28. Are love languages real?

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Thanks for joining in again and for listening to this episode. Today, we're going to talk about love languages. Maybe you've heard of them, maybe you haven't. Maybe that's why you decided to listen to this episode. But regardless of your pre existing knowledge of the idea, there is plenty to learn today. If there is noise in the background, I'm so sorry. I'm currently recording this under a blanket in my house because it's raining. Because Lendina does not sleep. She just doesn't. So love languages, that's what we're talking about this week. Essentially, there are ways that people express and love. That's the basic premises and the founder of this concept, essentially, he believes his name's Chapman, and he believes that he's created a tool, a test or I guess, kind of like a dimensional method that can reveal exactly how you want to be loved and the ways in which you best show love. And since it's creation back in the eighties early nineties, it's expanded quite significantly. Obviously, it's now an online quitz that I'm sure I would say most of you have done, and it's no longer just primarily used for couples. It's used for friendships, the relationships you have with your family, and even get this in the workplace, although I'm not quite sure how they incorporate physical touch into that. That sounds like they're walking a very thin line between healthy work relationships and a lawsuit. But anyhow, you can kind of get the gist. It has become its own kind of phenomenon and a pretty core part of our psyche babble. I remember when I was at UNI, this was like a huge thing that people talked about. Oh, you know, like, what's your love language? I remember doing the quiz. I've probably done it quite a few times, and it's changed every time, But I remember doing it with a group of friends, like at one of my UNI dining tables, like way back in twenty and seventeen, and even today, people often trot out their self identified love languages as kind of a shorthand to indicate how they behave in relationships in the same kind of casual and convenient way you might talk about your star sign or your Mayer's brig type or your Hogwarts house. I see it on Hinge profiles all the time, like all the time, you know. I think it's even a prompt on Hinge, And funnily enough, like the dating app actually did some psychological research on love languages that we're going to talk about later. And you know, it's in every context I've talked about it with I think every single partner that I've ever had, even if I wasn't the one who brought it up. It's just become such a quintessential part of beginning a relationship or continuing a relationship. It's this discussion around what's your love language? How do you want me to show love? Now? Acknowledging that it has become such a huge part of relationship jargon these days, is it even real? Our love language is real? Is there any science to it at all? Or is it just this like weird, murky pseudoscience slash like BuzzFeed esque quiz. I think there is a huge trend these days with a lot of these personality quizzes and judgments that attempt to tell you things about yourself, and there's really no kind of indicator of whether they're accurate, but we put a lot of merit in them at times. So how much method is there to the madness of the five love language quiz? Can you truly believe it? If you go into your relationship having done the quiz knowing what you know about yourself, is it actually going to make you happier? So we're going to unpack all of that and more in this episode, So stay tuned. So if you're one of the few people who hasn't heard of love languages, here's a simple rundown. So the five love languages are these different ways of expressing and receiving love. They are words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. The premise is this, not everyone communicates love in the same way, and likewise people have different ways that they prefer to receive love. And the concept of love languages it was developed by this man. His name was Gary Chapman, and he wrote a book about it. His book was The Five Love Languages The Secret to Love That lass and in this book, which has become quite famous, he describes these five unique styles of communicating love categories that he's kind of distilled from his experience as a marriage counselor a bit of background on Gary Chapman. He's actually incredibly well known in social psychology. He runs an institute in the United States and they do heaps of pretty groundbreaking work or just interesting work on relationships and communication styles. And he a kind of a side note, but he did this amazing experiment, I think ten years ago where he was able to predict out of a hundred couples which ones would last and which ones would with like a ninety five percent accuracy, all based on how they communicate their communication styles, which is kind of different to the five love languages, but it was incorporated at times. So what he says is that we probably all relate to these love languages. Everyone loves receiving gifts, everyone loves words of affirmation at different times, but there's definitely one that will speak to you the most, and discovering you and your partner's primary love language and speaking that language regularly may help a better understanding of each other's needs and kind of support each other's growth in your relationship, whatever the parameters of that. Maybe. So here's a bit of a deeper overview of what each of them is acknowledging before we dive in that not one single love language is better than another, nor are we kind of just limited to one way of expressing love to others. You can feel an attachment to all of these if you're listening to them or hearing about them for the first time and you're like, well, I don't really think one of them represents me. That's kind of the whole point. Everyone likes each of these probably a little bit. It's just about which one kind of stands out. So first, let we have words of affirmation. So people with words of affirmation as a love language, they value verbal acknowledgement of affection. You know, they like when you frequently tell them I love you. They're like compliments, words of