Some reflectbns on the two psychologies

ofbve
David C. McClelland, Harvard University

Abstract
The mainstream view of love is that it is a state that anses from people mu-
tually reinforcing each other or providing benefits to each other Yet csu-eful
quantitative analyses of imaginative thought pattems of pec^le in love or in a
state of afBliative arousal reveal themes of dialogue, commitment, and harmony
rather than of mutual benefits It is suggested that asking people about love
leads them to give causal explanaticms for the state wiiich psychologists have
elaborated mto the theory that love is a response to havmg one's needs met
Imaginative expenences charactenstic ofthe state of being m love on the other
hand may be di£Ferent because they are pnmanly nght brain mediated and do
not share in the causal, instrumental type of reasoning charactenstic of lef^ brain
ccmscious thmlang Such ccKiceivably nght bram mediated expenences in TATs
are more closely associated than presumably left brain mediated self-rep<»ts are
with such {^ysiological measures as evcJced scalp potentials, neurcdiormcnie con-
centrations, and immune functions A vew of love that takes both self-report (\eit
brain) and &ntasy (nght bram) measures mto account cloes a better job of pre-
dicting afBliative behavior than cbes a view that relies solely cm one or the other
ofthe two types of measures

Recently I had occasion to look mto what psychologists have to say

about love because I was mvesbgabng the effects of loving on the im-
mune defense system ofthe body What I found out surpnsed me Social
psychologists have studied the phenomenon of loving extensively for
years (e g , Berscheid & Walster, 1974) and many have coircluded that it
IS a matter of mutual reinforcement Feoj^e are attracted to each other
OT love each other to Ae extent that tltey sabsfy each other's needs The
posibve quality of an affecbve, or love, relabonship depends tm how well
a person can satisfy or help complete "another's ongoing behavior se-
queiK«s ami i^ans" (Berscheid, 1983, p 154) In this mainstream view,
tove IS viewed as a means-end relabonship "UiKfoubtediy pec^e are at-

This paper is based on a talk given at the Eastem Psychdogical Association meet-
ings in 1983 Much ofthe research rep<»-ted in it was made possiUe by a grant from
the ^ ^ n D and Cathenne T MacArthur Foundation Send requests fiv repnnts to Dr
David C McClelland, Harvard Umversity, Department of Psycbdogy a i ^ Social Re-
lations, 1530 William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, C a m b r ^ , MA 02138
Joumal qf^rwtudtty 54 2, JUM 1986 Copynght © 1986 by Duke Univwsity Press
CCC 0022-3506/86/$! 50
 Some reflections on the two psyctiotogies of kwe 335

tracted to each other for the benefits they provide" (Sehgman, Fazio &
Zanna, 1980, p 458) In a recent comprehensive review, Berscheid
(1983, p 141) concludes that the strength of an emotional relationship is
a function of "interdependence," "facilitative interconnections," and
"meshed mtrachain sequences "
This view that many psychologists hold of the nature of love is re-
fiected in the scale Rubin (1973, p 216) designed to measure the
strength of "Romantic Love " He asked each member of a couple to
agree-disagree with items such as
I feel I can confide in about virtually anything
If I were lonely, my first thought would be to seek out
I would do almost anything for
It would be hard for me to get along without
In other words, the amount of romanbc love a person feels for someraie
IS supposed to be a direct funcbon ofthe benefits he or she denves from
the relabonship—firom confiding in the other person, enjoying being
with the other person, gettmg nd of loneliness by being with the other,
and so on One person loves another because he or she is instrumental
to sabsfymg the lover's needs and goals
My first reacbon to reading this literature was surprise—surprise
that love was viewed in such a hard-boiled way and that so httle was said
about the romanbc or i^nomenological s i ^ of love To be sure even
these psychologists have recognized that romanbc love exists, but they
tend to regard it as a tand of aberrabon from rabonal calculabons caused
by physiotogical arousal (Bersclreid & Walster, 1974), which in tum is
usually viewed as caused by fhistrabon or the mtemipbon of planned
behaviOT sequences (Mandler, 1975) InfeetDutton and Aron (1974) have
even argued that sexual attraction is heightened by the physiological
arwisal which accompanies foar or anxiety So it seems that lrrabcmal,
romanbc love may be caused byfrustrabtm-mducedarousal which leads
people not to calculate the benefits of a relabonship very accurately To
be sure, self-mterest is not the only form that calculabwi takes People
may become so attached to equity as an ideal that they dmi't always act
m a lovmg relabonship according to their own best interests (Walster,
VMster, & Berscheid, 1978)
As I read through these descnptions of the rational instrumental
model of love, I wondered what had become of the expenences de-
scnbed in the poetry of love These expenences do not refer to equity
or to the s ^ ^ advantages to be gained from a relabonship, but of al-
b undying (fe\^}tion Is such devobon part of the psychology of
IS Sbakespeare sinqdy mistaken w^ien he says "Love is IM* love
sit&rs when it alteratunifinds,OTbends with the remover to re-
 336 McClelland

move. Oh no' It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempest and is never

