Mutual and unrequited love in adolescence and young adulthood

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the frequency of experiencing passionate love during adolescence and young adulthood as recalled by young adults, and to examine gender differences in this frequency. Female and male US. introductory psychology students, several of whom were of nontraditional age, responded to a questionnaire that asked about the frequency of their mutual and unrequited love experiences. Respondents provided information for four age periods ranging from childhood to age 25 years. Although the frequency of recalled mutual love experiences increased for both genders from childhood through the 16-to-20-year-age period, men reported more episodes or unrequited love during the 16-to-20-year-age period compared to (a) other age periods, (b) their reports of mutual love during that age period, and (c) the reports of unrequited love for 16-to-20-year-old women.

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Mutualandunrequitedlovein
adolescenceandyoungadulthood
ARTICLEinPERSONALRELATIONSHIPS·MAY2005
ImpactFactor:1.41·DOI:10.1111/j.1475-6811.1997.tb00127.x
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Mutual and unrequited love in
adolescence and young adulthood
CRAIG
A.
HILL,
JUDITH
E.
OWEN
BLAKEMORE,
AND
PATRICK
DRUMM
Indiuna
Univ~rsity-I’urdu~
Univevsily
ut
Fort
Wayne
Abstract
The
purpose
ol‘
the
study was
to
cxaminc
the
I‘rcqucncy
of
experiencing passionate
lovc
during
adolescence
and young adulthood
as
rccallcd by young
adults,
and
to
examine gender differences in this lrcqucncy. Female
and male
US.
introductory psychology students, several
01
whom were
of
nontraditional
age,
responded to a
questionnaire that asked
about
the
t’requcncy of their mutual and unrequited love experiences. Respondents
provided information for four age periods ranging from childhood
to
age
25 years. Although
the
frequency
of
recalled mutual love cxpcricnccs increased for
both
genders from childhood through
the
16-to-20-year-age
period, men rcportcd morc episodes
or
unrcquitcd
love
during
the
16-to-20-year-agc period compared
to
(a)
other
age
periods, (b) their reports ol mutual
love
during
tliiit
age
period,
and
(c) the reports
of
unrequited
love
for 16-to-20-year-old
women.
Some years ago Dorothy Tennov proposed
the concept
of
limerence
to
describe the ex-
perience
of
intcnse emotional and sexual
attraction for a desired romantic partner
(Tennov, 1979). Other theorists (e.g., Hat-
field
&
Rapson,
1993)
have called this same
experience “passionate love.” Although
Tennov (1979) explored the phenomenon
of passionate love with both interviews and
questionnaires, the main thrust of her evi-
dence took the form
of
personal stories of
people obsessed with passionate feelings
toward another person. Little formal statis-
tical analysis was presented
to
document
the experience of liinerence.
Tennov described the feeling
of
limer-
ence
as
having several components. These
included intrusive thinking about the per-
We
are
grateful to
Ken
Borciens for comments on an
earlier version
or
this article. We also thank Scott
Bradtmillcr
and
Nancy Fitch for assistance with data
collection.
Address reprint requests
lo
Craig Hill (c-mail ad-
dress:
HILLC<(?CVAX.IPFW.INDIANA.EDU),
Ju-
dith Blakcinore, or Patrick Drumm,
Department
of
Psychological Sciences, Indiana University-Purduc
University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN
46805-1499,
son, a strong wish for the person
to
recipro-
cate the feelings, the inability
to
have such
feelings for more than one person
at
once,
a
fear
ol
rejection, sensitivity to signs of
intcrest on the other’s part, and a tendency
to dwell on the other’s positive charac-
teristics and avoid the negative.
In
begin-
ning her work, Tennov believed that the
feeling
or
limerencc was universal. How-
ever, she eventually discovered people who
reported never having experienced such
feelings.
