense of being loved in return. Table 16. Frequencies for exchanging love___________ __ _________________________All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People gave love to the respondent 21 19 13 12 62% 63% allowed the respondent to express 24 19 18 14 75% 74% love The quotations below provide excellent illustrations of all four of the major themes associated with object relationships: responsiveness, partnership, personification, and receiving love and solace. They all come from the depth interview with John, a writer who has kept his journal on his Macintosh since 1984. It's my best friend. I tell it stories. Again this is tied up with the writing, I tell it stories and I keep a journal so whenever I'm telling secrets I'm sitting in front of the Mac. It plays games with me.... Its so integrally tied up in my life that, when it's in the repair shop for 3 days, I was going through withdrawal. When I go to Europe and I'm without it for 3 weeks, it's always weird to come back to it. But it's like an old girlfriend waiting for you.... but maybe girlfriend is a wrong analogy. But, it's more like, my best, not my best friend either. (Why not your best friend?)

21 Because, I'd be embarrassed to say that some machine was my best friend.... My best friend, no it really isn't. (Interpretive note: In the phone interview two months earlier he had also referred to the Macintosh as his best friend. In other parts of the depth interview he discusses his growing sense of social isolation. It is my interpretation that the description of the Mac as a best friend may be overstating the relationship, but it is still fitting in many ways.) It's more like a sidekick. You know, sort of like, Poncho to Cisco, it's like Leno, it's like Boswell to my Johnson.... And its been with me through so much and for so long and for so many things. (The computer) just becomes my private receptacle in which I would spew forth and it would take it without criticizing or what a stupid idea, what a terrible sentence that is. I get unquestioning love from this thing. It's so user-friendly, so user-intimate. Chapter 10: Esteem & Achievement Needs Self Esteem and Admiration Maslow divided esteem needs into two groups, self-esteem and esteem from others. Except for LOs that are extremely private and therefore relate only to self-esteem (other people may not even be aware they exist), it was virtually impossible to distinguish objects as meeting one but not the other of these needs. In the phone interviews, respondents were asked not to discuss people that they loved and to limit their comments to loved objects, activities, ideas etc. Nonetheless, four respondents claimed to love abstractions such as having friends or the feeling of being liked. In these cases, feelings of self-esteem were usually explicitly or implicitly stated as part of the motivation for love. I love having good friends because it is important to me. It validates that I'm a good person and I can give them things, advice and caring that they cannot get elsewhere. (Female, Public Relations Consultant, 29 Yrs) Thus, even comments that were directly about the esteem of others were inseparably interwoven with feelings of self-esteem. Adornments Respondents also gained both self-esteem and social esteem through adornments such as clothing, jewelry, or wardrobe accessories which improved their physical appearance. For example, a 35 year old hair salon manager claimed, "[Jewelry] makes me look and feel pretty", showing that she values her jewelry as much for its effect on her self image as for its impact on her public image. Despite the importance of physical attractiveness in our society (Dion, & Dion, 1987; Feingold, 1988; 1990; Folkes 1982; Hirschman, 1987; Richins, 1991; Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977; and Walster, Aronson, & Abrahams, 1966) these 'cosmetic' LOs were among those least likely to be considered real love. While four respondents loved clothing for its ability to boost their self-esteem; e.g. "when clothes fit, they make me feel good about myself" (Female, Lawyer, 34 Yrs), none of them saw this as real love. For that matter, only one of the eleven people mentioning adornments for any reason claimed it was real love. This exception was a woman whose adornments comprised a collection of cigarette cases and purses. Why did so few people consider their relationships with these objects to be real love? And what made the exceptional case different? I believe there are two main reasons why clothing, jewelry, and accessories were not generally considered real love. First, they were not bound tightly enough into the respondents' sense of their intimate self, and second, they often failed to have the relational quality that was previously shown to be important in defining real love.

22 Table 17. Frequencies for esteem needs All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People met esteem needs 25 22 13 12 52% 55% was clothing, jewelry, or wardrobe 11 11 1 1 9% 9% accessories was clothing & met esteem needs 4 4 0 0 0% 0% was an activity that increased self 8 7 4 4 50% 57% esteem provided a sense of achievement 43 26 19 13 44% 50% satisfied the need for learning 55 30 32 20 58% 67% was a challenging activity or 30 20 15 12 50% 60% experience was a trophy 11 9 4 3 36% 33% These underlying phenomena manifested themselves in a variety of ways. For instance, one respondent talked about how the dress lacked the relational-interactional quality that helps define love. Because I realize that it's a piece of clothing... a material thing. Because it's basically a onesided relationship. I don't think that the dress loves me. It's not "give-and-take". It's just a thing that I love to wear. (Female, Actor, 26 Yrs) Compare this to the same respondent's statements about dancing. (Dancing) is just like a giving thing.... Something that I love. It's heaven. In it's own energy, in it's own force, in it's own life. Now that I think about it, I think that it's such a part of myself- It's a self-expression that's completely uninhibited and pure for myself. (Female, Actor, 26 Yrs) The personification of dancing ("it's own life") expresses the respondent's sense of relationship with this activity. But of equal importance is the fact that she felt dancing was "a part of myself" while clothing was not. Yet clothing is one of our primary forms of self-expression (Cornwell, 1990; Roach, and Eicher, 1973; Rosenfeld and Plax, 1977). It is unlikely that our clothing is not considered an important part of our identity and hence our self. If love involves the integration of the LO into the self, then why isn't clothing among the most loved items? I contend that the solution to this quandary can be found in the distinction between the private and the public self (Markus and Cross, 1990; Nasby, 1989). I hypothesize that clothing is more often a part of our public than our intimate private self. Love, on the other hand, is an intimate affair. Throughout this treatise I will develop the argument that love involves the integration of the LO into the self. But it is the intimate self, rather than the public self, that must bid the LO welcome for genuine love to transpire. In the previous quote, dancing was described as "self-expression that's completely uninhibited and pure". This quote is fully consistent with the idea that dancing is an expression of the intimate and private self for this respondent. This interpretation can also explain the exception above, in which a woman claimed to truly love her collections of adornments - cigarette cases and purses. In this case, she had special cause to feel intimately connected with these LOs, culled from the 1950s and 1960s. First, "the cultivation of a collection is a purposeful self-defining act" (Belk, 1988 pp. 154) and the elevated importance of collections to their owners is well documented (Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry, & Holbrook, 1991). But more specific to this situation was the fact that both the purses and the cigarette cases constituted significant ties to her parents. Her prize purse originally belonged to her mother who bought it to use on her first date with the respondent's father. Her first cigarette case was a gift from her father. He did not approve of her smoking, and the gift of a cigarette case may represent a level of acceptance of her that is very emotionally significant. Accomplishments The third and most common way that LOs meet esteem needs is through accomplishments. There has been some controversy however, as to how best classify various achievements. Psychologists such as Adler

23 (1966/1928), White (1959), Atkinson (1964), and their followers have postulated an achievement motivation which is distinct from the need for esteem. Maslow (1970/1954), however, places most achievement motivation under the heading of esteem, except where the achievement has a strong self-expressive quality, in which case he calls it self-actualization. At the same time, Maslow considers learning to be separate from other types of achievements. He admits that learning is instrumental in achievement and can lead to selfesteem, but contends that "there are some reasonable grounds for postulating positive per se impulses to satisfy curiosity, to know, to explain, and to understand" (p. 48). Therefore he classifies the desire for knowledge as a sixth need that stands outside of his famous hierarchy. While recognizing the potential for all three of these needs to function as independent motivations, they will be treated together here to purposes of organizational simplicity. This section is subdivided into two parts based on the type of LO involved: challenging activities or as trophies of past achievements. Challenging activities: Accomplishments contribute both to self-esteem and other's esteem, but the quotes in this area tend to emphasize private experience and self-esteem. Seven respondents talked directly about loving to do things because they allowed them to feel good about themselves. These activities included water skiing, teaching, reading, singing, and training dogs. In addition to these direct references to selfesteem, many respondents discussed activities that brought them a sense of achievement. Compared to trophies of past achievements, challenging activities were far more common, comprising 30 of the 43 items related to achievement and 15 of the 19 items deemed to be real love in this category. Examples of activities that were loved for the sense of achievement that they provide include creative activities such as cooking and working as a graphic artist; recreational activities like flying, reading, and playing tennis; and even just being alive which was mentioned by two respondents. Because these activities often had a self expressive quality, many of them overlapped both the achievement category and the selfactualization category discussed in the next section. Many challenging activities also allowed for learning, which in and of itself was cited 55 times as a reason for love. Generally, learning derived in a straight forward way from the primary function of the object. Ten respondents cited it as a primary motivation behind their love of books or reading. Nine respondents loved travel for its ability to provide them with novel experiences. And eight people loved art, music, movies, or people watching because they were "interesting". It appears that within this group of highly educated respondents, the desire for learning and intellectual achievement underlies a large number of love relationships. Aron and Aron (1986) however, suggest that learning may be fundamentally connected with love for all people and not just an artifact of the intellectualism of these respondents. This is because they see learning as an essential mechanism through which self-expansion, and hence love, is achieved (pp. 24). Consistent with this notion the data shows that while in some cases (e.g. the love of science, being a student, or National Public Radio) this learning was very factual and cerebral in nature, in other instances it was more in the form of a "learning experience," something that shaped the individual's character and perspective on the world. These learning experiences are open to all people regardless of their level of formal education. Examples include aspects of travel, drug experiences, or spending time with friends. Here's how one non-college educated respondent explains why he loves '"being a black man". I love being a black man because it gave me the opportunity to understand the one thing that a lot of white people who just don't understand. The basic right of human beings that's a given. That's something that I really understand. I would not come into this world again in another life as anything else other than a black man.... I really love being a black man because it's given me an understanding of basic human values. (Male, Office Associate, 44 Yrs) Trophies: An interesting example of a trophy was the free-lance journalist who loved seeing her name in print. "It makes me feel great about myself. It's a concrete proof of what I have just accomplished" (Female, Free-lance Journalist, 32 Yrs). Trophies were cited less than half as frequently as activities, and were less than a third as likely to be considered real love. Cars were the most commonly cited trophies, although only one respondent who saw his or her own car in this way felt it was real love. Here is what she had to say about her new Honda CRX. It's not so much the car, but what the car represents. Because all the while I was trying to get through school, I saw the car, and I wanted it. It represents dreams coming true, for me. Getting through school was my first goal, that I really attained, but getting the car made me feel like I could do anything... Since 19841 wanted one, so to finally get one in 1990 was just great. (Female, Nurse, 27 Yrs)

24 Another car example that was considered real love brings up an intriguing point trophies don't only exist for past accomplishments. Fantasy possessions can serve as trophies for future accomplishments. In this case the respondent loved her dream car, a white on white Jaguar. Moments before discussing the car she had denied that jewelry could be real love because it was a material object, and was hence was categorically disqualified from being love. However, immediately upon making this statement she seems to contradict herself by discussing her love for the jaguar. Interviewer: Is that real love or are you using the word love loosely? Respondent: No, no, that's the real one. Interviewer: That's real love? Respondent: Yes. Interviewer: Why is this real love, whereas jewelry is just using the word loosely? Respondent: Well it's chic, elegant, and it runs and purrs like a kitten, just like me. (laugh). (Female, Manager Hair Salon, 35 YRS) Why did the respondent feel strongly enough about this car to contradict herself after just having said that material objects cannot be real love? At a metaphoric level, the respondent's comparison of the car to herself suggests a sense of self-integration which may explain some of her feelings. Beyond this, however, we have to look at the background of the respondent who is atypical of the sample as a whole. This respondent is African American, has a high school education, and comes from a working class background. She has worked her way up into a managerial position which represents a source of status, achievement, and responsibility. Perhaps, then, this car represents a longed-for trophy of future achievement. Realistically she may know that she is unlikely ever to purchase this car, but the Jaguar may still perform a powerful motivational function as a fantasy object (Campbell, 1987). In a sense then there is no contradiction between her statement that one can't really love a material object and her statement that she genuinely loves this car. For her the car is not primarily a material object. Rather it is a overwhelmingly a symbolic object that represents her aspirations for herself, or in Markus and Nurius' terminology it is an appropriate possession for a desired possible self (Cantor, Markus, Niedenthal, & Nurius, 1986; Markus & Cross, 1990; Markus & Nurius, 1986). As such, it shows how trophies, like challenging activities, can easily overlap the two categories of self-esteem and self-actualization. Chapter 11: Self-actualization The term "self-actualization" is used so frequently in popular culture that it is easy to lose track of its original meaning - to make the self real or actual. While Maslow spoke about self-actualization as a primary method of providing a sense of meaning in life, the desire for self-actualization is not synonymous with the search for existential meaning. Instead, self-actualization refers to a drive to behave in a way that manifests one's unique individuality or to bring other aspects of the extended self into harmony with that individuality. In studying interpersonal love, Branden (1988) found that "psychological visibility: to see ourselves in and through the responses of another person;" (p. 224) is a basic motivator of romantic attachments..When respondents pursued self-actualization through philopragia, they frequently engage in forms of self expression that similarly provide psychological visibility. In fact, the ability of LOs to provide a means of self-expression was one of the stronger themes to emerge from the analysis (see table 18). Not surprisingly, activities such as cooking and making music figured prominently on this list. For example, one respondent talked about the experience of writing for her own pleasure. It's something that I feel constantly surprised and kind of tickled and delighted when I find the words and the expressions and the ideas I never knew I had and I certainly can't express verbally. I actually see it coming out on the page. I guess the reason I love it is not only a purging thing, a cathartic thing, it tickles a place inside me I don't think I knew I had before. (Female, social worker, 29 Yrs)

