Passionate Love Scale

Abstract

The Passionate Love Scale (PLS), developed by Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher (1986), is a seminal psychological instrument designed to quantify the intensity of passionate love. This construct, often contrasted with companionate love, is characterized by an intense state of longing for union with another person. The PLS systematically assesses the multifaceted nature of this emotion by measuring its three primary components: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.

The cognitive components include intrusive thinking and idealization; the emotional components cover sexual attraction and feelings of despair or ecstasy; and the behavioral components involve actions aimed at maintaining physical closeness and determining the partner’s feelings. The scale is available in a 15-item version (Form A, the most common), an alternative 15-item version (Form B), or a combined 30-item version. While originally validated on North American young adults, the PLS has been translated into numerous languages and adapted for use with diverse populations, demonstrating its wide applicability in cross-cultural and developmental research on romantic relationships.

Keywords

Passionate Love Scale (PLS), passionate love, romantic love, infatuation, relationship science, psychological measurement, psychological scale, Elaine Hatfield, Susan Sprecher.

Authors

Elaine Hatfield, Susan Sprecher.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) is to promote and facilitate rigorous empirical research into the intense and often volatile experience of passionate love. Before its publication in 1986, researchers lacked a standardized, reliable tool to measure this specific form of romantic attachment, which Hatfield and Walster (1978) defined as “a state of intense longing for union with another.”

The scale allows researchers and clinicians to quantify the degree of passionate intensity experienced by an individual toward their partner. It has been instrumental in exploring diverse topics, including cross-cultural variations in love, the neural bases of romantic attachment, the correlates of sexual desire, and changes in love intensity across the family life cycle.

Construct

The PLS is specifically designed to measure the construct of passionate love, differentiating it from other forms of attachment like companionate love. Passionate love is conceptualized as a syndrome incorporating intense psychological and physiological states, which the scale dissects into three main component domains:

• Cognitive Components: These involve mental preoccupation with the partner, including intrusive thinking, idealization of the partner or the relationship, and a strong desire for mutual understanding (to know the other and be known by them).
• Emotional Components: These encompass feelings such as intense attraction (especially sexual attraction), experiencing positive emotions when the relationship is going well, negative feelings when challenges arise, a strong longing for reciprocity, a desire for permanent union, and physiological arousal.
• Behavioral Components: These are manifested through actions such as actively trying to determine the partner’s feelings, studying the other person, providing service to the partner, and actively seeking and maintaining physical closeness.

Validity

Evidence supports the construct validity of the PLS. The scale has demonstrated positive associations with other conceptually similar measures of love and relationship quality (Aron & Henkemeyer, 1995; Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989; Sprecher & Regan, 1998), suggesting it successfully captures the intended psychological construct.

Furthermore, an important finding regarding its psychometric strength is that the PLS is uncontaminated by social desirability bias. Hatfield and Sprecher (1986) reported a nonsignificant correlation between PLS scores and scores on the 1964 Crowne and Marlowe Social Desirability Scale, confirming that participants’ responses on the PLS reflect genuine feelings rather than an attempt to present themselves favorably.

Reliability

The Passionate Love Scale exhibits strong internal consistency reliability. In the original 1986 study, Hatfield and Sprecher reported high coefficient alpha values: .91 for the common 15-item version (Form A) and .94 for the combined 30-item version (Forms A and B). Subsequent research (e.g., Sprecher & Regan, 1998) has consistently corroborated these high levels of reliability, confirming the scale’s internal consistency across different samples.

Factor Analysis

Psychometric investigation into the structure of the PLS suggests that the scale is primarily unidimensional. A principal components factoring analysis typically reveals one dominant primary factor, indicating that, despite measuring various cognitive, emotional, and behavioral facets, the items coalesce to measure a single, overarching construct: the intensity of passionate love.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire / Psychological scale

Format: Multiple-item Likert-type scale (15-item Form A, 15-item Form B, or 30-item combined)

Language Available: Translated into many languages (originally North American English)

Population Group: Initially developed for young adults, subsequently revised for administration to children and diverse cross-cultural samples.

Age Group: Children through adulthood

Population Details: Used extensively in research concerning romantic relationships, marital satisfaction, sexual desire, and cross-cultural psychology. The average score for young adults across the items is approximately 7 on the 9-point scale.

Test Methodology: Participants are presented with statements and asked to indicate how true the statement is of them. Responses range from 1 = Not at all True to 9 = Definitely True. Scoring can be represented by the mean or the sum of the ratings, with higher scores indicating greater passionate love.

Keywords

Passionate Love Scale, PLS, relationship quality, sexual desire, emotional components, cognitive components, behavioral components, psychometrics, romantic attachment.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected] (for Elaine Hatfield)

Correspondence Address: Elaine Hatfield, 2430 Campus Road, Honolulu, HI 96822.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was published in 1986 (Hatfield & Sprecher). The PLS is copyrighted by the authors (Hatfield and Sprecher, 1986). However, explicit permission is granted to all clinicians and researchers who wish to use the scale in their research free of charge.

