Compassionate love in romantic relationships: A review and some new findings - Beverley Fehr, Cheryl Harasymchuk, Susan Sprecher, 2014

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• n summary, people’s approach to love, or their love “style”, has implications for how compassionately they love their romantic partner.

• hose who take a romantic, passionate approach to love also report high levels of compassionate love for their partner as do people who see love in friendship-based terms

• They define compassionate love as a positive global evaluation of a partner along with an accurate understanding of his or her specific strengths and weaknesses

• or an individual to express compassionate love (the final outcome in the model), his or her motives must be centered on the good of the other.

• “attitudes and actions related to giving of self for the good of the other”

• Compassionate love has been identified as one of the major types of love experienced in relationships

• a major force in the development of romantic relationships

• argued that the focus on romantic love has obscured the fact that people experience a variety of other kinds of love in relationships, including compassionate love.

• compassionate love is one of four fundamental kinds of love that romantic partners can experience for one another

• compassionate love plays an important role in predicting relationship satisfaction and stability.

• This definition was intended to apply to a variety of targets, including known and unknown others.

• More specifically, she maintained that the following characteristics must be present (to varying degrees) in order for an experience to qualify as compassionate love: free choice (the giver extends this kind of love out of his or her own volition), an accurate understanding of the other’s needs and feelings, valuing the other at a fundamental level, openness and receptivity to the other, and a “response of the heart” (emotional engagement with the other)

• she argues that romantic love is often hormonally driven and can be motivated by fulfillment of one’s own needs and desires. Compassionate love differs from sympathy and empathy in that compassionate love is not just an emotional response but includes taking actions that alleviate the other’s suffering

• compassionate love also includes actions that promote the flourishing of the other, not just reducing distress

• Motivations that are inappropriate or focused on self-gain will impede the expression of compassionate love.

• Compassionate love is an attitude toward the other(s), either close others or strangers or all of humanity; containing feelings, cognitions, and behaviors that are focused on caring, concern, tenderness, and an orientation toward supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), particularly when the other(s) is (are) perceived to be suffering or in need.

• defined compassionate love as “concern for another’s welfare and taking actions to promote it, regardless of whether those actions are perceived to result in future benefits to the self”

• Berscheid suggests that this kind of love may develop early on in a relationship but is only put to the test when support and sacrifice are required over an extended period of time.

• The features that received the highest ratings were “trust,” “honesty,” “caring,” “understanding,” and “support.

• To conclude, as discussed earlier, the idea that compassionate love involves giving of oneself for the good of another is a common thread in most experts’ conceptions of compassionate love.