Since Tennov published her book, the
study
of
passionate love
has
grown enor-
mously. Elaine Hatfield and her colleagues
have accumulated considcrable evidence
concerning the nature
of
passionate love
(Hatfield, 1988; Hatfield, Brinton,
&
Cor-
nelius, 1989; Hatfield
&
Rapson, 1987a;
Hatfield, Schmitz, Cornelius,
&
Rapson,
1988; Hatfield
&
Sprecher,
l986),
a phe-
nomenon that is virtually identical to the
notion of limerence. Hatfield and her col-
leagues defined passionate love, also re-
ferred
to
as “puppy love,” “infatuation,” or
“lovesickness,”
as
a kind of infatuation that
obsessively consumes one’s thoughts. Re-
15

16
C.A.
Hill,
J.E.
Owen Blakemore, and
R
Drumm
scarch in this area (Hatfield
&
Rapson,
1987b) has focused on passionate love
as
an
emotional state with neurochemical under-
pinnings. Zt is described as a very primitive
cmotion that may first be experienced prior
to
puberty (Hatfield et al., 1988), and is
thought to be culturally and historically
universal. Hatficld and Rapson (1987b), as
well as Berscheid
(1988),
argue that
pas-
sionate love is heavily influenced by and
greatly overlaps with, sexual desire.
Arguing from
a
different theoretical
perspective, some anthropologists and evo-
lutionary psychologists construe the hu-
man experience
of
passionate love as the
product
of
natural and sexual selection
(Buss,
1988; Fisher,
1987,
1989, 1992). Buss
(I
988)
has argued that certain behavior
patterns associated with the subjective ex-
perience
of
love exist because they have
been selected through the process
of
evo-
lution. Feelings
of
passionate love result in
actions that have evolutionary significance,
like
the
choice of a mate, intercourse, con-
ception, and reproduction. Another evolu-
tionary account (Fisher, 1987, 1989, 1992)
proposes that repeatedly falling in love,
and the resulting series
of
mates, created
genetic variation in offspring that led to
their disproportionate survival. From this
account, we would expect to see people ex-
periencing repeated episodes of passionate
love.
Though rcsearchers and theorists have
described the nature of passionate love in
some dctail, both the prevalence and the
frequency
of
experiencing these feelings
have not yet been clearly established. Ten-
nov
(1
979) reported several instances of
people who had no limerent experiences, an
occurrence of unknown frequency.
Is
pas-
sionate love virtually universal, or are there
substantial individual differences in the
phenomenon‘? For example, cross-cultural
evidence suggests that reliable gender dif-
ferences exist in patterns
of
mate choice
(Buss, 1994). One
of
the predictions
of
Buss’s
(1
988) sexual strategies theory is
that males will desire a greater number
of
short-term partners than will females.
Based on this prediction, gender differ-
ences might
be
expected in the frequency
of
reported love experiences.
Few
researchers investigating passionate
love have distinguished between mutual
love and love that is not returned by the
object of one’s desire (for cxarnple,
Baumeister
&
Wotman, 1992; and Baumeis-
ter, Wotman,
&
Stillwell, 1993, discuss cxpe-
riences of unrequited love but make few
comparisons to the experience of mutual
love).
In
addition, while some researchers
(Hatfield et al., 1988) have reported that
the experience
of
romantic love occurs in
children, they have not examined how the
experience progresses developmentally
through adolescence and young adulthood.
The major purpose of the present study,
then, was to examine the frequency
of
expe-
riencing passionate love during adoles-
cence and young adulthood, as recalled by
young adults, and to examine gender differ-
ences in this frequency. Several researchers
who have studied passionate or romantic
love (e.g., Thompson
&
Borrello, 1992) be-
lieve that obsessive thought about the tar-
get
of
one’s feelings is one of the major
defining aspects of this experience. Conse-
quently, obsessive thought is the key expe-
rience we focused on in this research.
Be-
cause Tennov (1979) reported that the
mean duration of such experiences was
2
years, and because relationships may out-
live the obsessive feelings she called limer-
ence, we asked our respondents to limit
their descriptions to the first
2
years when
reporting on long-lasting relationships.
To
summarize, we asked college students
to recall their mutual and unrequited love
experiences
to
determine the hquency
of
these experiences at different ages.
In
addi-
tion, based
on
the predictions of evolution-
ary theory (Buss, 1994), we hypothesized
that males would report more of such expe-
riences than would females.
