Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to all those who have supported and guided me in my quest for a graduate degree in psychology, including my loving husband Chance Lawson, my unconditionally supportive parents William and Patricia Hoss, my exceptional adviser Judith Langlois, and the numerous friends and colleagues I have made at the Children's Research Laboratory.

aim and background: considering to adverse consequences of infidelity on couples well-being and longevity of marital relationships, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between love schemas and justifications for extramarital involvement and affairs in married women. method and materials: this was a descriptive-correlation study and the samples included 250 married women who...

A leading theory of romantic love is that it functions to make one feel committed to one's beloved, as well as to signal this commitment to the beloved (Frank, 1988). Because women tend to be skeptical of men's commitment, this view entails that men may have evolved to fall in love first, in order to show their commitment to women. Using a sample of online participants of a broad range of ages,...

The bifurcated treatment of love and lust dates to antiquity. The study of love as an academic subject is nearly a century old, with the sentiment covered in introductory textbooks of social psychology. Psychologists, primatologists, neuroanatomists and neurophysiologists came to see love—defined as an intense and complex feeling of deep affection—as responsible for long-term coupling and close...

The relationship between love and the symbiotic phase of childhood is explored from a new angle in terms of a conflict between "the woman I love" and "the woman I cannot live without." Love requires dependency, but it can also lead to giving up independent existence; then it becomes inimical to the relationship.

Background: Failure to establish and maintain close romantic relationships with commitment can hinder an individual’s development and have adverse effects on his/her well-being in life due to the potential emergence of serious problems. The present study aimed to investigate the relative effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and schema therapy on love trauma syndrome and self...

Mature love requires the establishment of a sustained relationship with a romantically attractive, non-incestuous object toward whom a certain amount of ambivalence can be tolerated and in relationship with whom affection and sensuality can both be expressed and received. This concept underscores the necessity to have mastered the oedipal realities of childhood (eg, feelings of smallness, rival...