To me, Love is ...: Analysis of Student Attitudes and Experience of Romantic Love

Love is certainly one of the most appealing aspects of emotional life and human behavior, which are rarely investigated in our environment, although there is a growing interest about this subject in the world (eg. Medora et al., 2002; Masuda, 2003; Watts & Stenner, 2005; Hendrick & Hendrick, 2005; Neto, 2007). Therefore, the research was conducted with the aim of learning how students of different ages experience love; what their attitudes toward romantic love are and whether some socio-demographic data are associated with attitudes toward the subject of measurement. The study involved 503 students who filled in Knox's Attitudes Toward Love Scale and in one sentence expressed their personal perception of love. This paper presents a quantitative and qualitative analysis of data pointing to a moderate expression of the romantic attitude of participants toward love. Through analysis of the examined demographic variables, it was shown that participants who grew up in a rural area and those who are very religious expressed a more romantic attitude toward love. Participants expressed their experience of love through the following categories: emotion, motivation, social relations and behavior. According to the statements of participants, it can be concluded that participants experience love as a complex emotion, motivated by physical and spiritual needs, which in the sense of partnership begins by infatuation and then develops into a relationship marked by unilateral or reciprocal behaviors of giving and receiving.