Method
Participants
One-hundred-forty introductory psychol-
ogy students
(86
females,
54
males) at a

Mutual and unrequited love
17
regional commuter campus
of
a state uni-
versity
in
the United States participated in
the study as partial fulfillment of a course
experimental requirement. Participants
ranged in age from 18 to 43 years
(M
=
22.31;
SD
=
5.92).
As
can be seen from the
range and standard deviation, several of
these students were
of
nontraditional age;
31.43%) were 22 years
of
age or older. Sev-
enty percent
of
the participants had never
been married, 7.86% were engaged to
be
married,
lS.OOo/o
were legally married, and
7.14% were separated or divorced. Most
participants (52.86%) were involved in a
serious romantic relationship, 19.28% were
dating or seeing someone, and 27.86% were
not involved in a romantic relationship. The
majority (76.43%)
of
the participants were
white, 2.86% were African-American, and
20.71
%
werc
of
some other racial/ethnic
background. Likewise, the majority were
Protestant (37.86%), 25.71
YO
were Catho-
lic, 28.57% were other religions, and 7.86%
were not identified with a religion. The ma-
jority labelled their primary occupation as
“student” (62.86%), 8.57% labelled their
occupation as “clerical or service worker,”
5.61
YO
labelled their occupation as “sales-
person,” and 22.96% employed some other
labcl.
Materials
and
procedure
Participants completed a questionnaire con-
cerning demographic information and love
experiences (both mutual and unrequited).
They were also asked about personality
characteristics and love styles; however,
these latter questions will not be discussed
in this paper. Written instructions were pro-
vided
for
each section of the questionnaire.
Demographic
in,forrnation.
The first sev-
eral questions concerned gender, age, ra-
ciallethnic background, marital and rela-
tionship status. We asked about both
relationship and marital status in two dif-
ferent questions.
Love
experience.
The second section
of
the
questionnaire focused on participants’ re-
ports
of
love
expericnccs. The
following
written instructions preccdcd the questions
about the cxperience
of
passionate love:
This study is concerned with the experience of
romantic love. This experience is sometimes
callcd “being in lovc,” “obsessive lovc,” “infatu-
ation,” “lovesickness,” “puppy love,” or “having
a crush.” When one is expcriencing this emotion,
it has been described as having one’s emotions
on
a roller coaster, finding it difficult
to
conccn-
trate, and thinking constantly about the person
with whom you arc in love. The person is said to
have the power to produce extreme highs and
lows of emotion in you, dcpcnding on how
he
or
she acts towards you.
Sometimes this feeling is reciprocated, and
the two people may be considered to
be
“in
love” with each other. Other times,
a
person may
feel this way toward someone who doesn’t re-
turn the feeling (unrequited love). In this casc,
the object
of
one’s love is sometimes highly un-
likely to return the feeling
(e.g.,
one’s physician,
teacher, professor
or
therapist, or
a
celebrity
such as a movie star or a rock musician). and
sometimes it is simply a member
oi
your social
group who simply doesn’t feel about you in the
manner you feel about them.
We would like to know about your cxpcri-
ences with this emotional state; however, we
want to separate the timcs when it was rccipro-
cated from those when you “loved” someone
who didn’t return your love.
When you complete the questionnaire, it will
be helpful to try to recollect the actual people
with whom you were “in love.” Try to remember
each
of
the experiences as vividly as you
can-exactly how you felt, the events that oc-
curred leading up
to
your feelings about the
person, and the specific ways they reacted to-
ward you, if you had contact with them. On the
scratch paper we have provided, you might
list
the people’s initials to assist you in remember-
ing. That will help you
to
be as accurate as
pos-
sible when recalling and reconstructing these ex-
periences.
You
may discard the scratch paper or
take it with you when you leave.
When you describe these experiences, only
consider those situations in which you felt this
way about someone for
at least a month’s dura-
tion.
Additionally, while the experience
of
ro-
mantic love often leads to permanent, long-term
relationships, we are
not
focusing
on
those kinds
of
relationships in this research. Therefore, when
answering the following questions, consider
only

18
C.A.
Hill,
J.E.
Owen
Blakemore, and
I?
Drumm
the,
fi’nt
two
ymrs
of
love relationships
that
lastcd
longer
than
that
time.
