Saturday, February 12, 2022

Five Love Languages Model

 


The Five Love Languages model was developed by Gary Chapman. Based on his clinical work, Chapman hypothesized that partners in relationships communicate love in different preferred ways and anticipate different expressions of love.

Based on his observations, he identified five expressions of love. The idea is that one or two of these “love languages” or expressions are more preferred than the other expressions. And each partner may have a different order of preferences.

Words of Affirmation (e.g., words of appreciation and affirmation; express kindness)

Quality Time (e.g., focused attention without interruption and without giving advice)

Receiving Gifts (giving gifts, which need not be expensive; the gift of time during a crisis)

Acts of Service (e.g., completing tasks for them)

Physical Touch (e.g., sexual and nonsexual)

These five expressions have been operationalized in a 30-item scale, which is called a quiz in online presentations.

Psychotherapists and lay people have found the measure and the theory useful. Several books offer suggestions on how the five love languages work for individuals and couples.

A Critique of Five Love Languages

Researchers Impett, Park, and Muise examined evaluated the Love Languages concept (2024). One reason for the investigation was the limited scientific evidence supporting Love Languages. In Table 1 of their analysis, the authors provide evidence that does not support three core assumptions.

A Few Examples

1. Instead of having a primary love language, people gave high ratings to all of the love languages.

2. Analyses do not find consistent results for a five-factor structure.

3. High relationship satisfaction does not appear restricted to a love language match. Relationship satisfaction may be associated with all expressions of love.

The authors suggest a different metaphor in their abstract:

We offer an alternative metaphor that we believe more accurately reflects a large body of empirical research on relationships: Love is not akin to a language one needs to learn to speak but can be more appropriately understood as a balanced diet in which people need a full range of essential nutrients to cultivate lasting love. Impett et al., 2024

 

See Impett et al. (2024) for the evidence supporting their findings.


The concept of love fits in the E dimension of the SCOPES model. Thoughts about love and behavioral expressions fit in the C and O dimensions and reflect the common cognitive-affective-behavioral approach to human functioning. There are of course two important contextual basis for understanding love. The biological component of love is reflected in the P dimension and the relationship context in the S dimension. Finally, The S for the core Self is vital to understand how a person integrated their loving experience as part of their self-identity and self-esteem.

References

Bland, A. M., & McQueen, K. S. (2018). The distribution of Chapman’s love languages in couples: An exploratory cluster analysis. Couple and Family Psychology: Research and Practice7(2), 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1037/cfp0000102

Chapman, G. (2015). The 5 love languages. Chicago: Northfield.

Impett, E. A., Park, H. G., & Muise, A. (2024). Popular psychology through a scientific lens: Evaluating Love Languages from a relationship science perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214231217663

 Key words:  love, emotion, relationships

Note

Thanks to Richard Sima for his AP article (January 15, 2024) citing the work of Impett and her team.

Related posts

Five Love Languages Test

Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale

 

One of Chapman's popular books- The Five Love Languages



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