25 Table 18. Frequencies for self expression All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People permitted self-expression or 43 27 25 18 58% 67% creativity was an object that expressed the self 19 16 10 10 53% 63% or creativity The process of self-actualization is an effortful one and involves many achievement-oriented activities. Acknowledging Nietzsche, Adler (1928/1966) spoke about a "will to power" which can be seen in several quotes involving self-expressive activities. In an activity like writing, this sense of power is often based on the ability to affect others. I'm creating something, there's a sense of power. The fact that people will read this and learn something, which is very important to me. (Male, Freelance writer, 37 Yrs) But other respondents found a sense of generativity in playing the piano and cooking which was more self-expressive and made no direct reference to affecting other people. (Playing the piano) is thrilling, because you're creating something. The extra thing with it, as opposed to listening, is that you are making it happen. It's kind of a power thing. (Cooking) Again, I like to make things. I like to create something good. It's a way of controlling, again. You're not just opening up a packet of food. You're making something yourself, and you're taking from the Earth, and you're doing something good. (Female P.R. Writer, 30 Yrs) Maslow's concept of self-actualization rests on the idea that we have an authentic self which can be expressed with greater or lesser accuracy. The dominant emic perspective seems to share Maslow's position. Thus the furniture that respondents buy, the music they listen to, or the art they hang on the wall is in their view an expression (although not always accurate) of their self. The power involved is therefore the power to express oneself, as with the first writer who is "tickled and delighted when I find the words and the expressions and the ideas I never knew I had." Or it can be the power to change one's environment in accordance with one's self, as with the second writer who wanted to influence others through his ideas. One respondent, however, had a different view. She was more concerned with the ability of objects and activities to change the self and create a variety of identities. Here she talks about shopping and then exercise. It's exciting to see really nice clothing and to try it on. It's a way to become someone else, and start afresh. For her, the power of creativity also focused more around the power of self-transformation. (I love exercise) because it's a way of changing your destiny; you can change the way you look, and you can affect how long you live, and how healthy you are... I like that. I like being powerful. (laugh.) (Female, P.R. Writer, 30) In addition to these creative activities, 16 respondents discussed objects that provided them with a means of creative self-expression. These included such things as music collections and pets, but the most common were various forms of home furnishings. Since one's values are central to one's self, LOs that allow for an expression of values are particularly conducive to self-actualization. Values have been defined in numerous ways throughout the literature. Based on Rokeach4 (1973) and others, Schwartz and Bilsky(1987, 1990) created a composite description of 4 Rokeach's definition is probably the most commonly cited in the literature. He defined values as "... enduring beliefs that specific modes of conduct (instrumental values) or end-states of existence (terminal values) are personally or socially preferable to opposite or converse modes of conduct or end-states of existence" (p. 5).

26 values that contains the five features common to most definitions. According to their review, "values are (a) concepts or beliefs, (b) about desirable end states or behaviors, (c) that transcend specific situations, (d) guide selection or evaluation of behavior and events, and (e) are ordered by relative importance" (1987, p. 551). The most widely used measure of values comes from Rokeach (1973) whose RVS (Rokeach Values Survey) contains 36 different items believed to cover the range of the most deeply held western values. Rokeach categorized these values as either instrumental (modes of conduct) or terminal (endstates of existence), but this still left on unwieldy list of 18 values in each group. Several attempts have been made to classify these values into a smaller number of categories, the most promising being Crosby, Bitner, and Gill (1990) and Schwartz and Bilsky (1987, 1990). Both research teams developed seven part classifications of values which held six of the seven categories in common (see table 19). These classification schemes were then successfully tested using different methodologies (confirmatory factor analysis and smallest space analysis, respectively) with the Schwartz and Bilsky (1990) study utilizing cross cultural data from seven locations. Since values underlie our behavior and our evaluation of things as good or bad, loved or unloved, anything we do or anything we love in some way reflects our values. Furthermore, the connection between needs and values is very dose. Values, unlike needs, are primarily cognitive; they are beliefs. But these beliefs can be directly tied to underlying motivating needs. For example, "sexual needs may be transformed into values for intimacy or love" (Schwartz and Bilsky, 1987; p551) and both sexual needs and values could be expressed in the choice of an engagement ring as an important LO. In a sense then, all the discussions so far have been discussions of values: the values for security, achievement, hedonism, etc. Table 19. Categorv structures for values Crosby et Schwartz Category description (from Schwartz & al. and Bilsky Bilsky, 1990, pp. 879-880, except for ___ _,. "idealism") 1 Self- Self- Independent thought and action. direction direction 2 Conformit Restrictive Restraint of actions and impulses likely y conformity to harm others and to violate sanctioned norms. 3 Virtuousn Prosocial Active protection or enhancement of ess the welfare of others. 4 Self- Maturity Appreciation, understanding, and Actualizati acceptance of oneself, others, and the on surrounding world. 5 Hedonism Enjoyment Pleasure, sensuous and emotional gratification. 6 Security Security Safety, harmony, and stability of society, _____________... of relationships, and of self. 7 Idealism Desire for beauty, equality, and freedom. 7 Achievem Personal success through demonstrated ____ _ ent competence. One dichotomy underlying both typologies of values is the question of whose interests the values serve. Some values such as achievement, enjoyment, and self-direction serve mainly the interests of the - individual. Others, like restrictive conformity and prosocial/virtuousness predominantly reflect the. community's interests. Still others, like maturity/self-actualization, are seen by Schwartz and Bilsky as promoting both individual and community interests but Crosby et al. classify them as individualistic. Respondent's choice of LOs reflect a wide variety of values that serve both the individual's and the community's needs. Examples of collectivist values included the desire to care for others as expressed through entertaining, pride in collective identities such as ethnic affiliations, and instances where values themselves such as altruism, courage, or "political correctness" were cited as loved objects. Yet on balance it seems that

27 the clear preponderance of LOs reflected individual needs and desires such as pleasure, achievement, learning, self-expression, and esteem. Why was this the case? Perhaps collectivist values were simply not that important to these respondents. Even granting this possibility however, the conditional integration theory and substantial prior research suggest that love revolves around the self. Cultures that value romantic love also tend to be highly individualistic (Levine, 1993), for example in China where arranged marriages are still widely practiced (Xiaohe & Whyte, 1990) love is sometimes seen as a individualistic threat to social stability. Some historians even see the self as a social construction which emerged slowly over time and created the possibility of romantic love in its wake (for review see Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992; for objections see Hatfield & Rapson, 1987). The paradox of love is that love is selfish (about the self) without necessarily being selfish. We love primarily to meet our own rather than society's needs, yet love is fundamental in motivating a genuine concern for others. Steck, Levitan, McLane, and Kelley (1982) and Jeffries (1993) distinguish between two aspects of love: care (concern for the other) and need (desire for ones own pleasure as stimulated by the other). Their research showed that need is most prevalent in early stages of a relationship (see also Sternberg, 1986; p. 132). From the perspective of the conditional integration theory, love can be seen almost as a trap. We are drawn in by the desire to meet our own needs, but through love our self becomes expanded to include the LO. Hence, through loving other people, nature, art, or architecture; caring for these LOs becomes as genuine and as natural as caring for ourselves. After all, they are ourselves. Chapter 12: Existential Needs Existential needs refer to the needs to know your place in the universe, to feel situated in the grand scheme of things, and for a sense of meaning or higher purpose in life. As Person (1988) wrote, 'love is an antidote not just to personal neediness, but to those existential anxieties that encompass our sense of the frailty and brevity of our life on earth.... It is the knowledge of our insignificance in the universe and, ultimately, the awareness of our own death that causes us to seek transcendence in soulful merger with a beloved" (p. 85). This strong connection between love and meaning held fast in these interviews regarding loved objects in general, but it was notably absent from respondents' discussions of commercial consumer products. Twenty eight respondents spoke directly about using LOs to provide this sense of meaning, but only three of the 48 items mentioned were commercial products (antiques, a black leather organizer, and food), and of these only food was considered real love. Table 20. Frequencies for existential needs All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People provided a sense of meaning 48 28 39 22 81% 79% was a commercial product that 3 3 1 1 33% 33% provided a sense of meaning was nature (excluding pets) 25 19 20 16 80% 84% The major theme that arose in regards to existential needs was a persistent tension between a modernist humanism in which humanity's purpose is to create and achieve versus a strong ecological consciousness that objects to the anthrocentric placement of humanity at the center of the universe. The respondents as a group tended to see themselves as socially progressive and the new ecological consciousness was very popular. Excluding pets, 19 respondents mentioned a natural object (oceans, trees, etc) or nature itself as something they loved. Furthermore, in almost all of these cases the LO was considered real love. The most significant theme in these quotes was the emotional power of being awestruck by the immensity of nature. This experience left the respondent with a sense of humility, of knowing one's place in the universe and that that place was a small one. To hear the quiet of a pine forest or to see mountains around me or between me and the sky-that kind of makes me feel relaxed, calm, and very minute-like I'm not really here for very long compared to those mountains or that ocean. (Female, Salesperson, 30) A sense of pantheism also sometimes ran through these comments. One woman (Linda) was involved in feminist pagan spirituality. But even for the more religiously mainstream the notion of a transcendent God

28 who stood apart from nature and controlled it seemed less popular than an imminent indwelling God that may be synonymous with nature or at least could easily be reached through nature. It (the ocean) represents an embodied concept of God that I have. In our world there seems to be so few things that really have qualities of the divine, both sort of the largeness and the power, the ocean is such a big reminder of that, and I feel lovingly connected to that. (Male, Social Worker, 30 Yrs) Even when the respondents did not make their religious feelings as explicit as the previous quotation, there was frequently a spiritual overtone to the comments in the assumption of nature's purity and civilizations profanity. (Nature is) Just pretty much a blanket for all the places in the world that human beings haven't screwed. Or haven't screwed up very badly. (Female, Proofreader, 40 Yrs) (Travel) allows me to get away from the city.... it just makes me feel better, like it's cleansing. (Male, Fundraiser, 30) In contrast to this ecological consciousness was an emphasis on human achievement. This, too, helped respondents feel situated in the grand scheme of things. We know our place in the universe and it is to create, to achieve, to do. Human achievement can produce the same emotions of awe that motivate the pantheistic spiritualization of nature. Good architecture leaves me awestruck. I mean it's my favorite. If you want to call it an art form which I do, it's my favorite form of art. It's good; it's beautiful and it's functional. It impresses me. Especially you know some buildings just impress that Man can do something like that. That's the macho part I guess. That Man can tackle the earth and build a building 110 stories tall or something like that. (Male, Magazine Editor, 30 yrs) This quotation about architecture forms an almost perfect symmetry with many quotes extolling the vastness of nature. Size, however, is not generally the main attraction in these cases. Rather it is skill, quality, and creativity. What we see here is the basic need for achievement being elevated and valorized until it becomes a sacred meaning, an answer to the existential questions, Why am I here? What is my Purpose in life? Within each painting, for me, there's a certain process that the person who made them goes through that gets related to in the painting; or their work, that kind of steps apart from what they've done before. Within them, they hold a quality that most objects don't hold. (What kind of quality is that, exactly?) Do you know when people step beyond what people can normally do? And that that's reflected in the physicalness, or something's been stepped beyond what a society normally does? Reflected in an individual's work? If the work is moving, that's one thing. The process of being able to do that is moving for me also. In the sense of what they reflect. (Female, teacher K-8, 37) (Referring to quality/workmanship; the high quality of anything)...something that does what it's supposed to do, superlatively well. Whether it's a cabinet that shows extraordinary skill in craftsmanship, or a sandal that's well-made. Because it represents someone's best efforts, and that's significant and meaningful and inspirative. (Male, Journalist, 39) Achievement was not alone in being elevated from a psychological need to a sacred position. In theory any need or motive could have been elevated in this way. However, in these interviews the need for social connection was the only rival to the need for achievement For example, the following quote begins with a typical discussion of how cooking helps meet social needs. But then it goes on to add a moral dimension to the experience. Cooking is not just a way of establishing social relationships, it is a way of rectifying the cosmic moral order.

