• THE MEANING OF LOVE

People appear to have a basic need or desire to be with other people, just as most animals prefer to be with other members of their species. Part of the need is sexual in origin and biologically adaptive, because the two sexes must get together in order to reproduce the species. The need to affiliate with others includes sexual contacts, but it is much broader, including various types of emotional interpersonal attachments that may grow out of natural contact incentives as outlined in Chapter 4. What has always Struck observers about this need is how important it is to life and health, how pervasive it is, and how it appears in many different forms. The word love is commonly used to describe various types of affiliative ties, and everyone agrees that it is important to satisfy the love need, yet no one is quite sure, in the words of a popular song, “What is this thing called love?” Before we review modern psychology's attempt to answer this question, it will be helpful to turn first to an ancient treatment of the topic in Plato's Symposium. The Speakers at this banquet, as reported by Plato, managed to mention most of the important themes that have characterized discussions of the psychology of love ever since.