Perception, Experience and Assessment of Romantic Love in Relation to Temperament and Attachment Styles

Abstract

The current research was carried out to explore the perception, experience and assessment of romantic love in relation to temperament and attachment styles among adults in Lahore, Pakistan. The research comprised of three parts. Part I (study 1 & 2) consisted of qualitative studies; part II (study 3 & 4) indicates the scale development along with instrument translations and part III (study 5) is based on the quantitative study. Participants age ranges varied from 19 to 60 years (M = 21.13, SD = 11.31) and education BA/BSc (Hons) to PhD. Perception of Romantic Love Scale (PRLS) was developed by using the data of study one and two while four scales such as Structure of Temperament Questionnaire Compact-77 (STQC - 77) Revised Adult Attachment Scale (RAAS) Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) and UCLA Loneliness Scale was translated from English to Urdu language by using Brislin (1976) forward-back translation procedure. Results indicated that the media portray the spirit of romantic love in classic way while its contemporary perception and experience has changed with the passage of time. There exist multiple similarities and differences in the portrayal of romantic love in fiction (idealistic/fantasy), empirical evidences (realistic/facts) and from classic to contemporary (time & place). Attachment styles and patterns of temperament have significant positive relationship with the perception of romantic love. Implications of the study were discussed in light of Pakistan cultural context.