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The Social Construction of Love

Yale University

Robert J. Sternberg

Yale University

What does it mean to love someone? In particular, does it mean the same thing across time and space, or does its meaning change with context? Is the emotional experience of love, regardless of how people define love, always the same, or does the experience of love vary with context? In this article, we argue for a social-constructionist view of love, according to which both the definition and the emotional experience of love are contextually bound. We review both the social history and the psychological backdrop of love, concluding that we can understand love only in terms of cultural conceptions of (a) the beloved, (b) the feelings that accompany love, (c) the thoughts that accompany love, and (d) the actions, or the relations one has with the beloved.

Key Words: culture • love • social construction

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