The Language of Love: The Difference a Preposition Makes

Abstract

The terms love and in love are often used in common discourse. A social categorical approach, whereby the actual members of an individual's social categories are examined, was used to investigate the differential meaning of these terms. It was hypothesized that (a) the membership of the love category would be larger than that of the in love category; (b) the membership of the in love category would be encapsulated within the love category membership, indicating that love is the higher order generic term; (c) that the membership of the in love category, but not the love category, would be encapsulated within a sexual attraction/desire category membership; (d) although these effects would be observed for both men and women, certain gender differences would be observed. All hypotheses were confirmed. The implications of these findings for a taxonomy of love as well as for understanding and predicting love phenomena are discussed.