Do
not continue
to
dcscribe
a
long-term
love
relationship
beyond
thc
lirst
two
years
of
that
relationship.
In
order to encourage participants to re-
call
as
accurately as possible, the instruc-
tions provided specific recommendations,
such as trying to remember each experi-
ence as vividly as they could and using
scratch paper provided with the question-
nairc to list
tbc
initials
of
those who were
loved. These instructions were followed by
questions on mutual (i.e., reciprocated) and
unrcquitcd (i.e., unreciprocated) love.
Al-
though we asked participants about the fre-
quency, duration, and intensity
of
these re-
lationships, only the frequency data will be
reported here because frequency
is
the
main focus
of
the study.]
A
nulyses
Rcported frequencies of mutual and unre-
quited love were adjusted for the age pe-
riod within which the participant’s age fell
at
thc time of the survey, if the participant
had not yet reached the maximum age for
that agc period. For example, if
a
partici-
pant at the time
of
the survey
was
22 years
old, then that individual would not have
completed the
21
-to-25-year-old age range
designated
as
a
reporting period
in
the
study. Consequently, the frequency of love
experience reported by that individual
would cover only one-fifth of the specified
age period. These data were therefore pro-
jected based
on
(a) participants’ actual
ages;
(b)
the proportion
of
the age period
participants had completed; and (c) the fre-
quency they reported.2 Projected frequen-
cies were included with the unmodified re-
ported frequencies in analyses examining
differences across age periods, depending
on the participant’s age.
Two sets of analyses were conducted:
one that included
all
participants and a sec-
ond analysis that comprised the subset
of
participants who were older than 20 years.
In the analysis that included all participants,
a
3
(age period)
X
2 (gender)
X
2 (type of
love) repeated measures analysis of vari-
ance (ANOVA) was used to determine
whether there were developmental differ-
ences in males’ and females’ reports of mu-
tual and unrequited love. Age period and
type of love were within-subject factors.
Gender was a between-subjects factor.
To
examine differences in frequencies
reported for the earlier age periods with the
21-to-25-year age period, a second repeated
measures analysis
was
conducted with all
four age periods included in the age-period
factor; however, the second analysis in-
volved only those participants who were
older than 20 years
(N
=
50). Comparisons
among means were conducted employing
Tukey’s honestly significant difference
method in order to examine the pattern
of
the means for the significant effects
(p’s
for
all comparisons
<
.05).
I.
lntcnsity was assessed
on
a
7-point Likcrt scale,
with
7
reprcsenting the greatest intensity.
The
incan
intcnsity
of
mutual lovc was 4.63
lor
men and
4.W
lor
wonicn,
t(
135)
I
.41,
p
>
.05.
Thc mean
intcnsity of unrequited love was 3.95 for men and
3.74 for women, t(lO6)
=
0.65,p
>
.05.
Duration
of
passionatc
lovc experiences was estimatcd within
thc
following intervals:
(a)
less than 3 months,
(13)
3
to
6
months, (c)
6
months to
1
year,
(d)
1
to
2
ycars,
and
(c)
2 or more years. These intervals were
codcd as
1
through
5,
respectively. Mean values for
duration of mutual love experiences were 2.99 for
men
and
3.5
I
for women,
t(
13.5)
=
2.86,
p
<
.01;
that is about
6
months to
1
year.
Mean
values for
duration
of
unrequited love experiences were 2.01
lor
men and 2.45
lor
women,
t(
112)
=
2.07,
p
<
.05;
that
is
betwecn 3
and
6
months.
Results
All respondents reported at least one love
experience, although nine individuals
2. Thus for the 16-20-year-agc pcriod:
at
age
18,
pro-
jected frequency
:
reported frcqucncy
X
1.67,
and
at
age 19, projected frequency
=
rcported fre-
quency
X
1.25. Similarly,
for
the 21-25-year-age
pcriod, at age 21, projected frequency
=
reported
frequency
X
5; at age
22,
projected frequency
=
re-
ported frequency
X
2.5; at age
23,
projected fre-
qucncy
=
reported frcqucncy
X
1.67; and at age
24, projected frequency
=
reporlcd frcqucncy
X
1.25.