shaken" (Sonnet 116)?
My second reaction was that even some of their own data did not bear
out these psychologists' conclusions very well For example, Rubin's
(1973) "Mutual Advantage' measure ofthe degree of attachment corre-
lated on the order of 5 with the extent to which couples reported that
they were m love In other words, a lot ofthe quality of feeling in love
was not captured by the extent to which each member ofthe couple felt
his or her needs were satisfied by the other Secondly, Rubin set up an
expenmental situabon in the laboratory in which couples had an oppor-
tunity to help each other He predicted that those who scored higher on
his mutual advantage measure of being m love would help each other
more than would those who scored lower This did not tum out to be the
case, but the result led him to question his skill as an expenmenter, not
his theory that love consisted of a mutually helpful relationship
Furthermore, Sehgman, Fazio, and Zanna (1980) found that mabng
members of a couple aware ofthe extnnsic reasons for their relabonships
led them to report less love for their partners than if they had focused
on mtnnsic reasons This at least supports the poet's nobon that seeing
a personal advantage m love somehow weakens the essence of the rela-
bonship Clark and Mills (1979) have also found that receiving benefits
makes the giver seem less attractive if the receiver thinks ofthe relation-
ship as communal But such findings do not necessanly lead to a ques-
boning ofthe view of love as an attracbon based on the mutual benefits
it provides Communal relabonships may be viewed as long term ex-
change-relabonships, m which the parbcipants do not require immedi-
ate benefits Or as Sehgman et al (1980) conclude, love may be simply
an explanabon or attnbubon given by mdividuals to account for a close
relabonship wl^n there don't seem to be any extnnsic reasons fOT it In
this view, people are still attracted to each other for the benefits they
provide each other They attnbute the attraction to love if they can't
specify what they get out ofthe relabonship
But it was not so much the inconsistencies m the social psychologists'
data that led me to question their theOTy of love, but a strong perscMial
expenence As Berscheid (1^3, p. 141) points out, if love amsists of fe-
cilitative interconnections and "meshed mtrachain sequences," then
"the npping apart of tl^ir bonds of lnterdepeiKfence sfa^nild result m
great pam" (Bersclwid, 1983, p 159) Thus the death of a kwed partner
should cause mtaase suffenng and gnef, according to this tiffiOTy Yet
when my wife died of caiKer a few years a^, I did not react in this way
We had been very much m love, happily mamedfiw42 years, lmd raised
five chddren to well-adjusted maturity, and in tl^ cmirse oS bme had
developed a tremen(k)us number of facilitabve interconnections and
Some reflections on the two psychobgies of bve 337

meshed mtrachain sequences Yet when she died I did not feel the
amount of pam that the theory would require that I should feel I would
have had to conclude that either we had not been in love or had not de-
velof)ed those facilitative lnterconnecbons—both of which explanabons
seem highly unlikely—or that the theory is wrong What the expenence
actually felt like was much closer to the poet's view of love We had felt
we were part of something which was much bigger than ourselves—
which had nurtured and supported us throughout our long life together
and which continued to support me after her death "Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds it is an ever-fixed mark that looks
on tempest and is never shaken" (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
This view of love seems much closer to another way of defining and
measunng it as worked out by a personality psychologist, Dan McAdams
(1980) Despite a thorough review of the hterature on interpersonal at-
tracbon, Berscheid (1983) does not cite his work in her extensive list of
references It is as if there are two psychologies of love, as if those who
view love as the coming together of two autonomous agents seeking to
have their needs met, have cut themselves off from research evidence
that gives quite a different picture ofthe nature of love McAdams (1980,
1982) was interested not m the reasons people give for being m love (as
Rubin was) but in the expenences they have when they are m love He
was guided m his work by the many personality theonsts who have wnt-
ten about love as involving joy and mutual delight (Maslow), reciprocity
and harmony (Buber), or openness, contact, union, and receptivity
(Bakan, Maslow) The objection that those holding the mutual advantage
view of love might have to such theones is that these supposed charac-
tenstics of loving have not been measured and quantified and hence can-
not be considered part of behavioral science But it is precisely to this
point that McAdams' research is addressed He has measured and quan-
bfied such charactensbcs ofthe expenence of lovmg by exammmg lm-
agmabve stones wntten by individuals under vanous states of affihabve
arousal Table 1 illustrates some ofthe results he obtained when he con-
trasted stones wntten by those who defined themseWes as very much in
love in Rubin's (1973) study with stones wntten by comparable male and
female students who were not m love In this instance, he simply re-
bieved and scOTed TAT stones that Rubin had obtained as part of a per-
sonality test battery administered to students, some of whom were very
niiKh m love and some of vt^iom weren't He carefully defined ccmtent
categOTies that disbnguished significantly between these two grcmps and
m other studies between other groups m which the arousal CMidibon fo-
cused more on fri^idship than on romanbc love The trtal scOTe fOT all
these categ(»ies defines the strength of what McAdams calls mbmacy
mobvabcm
338 McCleiland

Table 1 Performance ofthe mbmacy mobve sconng system in differen-

babng between "m-love" and control stones (McAdams, 1980, p 423)

