Love Styles and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Previous studies by Hendrick and colleagues have uncovered male-female differences in John Alan Lee's love styles. Specifically, females have tended to be more storgic (friendship love), manic (possessive love), and pragmatic (logical love), while males have tended to be more ludic (game-playing love). In this study, the utility of the different love styles for life, work, and relationship satisfaction was examined for each sex. For the 98 women in this study, the only love style that was positively related to life satisfaction was agape (unselfish love), while the manic and ludic love styles were negatively related to life satisfaction. For the 42 men in this study, storgic and ludic love were both positively related to life satisfaction, while manic and pragmatic love were negatively related to life satisfaction. Additional sex differences were also noted. The findings suggested that the “double standard” is alive and well, at least among the university students in this study.