Mutual and unrequited
love
I
0
(6.43%) reported only one episode, with
the sole experience for all nine rcspon-
dents involving mutual love. Additionally,
three respondents (2.14%) reported no
mutual love experiences evcr, although all
of them rcported more than one unre-
quited love expericnce. At the othcr ex-
trcme, 29 individuals (20.7
1
%)
reported
more than five mutual lovc expericnces
and more than five unrequited love expe-
riences. More generally, the average
number
of
rcported experiences was 10.6
1
(no differcnce was round between men
and women); the median numbcr was
X.00,
and the modal numbcr was
4.
The average
number of mutual love experiences was
5.35; the median number was 4.00, and the
modal numbcr was 1.00. The averagc
number of unrequited love cxperienccs
was 5.26; the median number was 3.00, and
the modal number was
0.00.
The corrcla-
tion between the overall frequency
of,
mu-
tual and unrcquited love was .21
(p
<
.(IS).
positive but certainly not large.
Frequency o/'mutual and unrequited love
across
four
uge periods
The adjusted mcan number
of
times that
respondcnts reported expcriencing mutual
and unrequited love for three of the four
age periods (because not all participants
were older than 20 years of age) can
be
hound in Table
1.
To
determine whether
passionate love occurs more frequently at
certain developmcntal periods than others,
the values were subjected to a repeated
measures analysis
of
variance, including
two within-subjects factors-uge
period
when the love was experienced (youngcr
than 10 years old, 10-15 years old, 16-20
years old) and
t.ype
of
love
(mutual or un-
requited)-and one between-subjects fac-
tor,
gender
of
respondent.
Threc effects
were statistically significant in this
ANOVA: (a) age period when the passion-
ate love was experienced, F(2, 276)
=
92.04,
p
<
.0001;
(b) the two-way interac-
tion
of
gender and typc
of
love (mutual
vs. unrequited),
F(1,
138)
=
6.71,
p
<
.011;
and (c) the three-way interaction
of
gen-
der,
age
period, and type
ol
love,
Ic(2,
276)
=
7.6X,
p
<
,001.
With rccpect
to
the
cllect
loi
age
period,
thc mean number
ol
tiincs
I
cspondcnls rc-
ported experiencing love before
1
he
dgc
of
10
was 0.74 times (collapsing acro5s gcncicr
and type ot love),
I.%
times
from
10
to
15
years old, and 2.29 times
1
rom
I6
to 20 yen
old. Compai
icons
among
the
mccins indi-
cated that
all
means
were
significantly
dil-
fercnt lrom the other
mcms.
1171s
piltcrn
ol
ditfcrcnces
suggc5ts
thd
thc rrcclucncy
01
cxpcriencing love increased dcro4s
c,ich
4y
period, regardless
of
gender.
Although thc repented mccisui
cs
ANOVA revealed a 5ignilicant
cllcct
lor
the two-way interaction
bctwccn
gender
and type
of
love, comparisons
mwng
1
he
mean trcquencics tor each lcvcl
ol
the
con-
bined factors revealed no signilic<int dillcr-
enccs. Consqucntly,
this
ctlcct
will
not
be
discussed further.
With respect to
the
three-way rntcrac-
tion
among gender, age period, dnd type
ol
love, thc mean frequencies lor
each
levcl
of the thrcc factors arc presented
in
Idble
I.
The pattern
of
dittercnccs
suggests
thot,
although the frequency
of
tnulud love
in
creased tor both men and women across
the three age periods, the pattcrii was dil-
fcrent tor unrequited love For
mcilcs,
the
mean numbcr
of
reported unrcyuiicd
cx-
pcriences
increa4ed s~gnilic~iiitly
t
rom
youngcr
lo
older age
peiiod5,
with unrc
quited expcnences outnum bcring mutual
cxperienccs in the 10-1
5
md 16-20
,igc
pc-
riods and pcaking between
I6
and 20 years
ot agc. For women, the mean iiumbcr
of
reported unrequited
experiences
incrc,ised
significantly, but moderatcly, between the
ages of
10
and 15 ycars,
and
rcm,iincd
cs-
sentially the samc between
16
mcl
20 yc'irs
The most pronounced
eflcct,
thcrclorc, 'tp-
pears to be the markedly higher lrcqucncy
of unrequited lovc reported by
men
in
late
adolescence (16
to
20 ycarc
old),
(a) com-
pared
to
other agc periods, (b) compared
to the experience of mutual love reported
during the 16-to-20-year pcrtod,
and
(c)
compared to the experience ot unrequited
love reported by women in the
lalc
adolcs-

20
C.A.
