Passionate Love Scale

What is the Passionate Love Scale?

The Passionate Love Scale (PLS) is a widely used tool in healthcare research and clinical practice for assessing the intensity of passionate love in romantic relationships (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986). The PLS evaluates romantic love's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects, covering feelings of obsession, joy, and despair experienced in intimate relationships. It helps healthcare professionals understand how love manifests in patients’ thoughts and behaviors.

For instance, the scale examines whether individuals feel deep despair when separated from their partner, experience an endless appetite for affection, or sense their body responding to their partner’s touch. The PLS can also highlight gender differences in these experiences, offering insights into how men and women engage with romantic love and intimate relations. Higher scores on the PLS suggest a stronger connection with one’s perfect romantic partner, while lower scores may indicate emotional detachment or extremely depressed states.

It is particularly useful in measuring passionate love in therapeutic settings and distinguishing between passionate and companionate love.

How to conduct the Passionate Love Scale?

The Passionate Love Scale is a valuable tool for healthcare professionals to assess the intensity of romantic emotions in intimate relationships. It provides insight into how individuals experience passionate love, which can influence their emotional well-being and relationship dynamics.

Step 1: Download the Passionate Love Scale template

To get started, healthcare professionals can download the Passionate Love Scale template from Carepatron. Click on the "Use Template" button to access and download the form in a ready-to-use format. This simplifies the process, ensuring you have the correct layout and structure to proceed.

Step 2: Introduce the purpose to your patients

Explain the purpose of the Passionate Love Scale to your patient, emphasizing that it measures their feelings of passionate love toward their current or most recent romantic partner. Ensure the patient understands that the scale evaluates cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of love in intimate relationships.

Step 3: Provide the form and instructions

Give your patient the form and ask them to fill it out based on their most intense romantic experience. Each item requires the patient to rate statements like "I would feel deep despair if ____ left me" on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 9 (definitely true).

Step 4: Guide on responses

Ensure patients answer all 15 or 30 items, depending on the version used. When filling out the form, let them know they can think about a past or current partner. Our template indicates which items are used for the 15-item version, making it easy for you to explain the scale to your patient.

Step 5: Score and interpret the results

After completion, score the form by summing or averaging the patient’s responses. Higher scores indicate more intense, passionate love. Use these results to assess emotional health and relationship satisfaction.

Passionate Love Scale scoring and interpretation

The Passionate Love Scale uses a 9-point Likert scale; answers range from 1 (not at all true) to 9 (definitely true). The PLS is available in 15-item and 30-item versions.

To calculate the score for the 30-item version, sum the values assigned to each response.   Higher scores indicate greater passionate love.

For the 15-item version, scoring is either kept continuous or broken into the following classifications:

• 106-135 points: Wildly, even recklessly, in love.
• 86-105 points: Passionate, but less intense.
• 66-85 points: Occasional bursts of passion.
• 45-65 points: Tepid, infrequent passion.
• 15-44 points: The thrill is gone.

Next steps

After interpreting the Passionate Love Scale scores, healthcare professionals can take several next steps to deepen their understanding of a patient's passionate love in intimate relationships. If the scores suggest a strong emotional bond, clinicians can explore behavioral components, such as affectionate gestures and signs indicating attachment, to assess how well the relationship fosters positive feelings and mutual satisfaction.

For patients with lower scores, it may be helpful to address issues like emotional withdrawal or disconnection. Engaging in clinical psychology interventions, such as exploring companionate love or using complementary tools like the Friendship-Based Love Scale, may provide further insight into the relationship dynamic. Additionally, investigating relationship status—whether the patient feels partner happy or fulfilled—can guide further therapeutic approaches.

Conducting more research into the patient’s emotional and psychological responses to love, such as physical reactions (e.g., body trembles), can offer a more holistic view. Continually evaluating the internal consistency of the PLS across patients ensures robust and reliable results, aiding practitioners in supporting healthier and more fulfilling intimate relations.

Reference

Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1986). Measuring passionate love in intimate relations. Journal of Adolescence, 9, 383–410.