Juvenile Love Scale: A Child’s Version of the Passionate Love Scale

Abstract

The Juvenile Love Scale (JLS) is a psychological instrument developed in 1983 by Elaine Hatfield and colleagues as an adaptation of the adult Passionate Love Scale (PLS). It is specifically designed to measure the intensity of passionate love in children and adolescents ranging in age from 3 to 18 years.

Defined by its developers as assessing “a state of intense longing for union with another,” the JLS captures cognitive, emotional, and behavioral indicators of this desire, often characterized in younger populations as “puppy love” or “infatuation.” The scale is available in two forms: a 15-item short form and a 30-item long form, both of which are considered exact equivalents of the adult PLS, differing only in language complexity suitable for younger respondents.

Keywords

Juvenile Love Scale, JLS, Passionate Love, Passionate Love Scale, Adolescent love, Infatuation, Child psychology, Psychological measurement.

Authors

Elaine Hatfield, Danielle Young, Marilyn Easton.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Juvenile Love Scale (JLS) is to provide a reliable and valid measure of passionate love for use with younger age groups, specifically children and adolescents (ages 3–18). It addresses the conceptual relevance of measuring intense romantic feelings—often dismissed as trivial “puppy love”—in developmental populations.

By offering an exact equivalent to the adult Passionate Love Scale (PLS), the JLS allows researchers to investigate the developmental trajectory and continuity of intense romantic attachment and desire for union across the lifespan, enabling comparative studies between children, adolescents, and adults.

Construct

The JLS measures the psychological construct of Passionate Love, which is characterized by a state of intense preoccupation and emotional longing for union with a specific person. This construct encompasses a complex mix of feelings, including ecstasy when the love is reciprocated and anxiety or despair when it is unrequited or threatened.

The items within the JLS tap into three primary dimensions of this intense emotional state: cognitive indicants (e.g., obsessive thinking about the loved one), emotional indicants (e.g., happiness, sadness, or anxiety related to the relationship), and behavioral indicants (e.g., desire for physical proximity, touching, and shared identity).

Validity

Evidence supports the construct validity of the Juvenile Love Scale (JLS), primarily through its demonstrated equivalence with the adult Passionate Love Scale (PLS).

• Convergent Validity: Studies involving older children and adolescents completing both the JLS and the PLS showed nearly identical scores. Correlations between the two scales were exceptionally high (r = .88 for children and r = .87 for adults), confirming that both instruments effectively measure the same underlying construct of passionate love.

• Criterion-Related Validity: Research by Greenwell (1983) found that individuals who reported having experienced passion or being “in love” scored significantly higher on both the JLS and PLS compared to those who had never experienced such feelings.

• Related Constructs: Furthermore, the JLS/PLS scores in adolescents were found to be related to other relevant psychological traits. For instance, children and adolescents prone to anxiety tended to score higher on the scale, suggesting meaningful connections with dispositional factors.

Reliability

The JLS exhibits high internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability, demonstrating its stability and precision in measuring passionate love.

• Internal Consistency: Across various research samples, the JLS consistently yielded exceptionally high coefficient alphas, ranging from **.94 to .98**. This indicates that the items within the scale are highly inter-correlated and reliably measure a singular construct.

• Equivalence and Item Correspondence: The high correlation between the JLS and the PLS (r = .87 to .88) serves as evidence of reliability, confirming the JLS’s effectiveness as a children’s version. Item-by-item analysis demonstrated high inter-correlations, with 67 items correlating in the .25 to .50 range, 221 in the .51 to .75 range, and 59 in the .76 to 1.00 range when comparing items across the long versions of both the JLS and PLS (total 60 items).

Factor Analysis

Although explicit results from a formal factor analysis are not detailed in the source material, the high degree of internal consistency (alphas up to .98) and the demonstration of high item-by-item inter-correlations strongly suggest that the Juvenile Love Scale is a highly cohesive, likely unidimensional measure of intense, passionate longing, consistent with the theoretical framework of the adult PLS.

Instrument

Test Type:

Self-report psychological inventory (Likert-type rating scale).

Format:

The JLS is available in a short form (15 items) and a long form (30 items). Responses are captured using a 9-point response scale (1 = Agree Very Little to 9 = Agree Very Much).

Language Available:

English (as presented in the source content).

Population Group:

Children and Adolescents.

Age Group:

3 to 18 years of age.

Population Details:

The scale is adapted for different developmental levels: young children (ages 3–7) require specialized, hands-on administration using physical blocks and a large “ruler” to teach the 9-point scale. Older children (age 7 and above) can use the standard paper-and-pencil method employed for the adult PLS.

Test Methodology:

The JLS is typically administered individually, especially for younger participants (3–7 years). For older children (7+), group administration is possible. Administration time for the short (15-item) version is approximately 25 minutes, and the long (30-item) version takes about 40 minutes, including time required for scale instruction.

