NAMA : QORI SETYADARMA

NIM : 5.16.03.06.0.026

PRODI ILMU PEMERINTAHAN/A (FISIP) LOVING

In research on attraction, as in research on altruism, most investigators have usually
studied what is most easily studiedresponses during brief encounters between strangers
rather than during ongoing relationships. Such responses are not trivial, for first impressions
often endure. Even in the face of disconfirming evidence, initial ideas often persevere. What
is more, that which initially influences our liking of anotherproximity, attractiveness,
similarity, being liked-also influences the development of our long-term close relationship.
The impressions that dating couples and college roommates quickly form of each other tend
therefore to predict their long-term future. Indeed, if roommates in United States flourished
randomly, without regard to proximity and similarity, then most Chatolics (being a minority)
would marry Protestants, most black would marry whites, and college graduates would be as
apt to marry high school dropouts as fellow graduates.

So, first impressions arc important and predictive. Nevertheless, recognizing that
loving is not merely an intensification of initial liking, social psychologists are shifting their
attention from the mild attraction experienced during first encounters to the study of
enduring, close relationship.

What is this thing called love? Loving is more complex than liking, and thus more
difficult to measure, more perplexing to study. People yearn for it, live for it, die for it. Yet
only in the last few years has loving-despite Senator Proxmires scornbecome a serious
topic in social psychology.

One line of investigation has been to compare the nature of love in various close
relationshipsame sex friendship, parent-child relationships,and spouses or lovers. These
investigation reveal some elements of love that are common to all loving relationships:
mutual understanding, giving and receiving support, valuing and enjoying being with the
loved one. Although such ingredients of love apply equally to love between best friends or
between husband and wife, they are spiced differently depending on the relationship. For
example, romantic love, especially in its initial phase, is distinguished by sexual desire, an
expectation of exclusiveness and an intense fascination with the loved one.

DAVID G. MYERS Social Psychology