29 (Cooking) is good for me. It's a warm, kind of sharing thing. I feel part of a community. I can feel safe when there's someone to do something for. I think that it helps balance my life, because I've unfortunately spent a lot of my life being very scared and selfish. For me to do anything at all remotely like giving to other people starts to fix that balance. It feels better if I can start giving something back to other people, because I've taken a great deal over the years. Even when this explicitly moral dimension is absent, several quotes reflected the idea that social connection was so intrinsically important that it could help meet existential as well relational needs. I like feeling important to people and I like the people who feel important to me. I like having their approval, having their company, and sharing things with them. It makes me feel like there's a reason to be on the earth. (Female, Salesperson, 30) Love is Sacred Love has a long history of connection to the sacred in western culture. Some authors even claim that our modem conceptions of love were modeled on theological directives to love the Lord" and that "only in the last century has love as a term applied to humans usurped the role of love as a term applied to God" (Hendrick and Hendrick, 1992, p. 45). Not only are we culturally enjoined to love God, but in much of Christian theology God is love. Mirroring this theological doctrine is the ubiquitious literary and cinematic theme of the redemptive power of love. In the love conquers all" motif, love has miraculous powers and allows the characters to find a sense of meaning in life, thus implying the theology of love is God. This deification of love has been traced to the secularization of society during the industrial revolution such that "for many in the middle classes, (love has) come to be religion itself' (Hatfield & Rapson, 1987, p. 133). In view of love's sacred standing, it is not all that surprising that scientific research on love has at times been greeted with apprehension by those who fear the desecration of love's sacred mystery (Gray, 1993; Rubin, 1988; Toufexis, 1993). Table 21. Frequencies for love's sacred me s _All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People was God 4 4 4 4 100 100 related to a sense of meaning in life 48 28 39 22 81% 79% was a symbol of virtue of positive 32 20 18 10 63% 50% values provides a sense of escape or 27 16 23 13 85% 81% transcendence respondent felt bonded or committed 7 6 6 5 86% 83% to Lo was a collection 7 5 2 2 29% 40% was a feeling 3 2 3 2 100 100 was music 15 14 11 11 73% 79% For the respondents who reported loving God, the sacred nature of their relationship requires little explication. Previous literature however, has shown that the construct of sacredness can also apply to many objects such as collections that have no overt theological importance (Belk & Wallendorf, 1990; Belk, Wallendorf, & Sherry, 1989; Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry, & Holbrook, 1991; Hirschman & LaBarbera, 1990; Hirschman, 1988; Kopytoff, 1986; Wallendorf & Arnould, 1988). The question then arises, given love's sacred status, where do LOs typically fall on the sacred-profane continuum? In this section I will argue that it is easier to label one's feelings as love if they apply to a sacred object, and that love is not just sacred, but often sanctifies what it touches. However, I will also argue that true sacredness is rare in material objects, and much of what consumers experience might better be seen as semi-sacred or even faux-sacred (for similar arguments concerning baseball spectating see Holt, 1992). Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry (1989, pp. 6-8) provide a description of twelve basic properties of the sacred which form the basis of the present discussion. In summary, one can understand the sacred as meeting "a need to believe in something significantly more powerful and extraordinary than the self - a need to transcend existence as a mere biological being coping with the everyday world" (Belk, Wallendorf, & Sherry,

30 1989, p. 2). In so doing, a sacred object becomes set apart from the everyday world to such an extent that sacredness is virtually synonymous with 'separateness from the ordinary, or perhaps "specialness" (Ahuvia & Adelman, in press). Evidence for the important role of sacredness in defining love comes from comparison of the types of items most likely and least likely to be considered real love (see tables 22 and 23). One striking finding from table 22 is the fact that our most basic necessities: food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, are the least likely to be considered real love. The sacred is often defined in contrast to the everyday (i.e. profane), and things don't get any more "everyday" than the familiar list of food, clothing, and shelter. Admittedly, all of these items are capable of being sanctified. Clothing can be sacred vestments, food can be communion wafers, and Belk, et al. provide many examples of commercial products which take on sacred meaning outside of an overtly religious context However, the LOs in table 22 generally lacked discernable sacred meanings5. In contrast, the earlier discussions of LOs meeting existential needs and of their value expressive qualities made clear the sacred meaning of nature and the arts to many of these respondents. A closer look at some of the themes associated with sacredness provides a richer understanding of its role in defining love, and the role of love creating the sacred. The findings in previous sections have already touched on three properties of LOs that also typify sacredness. First, the discussion of the need for existential meaning gave several examples of LOs providing respondents something transcendent to believe in ranging from the harmony of nature to humanity's creative potential. Second, sacredness often engenders "commitment" or a "focused emotion or emotional attachment" (Mol 1976, p. 216) which has been implicit in much of the prior discussion of philopgragia and was explicitly mentioned by several respondents (see table 21). And third, the experience of ecstasy and flow is a central element of both the sacred and philopragia. The previous discussion of hedonic experience touched on this, but omitted mention of the surprisingly frequent sense of transcendence (e.g. artwork "allows me to transcend into another world-' female, Lawyer, 34 Yrs) and communitas (being with these friends "is an out-of-body experience;" male, public relations, 43 Yrs) that characterized many love experiences. Table 22. Least truly loved items Four items least likely to be considered # of people claiming # of people giving at people with real real love that were mentioned by to love at least 1 item least 1 real love in love for category as three or more people. in category category % of people with any love for category - 1) Clothing & Jewelry 9 0 0% 2) Housing 7 1 14% 3) Food 25 6 24% 4) Car 8 2 25% Table 23. Most truly loved items Four items most likely to be considered # of people claiming # of people giving at people with real real love that were mentioned by to love at least 1 item least 1 real love in love for category as three or more people. in category category % of people with any love for category 1) "Nature", Landscapes, and other 9 9 100% places. 2) God 4 4 100% 3) Visual arts 10 9 90% 4) Film or theater 9 8 89% Another property of sacredness is hierophany: the way sacred objects seem to reveal themselves to believers. The following story of buying a home is an excellent example of how this revelation can occur with 5 There were two notable exceptions in which respondents did feel that items in table 22 were sacred. One was a woman who referred to food as "a magic thing that I can use, if I use it properly, to get in balance with myself, with the world, and enhance my life" (female, Proofreader, 40 Yrs). The other was a woman whose description of her home is discussed later in this section. Both of these exceptions were considered real love.

31 secular LOs. It is worth noting that the object being discussed here is the only home to dearly display sacred meanings and not coincidentally, the only home to be considered real love. The first time I walked into this house, I knew we had to buy it. My husband felt very much the same way. (What was that experience like?) It was sort of like unwrapping something, or unveiling something; each room sort of confirmed more and more this growing impression that this was the house we had to buy. So by the time we were in the back of the house, and the Realtor had left us alone, I just exploded with it. "We have to live in this house — we have to." It's got lots of special qualities... It's one of those weird bungalows that are just numerous.... Just all over Chicago. Just sort of sturdy... When you're inside one you feel like you're inside this great big Mother. It's all round, with lots of elbow room, it's real strong, and there's no settling. You put a ball on the floor and it's not going to roll from one side to the other. House for the ages, kind of thing. It's got beautiful woodwork and beautiful stained glass windows... We felt lucky to find such a great place- It's a warm, comfortable house. (Female, Drama Student, 33 Yrs). This quote notwithstanding, art and nature, not the home, were the central focus of sacred experience for this group of respondents. This tendency of even loved homes to be considered profane stands in contrast to Belk, et al.'s (1989) contention that the home is "the primary locus of the sacred in the secular world" (p. 10). Yet these divergent findings may reflect a difference in samples rather than a conflict in interpretation. Many of the current respondents were single, most were childless, and few owned their own property. Hence the home as the center of family life was probably not as important to them as it might be to an older, married homeowner with children. Although the lifestyle of these respondents can help explain why more homes were not considered sacred, there is still the larger question, What kinds of LOs contained sacred meanings and how prevalent were these meanings? We know that by their very definition sacred meanings must be fairly rare. Sacredness means 'set apart from the ordinary' and therefore if the sacred were to become commonplace it would inevitably lose its sacred status. On the other hand, given the sacred nature of love and that LOs represent exceptional items in respondents' lives, one might expect that LOs would be sacred as a general rule. While examples like the house discussed above clearly demonstrate certain properties of the sacred, even among loved items sacredness was fairly unusual. Furthermore, many LOs that seemed to hold sacred meaning frequently turned out not to be truly sacred to their owners. This 'illusion of sacredness' came primarily from three sources: a confounding of sacred quarantine and physical fragility, a lack of kratophany in loved objects, and the difficulty in distinguishing between transcendent experience and escapism. The term "sacred quarantine" will be used to describe the idea that sacred objects, times, activities, etc. must be set aside and kept segregated from their profane counterparts. For example, in the Jewish tradition sacred Passover food must be isolated from everyday food, even to the extent of being served on special plates. It is important to stress that the damage to the Passover food by coming into contact with leavened bread would be spiritual, not physical. To the faithful, contact between the sacred and the profane can cause spiritual contamination in which either the sacred is made profane, or in some rituals the profane is elevated to a sacred status. In contrast, many objects are kept apart from everyday use simply to avoid physical breakage. This protection of fragile objects resembles sacred quarantine in that owners of valuable fragile objects often set them aside in special storage areas and lavish them with care. Yet the danger they are protecting them from is physical, not spiritual. This problem of confounding fragility with sacredness is made worse by the fact that many sacred objects are also physically fragile and breaking a sacred object is generally seen as decreasing its spiritual power. Therefore when one observes the strict care and protection from daylight given to the original Declaration of Independence, one may wonder if this represents a sacred homage to America's seminal document or a simple act of historical preservation. In this case, like many others, both is probably the correct answer. This confounding of fragility with sacredness is particularly problematic in the case of collections which are often highly fragile and also frequently interpreted as sacred by consumer researchers (Belk, et al., 1989; Belk, Wallendorf, Sherry, & Holbrook, 1991). The collections mentioned by respondents as LOs might

32 best be seen as 'semi-sacred', in that sacred meanings were often present but formed a subtle undercurrent throughout the interviews and were rarely very powerful. Take for example Pam's collection of purses and cigarette cases. Of all the collections mentioned by respondents, this was second to none in the sacred meanings it held for its owner. * It was carefully displayed in the respondents home; * she felt an intense emotional attachment to it; * yet the source of that attachment was mysterious ("as for the purses, I don't know why I like them. I've asked myself that before, what do I like about plastic bags? I have no idea"); * some of the elements had mythic stories attached to their origins6; * other elements played an important role in creating communitas with her father thus symbolizing a role transition to full adulthood; * and finally, the purses appeared to be in sacred quarantine because she would not use some of them on a day-to-day basis. But was this really sacred quarantine? Here Pam discusses using the cigarette cases, lighters, and purses in her collection. Interestingly, it is Pam who introduces the term sacredness into the conversation. Well, the cases I certainly use everyday. The lighters I use everyday. The purses I use for evenings and good occasions because they're just not practical to use everyday, they're not big enough. (Do you have any of these that are sort of set aside as things that are part of the collection that you don't use everyday, they're just sort of set aside in some way?) The Bags and film are never used everyday, they can't be. They're just not the practical size for me to use in the normal day. But my cigarette cases, I don't care if they're the sterling silver ones or the cheaps, you know, the cheap-plated ones, I rotate them around on a regular basis and use all of them. (Suppose there was some situation where it was practical for you to use one of the bags, will you use it under those situations?) Yes (So, it's just a matter of practicality, there's no sense in which they're sort of separate from what you use every day in any way?) No, there isn't one that's so sacred that I could never take it outside. (It's interesting you used that word, sacred, so do you feel like any of these are sacred in any sense then?) There's a couple of them that are really, really fragile, and if I use them, I would be afraid I might break them, they're fairly rare. What's important about these comments is not the denial of sacredness per se.; after all, the respondent and researcher are both entitled to their opinions on the matter. Rather the key to interpreting 6 For example, one had been purchased by her mother "special, special, special," for her first date with her father. Another had been a gift from a boyfriend which recalled the theme of beauty and the beast wherein the large and beastly boyfriend had been civilized by toiling over a dainty woman's purse.

