The Meaning of the Word: Love
The Meaning of the Word: Love
1. According to the American Psychological Association (APA)
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines love as a complex emotion involving strong feelings of affection and tenderness for the object of love, pleasant sensations in his presence, devotion to his well-being and sensitivity to his reactions to oneself.
Although love takes many forms, including concern for one’s fellow human beings (fraternal love), parental love, erotic love, self-love and identification with the totality of being (God’s love), the love triangle theory, which proposes three essential components: passion, intimacy, and commitment. Social psychology research in this area has largely focused on passionate love, in which sexual desire and excitement predominate and companion love, in which passion is relatively weak and commitment is strong.
2. According to Merriam-Webster
Love is a strong affection for another arising from kinship or personal ties. Love is warm attachment, enthusiasm or devotion. Furthermore, love is an object of attachment, devotion or admiration. According to Merriam-Webster, love is also defined as a loyalty and kindness without strings attached and is a concern for the good of others.
3. According to the Cambridge Dictionary
Love means liking other adults very much and being romantically and sexually attracted to them or having strong feelings for a friend or someone in the family.
4.Urban Dictionary
According to Cosmopolitan magazine, love is the act of caring and giving to others. Have someone’s best interests and well-being as a priority in your life. To truly love is a selfless act.
A psychosexual, relationship and psychotherapist, Sarah Calvert told Cosmopolitan that loving someone is about accepting them for who they are. Even the things you might not like about them, like how messy they are. However, different people have different definitions and experiences of love and each person’s different love experiences will of course shape how love means to them.
Some would say love is one of the most important human emotions. Then, to find out how you know that you love through a scale of liking and loving, according to psychologist Zick Rubin, romantic love consists of three elements:
- Attachment, is a need to be with others and want physical contact and approval.
- Caring is an attitude of appreciating the happiness and needs of others as much as your own.
- Intimacy is the sharing of personal thoughts, feelings and desires with another person.
He further mentions that while people tend to view the people they like as likable, love is characterized by being devoted, possessive and trusting of one another.