appreciation, and verbal encouragement. And in the modern age, these people often probably really enjoy frequent digital communication, texting and social media engagement, and written and spoken efforts of affection matter the most to these people above other things. You would rather receive a heartfelt message or a compliment from someone you love than maybe a gift or a hug. So the second one is quality time. So people whose love language is quality time, they feel the most adored when their partner actively wants to spend time with them, and it's kind of always down to like hang out or do things they particularly love when their partner or the person they're with is actively listening, making eye contact and their full presence is kind of in that moment. They like date nights, they're like doing things together. This love language, it's all about giving your undivided attention to that kind of special person without the distraction of your phone or another kind of stimuli or something else in the background, no interference. And these people they have a strong desire to actively spend time with their significant other, have those meaningful conversations and share in hobbies and activities. Next up, acts of service kind of like all of them. Like the title, you can kind of gather a lot from that. But if your love language is acts of service, you really value on your partner goes out of their way to make your life easier. It's things like, I don't know, bringing you like panadol when you're sick, making you coffee in the morning, picking up your dry cleaning, making the bed for you when you've had a busy day at work, doing the laundry. Simple acts that would maybe take time out of your day and they decide to kind of take it on for you. So this love language is for people who believe that I guess actions speak louder than words, unlike those who prefer to hear about how much they're cared for, as with words of affirmation. People who fit into the acts of service category, they like to be shown that they're appreciated. Doing this small or bigger chores to make their lives easier or more comfortable is pretty highly cherished by these people. Okay, gifts perhaps the most controversial. I want to say, don't mistake this love language for materialism. The receiver of the gifts, it's not that you spent money, it's that there's thoughtfulness and effort behind the gift. And it's pretty straightforward. You feel loved when people give you visual symbols of love. As Chapman calls it, It's not about the monetary value. Like I said, it's not about receiving diamonds or a car, but it's the symbolic thought behind the gift. And people with this style recognize and value the gift giving process, the careful reflection, you deliberately choosing an object that represents the relationship and kind of the emotional benefits from receiving the present. So people whose love language is receiving gifts, they enjoy being gifted something that is both physical but also meaningful. And for me, gift giving is the love language I like to show. I don't so much like receiving gifts, but for me, like if I love someone, it's kind of it's really meaningful to give them something that shows that in like a physical form. So finally, the fifth love language is physical touch. So people with physical touch as their love language, they feel loved when they receive physical signs of affection kissing, holding hands, cuddling on the couch, and of course sex. Physical intimacy and touch can be incredibly affirming and they really serve as quite a powerful, emotional, soulful connector for people with this love language. And there's this theory give it as much thought as you want, as much weight as you want. But there's a theory that the roots of physical touch go back to childhood. Some people only felt a deep connection and love by their parents when they were held, kissed, and touched, and in adulthood that might manifest in physical touch being their primary love language. People who communicate their appreciation through this language when they consent to it, feel appreciated when you hold them, when you cuddle them, when you love them through warmth and comfort and physical touch. So these are all pretty typical forms of expressing love. I think we're all fairly familiar with them, and I'm sure we've all experienced them. I'm hoping there aren't really any surprises here, though I'm sure you can maybe see perhaps some love languages that may be missing. But one of them that I talked about with someone once was like cooking for someone. It's not so much like the act of service, and it's not gift giving. It's something in between. And we're going to get further into this later for sure, because that's a big argument against the use of the love language quiz or distinction. It's that it doesn't really capture everyone, and love is a lot more nuanced than kind of a five point categorical scale. But before we kind of dig into the controversy, I want to discuss the quiz, the quiz that is most typically used to discover your love language. So the creator Chapman we've mentioned talked about him. He developed this kind of test based on his interactions with thousands and I mean thousands of couples in one on one therapy sessions and interviews. There's a TV series about this if you want to know more. Essentially, but through this experience with his clients, I'm just going to note here the majority of them were heterosexual and monogamous. But through his experiences talking with them, he determined that not only are there five very distinct ways of showing and receiving love, but we can clinically discern which one suits a person best by asking them to rate some fairly simple statements and just to say which they would prefer. So, for example, one of the questions or statements might begin with this, so it's more meaningful when a I receive a loving note from my loved one, or be my partner and I hug so with the first option that of represents words of affirmation and the second being physical touch. This goes on for a while. I don't know how many there are, I'm guessing probably over twenty, and at the end you get a percentage for each of the five languages that tells you which you would like to receive, and the percentages add up to a hundred