33 this protocol comes in the respondent's insistence that she would like to use these objects but for the risk of physically damaging them. For Pam, using the objects integrates them into her life and strengthens her connection to them. What appeared to be sacred quarantine is really an undesired situation forced on the respondent by the value and physical fragility of the purses. Therefore we can see that these purses are at best semi-sacred, meeting some of the criteria for sacredness but failing a crucial test in that they cannot be profaned through contact with the everyday. A second problem in identifying sacred meanings is that many objects that seem to be viewed as sacred turn out to lack the property of simultaneous attraction and repulsion called kratophany. The Hebrew bible is replete with examples of God's kratophanous essence, such as the idea that we are drawn to God yet can not see his face and live. The Israelites are commanded to love and fear God, and if in loving him they fail to perform the ritual properly or attempt a ritual for which they are not qualified the penalty can be immediate death. But kratophany requires the beloved to be greater and more powerful than the lover. In romantic love we have the archetype of the young suitor so terrified of his beloved that he is simultaneously attracted to her yet flees in terror whenever she approaches. In philopgragia however, this is only possible when the LO truly represents something much larger than the self. In the typical collection of antiques or decorative lamps this does not seem to be the case. Likewise for most commercial products such as clothing or food, love is only attraction without the awestruck fear that characterizes true sacred experience. Therefore, philopgragia is generally characterized by attraction without the concomitant repulsion of kratophany. The last major problem in identifying sacred meanings is the difficulty in distinguishing between transcendent experience and escapism. These two types of experiences can be distinguished by the level of profundity or existential meaning attached to the event. In escapism, people have enjoyable hedonic experiences that captivate their attention but don't affect deeply held values or meet existential needs. In transcendent experiences however, people feel deeply moved, have their central values challenged or strongly reinforced, and gain a sense of meaning or purpose in life. Confusions surrounding transcendent experience are particularly problematic because these types of experiences are the birthplace and power source for the sacred. While social convention defines most of what is considered sacred or profane, sacredness is ultimately born in the subjective experience of the individual. Without occasional transcendent and revelatory moments, socially learned sacred beliefs about meaning in life and appropriate life goals would gradually lose their force. This statement suggests a theory in which the essence of sacredness is sacred experience. Sacred objects, times, places, rituals, etc. are sacred only insofar as they connect to sacred experience in some way. From this proposition it follows that one can construct a hierarchical model of sacredness based on the item's proximity to sacred experience (see figure 5, next page). The most sacred items would be sacred experiences themselves, such as the two respondents who talked about loving certain feelings (see table 21). Next would be events and activities that directly generate sacred experience, such as being in nature, creating or viewing art, or participating in religious activities. Last would be tangible objects which do not directly create sacred experience but rather objectify it or symbolize it. If one grants that there is a dose connection between love and sacredness, then this model can help explain the data in tables 22 and 23 where experiences themselves and experience-generating activities are almost always considered real love while material objects rarely are. On the other hand, this explanation depends on the premise that the experience generated by the LOs in table 23 is really sacred in character. In many cases this premise appears valid, especially when respondents talked about being in nature and experiencing the arts or music (see table 21 for music). Yet in some cases, especially movies and theater, this experience might better be considered escapism (Hirschman, 1983) rather than sacred transcendence. (Movies) presented an alternate world and one which often was a lot better than the one I felt I was living in. They contained idealized people and when I was growing up there was a lot of idealization of the people in movies. There's something extra vivid about them. The way they're presented. Low lights, the sound track, the colors. And...I think those are the main reasons. Especially older movies were more geared towards making somebody feel good than today's movies are. (Male, student, 31 Yrs). The preceding quote is a good example of the difficulty in distinguishing transcendence from escape. My judgement would be that this quote refers to a particularly vivid and powerful form of escapism. But arguments that the idealized worlds presented in film form the basis of deeply held values and create a direction for striving in life cannot easily be dismissed. The conclusion to be drawn, therefore, is that researchers must exercise considerable caution in labeling a powerful subjective experience as sacred or profane.

34 Figure 5. Model of the relative potency of different manifestations of the sacred. Chapter 13: Intrinsic Interest and Excellence In chapters 7 through 12, I explored the motivations for self-extension listed in the left hand margins of figure 6. I now move to the elements of this figure labeled "intrinsic interest" and "perceived quality'. Figure 6. Summary of the conditional integration theory of love Pleasure Survival and security Social needs Esteem & achievement Self actualization Existential meaning Love V 1) Felt loyalty and commitment _,2) Would miss the LO if lost 3) "Altruistic" interest in LO Intrinsic Desired interest level of _ * =integratio] Perceived into the quality self 44 Low Actual level of self integration High Mechanisms of Integration 1) Creation 2) Physical incorporation 3) Cognitive incorporation 4) Contamination & boundary breaking experiences 5) Investiture

35 Intrinsic Interest Given the long list of rewards which respondents sought from their LOs, it may seem that Seligman et al.s (1980) finding that love involves an intrinsic concern for the LO does not apply to philopragia. This inference however, is based on a common misunderstanding of intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is often defined as "engaging in an activity for 'its own sake,' while extrinsic motivation is defined as engaging in an activity to obtain reward or to avoid punishment" (Reiss & Sushinsky, 1975, p. 1116; italics in original). Unfortunately, this type of definition which sees intrinsic motivation as not involving rewards is inconsistent with its standard operationalization as providing psychological rewards for meeting a fundamental human need such as feeling competent and self-determining (Angyal, 1941; de Charms, 1968; Deci, 1975; and White, 1959), providing optimal levels of incongruity (Berlyne, 1971; and McClelland, et al., 1953), or reducing uncertainty (Festinger, 1957; Kagan, 1972; and Lanzetta, 1971). Therefore, a better definition might be that intrinsic motivation occurs when the rewards for performing an action are: 1) psychological states (pleasure, happiness, sense of accomplishment, etc.), 2) tied to basic human needs or drives (physical survival, effectance, etc.), and 3) experienced as the direct result of the action (e.g. "painting portraits is pleasurable"). Extrinsic or instrumental motivation occurs any time a reward is sought and these criteria are not met. Usually, extrinsic motivation occurs when the rewards for performing an action are not themselves psychological states, although they may be a means to attain them (e.g. "painting houses provides money which buys chocolate which gives pleasure"). Of the three criteria for intrinsic motivation, the last is the most troublesome for researchers. A basic problem in the philosophy of science called "the problem of micro mediation" refers to the fact that any number of intervening variables can be postulated between a cause and its effect. Take for example the statement "turning on the switch caused the light to go on." One could add an intervening (i.e. "micro mediating") variable to this statement by saying "turning on the switch caused electricity to run through the wire, and the electricity caused the light to go on." This process of adding micro mediating variables can be repeated indefinitely, limited only by the knowledge and imagination of the theorist This is true whether the theorist is a professional physicist studying electricity, or a consumer trying to figure out the causal connections between their possessions and their psychological states. In many ways then, the problem of what is intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation is just another case of the problem of micro mediation in causation. If the actor perceives an object or activity as directly providing a reward, then he is likely to see it as a case of intrinsic motivation. Whereas if the same actor is made aware of a micro mediating variable he may then decide that it is really a case of extrinsic motivation. For example, figure 7 diagrams two versions of a situation in which a man is complemented on his clothes. In case 'A', the clothes are seen as extrinsically rewarding. In case 'B' the identical situation would lead someone to see the clothes as intrinsically rewarding. The only difference is in how the situation is interpreted by the person receiving the compliment (Calder & Staw, 1975). Figure 7. Intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards Direct cause {proximal to Instrumental causes psychological state) Psychological state Label for motivation * (A) the clothes - ~ the compliment - ~ the pleasure of * 0 clothing is the compliment extrinsically rewarding * (B) money for - * the clothes * the pleasure of - * cbthing is clothes, time to shop, the clothes (i.e. the intrinsically desire for cbthes, pleasure of the rewarding etc. compliment)

36 In analyzing the data an initial attempt was made to code the phone interviews according to whether the reasons given for loving an object were intrinsic or extrinsic. Unfortunately, in the majority of instances there was not sufficient information about how the respondent was interpreting the situation to make this judgement. Therefore a quantitative analysis of the data set is not possible here. However, two of the depth interviews go into this issue in some detail. These interviews not only testify to the importance of intrinsic motivation in philopragia, but also helps us understand why this is the case. Pam, a 29 year old professional composer talked at length about her profound love of music. In describing her feelings for a recording of Bach performed by pianist Glen Gould, the intrinsic pleasure of playing music took center stage. I love this because Gould himself was a very unique person. If you listen very carefully to his recordings, you can here him humming in the background because of the sheer pleasure of playing these things.... Bach was a marvel because he was able to take a genre and make it sound fresh every time he used it.... There were a lot of other Baroque artists, but they were just hacks. And I'm sure they were very good, but they just didn't put the same joy of playing into it. I think of modem writers of music, such as Ginestera who are like the pianist's pianist, you know, who write things that happen to be very beautiful to the ear, but also wonderful to play. Bach was also one of those people. Like Pam, Joe also worked professionally in the music business, in his case as a rock musician. But Joe does not consider music and dancing to be a real love, and has left the music world to return to college. Joe attributes his disenchantment with performing to a realization that his interest was extrinsically rather than intrinsically motivated. What is particularly interesting in the following quote is the relationship between intrinsic interest and the self. The reason I started [dancing] is for the same reason I did music and comedy and everything else, I wanted to impress people, for people to really like me and give me all this adulation and love. And you can get some of that, you know, I'm doing it and I've done it at parties and just come up and go that was great, that was great. But one of the things I learned by doing this, it doesn't really fill up any void. It's kind of like when people tell you they like your dancing, they..I my reaction is sort of like, that's not me. You just like this talent or it didn't really change how I felt, you know, so it really lost it's appeal. [Dancing "wasn't you," what do you mean by that?] It sort of like when somebody likes you for your car that's an analogy I came up with. It's like if a girl went out with you and really loved you and said, 1'I really like your hip car,' well it's like fuck you! Get out of here! You know, it's got nothing to do with these features that are more integral to my personality. It's more of a talent I've just learned. Stuck on. While it has implications for my personality, it's not as directly related as how I present myself and what I have to say, what I think, how I feel, that kind of thing. Because he is performing primarily to get a reaction, even when he gets a positive response he feels that the appreciation is not of him. But what is a person, if not at least in part what she or he does? The answer may lie in the idea that not all of our actions are equally part of who we are. Actions made under duress may have little to do with our selves. Conversely, actions stemming from intrinsic motivation are a direct reflection of our will, and therefore most define who we are (Bemrn, 1972; Folkes & Kiesler, 1991; and Ross, 1977). Hence the popular idea that being "true to yourself means doing things that are intrinsically rewarding. Since Joe's motivation to perform is extrinsic, and he feels his performances are not really him; but Pam's concern for music is intrinsic, therefore she does see music and her compositions as part of herself. In fact, she refers to music as "intrinsic to my being," showing how our language recognizes this connection between intrinsic concern and the self. This idea that intrinsic concerns and motivations are part of the self is important for two reasons. First, we have already discussed how self expression is one of the benefits that respondents sought from LOs. Only physical objects that generate intrinsic concern and intrinsically motivated activities are capable of fulfilling this need. More importantly however, saying that extrinsically motivated activities are not truly

