Passionate Love, Companionate Love, and Intimacy

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, experimental social psychologists who began to investigate intimacy soon found that such research was still taboo. Intimacy researchers were denounced by irate politicians, religious leaders, people-on-the-street, and even their own colleagues (Berscheid & Walster, 1978; Wexler, 1979). In the last few years, however, intimacy research has become not only respectable but fashionable. Social psychologists have begun to theorize about intimacy (Berscheid & Walster, 1978; Cook & McHenry, 1979; Hatfield, Traupmann, Spreacher, Utne, & Hay, 1982; Kelley, 1979; Stoller, 1979; Walster & Walster, 1977). Feminists agree that it is a profoundly important concern (Firestone, 1970). Marxists have discovered it (Foucault, 1978; Poster, 1978; Zaretsky, 1976). Even gerontologists have begun to recognize its importance (Huyck, 1977; Reedy & Birren, 1978; Stinnett, Carter, & Montgomery, 1972).