Hill,
J.
E.
Owen
Blakemcm,
and
P
Drumm
l’able
1.
Means and
,Ytun(iard
deviations
of
the frequency
of
mutual
and
unrequited
rotnatalic
lovr
rrculled
lor
three age
periods
Jbr
all
respondents
Men
Womcn
Var
ia
b
Ic
M
S
n
M
sn
Mutual
Lovc
Youngci
than
10
ycars
old
0.6P
1
.l6
0.5
1
A
0.89
10-15
yedrs
old
1.13” 1.23 1.3
1‘3
1
.hO
I6
20
years
old
2.26” 2.23 2.50‘ 2.21
Younger
than
10
ycai
b
old
1.04A
I
.72
0.80*
1.62
10-15
yca1s
old
I
.80‘%
2.18 1.36” 2.05
16-20
ycn1s
old 3.06‘
‘
2.80 1.621’
‘
2.02
lim
cquitetl
Lovc
Norca:
l+xliicncy
Iclcrs
to
the nunihcr
ol’
times
respondents
experienced romantic
love
or
inlatuation.
“Youngcl-
th;rn
10
years
old”
1-
lore
the
age
of
10:
“10-15
yea
’
to
the
nuinhcr
of
times
respondents experienced romantic
love
hc-
Id”
rcfcrs
to
the number
of
times they cxpcricnccd romantic love
igcs
of
10
and
IS,
ctc.
Means
within gender
and
type
ol‘
love
that
arc
marked with
dil-
ript
Ictlcrs
arc
significantly dillcrcnt
at
p
<
.05.
Means within
age
period and gender
(across
type
01
love)
ni;irkcd with asterisks
(:h)
arc
significantly different
at
p
<
.OS.
The significant
dilfci.cncc
hctwccn
iiicn
;ind
women
lor
unrcquited
love
froin
16-20
years
old
is denoted
with
a
iliifigcr
(I)
symbol
(p
<
.05).
N
=
54
incn and
86
women.
cent period.
Iii
short, these data indicate
that, although both men and women re-
ported the highest frequencies
of
mutual
love during
latc
adolescence,
inen
tended
to report even higher levels
of
unrequited
lovc during
this
age period, whereas
women reported lower levels compared
to
iiicii
and
compared to their experience of
mutual love.
7’hc
frequency
of
both types
of
love was
also
analy/ed separatcly
for
those who
were
older than
20
years
(N
=
50)
at the
time
of
the study to examine the reports
ot
pa4sionatc
love during the 21
-to-25-
year-old
agc
period.
As
before, a repeated
mea4urcs analysis was conducted, cniploy-
ing
two
within-subjects factors-age
~?erzod
when the passionate love was experienced
(younger than
10
years old, 10-15 years
old,
16-20
years
old,
21-25 years old) and
gyw
of
lovr (iiiutual or unrequited)-and
one hctwecn-sul7jects lactor, gender
of
re-
spondent. Again, a main ef€ect was ob-
tained for agc period when the passionate
love was experienccd,
F(3,
144)
=
17.21,
p
<
.OOOl.
The two-way interaction of gen-
der and type
of
love (mutual vs. unre-
quited) was also significant,
F(1,
48)
=
4.99,
p
<
.03,
although no differences were
significant in post hoc comparisons
of
means. While the three-way interaction of
gender, age period, and type of love was
not significant,? the two-way interaction
between age period and type
of
love was
significant,
F(3,
144)
=
2.67,
p
<
.05.