37 loved is another way of saying that activities which are not part of the self cannot be truly loved. Hence this finding lends further support to the notion that love involves self-extension. Perceived Quality: "You're the Top" One of the most common themes to emerge from the data was the idea that the LO was, in one way or another, nothing short of magnificent. This theme was so central to the prototype that twenty nine of the respondents exclaimed how wonderful the LO was without making any clear reference to what was so terrific about it. For example in talking about her cats, one woman exclaimed "they're just great!, that's why I love them." Table 24. Frequencies for love as high evaluation All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO...0 Items People Items People Items People was perfect, the best, excellent, etc. 44 29 21 14 48% 48% was not perfect, the best, excellent, 6 5 1 1 17% 20% etc. This finding regarding philopgragia is consistent with prior research on romantic love. In a metaanalysis of factor analytic studies, Murstein (1976) found that the most important single factor in interpersonal love was the belief that the beloved was a magnificent person7. This emphasis on the virtues of the beloved underlies the phenomenon of idealizing the love object (Aron et al., 1989; Brehm, 1988; Shea & Adams, 1984; Sperling, 1985a; Sprecher & Metts, 1989; Tennov, 1979; Varga, 1987) and leads to definitions of love such as love is our emotional response to that which we value highly" (Branden, 1988, p. 220). The importance of perceived quality can be explained by the conditional integration theory in two ways. First, it is quite straightforward that since LOs provide us with the benefits discussed in chapters 7 - 12, the most desirable LOs would be the ones that were most capable of fulfilling these needs (i.e. the most excellent ones). Beyond this however, it is also seems to be the case that excellence in a LO is somehow intrinsically rewarding. The conditional integration theory would suggest that this is because LOs are ultimately integrated into the self. An analogy can be made to cannibals who believe that eating the flesh of conquered warriors allows them to ingest their enemies' courage into themselves. Similarly, by loving something, it becomes part of the self. If we wish to be excellent people, we should construct ourselves out of excellent building blocks. Chapter 14: Mechanisms of Integration The question now arises, how does an object or person become part of the self? To answer this, we must first take a look at what the self is. Figure 8 depicts the basic model of the components of the self developed by James (1890) which has been the cornerstone for theorizing in this area for over one hundred years. This model divides the self into two main parts: the "1" and the "me." The I is the experiencing agent as well as the wellspring of volition and action. When you dose your eyes and imagine an object, the I is that part of you which is "seeing" the object. It gets its name from the English grammar system in which we say "I did X" or "I prefer Y". The me consists of all the possessions of the I. It also gets its name from the English grammar system in which we say "my beliefs are part of me," "my memories are part of me," or "my books are part of me." The I is subdivided into three parts. The material self refers to anything tangible which is part of who we are. The foremost part of the material self is the body, but our possessions can also be part of the self if we have a strong enough subjective sense of ownership about them. The spiritual self might also be called the mental or intangible self. It refers to our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, skills, etc. that make us who we are. Lastly, the social self was seen by James chiefly in terms of the impressions we give to different social groups or at different occassions, such as the personality we exhibit at work as distinct from the personality we exhibit at a New Year's Eve party. However, the social self also includes our socially defined roles and identities, such as me the teacher, me the researcher, or me the friend. 7 Murstein defined this factor as "all the good things one can think about another" (1988, p. 32) which led him to call it the Madonna factor for women (the Virgin, not the singer) and the Jack Armstrong factor for men.

38 Figure 8. William James' model of the self* Components of the Self The I The Me The Self as knower, The Self as an object of as thinker, and as reflection and as a stream of collection of entities consciousness The Material Self1 The Spiritual Self The Social Selves *Possessions -Inner experience *Me the professor Physical being *Personality traits *The Me my *Verbal skills friends know *Attitudes *The Me my |*Social colleagues know perceptions *Etc. *adapted from Solomon (1991, p. 210) This chapter will describe several methods of self-extension. Generally speaking these methods of incorporation do not correspond in a one-to-one way with the aspects of the self. Rather, each of these methods can be used to incorporate different objects into the material self, spiritual self, or social selves. But what about incorporation of the other into the I? Aron and Aron (1986) maintain that it is possible to expand the I to include other people, but just how this works is not made clear. I contend that it is more sensible to think about LOs as being part of the me, but expressing the I. Because the I is the source of volition and action, when we create something according to our own desires we are said to be "self-expressive". Hence, creations can be seen as expressing the I to the extent that they emerged from it and reflect it. Similarly, even if we don't create the object or performance, just the act of choosing it reflects our volitions and hence the I. However, the tangible objects, activities, or social roles we create or choose are best seen as part of the me. Figure 9 depicts the mechanisms for self-extension and how they fit into the theory as a whole. Each of these mechanisms are described below and analyzed in terms of the data and previous research. Creation One of the dearest examples of self-extension through creation is childbirth, in which the "object" (or rather person), is literally an extension of the mother's physical body. Even in less vivid examples of creation we invest our psychic and physical energy in what we create and hence it becomes a part of ourselves (Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton 1981). Maintenance of an object can also form the basis for connection even if the object was not constructed by the individual from scratch. For example, Bloch (1982) found that for men, caring for one's car was positively associated with the centrality of the vehicle to one's extended self, and similar findings were reported for homeowners (Belk 1987). The prevalence of creation and creativity in philopgragia was amply demonstrated in the discussion of self-actualization. The frequent mention of

39 activities as LOs also highlights the fact that creation can be used to expand the spiritual self by enhancing one's skills, just as it can extend the material self by creating or maintaining tangible objects. Figure 9. Mechanisms of integration into the self Conditional Integration Theory of Love Love High assion Desired level of integration into the ejti5 selfI.IW.W. Actual level High of integration into the self Mechanisms of Integration 1) Creation 2) Physical incorporation 3) Cognitive incorporation 4) Contamination & boundary breaking experiences 5) Investiture According to Sartre (1943, as quoted in Belk, 1987), buying an object is another form of creation, so purchased objects become part of the self through the same mechanism that created objects do. Marx agrees with this notion of purchase as a form of integration ('That which exists for me through the medium of money, that which I can pay for, i.e., which money can buy, that am I," Marx 1975, p. 337), but Marx sees this form of self-extension as part of "commodity fetishism" (Marx 1978), a false ideology that happiness can be purchased with commodities. Marx (1964) insists that it is only through the direct creation of meaningful work that well-being is achieved. The data reported here are consistent with Marx's assertion, as demonstrated by the strong tendency of respondents to deny that purchased objects were real love. Physical Incorporation: Eating & Control As the saying goes, "you are what you eat." In philopgragia the love of food was a recurring theme. Given foods' rich symbolism, eating can be a way of taking the sophistication of the champagne or the power

40 of the steer into the self. Eating as a method of incorporating another person into the self is the basis for ritual cannabalism, and shows up in interpersonal love through pillow talk metaphors such as "you're sweet as candy and I just want to eat you all up." Controlling an object integrates it into the self by identifying it as an extension of the physical body and hence is primarily associated with the material self. Just as the distinction between self and other is thought to arise in infancy through the realization that some objects defy direct control by the will (Lewis and Brooks 1978, Seligman 1975), McClelland (1951) argues that when we can control an external object in the same way we can control our own body, we come to see that object as part of the self. This type of selfextension typically occurs with musical instruments, cars, tennis rackets, or other objects that we physically manipulate as tools. Controlling the object can also take the form of seizing control from others, destroying the object, or giving it as a gift, in that each of these actions clearly establishes one's control. This connection between self-extension and control is one of love's trickiest issues. In interpersonal love people sometimes experience a loss of self when they feel "possessed" or subsumed within the self of the other. Traditionally it has been the woman's role to become an extension of the man's self, as represented by practice of brides adopting both the first and last names of their husbands as in "Mrs. John Doe". In philopgragia the direction of control is usually person over object, but this is not always the case. Food in particular was cited as a LO that respondents both controlled (e.g. cooking as creative expression) and were controlled by. This connection between control and love also presents a puzzle. Since most objects are easier to control than people, it should be easier to integrate objects into one's self. Hence, one might think that if love involves self-extension, objects would be more frequently loved than people. In some cases this idea seemed to have a grain of truth, as when a respondent talked about food being "easy to love" because "it makes no demands in return" (Male, Lawyer, 41 Yrs). Yet evidence on the prototypicality of various forms of love (Fehr & Russell, 1991) and the overwhelming sentiment of the respondents was that philopgragia was less intense, important, and sincere than interpersonal love. This finding can be handled by the conditional integration theory in two ways based on the premise that love is not integration; it is conditional integration. First, the desire to integrate other people into the self may be far higher than for objects because people are so much better at meeting our needs for social connection, esteem, and existential meaning. Second, as figure 9 shows, passion occurs when the desire for integration is higher than the actual level. Frequently a clash of wills within a relationship can cause a temporary decrease in the felt level of integration by making salient the different needs, goals, and perspectives of the relationship partners. So long as the disharmony was not so great as to decrease the desired level of integration, feelings of passion will temporarily result until equilibrium is restored. Hence the frequently observed pleasure in making up after a lover's spat. When people gauge the amount of love in a relationship, they may use the frequency and intensity of these passionate feelings as an important indicator of love. Therefore rather than being a hinderance to love, the difficulty in achieving and maintaining integration in interpersonal relationships may generate passion which in turn increases our sense of love. Cognitive Incorporation Cognitive incorporation involves learning about the LO, thinking about the LO, fantasizing about the LO, or in some other way strengthening the importance of the LO within one's self image. Because the spiritual self includes our memories and other mental objects, one might think that it would be especially associated with cognitive incorporation. However, what aspect of the self an object becomes incorporated into depends on what the object is, not its method of incorporation. Therefore cognitive incorporation is not limited to affecting the spiritual self but can integrate physical objects into our material self or increase the importance of given social roles within our social self. Sartre (1943, as quoted in Belk, 1987) wrote about the importance of knowing as a method of selfextension. In order for knowing to lead to integration, however, Sartre claimed this knowledge must be passionate and intimate rather than detached or coldly intellectual. This is because Sartre sees the sexual desire to "have". the object as the motive for all knowledge that leads to integration. It is no coincidence in Sartre 's view that sexual relations are often referred to as "knowing" the other. By knowing the other passionately and intimately, it becomes a "subject rather than (an) object" (Belk 1988, p. 151). This desire to get to know the LO is evident in the respondents' tendency to be experts in the area of their love. It was particularly striking in Kim's comments about music. Originally she had claimed to love music, but upon further reflection she said "I like listening to music,... (but) when I think about it in terms of putting it in the category of love, no (I don't love it). I have difficulty with music.... I can't recognize instruments very well..

