Relational implications of communication skill evaluations and love styles.

Abstract

As values placed by individuals on communication skills may associate with experiences of romantic love, this study explores relationships between communication values and the adoption of six major love styles (Lee, 1973). Two hundred and seventy‐two participants (119 males and 153 females) completed an expanded version of Burleson and Samter's (1990) Communication Functions Questionnaire, which generates judgments about the importance of several communication skills, and Hendrick and Hendrick's (1986) Love Attitudes Scale, which provides assessments of love styles. Results indicated numerous significant associations between communication values and love styles, sex differences in the evaluation of some communication values and in the adoption of some love styles, and that sex moderates relationships between some of the communication values and love styles.