Reference’s

• Aron, A., Fisher, H., Mashek, D. J., Strong, G., Li, H., & Brown, L. L. (2005). Reward, motivation, and emotion systems associated with early-stage intense romantic love. Journal of Neurophysiology, 94, 327–337.
• Aron, A., & Henkemeyer, L. (1995). Marital satisfaction and passionate love. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 12, 139–146.
• Aron, A., Norman, C. C., Aron, E. N., McKenna, C., & Heyman, R. (2000). Couples’ shared participation in novel and arousing activities and experienced relationship quality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 273–284.
• Bartels, A., & Zeki, S. (2004). The neural correlates of maternal and romantic love. Neuroimage, 21, 1155–1166.
• Beck, J. G., Bozman, A. W., & Qualtrough, T. (1991). The experience of sexual desire: Psychological correlates in a college sample. The Journal of Sex Research, 28, 443–456.
• Crowne, D. P., & Marlowe, D. (1964). The approval motive: Studies in evaluative dependence. New York: Wiley.
• Fehr, B. (2005). Prototype-based assessment of laypeople’s views of love. Personal Relationships, 1, 309–331.
• Graham, D. L., Rawlings, E. I., Ihms, K., Latimer, D., Foliano, J., Thompson, A., et al. (1995). A scale for identifying “Stockholm syndrome” reactions in young dating women: Factor structure, reliability, and validity. Violence and Victims, 10, 3–22.
• Grote, N. K., & Frieze, I. H. (1994). The measurement of friendship-based love in intimate relationships. Personal Relationships, 1, 275–300.
• 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., & Sprecher, S. (1986). Measuring passionate love in intimate relations. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 383–410.
• Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (January 19, 2004). In Jeffrey Kluger, Why we love,” Time Magazine, p. 60. The original Time Magazine article and scale interpretation can be accessed online: http://www.time.com/time/2004/sex/scale
• Hatfield, E., & Walster, G. W. (1978). A new look at love. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
• Hendrick, C., & Hendrick, S. S. (1989). Research on love: Does it measure up? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 784–794.
• James, P. (2007). Effects of a communication training component added to an emotionally focused couples therapy. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 17, 263–275.
• Landis, D., & O’Shea, W. A., III. (2000). Cross-cultural aspects of passionate love: An individual difference analysis. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31, 754–779.
• Sprecher, S., & Regan, P. C. (1998). Passionate and companionate love in courting and young married couples. Sociological Inquiry, 68, 163–185.
• Tucker, P., & Aron, A. (1993). Passionate love and marital satisfaction at key transition points in the family life cycle. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 12, 135–147.

Items of the Passionate Love Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Passionate Love Scale (Form A)

We would like to know how you feel (or once felt) about the person you love, or have loved, most passionately. Some common terms for passionate love are romantic love, infatuation, love sickness, or obsessive love.

Please think of the person whom you love most passionately right now. If you are not in love, please think of the last person you loved. If you have never been in love, think of the person you came closest to caring for in that way.

Try to describe the way you felt when your feelings were most intense. Answers range from (1) Not at all True to (9) Definitely True.

Whom are you thinking of?

Someone I love right now.

Someone I once loved.

I have never been in love

• I would feel deep despair if left me.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9a

Not at all True Definitely True

• Sometimes I feel I can’t control my thoughts; they are obsessively on .
• I feel happy when I am doing something to make happy.
• I would rather be with than anyone else.
• I’d get jealous if I thought were falling in love with someone else.
• I yearn to know all about .
• I want physically, emotionally, mentally.
• I have an endless appetite for affection from .
• For me, is the perfect romantic partner.
• I sense my body responding when touches me.
• I want always seems to be on my mind.
• to know me—my thoughts, my fears, and my hopes.
• I eagerly look for signs indicating ’s desire for me.
• I possess a powerful attraction for .
• I get extremely depressed when things don’t go right in my relationship with .

Total:

Results:

106–135 points = Wildly, even 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

Passionate Love Scale (Form B)

We would like to know how you feel (or once felt) about the person you love, or have loved, most passionately. Some common terms for passionate love are romantic love, infatuation, love sickness, or obsessive love.

Please think of the person whom you love most passionately right now. If you are not in love, please think of the last person you loved. If you have never been in love, think of the person you came closest to caring for in that way.

Try to describe the way you felt when your feelings were most intense. Answers range from (1) Not at all True to (9) Definitely True. Whom are you thinking of?

Someone I love right now.

Someone I once loved.

I have never been in love.

• Since I’ve been involved with , my emotions have been on a roller coaster.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9a

Not at all True Definitely True

• Sometimes my body trembles with excitement at the sight of .
• I take delight in studying the movements and angles of ’s body.
• No one else could love like I do.
• I will love forever.
• I melt when looking deeply into ’s eyes.
• is the person who can make me feel happiest.
• I feel tender toward .
• If I were separated from for a long time, I would feel intensely lonely.
• I sometimes find it difficult to concentrate on work because thoughts of occupy my mind.
• Knowing that cares about me makes me feel complete.
• If were going through a difficult time, I would put away my own concerns to help him/her out.
• can make me feel effervescent and bubbly.
• In the presence of , I yearn to touch and be touched.
• An existence without would be dark and dismal.

Total:

Results:

106–135 points = Wildly, even 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