41.. Another thing about music that I'm not very good at is identifying like popular names... That's my problem with music - I don't understand it." Part of the significance of knowledge in self-extension may stem from the importance of frequent or obsessive thought about the LO. Stendhal (1947, orig. 1822) saw fantasy as the engine that drives romance, and fantasy, idealization, and obsessive thought are all cited in the contemporary psychological literature as being associated with romantic love, particularly in its most passionate forms (Aron, Dutton, Aron, and Iverson 1989, Berscheid 1984, Johnston and Jaremko 1979, Lasswell and Lasswell 1976, Mathes 1982, Nofz 1984, Sperling 1985, and Tesser and Paulhus 1976). For example, Shea and Adams (1984) found that thought, as an indicator of an individual cognitive process, was by far the strongest determinant of love. From a selfexpansion perspective, this extensive mental elaboration about the beloved could be seen as integrating the other into the self. In regard to philopragia, the tendency of people to daydream about desired objects or favorite activities is so commonplace that it even forms the basis of an entire theory of modem consumer society (Campbell, 1987). Along these lines, the following respondent gives a hyperbolic account of what it would mean to truly love books. Despite the tongue- in-cheek melodrama of the account, the importance of obsessive thought comes through clearly. If it was real love I'd probably waste away. I'd probably never eat. I probably would never get up. I'd probably have a bed full of books and I don't think that's wholesome. You've got to eat, drink to survive. You can't just stay stuck with a book. (Male, Office Associate, 44 Yrs) Contamination & Boundary Breaking Experiences Contamination (Belk, 1987; Belk, Wallendorf, & Sherry, 1989) refers to an involuntary form of incorporation through close physical contact. While in the vernacular contamination has strong negative implications, as the word is used here it can be either positive or negative. An example of a positive form of contamination is making oneself holy by wearing sacred garments. On the other hand, rape is a common form of negative contamination in which the victim feels symbolically as well as physically invaded by the rapist. This sense of contamination in rape is often so strong that many rape survivors scrub themselves repeatedly in the shower in an attempt to wash away the presence of the rapist. In addition to contamination through direct contact with the other, one can be contaminated by contact with an object that is intimately associated with the other. As an example of this, Belk cites the fact that used underwear is difficult to sell at thrift shops even if it has been thoroughly cleaned. Contamination was also apparent in the interviews in the many cases where the LO had been a long time possession of the respondent. Aron's (1970) notion of "boundary breaking experiences" (Aron & Aron 1986, p. 65) is similar to the concept of contamination. Boundary breaking experiences are situations of physiological arousal and emotional intensity that break down interpersonal boundaries and hence increase integration of the other into the self. Evidence for the concept of boundary breaking experiences comes from research (reviewed by Kenrick and Cialdini 1977) showing that attraction to others is increased in situations of high arousal, such as crossing a suspension bridge over a deep ravine (Dutton and Aron 1974). This finding is generally explained in terms of the misattribution phenomenon first documented by Schachter and Singer (1962). In these experiments, subjects were given a stimulant and told it was a depressant or had no physiological effects. When subjects looked for a cause to explain their arousal and ended up labeling it happiness or anger depending on which explanation was the most plausible given their situation. In keeping with these findings, it was argued that the arousal caused by being on a rope bridge was misattributed to the attractive other (who was also present), and the subject concluded that 'if I'm so excited in this person's presence, I must really like him/her'. Kenrick and Cialdini (1977), however, criticized this explanation because there was no reason to believe this misattribution of the arousal had taken place. In the Schachter and Singer study, the experimenters had gone to great pains to make sure that the subjects did not know the true cause of their arousal (a stimulant), and when subjects did know they had been given a stimulant, increased emotional arousal was not found. But in the Dutton and Aron (1974) study, as well as other studies reviewed by Kenrick and Cialdini, the subjects were perfectly aware of the true cause of their arousal (e.g. they were standing on a suspension bridge over a gaping gorge). Therefore, Kenrick and Cialdini argue that misattribution is not a plausible explanation for the increased attraction. As a counter explanation, Kenrick and Cialdini propose that in stressful situations, the presence of others is a calming influence. This calming effect is experienced as a rewarding stimuli that is then

42 associated with the person whose presence led to the reduction in stress. The increased attraction is then seen in terms of reinforcement theory, where the subject likes the other simply because the other is associated with the reward of stress reduction. The problem with this counter explanation is that in some cases the arousal may have been experienced as pleasant rather then aversive, and in other cases the "object of attraction could not easily be construed as reducing arousal" (Aron and Aron 1986, p. 65). The failure of both misattribution and reinforcement to explain the increased attraction found in arousing or unusual situations (McDonald et al., 1983) leaves interpersonal boundaries breaking as a plausible but yet untested explanation. The idea of a boundary breaking experience can also explain the term "making love" as applied to sexual relations. While Sartre would see sexual relations as a type of intimate learning about the other, sex might also be understood as the ultimate act of boundary breaking through arousal. From this perspective, the term "making love" is not a euphemism, but a literalism. By having sex, one is creating love (i.e. the inclusion of the other into the self). In the current data, the role of boundary breaking experiences is unclear. But the prevalence of highly involving arousing experiences discussed in the section on hedonic pleasure is intriguing. Perhaps these experiences play a similar role in philopgragia to the one that making love does in romantic passion. Investiture In their work on the self-extension and social roles, Lancaster and Foddy (1988) argue that the self is defined largely in terms of social roles which often contain role-others (husband-wife, teacher-student, etc.). The role-other becomes a part of the person's extended self to the extent that a) P is responsible for the actions or behaviors of O; (b) the salience of the particular role identity is high; (c) O reflects well on P; (d) P and O's actions are harmonious. Objects, like persons, can also serve as "role-others" but in this case the phrase "props for one's identity" might be more appropriate (Rosenberg & Gara, 1985). For example when a king is crowned, the crown invests authority in the king, and as such makes him who he is. This process of self-extension might then be called "investiture" in that objects invest their users with a social identity which then defines the self. Investiture is one of the most important mechanisms for self-extension in philopgragia. Virtually every LO contributed to the respondents' identities, if only insomuch as loving music makes one a "music lover" (Levy, 1963). Chapter 15: The Emic View of Self-Extension and its Outcomes In the previous chapters we have looked at both the motivations for self-extension and the mechanisms by which it occurs. In this chapter I explore the meaning of self-extension itself to the respondents. Despite the long history and prominent place of self-extension in the psychological literature ranging from William James (1890) up to the present8, it was still surprising to find that the self-extension was a prominent part of the emic understanding of love. The notion that a LO was a part of the self was mentioned 19 times as a reason for loving an item, and the absence of a sense of integration into the self was mentioned 7 times as a reason for not loving a LO. Table 25. Frequencies for self-extension ____ All LOs |Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People was seenaspartof the self 19 | 15 |14 12 74% 80% was specifically mentioned as not 7 6 0 0 0% 0% being part of the self is in control of the respondent 3 2 1 1 33% 50% part of respondents life 13 12 11 11 85% 92% is connected to the respondent's past 28 20 10 8 36% 40% Respondents' understandings of what it means for something to be part of the self tended to overlap with the mechanisms for self-extension discussed above. These emic understandings fell into four main themes: parts of the self (1) affect or change who you are, (2) express the self, (3) form physical extensions of 8 recent work includes Aron, & Aron, 1986; Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991; Aron, Dutton, Aron, & Iverson, 1989; Belk 1988; Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton 1981; Dion & Dion, 1988; Gonzales-Crussi, 1988; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1992; Hirschman & LaBarbera, 1990; Lancaster & Foddy, @YEAR; Shimp, & Madden, 1988.

43 the brain or body, or (4) have a shared history with the respondent Perhaps the most central of these themes was the idea that LOs are part of who you are when they change you. This changing of the self can be focused on the social self by changing one's appearance, as in the woman who loved clothes shopping because "It's a way to become someone else, and start afresh" (Female, P.R. Writer, 30). Or, the spiritual self can be changed as in the following example of how books influence the respondent's perspective. (Books) participate in making me up, or how would you say they're part of me - (what do you mean when you say they're part of you?) You incorporate them in such a way that it just adds on and on and on about how you would look at life, it's sort of expansive for myself. (Female, Unemployed, 37) This idea that LOs are a part of the self, and that this involves their ability to affect and change the self, is also shown in situations where they were not considered real love. In these cases respondents sometimes explained that it isn't real love because the item doesn't change who you are. (Peanut Butter) doesn't affect the way I feel about things- The way I feel about myself and the way I feel about what I'm doing or where I'm at. (Peanut butter)'s just more immediate gratification. (Female, Engineer, 28) (Memories of past pets) are something I can call up when I want to or not call up if I don't want to. It's not something that affects my life or relationships my way of being right now. (Female, Social Worker, 29) Respondents also tacitly recognized the concept of contamination when they expressed the idea that a LO becomes a part of the self by sharing a lot of history together. For example, one respondent explained that he loved his jeans because "they are so old and comfortable and part of me" (Male, Publishing, 24 Yrs). Similarly, a women commenting on why she loved her dog said "I feel like she's a part of me. We've shared a lot of histories together" (Female, Social Worker, 29 Yrs). The self-expressive quality of many LOs was discussed earlier in the sections on self-actualization and creation as means of incorporation. Of relevance here is the fact that the emic perspective also recognized the connection between self-expression and self-extension. Now that I think about it, I think that (dancing)'s such a part of myself- It's a self-expression that's completely uninhibited and pure for myself. (Female, Actor, 26) (to write for myself) Part of me. It's something that I feel constantly surprised and kind of tickled and delighted when I find the words and the expressions and the ideas I never knew I had and I certainly can't express verbally. (Female, Social Worker, 29) Finally, some respondents also viewed LOs as a physical extension of one's brain or body. This was particularly true for photo collections and journals which served as extensions of the respondent's memory. For example, one respondent reported loving photographs because "I like to be able to keep a record of that because my memory isn't that sharp" (Female, salesperson, 30 Yrs). Research on interpersonal closeness has found two loosely related components: a sense of subjective intimacy called "feeling close" and the amount of time spent together/diversity of activities performed together which was labeled "behaving dose" (Aron, Aron, and Smollan 1992). In philopgragia respondents tended to talk about feeling close as the LO being 'part of their self', and behaving dose as the LO being 'part of their lives'. More specifically, by an LO being part of their lives respondents meant that it took up a lot of their time and energy. If it was an activity they performed it frequently, if it was an object they used it or thought about it regularly. Of the two descriptors, being 'part of the self seemed to be the stronger claim and often included instances when the LO was also part of ones life, but the reverse was not always true. The relationship between LOs as part of respondents' selves and as part of their lives brings up an interesting point about philopragia. By loving, whether it is loving people, things, activities, or ideas, we are not only creating the self but we are creating the immediate world in which the self lives. The distinction between self and other should not be taken to imply a necessary distinction between self and world. LOs are both a part of our selves and a part of the world in which we live most of our lives. By surrounding ourselves with loved objects and people we assure a level of harmony between self and the environment through making self and environment one and the same. Generally speaking, self-integration is seen in a positive light. But it

44 can viewed negatively when it is seen as usurping the individual's control over her or his own life. This loss of autonomy is a frequent complaint in interpersonal relationships and surfaced in the comments of one respondent about her love for the pure concept of family. Can I give you the drawback too? (Yes) It's because I'm not in control and other people define who I am, and have control over my behavior. This loss of control that accompanies self-extension even led one respondent to deny that selfextension was a part of love. Julie recognized the importance of self-extension in regards to possessions, but argued that this is exactly why philopgragia can never truly be love. (Including the loved object in the self) implies (that when) you that love something you sort of co-opt it and I don't see that. That's not love, thafs ownership, that's a kind of claiming that's parasitic. No, uh-huh. You're still completely individuated instead of a part of the loved thing. You can't get them into your skin as much as you want, as much you feel compelled to do that because you love them, but you can't. It's like, it's the, I know it's getting a little psychological here, it's like the urge to merge, when you love someone you want to merge, you want to completely take them in. You want them to completely take you in, emotionally, spiritually, and if you try and do that, you essentially harm the integrity of the individual selves and I said, it becomes a kind of ownership kind of thing rather than a respectful honoring. And love is honoring, not owning. As mentioned above, the importance of romantic love as a cultural value is dependent on that culture's level of individualism (Levine, 1993). Only cultures that stress individual autonomy give people freedom of choice to pursue loved people, activities, or objects. In a study of 40 cultures, Hofstede (1980; as cited by Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990) found America to be the most individualistic, and this individualism is especially strong in the psychoanalytic subculture of which Julie was a part9 (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985). However, it may well be that the relationship between love and individualism is non-monotonic10. If self-extension actually does underlie love, then an extreme emphasis on individual boundaries may hinder intimate relationships (Dion & Dion, 1988; Henkin, 1989). This incompatibility puts pressure on psychoanalytic ideologies that stress both love and individualism. In the previous quote we see an attempt at reconciling this contradiction by creating an understanding of love that leaves individual autonomy fully intact. However this loss of control is fairly rare in philopragia. Unlike interpersonal love, the love object in philopgragia is almost always under the control of the person. The one consistent exception to this rule was nature which was frequently loved precisely for its independence. (Clouds) have a complete life of their own, a complete force that's just completely it's own thing. It has nothing to do with the dress I'm wearing, or what's going on in my own personal, self-involved life. (Female, actress, 26 Yrs) Even here though, while the lover does not control the LO, he or she is also not controlled by it. This is not to say that objects don't frequently seem to take control of people. Anyone who has tried to quit smoking or cut down on fat knows what loss of control is like. It does seem to be the case however, that addictive and related items were not loved enough to be commonly mentioned by the respondents. This may reflect a finding discussed earlier that being noticeably bad for the lover is incompatible with love. Unless the control of the LO over the lover is extraordinarily beneficent, the lover is likely to resent the LO and feelings of love will decrease. Outcomes of Self-extension "If possessions are viewed as part of self, it follows that an unintentional loss of possessions should be regarded as a loss or lessening of self" (Belk, 1988). Since "loss of self" is extremely traumatic, a good test of 9 Julie was studying clinical psychology in pursuit of a pastoral counseling degree. 10 Nonmonotonic: Changes direction. As the amount of individualism increases, so does the prominence of romantic love - but only up to a point. After than point increases in individualism reduce the capacity for romantic love.