"In-love" arousal*
Mean frequencies fbr two stones Differences
In-bve Control between arousal
(W = 36) andcontrd
Sconng category - means
+ A Positive affect 108 0 69 0 39*
Dig Dialogue 094 083 011
Psy Psychological growth 0 31 0 19 011
CC Commitment and concem 0 28 0 14 014
TS Time space 0 61 033 0 28*
U Union 0 42 0 03 0 39***
H Harmony 033 008 0 25*
Sr Surrender 0 25 019 006
Esc Escape to intimacy 0 42 008 0 33**
COW Connect outside world 050 014 0 36**
Total intimacy motive 5 14 2 72 2 42**
(SD = 2 96) {SD = 2 39)
* "In-love" arousal group = 18 heterosexual couples in which both partners scored above 8 0 on
the Ffaibin (1973) Love Scale, a 9-rtem questionnaire assessing irdensrty of love felt towards one s
partner in a romantic relationship rhe control group consists of 18 male arxJ 18 female students ap-
proKtmataly matched for age

*p< 05
**p< 01
***p< 001

Here are a few examples of mbmacy mobvabon sconng categones

Dialogue Dialogue is defined as a verbal or nonverbal exchange
of ln&Hinabon between (among) characters that meets at least one
of three cntena (a) reciprocal, mninstrumental commumcabon,
Q}) discussion of an interpers(Bial relabcm^ip, (c) conversabon for
the purpose of helping another persOTi m distress
Comrmtment or Concem A character feels a sense of cOTnmit-
ment toOTconcem for anotl^r ((^hers) that is rxA rooted m guilt OT
grudging duty Commitment uichides foehngs dP loyalty to and re-
sponsibility for another's welfare usually leading to some kind of
I^pmgOThumanitarian behaviOT, and somebnws persOTial sacn-
fice
Ttme-Space IwoOTmore characters are aigaged in a relatuHi-
ship dmt transcends the usual hmitatum of bme and/OT space Tlus
lnclucbs eqdicit refer^ices made to the endunng quahty of a rela-
 Some reflections on the two psychologies erf love 339

bonship over an extended penod of time and in the fece of physical

separation
Harmony Characters find that they are m harmony with one an-
other They are "on the same wavelength," their acbons are "in syn-
chrony," one "truly understands" another (McAdams, 1980, p 424)
He cross-validated such categones m several studies that aroused mb-
macy mobvation through affihabve fraternity parties or enjoyable parb-
cipabve psychodramas The themes that charactenzed the expenence or
the fantasies of people in whom feelings of love or affiliation were
aroused do not refer to the supposed benefits they get from being m a
loving relabonship Instead they refer to expenences of romanbc love
that poets and other observers of human nature have been reporbng for
thousands of years
What are we to make of thisfecti^Do we have two psychologies of
love—one of which stresses the reasons for lovmg and the other, the na-
ture of love itself as a kind of intimate shanng f* Certainly there will be
hard-boiled psychologists who will argue that all this talk of noninstru-
mental commitment and shanng is soft-headed nonsense, that "Man is
selfish Individuals will try to maximize their outcomes" (Walster, Wals-
ter, & Berscheid, 1978, p 7) From this point of view, people are basi-
cally selfish, tluugh they make attnbubon "errors" in concluding that
they are not, or become less rabonal when physiologically aroused Still,
as feir-mmded psychologists, shouldn't we face the fact squarely that we
get oae land of mformabon about love if we ask quesbons about wdiy peo-
ple are in love and another kind of mformabon about love when we ex-
amine the lmagmabve expenences of people m love'*
What intngued me about this contrast is that it confirmed a &ct I had
run across again and again m my research into human motivation—
namely, that lnfOTmabon obtained from operant thought content often
does not agree with mformabon obtained when people answer quesbons
about what their thoughts and feehngs are In the mid-1950s (see de-
Charms, Mornson, Reitman, & McClelland, 1955) we realized that
while achievement concerns in fantasy predicted how well a person
would do oa a moderately difficult task, how achievement-onented a per-
son said he or she was (which we called t; Achievement for valuing
achievement) COTTelated neither with achievement coiKems m fentasy
nor with how well the person would perform on moderately difficult
tasks In general, the frequeircy of thmlang about achievement, affiha-
tHHiOTpowrar does not COTTelate highly with how important a persOTi says
tlKise goals are to himOTl^r (McClelland, 1980)
Furtl^nnOTe, we have hwoA that the &ntasy-based vsuiables tend to
be more simply related to physiological changes than cognitively on-
 340 McCyiand