meaning there's room for all of them in your final result. It's very rare that you'll get one hundred percent just for one. Actually it's impossible. It's not rare. It's impossible. You're definitely you're definitely going to perhaps have two or three that really are quite significant, and sometimes they're pretty close. So for example, for me, my lowest love languages are quality time and words of affirmation, and they're both around twelve percent. If you haven't done it before, take five minutes. Now pause the podcast. I promise I'm not saying anything not interesting and completely quids. Just google five love languages. It's free, It's completely free, and answer intuitively. Don't think too much into it. That's how you'll get the most antique answer. But hold off reading too much into it right away, wait till the end of the episode. Then consider how much weight you want to give this. What's the merit you'd like to give this tool? A big question I kind of always wondered, maybe you're wondering it as well, is what is the most common love language? The founder of the quiz, he analyzed the results of I think over ten thousand people who took the quiz in two and ten, and he found that words of affirmation was the most popular language, but by really thin margin. And in two eighteen, the dating app Hinge, Yes, that's right, Hinge analyzed their app and found the most common love language was quality time by far, So there's been the shift in the last eight years. Between two and ten and two eighteen, Chapman found it was words of affirmation, and then when Hinge did it quality time, I think it was like two hundred percent higher the second option, which was actually words of affirmation, but by a long shot. And when I read this, I kind of found it equally parts funny and a little bit sad because these are my lowest by far, but also it's not something you can really change, and it's still possible to access those areas of expressing love, even if they are the most prominent or not the most prominent. Sorry, even if they're not the most prominent. Yeah, there we go. So diving further into this data collected by Hinge because I find this really fascinating, like a dating app doing psychological research. But they also assessed the differences in love languages between men and women using the app. So whilst quality time was the most common love language. Overall, there was some discrepancies between men and women and how they looked at the other love languages. So for men, have a guess which is the most second most important, it was physical touch, but for women it was words of affirmation, and that was pretty comfortably ahead the third option. Another thing they found which I'm really not quite sure what to read into this, Like I read it and I tried to find an explanation as to why this might be the case, but it's just probably a coincidence. But women who answered that acts of service was their love language of choice received seven times more likes than other women when you like, held everything else constant, really random, And it wasn't like they were putting this in their bio. It's like they used the app for a couple of months and then they were asked to take the love language quiz, and that's like, I'm just going to repeat that again. Women who answered acts of service for their love language of choice seven times more likes than other women. But I also personally think it depends a lot on gender, culture, customs values. So certain love languages, which are pretty prevalent in the West, might be less common in non Western cultures. So, for example, in South Asian cultures, directly praising someone is very uncomfortable and might not be well received. Instead, I read this article and it said that praising that person to a third party is more highly valuabled when they hear about what you said about them through the grapevine or through another person. Also, public displays of affection between romantic partners it might also be less accepted, whereas in Western cultures that kind of level of PDA it's much more accepted. I'm not really sure why. I'm not going to read too much into it, but it's just some findings and some kind of observations that some people have had. But love language they aren't just reserved for your romantic relationships. They can also be really important in other close loving relationships we have with our friends and our family. It can be really difficult and frustrating when we don't feel understood, regardless of the contexts, and that's the gap that love languages help bridge. By understanding how we feel seen and appreciated, and when we're able to accurately communicate that, we reduce the friction that comes from don't feel understood by those who are closest to us. However, as popular as the concept is, many many people have since pointed out some problems with Chapman's idea of just five love languages. Some people can maybe use this quiz this theory as a sort of personality test, despite the fact that the founder his whole point is that we're supposed to adapt ourselves to our partner's love language, not demand that they use ours. And when partners use the concept of love languages only as a way to talk about how they themselves instinctively express affection or what makes them personally feel loved, Chapman noted the idea can actually actively cause trouble in relationships. There's also this idea of people are very different. There's some people who are survivors of combat or sexual abuse, trauma, or people with autism spectrum disorders, for example. They're not going to respond well to partners who just insist on physical touch, as that's probably not what they want to do. And that's like kind of what Chapman was saying this whole time. It's not about demanding your love language, it's about adapting to the other persons. So do our love languages have to align for a relationship relationship to be successful or long term. Well, that's the question that's been asked quite a lot as well. And recent research revealed that couples who share the same love languages or their love languages are aligned and they're on the same wavelength, it doesn't exactly mean that they're going to have a more successful and happy relationship. It's not like the big secret here, it's not