45 i I oi i the degree to which an LO is part of the self is the extent to which it would be missed if it were lost11. Similarly one could also look at the degree to which someone would be willing to sacrifice to keep the LO from being lost In light of this reasoning, it is interesting that the two most common tests respondents used to judge if they really loved an item were "how much would I miss it" and "would I be willing to sacrifice for it" (see table 26). In keeping with the conditional integration theory of love, when respondents were asked if they loved something, they tested themselves to find out if it was a part of their selves. Table 26. Strength of attachment to LO ~___~__All LOs Real LOs % Real The LO... Items People Items People Items People would be greatly missed 19 14 14 11 74% 79% would not be geatly missed 19 14 2 2 11% 14% would be worth sacrificing for 5 5 3 3 60% 60% would not be worth sacrificing for 4 4 0 0 0% 0% was just used for the respondents own 8 7 0 0 0% 0% ends i~~~ In addition to indicating the degree of inclusion of the LO within the self, both of these tests also reflect the desired level of integration. This is because they measure the amount and importance of benefits that the respondent derives from the LO. The more benefits derived, the more someone would be willing to sacrifice to maintain those benefits and the more he or she would miss them if they were lost. How do we know then, that this second explanation alone does not account for the frequent use of these tests? Perhaps when respondents asked themselves how much they would miss an item they were only concerned with the loss of the benefits it provided and self-extension had nothing to do with it? To see why this is unlikely, we need to look in more detail at the respondents' comments surrounding the use of these tests. In gauging the degree to which they would miss an item, many respondents expressed the idea that if it was really love they "couldn't live without it." The first thing that this remark does not indicate is a literal fear of loss of life or physical harm. This is brought home by one respondent who, in discussing her love of food, said, "(Love seems too strong a word for food), I could live without it." Nor is this simply a matter of the LOs practical importance. If it was, we would not have found that 74% of people who mentioned practical commercial products said their feelings were not real love, while only 30% of the people who mentioned art forms claimed they were using the word love loosely. Rather, the notion that loss of the LO can engender great hurt because it is part of the self is concisely expressed in the following quotes. Here a woman explains why even though artichokes give her pleasure, she doesn't consider them to be real love. I think if artichokes were exterminated from the face of the earth....I just think there's just something funny and wonderful about artichokes, but if they were exterminated, I would be maybe pissed off because I couldn't have my artichoke, but I wouldn't be changed in any way. They don't really affect me one way or the other except that it's nice that they're there. (italics added) (Female, Social Worker, 29 Yrs) Next, a respondent contrasts art work (a real love) to clothing. I like how clothes make me look - some clothes. If someone were to take them or burn them, I would feel a little sad but it wouldn't really affect me that much. With art, I'd feel that someone had taken a part of me. Art work is very personal. (italics added) (Female, Lawyer, 34) Recall that being changed by a LO is central to its being part of the self. What these respondents mean then, is that if these LOs were lost they would forfeit the benefits they gets from artichokes and clothing, but that type of loss is not enough to pass the "couldn't live without it" test. Real loved objects are part of who you are because they change who you are. Therefore, when they are lost the "you" that you are now does not go on existing. In a sense then, "you" cannot live without them. 11 This test was also used by Stemberg (1986, p. 123) to distinguish between love and friendship, but Sternberg did not derive this test from a self extension theory.

46 This notion of love as self-extension also explains the willingness of respondents to sacrifice for the LO in a way that simply trying to prevent the loss of benefits does not. Self-sacrifices can be divided into two types, investments and altruism. Examples of investments include the following statement from a respondent talking about his bass. '" sacrificed a lot to be able to play the instrument and to work with it" The sacrifice being described here is really an investment in which the respondent hopes to receive great psychic rewards in the future from mastering his instrument. Altruism12 on the other had does not involve this type of expectation of future reward. You will recall from the discussion of intrinsic concern that intrinsic motivation is sometimes mis-defined as "doing something for its own sake". While this is a poor definition of intrinsic motivation, it is a good start towards a definition of altruism. Doing something for its own sake implies a situation in which a person is not motivated by a desire to change how they feel, but rather to change the external world. We will coin the term "heterokinic motivation" (from the Greek "hetero" meaning "other" and "kinesis" meaning "to change") to describe this type of situation. Altruism, in which a person cares about something not for any reward (psychic or otherwise), but truly for its own sake, is the best known type of heterokinic motivation. Heterokinic motivations extend beyond altruism, though, because they include the motivation to harm or just to make something different, as well as to help (see table 27). Table 27. Typology of motivations Ultimate goal is a Ultimate goal is a state subjective experience of the external world Action directly brings about Intrinsic motivation Direct heterokinic the ultimate goal motivation Action is instrumental in Extrinsic or instrumental Indirect heterokinic bringing about the ultimate motivation motivation goal_ Altruism can be directed at objects as well as people. For example, several of the respondents voiced the opinion that nature should be protected even if it means humans derive no benefits from it whatsoever. In this value system, humans are asked to have an I-Thou relationship with nature, in which nature's needs are considered valid in their own right. However, it is difficult to tell the extent to which respondents had altruistic or other heterokinic concerns for their LOs. This is not altogether surprising given that the general difficulty of attributing an action to heterokinic motivations has made the debate over the existence of altruism one of the oldest in philosophy. The basic problem is that people tend to be efficient. If we can accomplish more than one goal with a single action we will. Therefore it is almost always the case that actions have multiple motivations, making it difficult to tell if any given motivation is present since other goals can explain the action just as well. Even if we cannot tell the extent to which respondents value LOs "for their own sake" without regard to any benefits they might receive, it is clear from the data that respondents think they should feel an altruistic concern for a LO if the relationship is to qualify as love. As table 26 shows, seven respondents talked about valuing the LO simply to benefit themselves, and none of these respondents termed this real love. The love prototype then, is more than a list of rewards to be received from the LO. It also includes a spontaneous need to benefit the LO for its own sake, or at least to believe one is doing so. As DeRivera (1984) said in his concise definition of love: love is the extension of "the self to the other who is experienced as good in his or her own right" (p.49). In a sense, the conditional integration theory can easily explain the importance of perceived altruism in love. The philosophy of ethics is filled with arguments for why one should act in the interest of others, yet it seems to require no argument for people to be motivated to act in their own interests. The motivation to benefit the self appears to be self-evident. Therefore, if in love the LO becomes part of the self, the desire to benefit the LO will take on this same self-evident quality. Hence, altruism becomes an aspect of the love prototype. 12 There is a lengthy debate in philosophy and psychology as to whether altruism really exists. However, evidence reviewed by Batson and Shaw (1991) and Piliavin and Charng (1990) strongly suggests that "the popular and parsimonious explanation of prosocial motivation in terms of universal egoism must give way to a pluralistic explanation that includes altruism as well as egoism" (Batson & Shaw, 1991; p. 107).

47 While this reasoning explains the data, it also raises complex ethical issues. If in love the other becomes part of the self, is this really altruism at all? Is there a way to understand self extension that still allows for altruism? Or is this whole issue really a non-problem. If through love people treat other people and objects in a more caring way, what does it matter if this is because they view them as part of the self? These questions are beyond the scope of the present work. But they represent important issues that need to be addressed in the psychology of self. Chapter 16: Conclusion This chapter is divided into four sections. The first 3 compare the conditional integration theory to some of the major previous theories of love. The fourth section concludes the dissertation with a speculative discussion of the relationship between philopragia and interpersonal love. Figure 10. Summary of the conditional integration theory of love Love Pleasure 1 ---- 1) Felt loyalty achievement _ * I =integradon fr | | lw4. inest iLO ~meanin~g- -----— and Survival andHigh.....Atalevel of High security ~ ~ ~ ~ s ~~~~:-~~~~Z,,,,,.;~;~,,,.,.-.,.:o: ~ ~ ~~;self integration Would MechanSocial neeiss of Interation 1) Creation 2) Physical incorporation 3) Cognitive incoporatlevel on 4) Contamination & boundary breaking experiences ) Invest it ture Placing th al Integration Theory in Context Figure 10 summaries e conditional integration theory of love developed above. The foremost distinction between this theory and most of those reviewed in section I is the scope of phenomena being explained. While many theories could serve as definitions of subtypes of love, they are generally not broad 5) Investiture Figure 10 summarizes the conditional integration theory of love developed above. The foremost explained. While many theories could serve as definitions of subtypes of love, they are generally not broad enough to cover the full range of loves discussed here or uncovered by Fehr and Russell (1991; see table 28). Excepting prototype theory, the major theories of love are limited to interpersonal love and frequently focus on romantic attraction. These theories would have to be significantly re-worked in order to cover the full domain of love. It is also worth noting that despite the overwhelming interest in romantic love as a basis for theorizing, the popular understanding sees maternal love as the most prototypic case13 (see table 28). The 13 Eighty four respondents generated a total of 216 types of love, of which 93 were mentioned by more than one respondent. Only semantically identical responses were considered to be of the same type, and only data on the 93 types of love mentioned be more then one person were published.

48 conditional incorporation theory fits well with this finding because maternal love is also the clearest possible case of love as a form of self-extension, as the child was literally at one time a part of the mother's body. Table 28. Varieties of love %of No. of times Respondents Mean Love Type Mentioned1 Denying it is Prototypicality Love2 Rating3 Philopragia Of pets4 10 Of life4 8 Of nature4 7 Patriotic 7 58 3.57 Of animals4 6 * Of God4 4 Honesty4 4 Materialistic4 4 Of sports 4 75 2.95 Of art4 3 * * Of food 3 77 2.76 Of money 3 80 2.62 Of books 2 76 2.90 Of work 2 68 3.29 Interpersonal5 Mother's 20 6 5.48 Friendship 51 14 4.95 Romantic 19 2 4.86 Passion 19 36 3.86 Admiration 4 75 3.38 Lust 14 87 2.15 * Asterisk indicates that information was not available 1cumulative number of times mentioned by 84 respondents. 2 Respondents (N=118) were asked to determine if the love type was a genuine form of love. 3 Respondents (N=40) were asked to rate how good an example of love the given love type was on a scale ranging from 1 (extremely poor example of love) to 6 (extremely good example of love). 4 These love types were not included in the analysis of prototypicality or the number of Ss who did not consider them to be love. 5 These examples of interpersonal love were selected from a larger list in order to provide a baseline of comparison for the philopgragia types. Although prototype theory also applies outside the context of interpersonal relationships, it is complimentary to rather than competitive with conditional integration theory. Prototype theory seeks to understand how non-academics define love and what phenomenon are associated with love. Conditional integration theory begins with the popular prototype of love and then develops a more abstract theory intended to describe the underling psychological processes that link the attributes of the love prototype together. Conditional integration theory is the direct descendent of Aron and Aron's (1986) work on love and the expansion of the self. Therefore it is important to describe the similarities and differences between the two approaches. In Aron and Aron (1986) the authors do not present a formal definition of love, but they imply that love is synonymous with self-expansion. The first modification then, involved redefining love from