ented self-reports are Let me give some examples In 1948 we reported

that certain food-related fantasies increased monotonically m response
to hours of food depnvation (Atkinson & McClelland, 1948), but self-rat-
mgs of hunger did not (McClelland, 1951, p 79) Self-reported rabngs of
hunger increased from one to four hours of food depnvation, but did not
increase further to 16 hours of depnvabon It seemed clear that judg-
ments of hunger were being infiuenced more by the knowledge that it
was bme to eat than by the physiological condibon of hours of food de-
pnvation, for the rating of hunger after four hours of deprivation was
made just before supper and the rabng of hunger after 16 hours of dep-
nvation was made just before lunch when the subjects had not eaten
since suppertime the night before While they rated themselves as
equally hungry on these two occasions, their fantasies clearly refiected
the large difference in their physiological state
In quite a different type of study, visual evoked potenbals were meas-
ured from scalp leads in the occipital area m response to power-related
and neutral pictures (McClelland, Davidson, & Saron, 1979) Subjects
with many power concems in fantasy (sconng high m n Power, see Win-
ter, 1973) showed a larger amphtude evoked potenbal to power than to
neutral pictures The correlabon between n Power and the amplitude of
the Nl -I- P2 evoked potenbal in the occipital area to power over neutral
pictures was 48 (p < 05) While the same subjects were unfortunately
not asked how dommant or power-onented they felt, they were asked to
report how energettc, vigorous and Itvely they felt This self-report mea-
sure should be at least tangenbally related to asserbveness, yet it corre-
lated insignificantly with the same evoked potenbal measure (r = 10)
In this case, thefentasymeasure predicted how the bram would respond
to power-related stimuh more sensibvely than the self-report measure
did (McCleUand et a l , 1979)
In a third study we examined the effects ofthe power stress of taking
an exammabOTi on norepinej^nne concentrabrais m sahva (McCleUand,
Ross & Patel, 1985) Hie idea was that the exammabmi stress shmild in-
crease sympathetic arousal more in power-oriented people, which
should increase their nOTepine|rfinne (NE) output more than for other
pec^e We had tvro lands of measures ofthe extent to whichtiaeperson
was power OTiented One was the usual fentasy-based measure of
n Pcjwer (WmtCT, 1973), and it COTrelated 42, p < (S with the extent of
^ n in NE in s^diva over basehne in response to the power-related ex-
aminabon stress In addition there were two self-report measures of
power onentabcn One was an adjecbve check hst measure of how re-
sourceful, detemuned, asxi persistent ths persOTi Mt and the other was
a measure of lnta-nal locus c^ amtrcd (Rott^, 1966) It ccnsists of agree-
log with ltons hke "I can pretty mut^ cfetamine what will hi^pai in
Some reflections on the two psychologies of bve 341

my life," or "My life is determined by my own actions " Neither of these

estimates of self-asserbveness correlated m any way with gain in NE out-
put in saliva to an examinabon stress Yet the fantasy-based measure of
n Power did predict the hormonal response just the way it had predicted
the electncal response over the occipital cortex to power-related sbmuli
in the other expenment
In sbll another sbidy (McClelland, Stier, Patel, & Brown, 1985) sub-
jects filled out a mood adjecbve checkhst (McClelland & Meterko, 1983)
after seeing a film on loving relationships They received a score on this
instrument for how loved and fnendly they judged themselves to feel
They also wrote stones which were scored for n Affiliabon The n Affili-
ation scores consistently correlated with dopamme concentrations in
blood or saliva after the film, the loved-fhendly scores did not
How are we to understand such facts? As I puzzled over them, it
dawned on me that the two lands of measures might be tapping left and
nght brain functioning respecbvely While obviously both hemispheres
ofthe brain in normal people are involved m all types of cognibve activ-
ity, it may sbll be helpful to think m terms of some activibes as being
more directed by one hemisphere or the other, at least for heunsbc pur-
poses Thus the left hemisphere of the bram, at least m nght-handed
males, controls language and seems to be largely mvolved m decision-
making (Molfese, Molfese, Buhrke, Shute, & Wang, 1983), and con-
scious control (Spnnger & Deutsch, 1981) For example, the left brain is
more active when the subject engages m verbal analysis, such as picking
synonyms, and left-bram-damaged patients cannot sustain voluntary in-
hibition of movements such as keeping their eyes closed (Bruyer &
Cuerit, 1983) Cazzaniga and Le Doux (1978) have summarized the
careful mvesbgabon ofthe behaviOT of pabents whose left and nght hem-
ispheres have been split by surgery "They conclude that the left hemi-
sjrfiere, m most of us, contains that which makes us feel hke single, pur-
poseful beings—that is, our language system" (Spnnger & Deutsch,
1981, p 199) "It IS as if the verbal self looks out and sees what the persrai
IS doing, and from that knowledge it interprets reahty" (Gazzaniga & Le
Doux, 1978, p 150)
iTus sounds pretty much hhe what couples are doing when they are
asked to explain why they are m love Could it be that psychologists have
been tapping left brain logical thinking m ashng for self-repOTts of rea-
sons fOT being in love?
On the other hand, could it be that the nght brain is more involved
with lms^ing and fentasy? There is some evidence that pomts to such a
conclusion Certainly the nght hemisphere is nonverbal or mute and
imaie involved in perfiMTning visuo-spatial tasks (Sperry, 1984, Spnnger
and Deutsdi, 1981) It is owre acbvated in hstemng to music, singing
 342 McCleliand