Keywords

Passionate love, Juvenile Love Scale, PLS, Child development, Emotional intensity, Romantic attachment, Psychological assessment, Construct validity.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier:

Not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses:

Elaine Hatfield: [email protected]

Correspondence Address:

Elaine Hatfield, 2430 Campus Road, Honolulu, HI 96822.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Juvenile Love Scale (JLS) is copyrighted by Elaine Hatfield and Marilyn Easton. Permission for use is automatically granted to all clinicians and researchers wishing to utilize the scale in their work, free of charge. The scale was developed in 1983.

Scoring Interpretation (for 30-item long form, based on Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986):

• 106–135 points = Wildly, recklessly, in love

• 86–105 points = Passionate but less intense

• 66–85 points = Occasional bursts of passion

• 45–65 points = Tepid, infrequent passion

• 15–44 points = The thrill is gone

Note: The standard scoring procedure involves simply summing the individual item scores to produce a total score. Interpretations are generally used to investigate group differences rather than providing definitive individual diagnoses.

Reference’s

• Greenwell, M. E. (1983). Development of the Juvenile Love Scale. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu.

• Hatfield, E., Brinton, C., & Cornelius, J. (1989). Passionate love and anxiety in young adolescents. Motivation and Emotion, 13, 271–289.

• Hatfield, E., Rapson, R. L., & Martel, L. D. (2007). Passionate love and sexual desire. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen. (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 760–779). New York: Guilford Press.

• Hatfield, E., Schmitz, E., Cornelius, J., & Rapson, R. (1988). Passionate love: How early does it begin? Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality, 1, 35–52.

• Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1986). Measuring passionate love in intimate relations. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 383–410.

• Hatfield, E., & Walster, G. W. (1978). A new look at love. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

Items of the Juvenile Love Scale: A Child’s Version of the Passionate Love Scale

Instructions for both scale forms: We are trying to find out how children feel when they love somebody in a very special way. Some children think about a special person a lot, get very excited about him or her, and want to get very, very close. Sometimes we call this a “crush.” Please list on the lines that follow the name of the eight people you have loved or liked most in your life:

Name Male or female

1.                                                                     

2.                                                                     

3.                                                                     

4.                                                                     

5.                                                                     

6.                                                                     

7.                                                                     

8.                                                                     

Now draw a circle around the name of the person you’d feel most excited about seeing right now or used to get excited about seeing if that person isn’t around anymore. Do not choose mother, father, or brother or sister. If you aren’t excited about him/her right now, try to remember how you felt when you did feel the most excited. If you don’t think you have ever felt very excited, try to answer anyway, remembering how you did feel.

Each question is followed by a 9-point rating scale. If you circle the 9, it means you agree very much with what the item says. If you circle the 1, it means you agree very little with what the item says. Try to circle the number that most closely explains how you do feel.

Juvenile Love Scale (Form A)

1. I feel like things would always be sad and gloomy if I had to live without    forever.

2. Did you ever keep thinking about   when you wanted to stop and couldn’t?

3. I feel happy when I am doing something to make    happy.

4. I would rather be with    than anybody else.

5. I’d feel bad if I thought    liked somebody else better than me.

6. I want to know all I can about     .

7. I’d like     to belong to me in every way.

8. I’d like it a lot if     played with me all the time.

9. If I could, when I grow up I’d like to marry (live with)     .

10. When        hugs me my body feels warm all over.

11. I am always thinking about     .

12. I want    to know me, what I am thinking, what scares me, what I am wishing for.

13. I look at    a lot to see if he/she likes me.

14. When

15. When I think is around I really want to touch him/her and be touched. might be mad at me, I feel really sad.

Possible answers range from

Juvenile Love Scale (Form B)

1. When        is around I laugh and cry more often.

2. I feel like things would always be sad and gloomy if I had to live without    forever.

3. Sometimes I feel shaky all over when I see      .

4. Sometimes I think it is fun just to watch    move around.

5. Did you ever keep thinking about   when you wanted to stop and couldn’t?

6. I feel happy when I am doing something to make    happy.

7. I would rather be with    than anybody else.

8. I’d feel bad if I thought    liked somebody else better than me.

9. No one else could like    as much as I do.

10. I want to know all I can about     .

11. I’d like     to belong to me in every way.

12. I will always like     .

13. I feel all happy inside when    looks at me and I look at     .

14. I’d like it a lot if     played with me all the time.

15. If I could, when I grow up I’d like to marry (live with)     .

16. When is the person who can make me feel the happiest. hugs me my body feels warm all over.

17. I feel all soft and happy inside about     .‌

18. I am always thinking about     .

19. If I were away from    for a long time I would be very lonely.

20. Sometimes I can’t do my school work because I am thinking about     .

21. I want    to know me, what I am thinking, what scares me, what I am wishing for.

22. Knowing that    cares about me makes me feel more like I am OK.

23. I look at    a lot to see if he/she likes me.

24. If     needed help from me, I’d stop what I was doing, even if it was lots of fun and go help him (her).

25. When can make me feel bubbly, like coke.

26. ___  is around I really want to touch him/her and be touched.

27. Living without    would be very, very sad.

28. I want to hug    very, very tight.

29. When I think    might be mad at me, I feel really sad.

Possible answers range from