With respect to the effect for age period
for participants 21 years and older, the
mean number
of
times respondents re-
ported experiencing love before the age of
10
was 0.76 times (collapsing across gender
and type of love; see Table 2), 1.20 times
from
10
to
15
years old, 2.00 times from 16
to
20
years old, and 1.43 times from
21
to
25
years old. The only significant difference
was between the mean frequency of experi-
encing love before the age
of
10
(M
=
0.76)
and the mean frequency for the 16-20-year
3.
Another analysis was also conducted with only the
three carliest age groups,
as
was done
Tor
the cntii-e
sample.
In
this analysis, the thrcc-way interaction
for gender, age period, and
type
of
love was signifi-
cant,
F(2,
96)
=
3.41,
p
<
.OS,
as
was found
for
the
entire sample.

Mutual and unrequited love
21
Table
2.
Means and standard deviations
of
the frequency ofmutuul
and unrequited romantic love recalled for
four
age perioh for
respondents 21 years
of
age and older
Variable
M
s
I1
Mutual
Low
Younger than
10
years
old
10-1
5
ycars
old
16-20
ycars
old
21-25
years
old
Unrequited
Love
Younger than
10
years
old
1
&I
5
years
old
16-20
years
old
21-25
years
old
0.42" 0.79
1.24"9" 1.52
2.12': 1.72
1.78Rq': 1.60
0.68"
1.32
1.34A.B 2.21
2.06H 2.42
I
.09"
2.48
Note:
Frcquency refcrs to
the
number
oC
timcs respondents expcricnwd romantic
lovc
or infatuation. "Younger than
10
ycars
old" refcrs
lo
the number
ol'
timcs
re-
spondcnts cxperienced romantic love
hcforc
thc agc of
10;
"10-15
ycars old"
rcfcrs
to
thc number of timcs they expericnccd romantic love bctwccn thc ages
of
10
and
15,
etc. Mcans within type of love that are markcd with different supcrscripl letters
arc significantly diffcrent at
p
<
.05.
N
=
20
men and
30
women.
period
(M
=
2.09). Although the pattern of
differcnces in general was similar to that
obtaincd for all participants, the results ad-
ditionally suggest that during the 21-to-25-
year age period the experience of passion-
ate love returns to levels similar to that
occurring in the 10-to-15-year age period.
As
in the previous set of analyscs, no signifi-
cant differences were found in comparisons
among means based on the two-way inter-
action between gender and type of love.
Regarding the two-way interaction be-
tween age and type of love, the frequency of
both types
of
love increased from child-
hood through the 26-to-20-year age period,
while the pattern was different with respect
to the 21-to-2s-year age period. Specifically,
the frequency of unrequited love in the 21
-
to-25-year age period returned to lower
levels equivalent to the periods before age
16. In contrast, mutual love remained at
relatively higher levels
(M
=
1.78) in the
21-to-25-year age period as indicated by the
fact that the mean value was not signifi-
cantly different from that for the 16-to-20-
year age period.
Discussion
The purpose of the current study was to
document the frequency
of
mutual and un-
requited love across difrercnt age periods,
as reported retrospectively.
A
second pur-
pose was to examine gender differcnccs
in
these reports.
All
participants in the study rcported
having at lcast one experience of passion-
ate love. Most people we surveycd rcported
such experiences several timcs over the
course of adolescence and young adult-
hood. Because participants
of
the current
study were relatively young individuals
(mcan age
=
22.31), that
rnakcs
it
impossi-
ble to establish exactly
the
typical number
of
times that passionate love is expericnced
across an average lifetime. Future research
involving older participants is needed to
provide a more complete picture
of
thc cu-
mulative frequency of passionate love that
is commonly experienced. Despite this limi-
tation, the present data provide valuable
information on the occurrencc of passion-
ate love during the period
of
life in which
individuals typically begin to lcarn about

22
C.A.
Hill,
J.
E.
Owen
Blukernore,
and
I-1
Drumrn
cni
o
t
ion
a
I
i
n
volvcmcn
t
with potential ro-
in
antic
part
ncrs.
In
addition
to
documenting the overall
frcclucncy with which passionate love was
reported,
wc
also
examined the pattern of
love
rcportcd
;\cross
different dcvclopmcn-
t;il
periods.
