Love

Research on love has identified a distinction between passionate love and
companionate love. Passionate love involves intense, short-lived emotions
and sexual attraction. In contrast, companionate love is calmer, more stable,
and based on trust. Companionate love is strong friendship. Researchers assert
that if passionate love lasts, it will eventually calm down and become
transformed into companionate love.
Researcher Zick Rubin developed a scale to measure love and liking. He
found that statements of love involved attachment, intimacy, and caring.
Statements of liking involved positive regard, judgments of similarity, trust,
respect, and affection. Liking or friendship is not simply a weaker form of
love but a distinctive combination of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. Rubin
found that most dating couples had strong feelings of both love and liking
for each other; however, follow-up research confirmed that the best predictor
of whether partners were still together later was how much they had
liked—not loved—each other. Liking and friendship form a solid basis for
love and other relationships that is not easily altered or forgotten.