49 being synonymous with self-expansion to seeing love as a function of two variables: the actual level of integration into the self, and the desired level of integration into the self. This change gave rise to the name "conditional integration theory of love" on the grounds that integration only led to love if it was desired. This change was made to deal with a potential problem arising from seeing love as synonymous with self-expansion. This definition would imply that anything which is a part of the self must be loved. However, while that extra few pounds of fat one has been meaning to lose are certainly part of the self, that does not mean they are loved. This problem reaches Kafka-esque proportions when one considers that some people don't love themselves. If the Arons were strictly correct, this would imply that for people with low self-esteem, their selves were not part of their selves. The conditional integration theory handles these situations easily because love only occurs when both the desired level and the actual level of integration are high. When certain aspects of the self, or even the whole self, are held in low regard they fall into the area labeled rejection and are not considered loved. In fairness to the Aron's it should be noted that they later clarified their position by defining self integration as the construct underlying interpersonal closeness rather than love per se (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991; Aron, Aron, & Smollan, 1992). This position avoids the problem of people who don't love themselves (there is no such thing as a person who is not close to him/herself), and is completely consistent with the conditional integration theory. The conditional integration theory of love also differs from Aron and Aron (1986) in its conceptualization of motivation. The Arons base their model of love on a theory of motivation which sees self expansion as the fundamental drive underlying all human behavior. The current research makes no attempt to postulate a universal theory of motivation and instead limits its discussion to motivations for love. Furthermore, the current theory does not see self expansion as an end in itself. Rather it sees self expansion as a means by which other needs are met. These needs were discussed in chapters 7-12 and are summarized in the left margin of figure 10. Finally, Aron and Aron (1986) see passion as resulting from the psychological turbulence caused by the rapid integration of the other into the self. They therefore account for the common cooling of passion over time by saying that as the LO approaches complete integration with the self, the rate of incorporation slows and eventually stops. This decrease in the rate of incorporation is experienced by the lover as a decrease in passion within the relationship. The conditional integration theory agrees that certain intense emotional states associated with love are caused by the turbulent process of fusing with the LO (or perhaps "script disruption" (Beach & Tesser, 1988)). However, the current theory ads the idea that a significant element of passion is a sense of yearning for, or desire for fusion with, the LO. Hence, passion also occurs in situations were the desire for integration exceeds the actual level of integration, even if the rate change in the level of integration is very slow. Typologies Vs Single Definitions of Love One of the basic questions underlying the research on love is to what extent is it a unitary phenomena which can be described through a single theory or definition, versus to what extent is it a collection of phenomenon requiring a typology of love styles etc. Because the conditional integration theory of love offers a single general theory aiming to explain the underlying psychological phenomenon of love it would seem to be in conflict with the various typologies of love described in the literature review. However, while the conditional integration theory offers a single definition of love, it does not imply that the experience of love will be the same across individuals or situations (see Steinberg and Grajek, 1984, p. 327). Hendrick and Hendrick (1989) found passion and intimacy (called "warmth" in the figure) to be the primary components of love. Figure 10 shows that these two components can be explained within the basic framework of the theory where passion is seen as the experience of the desire for integration with the other, and warmth is the experience of that union. But even beyond this distinction, other qualitative differences in the experience of love are allowed by the conditional integration theory. To understand this point an analogy between love and eating can be illustrative. On a construct level, eating is a single activity. However, the experience of eating differs radically depending on the food being eaten, just as the experience of love may depend on the person or object being loved. Furthermore, it is possible to construct typologies of different types of eaters (gourmets, anorexics, etc.) just as people have constructed different typologies of love styles. Lastly, the physical environment and social situation may radically alter the experience of eating, from a family picnic to a formal dinner to a sacrificial feast. Similarly, the experiences associated with love can also be seen as social constructions with diverse meanings, even though a single principle of conditional integration underlies them all.

50 This distinction between love as an abstract construct and the subjective experience of love can explain why some researchers end up with a single definition of love, and others end up with a typology. For example, Lee contends that no single definition of love is possible because love is experienced in such diverse ways by different people. Therefore Lee claims that his love styles each represent a different definition of love. Given the empirical support for Lee's typology, it would be foolish to deny that love is approached in a diverse number of ways. I contend, however, that Lee's love styles are not radically different types of love, but rather different ways in which a single underlying phenomenon is experien ced. Specifically, one could view Lee's love-styles as different strategies for dealing with the conflicts that are inevitable in love. For example, because love is the conditional integration of self and other, it leads to the conflict of connectedness vs. autonomy. Ludos (game-playing love) feigns connectedness, but is never really willing to release autonomy. Mania (obsessive love), on the other hand, opts for total connectedness but is left anxious and jealous due to the vulnerability that results from such a loss of autonomy. I believe the rest of Lee's lovestyles can be explained in similar ways based on other conflicts inherent in love or perhaps on individual difference variables. Loving Vs Liking Another major research question is the relationship between loving and liking. This also showed up frequently in respondents discussion of LOs. The general conclusion that can be drawn from these discussions is that loved objects appeal to the respondent on many levels. The more levels on which an object can benefit its lover, the more fully integrated it can become into his or her life. As the following quote about eating shows, it was not enough for a LO to provide pleasure; to be truly loved it must also resonate with deeper meanings within the individual. (Eating) It's a very simple, sensual experience, and it doesn't really have other dimensions to it. It's satisfying of appetites. They can be sophisticated appetites or simple appetites; it's just fulfilling your craving for hunger. But it's just self-satisfaction. It doesn't really have any other dimensions to it. (Male, record store manager, 31 Yrs) However, being associated with these deeper meanings alone was also not enough. For an object to be loved it had to be beautiful and pleasurable and of the highest quality and meaningful. When objects were not appreciated on multiple levels they tended to be labeled "liked" or "enjoyed." The Experience of Philopgragia and Interpersonal Love The preceding discussion argued that love could be seen as a single construct even though differences existed in the nature of how love is experienced between individuals and situations. The question that now arises is: How large is the difference between the experience of conditional integration one has in philopgragia and the experience of conditional integration one has with a person? Table 29 (next page) depicts four possible positions on the similarity of product-love and interpersonal love. I will argue that for some individuals interpersonal love and philopgragia are identical, but in most cases they are best seen as similar. This research suggests two primary reasons why the experience of philopgragia and interpersonal love would differ. First, the culturally constructed meanings attached to human beings are generally significantly different from those of objects. This is particularly true in the area of sacredness in which "the sacredness of the individual" is a cherished cultural norm but it is often considered inappropriate or excessively materialistic to see objects (save religious objects and art) in this way. Second, people are far more complex and responsive then objects or activities and therefore philopgragia is unilateral to a degree that interpersonal love is not. True, one could present some good arguments that this distinction is illusory. For example, one could argue that unrequited love constitutes unilateral interpersonal love, but unrequited love is experienced as inherently painful and is therefore not an appropriate as a sole model for philopragia (Baumeister, Wotman, & Stillwell, 1993). Next, one could question just how mutual interpersonal relationships really are. Research on couple's beliefs about the relationship and each other shows that each individual's perceptions tend to be so different from their partner's that it's as if they were in two separate relationships. As Steinberg writes, "the other to whom we relate is, in some sense, at least as much our conception of the other, as it is that other as he or she exists in reality" (Steinberg 1987 p. 179). A related finding comes from Marston et al. (1987), who write that "many lovers employed no relational constructs in their definition of love, but rather used only physiological responses or behavioral actions. This indicates that love need not be conceived in strictly relational terms,

51 even when love is reciprocated" (p. 404). Nonetheless, Sternberg (1987) also points out that "one's perceptions of the other's feelings toward oneself clearly do matter for satisfaction" (p. 178), and since objects are rarely felt to return our love, the experience of philopgragia must to some extent differ from interpersonal love. Table 29. Contrasting views on philopragia and interpersonal love Love of People vs. Products is.... % _ Same -c Identical -I O Different I Metaphor Similar Projection.J I I There are many types of love experiences, but any experience that exists for interpersonal relationships also exists in philopragia. People may be loved more then products, or certain love experiences may be more common of people then of products. But all types of love exists for both people and products. -r Both philopgragia and interpersonal love share the same underlying processes, but they are manifested so differently that it is misleading to say they are identical. Furthermore, some experiences commwnin interpersonal love may not be possible philopragia. I Conditional integration theory is incorrect and overly general. Love is basically interpersonal in nature, and developed over time to facilitate social relationships related to procreation. However, people can project what is fundamentally an interpersonal phenomenon onto products or other objects. I. The theory of love as conditional integration is incorrect and overly general. Love exists only between people. Any use of the term as applied to products or other objects is strictly metaphorical. Finally, if one wanted to argue that both experiences of love could be identical, one could point out that whether or not products can objectively return our love is of no consequence; rather it is "one's perceptions of the other's feelings toward oneself" that count. Several respondents anthropomorphized LOs and perceived them to return their affection. For these respondents the experience of philopgragia may not by systematically different from that of interpersonal love. However, philopgragia is a widespread phenomenon and is not limited to these unusual (if highly interesting) cases. On the other extreme I also disagree with Shimp and Madden who see love only as providing "a useful metaphor for characterizing consumer-object relations" (p. 163). They contend that product-love is not 'real' love, because "love by its very nature involves a relationship between two people and not the two people individually" (p. 163). While this position echoes the preceding discussion, I think it goes too far and is overly influenced by normative considerations that love should take place within a healthy, caring, reciprocal relationship. When many writers talk about "real" love, they are assuming that love is the apex of all virtues, and therefore anything that is not completely consonant with their values must be less than genuine. While I personally believe that some types of love are better than others, it is not helpful to deny some phenomena the label "love" to avoid bestowing upon them the legitimacy that is implied by the term. Denying some types of love the label "love" is especially problematic given the diversity of opinions as to what is virtuous. I am reminded of Protogenes' argument for the superiority of homosexual love in Plutarch's Dialogue on Love, in which he claims that "Genuine Love has no connection with the women's quarters. I deny that it is love that you have felt for women and girls - any more than flies feel love for milk, or bees for honey, or than caterers and cooks for the calves and fowl they fatten in the dark" (Gonzalez-Crussi 1988). The final position that philopgragia is a projection of an interpersonal phenomenon into inappropriate situations comes out of the application of evolutionary theory to the nature of love and mateselection (Bernard, Adelman, and Schroeder 1991, Buss 1988, Feingold 1990, Howard, Blumstein, and Schwartz 1987, and Shaver and Hazan 1988). These theorists are concerned with the behavioral outcomes of love. They stress its development as an evolutionary adaptation designed to promote procreation and maintain viable families to ensure that the offspring reach adulthood. Like the proponents of the metaphor

52 position, evolutionary thinkers14 might reason that love is really about interpersonal relationships. But unlike the metaphor proponents, they might say that philopgragia is real love, but it is projected onto inappropriate objects. My objection to this position is that it seems to impose an unnecessary simplicity on human nature. While these evolutionary theories can do a persuasive job of explaining the broad outlines of human behavior, they often do little to illustrate its complexities. Furthermore, even if one were to stay within an evolutionary paradigm, one would still not need to assume that product-love was merely a misapplication of a phenomenon that was "intended" for interpersonal relationships. One could even posit evolutionary arguments for the importance of philopgragia as an adaptive mechanism in its own right The objective of this dissertation was the construction of a theory of love that would be applicable across a wide variety of love objects. After learning that genuine love of things other than people was a fairly common occurrence (at least when the respondents are defining authenticity), the major themes of the love prototype were sketched out and these themes were linked together through the development of the conditional integration theory of love. Finally it was argued that in some instances the experience of philopgragia was essentially identical to interpersonal love but in most cases it was best to see it as similar, the key differences being in the level of sacredness in the relationships and the extent of reciprocity. Therefore, although all forms of love may share the same underlying process at the construct level, it is still possible for (in the words of Matt Groening) "different people (to) mean different things at different times when they use the world love.' Beware." 14 To my knowledge none of the aforementioned scholars have ever stated a position on this issue. It is not my intention to impute this position to them personally, but rather to state what I see as one possible view that might be held by evolutionary theorists.

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