and vdiisthng, and m recognizing emobon Ley and Freeman (1984, p

53) conclude that "the nght hemisphere has a pnmary role m imagery
IMW«sses" because damage to the nght hemisphere frequently leads to
loss of "visualizabon, visual memory, visual dreaming, and vividness of
imagery" and because "increased acbvabon ofthe nght hemisjAere ac-
companies subjects' imagery experiences " They have overstated the
case, because there are some types of imaging, including comparabve
judgments, that mvolve left hemisphere funcbon (Kosslyn, 1985) But
the type of lmagmmg needed fOT TAT stones or dreams seems hkely to
involve nght hemisphere processing People who are awakened after
dreaming, as reflected m rapid eye movement sleep, perfOTm better on
a visuo-spabal task involving nght hemisj^re funcbcm than do those
who were not dreaming (Bertini, Violani, Zoccalotb, Antonelli, & de-
Stefano, 1984, p 421), which indirectly "supports the hypothesis of a
relationship between nght hemisphere funcbonmg and dream pro-
cesses " In (rther words, it is as iffentasizingjMimes or is acbvated by the
nght hemis^Jiere If this is so, then it might easdy be inferred that the
lmagmabve stories subjects create in response to pictures (visuo-spabal
sbmuh) involve more nght l^misjAere fuiwbonir^, just as self-reports
of reasons for dou^ things might involve more left hemisj^ere funcbon
Skich a hypothesis is somewhat speculabve at the present bme because
the definibve research has not been done Obviously wnbng stOTies or
verbally reporting or recalling images involves left-brain function ac-
COTding to this analysis so it is impossible by normal reporbng methods
to separate the two supposed hemisphenc fuiKbons (Ehrhchman & Bar-
rett, 1983) What is needed is a study ofE£G acbvabon vAiIe the persrai
IS carrying out the two types of tasks The predicbOTi vrould be tfiat there
would be tnOTe nght hemisphere EEG acbvabOTi while the subject was
lmagimng (iKit wnting) a story in respcmse to a picture and mOTe left
hemisjdiere acbvabtm whea heOTshe was answermg qi^sbotis abcHit
reasons for beii^ m love
Even t h o u ^ we cannot be sure of the outc(Hi» of such a study, it is
wOTih reviewing a classic lllustrabOTi of the difference between the two
types of funcbcm as illustrated in Figure 1fromGazzani^ and Le Doux
(1978, i ^ 148-149) Intibecase of this pabrait the two hemispheres had
been severed sur^cally so that there was httle direct amimunicaticHi be-
tween them When he was presented with a chrck^a claw in tibe nght
visual fidd whffih was processed in his left hemisplia:^, he quicl^ and
cOTrectly picked the chicken head with his nght haixl and repOTted "I
saw a claw so I picked the chickrai" When tlw snow scene was p^sented
to the left visual fidd and ptjcessed by the nght hram, he a ^ n COT-
rectly picked the snow ^avti to go with it with his left hand, l»it smce
he did m t ctmscKHisly "see" (OT oMik) mA repOTt seeii^ tbe snow scraie.
Some reflections on the two psychologies of love 343

Figure 1 Sinuiltaneous presentation of two different tasks, one to each hemi-

sphere of patient PS (M S Gazzaniga and J E LBDoux,The Integrated Mind,
R g 4 2 , p 149)

he said that he picl^d the shovel to clean out the chicken shed, tying the
dwice mto what he could see \ ^ c h had to do with a chickrai
"In trial after trial, we saw this kind of resprase Hie left kanisi^ia^
could easily and accurately identify w^y it had picked the answer, a i ^
thrai subsequmitly, and without batting an eye, it would lncorpOTate the
n^tl^nisidiere'srespOTise into theframewcM^While we knew exactly
wiy the nght hemisi^^-e had m a ^ its choice, the left hemisi^iape ccMild
m e i ^ guess. Yet, the left did ncrt ofifer its suggestHHi in the guessii^
vein but rather as a statement of fact as to why that card had been
J d " (Gazzaniga &Le Doux, 1978, pp 148-149) Nobce that the ob-
 344 McClelland

servers knew why he had made his choice of the shovel m response to
the stimulus presented to the right hemisphere because the shovel
clearly related assoctattvely (not consciously) to the snow scene sbmulus
This reminded me forcibly ofthe behavior of couples m love when in-
terrogated by social psychologists They felt they were in love—with
their nght hemispheres so to speak—but they were being asked to give
reasons why, which required left brain functioning And they discovered
left brain type reasons for being in love—because a lover meets a per-
son's needs just the way a shovel meets the needs of cleaning out the
chicken shed
Let us speculate for the sake of argument that self-reports of reasons
for things involve more left brain funcbon and that fentasy involves more
nght bram funcbon and apply this hypothesis to understanding better
the nature ofthe problem I had started with—namely how the expen-
ence of loving affects the immune system We had some reason for thmk-
mg that strong affihabve concems as refiected in lmaginabve thought
were associated with better immune funcbon and health (McClelland,
Alexander, & Marks, 1982, McCleUand & Jemmott, 1980) That is, we
had found that people charactenzed by the relaxed affihabve syndrome
or RAS reported the least amount of physical illness (McClelland & Jem-
mott, 1980) These were people who scored higher in lmaginabve stones
on n Affiliation than on n Power, and lower in activity inhibition—a
count ofthe number of bmes the word "not" appears in the stones, since
"not" nearly always negates an action (McClelland, 1975) They also
tended to show signs of better immune defense against disease For ex-
ample, as compared to other people they showed higher concentrabons
of immunoglobulm A m saliva, S-IgA (McClelland, Alexander, & Marks,
1982) the body's first line of defense against upper respiratory lnfecbons
(Tomasi, 1976) This is true even dunng bmes of examinabon stress See
Figure 2, which is drawnfroma study by jemm(*t (1982) on average con-
centrab(His of immunoglobulm A m saliva of a dental students expenenc-
ing high and low stress dunng their first year at school The immune
response level of those with the RAS is higher throv^htmt the year and
less affected by penods of high examinabon stress TTiis may explain why
tlK)se with the RAS are less apt to report having been sick, because peo-
ple with higher S-lgA concentrabons report themselves as having been
sick less often, particularly from colds (McClelland, Alexander, &
Marks, 1982)
So we reasoned that if a high level of affiliabve cOTicem was associated
with better immune funcbon and health, we might be able to demcm-
strate an increase m S-IgA levels by trying to create m individuals such
an affiliabve state To iinluce siK;h a state, we tumed to a cbcumentary
film about Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a nun who has cbvc^ed her life to
 Some reflections on the two psychologies of love 345

