Love and Romance Heredity Case Study
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Love and Romance Heredity Case Study
In Case Study 10.1, we learned how psychologists relied on twins to measure the contributions of heredity to various traits. Suppose a study were to find that identical (monozygotic) twins had highly correlated scores on a certain trait but that pairs of adult friends did not. Why would that not be sufficient evidence to conclude that genetic factors were responsible for the trait?
Case Study 10.1
Are Attitudes about Love and Romance Hereditary? Are you the jealous type? Do you think of love and relationships as a practical matter? Which of the following two statements better describes how you are likely to fall in love? My lover and I were attracted to each other immediately after we first met. It is hard for me to say exactly when our friendship turned into love. If the first statement is more likely to describe you, you would probably score high on what psychologists call the Eros dimension of love, characteristic of those who “place considerable value on love and passion, are self-confident, enjoy intimacy and self-disclosure, and fall in love fairly quickly” (Waller and Shaver, 1994, p.268).
However, if you identify more with the second statement, you would probably score higher on the Storge dimension, characteristic of those who “value close friendship, companionship, and reliable affection” (p. 268). Whatever your beliefs about love and romance, do you think they are partially inherited, or are they completely due to social and environmental influences? Psychologists Niels Waller and Philip Shaver set out to answer the question of whether feelings about love and romance are partially genetic, as are most other personality traits. Waller and Shaver studied the love styles of 890 adult twins and 172 single twins and their spouses from the California Twin Registry.
They compared the similarities between the answers given by monozygotic twins (MZ), who share 100% of their genes, to the similarities between those of dizygotic twins (DZ), who share, on average, 50% of their genes. They also studied the similarities between the answers of twins and those of their spouses. If love styles are genetic, rather than determined by environmental and other factors, then the matches between MZ twins should be substantially higher than those between DZ twins. Waller and Shaver studied 345 pairs of MZ twins, 100 pairs of DZ twins, and 172 spouse pairs (that is, a twin and his or her spouse).
Each person filled out a questionnaire called the “Love Attitudes Scale” (LAS), which asked them to read 42 statements like the two given earlier. For each statement, respondents assigned a ranking from 1 to 5, where 1 meant “strongly agree” and 5 meant “strongly disagree.” There were seven questions related to each of six love styles, with a score determined for each person on each love style. Therefore, there were six scores for each person. In addition to the two styles already described (Eros and Storge), scores were generated for the following four:
■ Ludus characterizes those who “value the fun and excitement of romantic relationships, especially with multiple alternative partners; they generally are not interested in mutual self-disclosure, intimacy or ‘getting serious’ ” (p. 268).
■ Pragma types are “pragmatic, entering a relationship only if it meets certain practical criteria” (p. 269).
■ Mania types “are desperate and conflicted about love. They yearn intensely for love but then experience it as a source of pain, a cause of jealousy, a reason for insomnia” (p. 269).
■ Those who score high on Agape “are oriented more toward what they can give to, rather than receive from, a romantic partner. Agape is a selfless, almost spiritual form of love” (p. 269).
For each type of love style, and for each of the three types of pairs (MZ twins, DZ twins, and spouses), the researchers computed a correlation. The results are shown in Table 10.1. (They first removed effects due to age and gender, so the correlations are not due to a relationship between love styles and age or gender.) Notice that the correlations for the MZ twins are lower than they are for the DZ twins for two love styles, and just slightly higher for the other four styles.
This is in contrast to most other personality traits. For comparison purposes, three such traits are also shown in Table 10.1. Notice that for those traits, the correlations are much higher for the MZ twins, indicating a substantial hereditary component. Regarding the findings for love styles, Waller and Shaver conclude: This surprising, and very unusual, finding suggests that genes are not important determinants of attitudes toward romantic love. Rather, the common environment appears to play the cardinal role in shaping familial resemblance on these dimensions. (p. 271)
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48-1 points
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Love and Romance Heredity Case Study