the antidote. It's just a component. Couples who shared the same love language, they just they weren't happier than couples who are differing styles. And that kind of suggests that mastering fluency over the love language system and adapting it based on what your partner needs in the moment is a lot more valuable than solely relying on a dominant love language type, which is what people who share the same love language would be doing. I think that kind of promotes codependency and it prevents partners from developing autonomy and authenticity. And you know, a relationship is a place for transformation and growth, and when we limit each other with a specific love language, we don't really allow room for change. And then if you also think about this, there might be times when you're just really busy, and if your partner's love language and your love language as acts of service and they're also busy, the whole thing kind of falls apart because neither of you can show love in that typical way. The broad concepts, when we lean on its practical simplicity, can also feel think a little bit too simplistic, since it is not completely inclusive of sexuality and culture trauma and generational differences. In many nuanced multicultural communities, there needs to be on an understanding that human relationships are a pretty complicated reflection of a lot of things, of childhood, wounds of attachment, of things that happened in the past. And I think it's only when you really are able to overcome that and kind of heal those ruins of past relationships and family and develop a healthy attachment style that love languages can become something that's prominent in how you treat others. And it might even be the case that your love language really significantly changes. Here's the other issue that we've mentioned, but I want to expand on it a bit further. It's this narrow idea that there are only five love languages, when there has been an abundance of further research that's shown there's so many more, and these will all very slightly, like we've said, with different cultures and demographics. So one research or in particular, she set out to modify the love languages that were initially created or listed by Chapman. This is what you have to say. So she saw from the data that as gender norms in particular have changed, the expectations we have for our romantic relationships have become very different from the late eighties. For heterosexual couples in particular, the division of labor across gender lines is no longer kind of neatly circumscribed, leading to kind of an expansion of what we expect from our partners. Let's dive into this further. So, as an example, in Chapman's book, he consistently frames kind of a man doing housework as helping his wife out. He kind of suggests that that is an act of service. Doing an equal part of housework is an act of service. Not to mention, there is multiple anecdotes in his book from husbands who have you succeeded and they bring round a paycheck, they do the dishes, and they're baffled when their partners want them to do more. While these attitudes you know of this gender division of labor and financial means aren't totally behind us. I think the error when you know this is the error, I guess. And most women earn as much or sometimes more than their male partners, and most couples expect to bring more of themselves to a partnership. And also there is no longer this traditional idea that women do the housework. Men bring from the money. And when men do the housework, it's an act of service. It's just expected. Now. If a man was like to me, oh, I did the dishes, and you know that's how I showed my love for you, I'd be like, no, that's just we both ate the same meal, Like, of course you're gonna do the fucking dishes if I cook. It's just splitting labor. Evenly, it's not love. So because of this woman's kind of observations, she's created a new set of love languages. There's not five, there's seven this time. Here's what they are. So the first is activity. So these people feel special, special and valued when their partner actually takes an interest in their hobbies and their activities, even more so, those who resonate most with the activity love language. They feel especially valued when their partner makes an effort to enjoy these hobbies and interest with them. You know, like I always found it so meaningful with friends, because, as we've said, it's not just romantic partners, but when my friends join me in doing something that I really love, like when they come on the podcast, or when we go to an art class together or we go for a hike, it's just so meaningful to me. The second is appreciation. So people who feel the appreciation love language applies to most to them will feel really loved and adored when their partner showers them in compliments, in praises and appreciation when they're told I love you. This is pretty similar to words of affirmation. These people they like being told explicitly that they're admired and loved, and this makes them feel really understood. Here's the next one. We're two down, five to go. Emotional emotional love language will resonate with many of those who feel as though they can connect with their partner and be supported even in the toughest of times. Partners who present during the worst and best moments will feel really valued by someone with an emotional love language financial. This is the first one that's quite different from Chapman's original love languages, and it's kind of been adapted because of what we saw now as that shift in earnings, that shift in labor. So a person who feels loved when they have a partner who is generous with their money and sees the value in giving is someone with a financial love language. This doesn't have to come from gifts. It might be that you pay for dinner, it might be that you pay more of the bills. The way these people feel valued and appreciated will mostly be through gifts or resources. And just a reminder, they don't have to be expensive or lavish, they just have to be well meaning. Here's another new one, intellectual. And I really like this love language. I think that a lot of us can relate to it, and it was quite surprising to me that Chapman didn't include it in his initial lifts. So people with the