Cross-cultural aspects of passionate love - An individual differences analysis

Recent work has suggested that passionate love may be conceived of within cultures as an emic that may consist of several dimensions. This study explored the factor dimensionality and cultural relativity of passionate love using the Passionate Love Scale (PLS) with data from 9 samples from North America, Europe, the Middle East, and a Pacific Island and analyzed with 3 Mode Factor Analysis with Point-of-View solutions (3M-POV). A 6-factor group-common structure was found to best explain variance in PLS responses collapsed across cultures. 3M-POV hierarchical clustering procedures yielded 6 idealized cultures separated by gender. Principal component analysis of PLS responses by idealized culture groups revealed unique factor structures for each of these groups. These results suggest passionate love to be a multifactorial construct uniquely defined within cultures.