24
v RELAXED A F F I L I A T I V E , ' " '
22 ^- SYNDROME - ' ^

FUNCTION
MEAN
20
COfCENTRATIOfi
OF
SALIVARY
16
IMMUNO-
GLOBULIN A
S-IgA
16
mg/min
14
INHIBITED POWER
MOTIVE SYNDROME
12 - N<9

1 1 1 1
LOW HIGH HIGH HIGH LOW
SEPT NCV APRIL JUNE JULY
DEGREE OF STRESS

Figure 2 Mean S-IgA secretion rate dunng high and low stress penods for all sut)-
jects and for two motive groups (After Jemmott, 1982)

canng for the poorest ofthe poor, the sick and the dying m the slums of
Calcutta It reflects faithfully F^r deep religious commitment to respond
with love to that spark ofthe Divme in each human being, regardless of
the circumstances Thus her tender loving care is not portrayed as in-
strumental, since it IS often unsuccessful The babies or the lepers or the
old pecqde she picks up off the street often die anyway Thus she is speak-
ingforselfless cani^ rather than for instrumental love AIKI the effect of
this film on S-/gA was quite dramabc as shown m Figure 3 While the
level of concentrabon of S-/gA was unafifected by exposure to a docu-
mentary film about the Nazis in World War II, it rose significMitly after
exposure to the Mother Teresa film and stayed up an hour later if the
subjects parbcipated m an exercise in wiiich they recalled bmes m their
hves whai they had loved or been loved (McClelland & Kirshnit, 1984)
In a rejdicabcm of this study, S-/gA levels went up significantly after ex-
posure to the Mother Teresa film, but did iKit stay up an hour later if the
bme was filled with answenng questHmnaires and perftmning labOTa-
tory tadcs In other WOTds, dweUing on love appears to be lmpOTtant fOT
aspect (^immune funcbon
 346 McClelland

24
MOTHER
TERESA F I U I

MEAN
CONCENTRATIONS
OF
S-IgA
(mg/dl) 20
TRIUMPH OFTHE
AXIS FILM (1981)

18

BASE- POST ONE HOUR

LINE FILM LATER
TIME WHEN SAUVA WAS SAMPLED
F^ure 3 Mean concentrations of salivary immurxiglobolin A (S-IgA) before and
after presentations of two films (McClelland and Kirshnit, 1984)

But how do we know what psychological state had actually been cre-
ated by the film? We know that it was supposed to arouse a land of nght
brain concem fOT nomnstrumental love, but did it? We have a choice of
self-report and fantasy brain measures The subjects filled out the
COMP mood adjecbve checklist (McClelland & Meterko, 1983), which
provides scores on a number of dimensions d^ived byfectOTanalysis m
normabve samples—uK:luding a scOTe for overall negabve or posibve
feelings and one fOT how loved and friendly a person feels Actually most
of the students found the film de^H-essmg They repOT^ed a significant
cbcrease m feehngs crf^love and friaidhness and a significant increase in
overall iwgabve nKX)d Furthermore, there was no ccaisistent evidence
that those who scored higlwr m the loved/friendhness mood dun^ision
(fespite the overall negabve impact cfihe film wa'e the ones who slwwed
an increase in S-IgA Ccmsaous ju^ments of feehng more loved and
friendly after ^he film were IK^ associate widi improved immune func-
bon
We also adoed the subjects what diey thou^t ofthe fihn Here a ^ n
its negabve impact was apparent The sbuknts had many reasons fOT
dishbng thefilmOTMcrilia- leresa Tiiey haai the hc^lessness of the
 Some reflections on the two psychologies of bve 347

Table 2 Impact on immune function of conscious ("left bram") and as-

sociabve ("nght brain") reactions to a documentary film about Mother
Teresa

Percent of subjects who

gained in S-^A from
N b^ore to after film
Opinion of Motfier Teresa film
Positive ("inspinng," "moving," 18 50%
"admired her")
Negative ("boring," "hostile to her," 13 61%
"disagreed with her philosophy")

Nature of relationship in imaginative

stones about a couple wntten after
Mother Teresa film
Positive 16 75%
Negative 12 25% p < 05
Note —3 cases unclassrfiable