intellectual love language, they like to connect through the mind. Oh my god, what's that sexuality type where you fall in love with someone's ideas and their mind. I can't remember. Message me if you remember, or I'll google it. They can find out together. But people with intellectual love language, they feel loved when their partner values their intelligence, When your partner wants to have engaging conversations with you, when they respect your opinion and they take part in kind of thoughtful discussions of important issues. It's the person who feels loved when their partner is willing to have a debate and disagree with them for the sake of an intellectual conversation. Physical We've already talked about this. It's physical touch. It's feeling adored and validated through physical affection. It's the same as Chapman's one and then the final and the seventh love language in this adapted kind of model is practical. People with the practical love language feel the most loved when their partners chip in with their everyday duties and responsibilities. They feel cared for when their loved ones do the chores and offer to help. We can see that there are you know, a lot of these are kind of similar to Chapman's original theory. But it's that addition of these actual love languages, intellectual and financial in particular, that I think encompasses more people who may not previously have operated or fit into the traditional framework. By using a more updated, diverse sample this woman, she was able to create a new system or tool that I think is more applicable to modern day settings and modern day relationships. And you know, since the original five love languages were created, relationships have evolved from you know what used to be a mostly practical partnership based on efficient division of labor and raising children, to a more spiritual and personal connection that we have higher expectations for. We don't just want to come home to someone who will bring home a paycheck or help us with chores. We want this person to help us kind of achieve our best selves. And there are also more accepted types of relationships now, like open relationships or polyamory, in which aspects like financial and intellectual love might be more central. You know, yeah, I don't really know how to explain this, but it kind of made sense to me, especially that financial and those financial and intellectual components. You might be able to get words of affirmation and physical touch from someone else, but the person waiting for you at home might be the person you really relate to intellectually, and too, you have kind of a financial promise too, and that is love that is a form of love. I think in general, it's also important to note that you shouldn't just use love languages as kind of a universal solve to like remedy issues. It's clear that we do need more of a skill set than those, you know, than just five ways, five tools, maybe even seven to face the problems that may exist below the surface of our relationship, you know, maybe going to therapy, working on yourself, fixing your own problems. That's also a form of love that doesn't really fit into any of the ones that we've talked about. When we use a quiz on the internet to tell us something definitive about ourselves, it's not always going to be one hundred percent accurate. I don't need to tell you that, and I don't think it should be taken entirely literally as well. And that's kind of Chapman's main's point. In doing so, you kind of detract from his true intentions. And his intention was to create a tool, an informational tool to help partners communicate and understand each other better, rather than kind of narrow the ways in which they show that they care. That's kind of the end of what we have today. A shorter episode, but short and sweet, and it was really interesting looking into this. I found it, you know, quite insightful, especially now you know that I'm not dating anyone or anything like that. I was doing the love language quiz and I realized that since the last time I did it, which was when I was last in a relationship, it's changed so much. Like I realize, I think my love languages had kind of adapted to the other person, and now that I'm able to refocus on myself, I kind of realized that some of the things that they were giving to me perhaps weren't actually what I wanted. So it's interesting to do that now versus when I'm in a relationship. And if you haven't done it, you should do it. It's if you're not dating someone, you should still do it. It's like I said, great for relating to your family, great for relating to your friends as well. Like I know, for me personally, I love giving my friends gifts, but I feel weird when they give them to me, and I would much rather, you know, quality time or like a frequent message or something like that then acts than an act of service or something. It's good to kind of understand that about your friendships and your family. Those relationships are also important. It's not just your romantic partner that should be the most prominent. But thank you again for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm going to do my basic spiel now, you know, saying all the things I usually say blah blah blah. If you'd like to review this podcast on Apple podcast on Spotify, I would greatly appreciate it. No one, all seriousness. It really does help the podcast grow, and it's just me doing this. It takes a while to write these episodes. It only takes like four hours to make one, and it's all kind of worth it when I get a nice review or something like that. So if you are getting something out of this, I would really appreciate it, and make sure to follow. I always say us, but it is just me on Instagram on Facebook, although I don't really use it. But if you feel the need and subscribe, there we go. There's my three list of demands. Thank you and tune in. Next week. We're going to talk about situation ships. Boy or boy. I was in a situations situationship for seven months this year and last year, and let me tell you that fucked me up, so I have so much to talk about. I've been researching my little butt off to get some good content into the years of all thou who are listening, So tune in for that and have a lovely, lovely week. Thank you.