Love,Liking,and Trust in Heterosexual Relationships

Abstract

The construct validity of Rubin's love scale and Driscoll, Davis, and Lipetz's distinction between romantic and conjugal love were assessed by administering love, liking, and trust scales to casual dating, exclusive dating, engaged and married couples. Discoll et al's (1972) finding that love and trust are more strongly related for married than unmarried couples was replicated, though only when couples served as the unit of analysis. Also, the construct validity of Rubin's love scale received additional confirmation against criteria of the known groups method by a rough correspondence between type of relationship and love scale scores. Individuals in casual dating couples had lower love scores than the other three categories and expressed more liking and trust than love for their partners. The implications of these findings and the issue of behavioral correlates of the love scale are discussed.

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References

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