‘l’hc
exixricnce
of
passionate
love
was
found to
bc
relatively
rare
before
the
age
ol’
I0
compircd to its experience
Isctwccn
the
ages
of
I6
and
20 years, lor
hoth
m:ilcs
and
fcinalcs,
and
regardless
of
whether thc lccling
was
mutual
or
not. The
cxpcricncc
of
mutual love wits similar
for
Imth
men ;tnd women iicross
all
the age
pcriocls nicasurcd.
Whilc
we hypothcsizcd that men might
have
inorc
lovc
cxpcricnccs, this was found
lor
unrcquitcd experiences only, and only
during
the
period
from
16
to 20 years
of
age.
Men
reported
;I
markedly higher frequency
of
11
nrcq
u
i
tcd
I
ovc during late
adol
cscence
(
I0
to
20
years)
compared to other age
pc-
riods.
conip;rrcd
to
the frequency
of
mutual
love during the
1
6-to-20--ycar-old period,
and
compared
to
the
frequency
of
uiirc-
cluitcci
love
cxpericnced by women during
the
late
;idolcsccncc
period. l’his finding is
consistent with the rcscarch
of
Baumeister
ct
;it.
(I
093)
examining unrcyuitcd lovc
with
p;irticip;uits
in
roughly the same agc
range. ‘I’hcy
reported
that men
more
often
had
“would-be lover” experiences, whereas
wonicn more often had “rejector” expcri-
cnccs.
(’crtainly this issue
nceds
further
st
ucty.
A
ddifioiilil
c~otz.siticni/io~zs
‘I’hc
data
prcscntcd in the current study
were ohtuincd employing rctrospcctivc
self-rcports.
As
with
all
research based on
tlic
recall
01’
past events, the results may
have been affcctcd by crrors and distor-
tions
that
arc known
to
occur in human
memory proccsscs. However, the proce-
dure
cmploycd
in
the current design was
constructed to facilitate more accurate re-
call
of
cpisodcs
of
passionate
love.
Instruc-
tions
in
the
sclf-report instrumcnt re-
quested
that
respondents try to recollect
as
vividly
as
possible the actual people
with whom they were “in
10~~”
and to re-
member events that occurred during the
course
of
their infatuation with each pcr-
son.
Respondents were also provided with
a scratch paper
on
which they could
list
their romantic partners and makc notes
about them, if they desired. Finally, they
were asked to be as accurate as possible
in recalling their experiences.
One
indication that problems with inem-
ory did not systematically affect the recall
of
love wits the lack of influence
of
partici-
pant age on the results.
If
memory were
influencing recall of romantic episodcs,
older participants would presumably have
had greater difficulty remembering epi-
sodes in earlier age periods, resulting in sys-
tematic distortion for those periods. How-
ever, controlling for
age
of
participant
had
no effect
on
any of the repeated measures
analyses.
Conclusions
Passionate love was experienced by every
participant in the current study.
In
fact,
the
typical individual reported more than one
experience of love over the course of ado-
lescence and young adulthood. The fre-
quency
of
these experiences tended
to
in-
crease from childhood to late adolesccnce
and early adulthood. Gender differences
did not occur in the mean number
of
over-
all passionate love experiences, nor were
gender differences found in the pattern
of
mutual love across developmental periods.
However, the pattern
of
frequency was dif-
fercnt with rcspect
to
unrequited love.
Men reported increasing numbers of un-
rcyuited love experiences that surpassed
the number of mutual experiences
in
both
of the adolescent age periods (10-15 years
old and 16-20 years
old).
Unrequited love
culminated for men during the 16-20-year-
old period and dropped only slightly in the
early adult period.
Women, in contrast, reported a signifi-
cant increase in unrequited love after
10
years
of
age,
a
level that remained constant
through the 16-20-year period and that was
significantly lower than the number of
mu-

Mutual and unrequited love
23
tual experiences they reported,
as
well
as
being significantly lower than that for
males. The highest frequency
of
passionate
love in general occurred in late adolescence
for both men and women, although the
more frequent type
of
love for males was
unrequited, whereas the more frequent
type for females was mutual love.
Future research must include individuals
older than
25
years
of
age in order to estab-
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