Situabon she was dealing with depressing A number disapproved of her

religiosity Still others knew of and disapproved of her stand against
aborbon and premantal sex So we categonzed all such reacbons as neg-
abve There were others who admired her very much and found the film
moving or inspinng Nevertheless as the data m Table 2 show, there was
IK) evidence that the people who consciously felt moved and inspired by
the film mcreased more often m S-/gA level, as compared to those who
had a negabve reacbon to the film Once again conscious judgments fell
to predict this type of physiological response to a stimulus If our spec-
ulabve hypothesis is correct, the reason is that the film is producing a
right-, rather than left-, bram-guided physiological response (an in-
crease m S-IgA level) The left bram is not much influenced by this re-
sponse to judge by the conscious reacbons to the films, which are not
connected to S-/gA shifts The left hemisphere responds in terms of gen-
eral attitudes toward Mother Teresa and knowledge of the situation
rather than m terms ofthe emobonal physiological response to the film
But doesfentasygive us a better mdicabon of whose immune funcbcm
will respond posibvely to thefilmf*As the bottom part of Table 2 illus-
trates, it does In one ofthe studies, the subjects also wrote TAT stones
after seeing the Mother Teresa film and a simiJe coding system was de-
vised to detrantnine whether the story wntten to a picture of a boy and a
girl sitting toother in the grass portrayed a posibve or negabve relabcm-
ship In (^ler words, the picture gave the subjects an (^pc»tumty to tell
a story about a good or kmng mterpersonal relabonship or about a quar-
 348 McClelland

reling or difficult relabonship Of the subjects who wrote about a posi-

bve relationship, (16 out of 28), 75% showed an increase m S-/gA after
the Mother Teresa film, as contrasted with only 25% of those who por-
trayed a negative relabonship m descnbing the couple In other words,
those who thought of a posibve loving relationship after the film, as in-
dicated by their lmagmabve stones, were moved by it in a way which
produced a gain in immune function in contrast to those who were not
so affected by the film The situabon seems analogous to the one faced
by the split brain pabent represented m Figure 1 who, on being pre-
sented with a snow scene to the nght brain, correctly picked the snow
shovel although he could not give the reason for doing so That is, the
snow slwvel was an appropnate associabon to the snow scene just as a
posibve affihative relabonship between a couple was an appropnate as-
sociabon to the love shown in the Mother Teresafilmfor those who were
really affected by it Thus the associabve or fantasy response gives a bet-
ter lndicabon of those who are physiologically affected by the film than
do conscious reacbons to the film which we have speculabvely lmked to
the left bram funcbon
It would be incorrect to infer that conscious self-judgments are never
related to physiological functioning, so we need a more complete under-
standing of just what such results mean The most obvious instance in
which a belief about oneself is bed to physiological arousal occurs when
the belief is contradicted or undermined in some way Mandler (1975)
has elaborated this point m his theory that autonomic nervous system
arousal occurs when an organized behavior sequence is interrupted If,
for example, a person m love believes strongly in the reciprocity or mu-
tual advantage theory of love and finds his or her partner is not acbng m
conformity with that behef, then anxiety, anger and their physiological
accompaniments are likely to occur Thus it is not surpnsing that psy-
chologists who focus on peq)les' conscious behefe, values, or attnbutions
most often discuss the tensions or negabve emobons that anse from non-
confirmabon of behefe and values, as reflected m increased heart rate,
palmar sweabng, and so on Thus I am quite jB'epared to beheve that
those who disapiwoved of Mother To-esa and objected to Irer acbvibes
might well have shown more signs of this kind of {diysiological arousal
after the fihn But the kinds of pl^siological arousal we have fouml to be
associated with fentasy amtent cover a number of different jMOcesses,
including electncal scalp potenbal shifb, vanabons m specific neurcdior-
mcMje concentrab(Mis, and immune fruK±ions So w^at we need is a bet-
ter understandii^ of what lands of jdiysidogical artmsal are associated
with frustrated conscimisly held behefe and values (OT intermpticms in
(»°ganized behavior sequeiKses) and what kinds of arcmsal are associated
with operant lmagmabve thought patta-ns
Some reflections on the two psychologies of bve 349

My main pomt is that information gamed from fantasy is important

and that such mformabon is often uncorrelated with and has a different
significance from seemingly similar information obtained from conscious
reports and judgments about beliefs, atbtudes, and feelmgs In the film
study, for example, the correlation between the postfilm fentasy n affili-
abon score and the conscious judgments of how loved and fnendly one
feels IS minus 03 If I exaggerate the point and do not do justice to cog-
nibve aspects of arousal, it is because I believe that mainstream psy-
chologists have not yet accepted operant thought content as yielding im-
portant mformabon they are suspicious of fantasy as not hard science,
or they ignore it, just as Berscheid ignored quantitabve, carefully estab-
lishedfindingsabout the expenence of love as denved by McAdams from
coding thought content
Whatever the reasons for the difficulty in absorbing mformabon based
on fantasy into mainstream psychology, we are still faced with the fact
that there seem to be two psychologies of love—one for psychologists
who use information derived from questionnaires about reasons for
being in love and the other for poets, clmicians and physiological psy-
chologists who tap the associabve trends supposedly more charactensbc
of the mute nght brain Yet most of us live with intact brains in which
there is a good deal of exchange of mformabon between the two hemi-
sj^eres and joint control of behavior How do these two ways of looking
at love mteract to affect what people doi^
At one level, the answers are straightforward Conscious judgments
and feelings are most affected by social norms and cognibve understand-
li^s of them (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977) and in tum they are very lnflu-
enbal m affecbng conscious choices Fantasies are most influenced by
emotional expenences that are not consciously processed, and in tum
they influence physiological processes and behaviors that are not directly
under conscious control (see McClelland, 1980) Constantian (1981) has
earned out a study that nicely illustrates the point She obtained both
self-report and fantasy measures of concem for affihation On the one
hand, she asked subjects m a vanety of ways how important people were
to them, how important it was for them to be with people or mteract in
a friendly way with people On the other hand, she obtained the stan-
dard n Affihabon score denved from coding lmagmabve stones wntten
to pictures (see Heyns, Veroff, & Atkinson, 1958) She found that the
extent to which students consciously valued being with pet^le predicted
at a moderately strong level Imw often they said they preferred to do
thmgs with others hke go to the movies, take a walk, or eat out in a res-
taurant TTiefentasyn Affihabon measure on the other hand did n<* cor-
relate at all with conscious preferences for doing things with people She
also obtained a measure of the frequency with which people could be
 350 McClelland
Table 3 Predicting (^rant affiliative acts (after Constantian, 1981)

Standardized
coefficient
Motive /V Affiliation' 37*
Value VAffiliatton' 27*
Skill Social SkilP - 17
Multiple R = 51"
* p<iO,'p< 06,"p< 01
1 Need for affiliation intamasy(TAT stones)
2 Valuing afRHation sum of preferences for doing vanous activities with fri«ids
3 Judgments that self is skMtful tn meeting strangers, speaking in class, and other such social sit-
uatnrts
All vanaUes are T-scored
From McCieliand (1985, p 538)

found actually affiliating with others, by equipping students with elec-

tronic pagers or beepers which they wore 12 hours a day for seven days
She beeped them at random points throughout each ofthe days and they
recOT^d what they were domg at the time There were wide individual
differences in the proportion of times beeped that students reported
^bey were talking with another person The fantasy n Affiliation measure
predicted quite well which students would be most apt to be fourui talk-
mg with others The conscious value [daced on affikatmg with people
correlated less highly with the extent to which they were actually found
mteracting with others But notice that spontaneously starting to talk
with am^her is mA nearly as cognitively guided a clwice as is the decision
as to how to answer a question about how much one clx)oses to do things
with people Sptmtaneously talking to another can be tlxNigbt of as a less
consciously controlled response to another person, which is cued off
more easily among those who have strong n A£Bhation, as assessed
thitmgh&ntasy
lable 3 shows haw tl^se two altemative smirees of mformahcHi abmit
affiliative concems enter mto a multiple regressicm equabcai to predict
tunes pec^e will be found talking to others or what might be calfed the
fr^uew^ of qperant affiliative acts Thefimtasy-lntsedmotive measure
does a b e t t ^ j ^ (^[x-edKstmg the behaviw than does the conscuxis valt^
measure, although the difference betwerai the two ec»Telations is not sig-
nificant m this lllustratum (It is ^^iiai ancrtl^ measure of axiscums \ ^ -
uuig IS used, see McCldland, 1985, p 538). llie t a l ^ also dhows that
what niay be ccnsicbred a measure of social doll—l e ,Ae perceived
{Ht^bility <rf siKxess m mta'acting with (^Inrs—does « * ccmtnbute
directly by itself to ^«dK±u^operantaffiliative acts Tlie reascaifiH°in-
Some reflections on the two psychologies of love 351
eluding this vanable is that it is supposedly a key determinant ofthe ten-
dency to approach an act m formal behavioral models like Clark Hull's
(1943) or Athnson's (1957) That is, habit strength, skill, or perceived
probability of success is supposed to increase the likelihood of a re-
sponse occurnng if it is combmed with motive strength In this mstance
it does not by itself contnbute to predicting afBliative behavior, but when
combined vwth n Affiliahon motive strength, it contnbutes strongly to
predicting affihative behavior (see McClelland, 1985) In other words,
people are more apt to behave in an affiliative way wbea they have high
social skill, provided they are motivated to interact or value such inter-
action highly
If one adds the mteractions between the pnmary determinants of op-
erant affihative acts to the multiple regression equation, the R nses to a
truly surpnsing 84 p < 001 What this result can be mterpreted to
mean is that takir^ into account both conscious valuing (hnked specula-
tively to left brain processing) and unconscious feelings and fantasies
(hnked speculatively to nght bram processing) enables us in combma-
bon with a third vanable (social skdl or expectancy of success in social
situations) to account for practically all of the vanation in spontaneous
affihative behavior, given environmental opportunity Thus at least for
predictmg certam bnds of behavior, both types of lnifonnation about af-
filiation or love are useful
In conclusion, two lands of lnformabon can be obtained about such
important psychological charactenstics as love one from self-reports,
fH-esumaUy mediated more by the left bram, and the other from lmagi-
nabve thought content, presumably mediated more by the nght bram
Each land of mformation is useful for different purposes Neither should
be neglected to the exclusion ofthe other, and takmg both kinds mto ac-
count can greatly improve our ability to understand and predict certain
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Manuscnpt recetved November 1,1985