Discover your Love Language
According to Oxford English dictionary, love can be defined as a “a strong feeling of affection”. So simply put, but anyone who has been in love knows that’s not the case. This “feeling of affection” becomes much more complicated because each individual is so different from one another. I remember being extremely frustrated in my second relationship because my boyfriend at that time kept telling me he didn’t feel loved and I had no idea what I was doing wrong!
Through trial and error, I know now that the key to relationships is communication. We need to communicate with one another because our partners aren’t psychic (contrary to popular belief, psychology majors cannot read minds). However, communicating isn’t always so easy because sometimes we don’t know what we really want, and furthermore, what makes me feel loved does not necessarily make my partner feel loved. Dr. Gary Chapman, who has been in practice as a relationship counsellor for over 40 years, realized this, gathered information from couples, and developed a questionnaire that helps to identify one’s emotional communication preference. Dr.Chapman’s 5 primary love languages are as follows:
- Quality Time: spending time together, giving full undivided attention
- Acts of Service: sharing responsibilities, serving one another
- Physical Touch: physical presence and accessibility, such as hugs or pats
- Receiving Gifts: gift or gesture showing love, thoughtfulness, and effort
- Words of Affirmation: kind, encouraging, and positive words
The test can be taken either for yourself (single or in a relationship) or your child (according to the child’s age group), and it presents 30 paired questions that asks you to select the statement that best defines what is most meaningful to you in your relationship. It creates your love profile based on your answers, and my recent profile turned out like this:
Quite surprisingly, the results were extremely accurate for me. When I first took the test, it completely cleared up my mind and I came to understand the cause of all the emotional roller-coasters in my relationships. I took the test multiple times over the past couple of years and it produced similar results with Quality Time always being my top score. Unfortunately, this test is not based on any scientific research and there aren’t many reviews verifying this model. One study by Egbert & Polk (2006) found that the 5 factors were related to Stafford & Canary’s typology of relational maintenance behaviors (1991), and demonstrated that the 5 Love Language model might have some psychometric validity. They suggested the need for further research based on a larger sample, but it has not been conducted up to date. Because of this lack of evidence, it is hard to come to conclusion on the reliability and validity of this measure. However, even with such limitations, the general public has received it quite positively, and the book The 5 Love Languages has been consistently ranked #1 Best Seller in Love & Romance on Amazon.com and has been translated into 49 languages since it was first published in 1992.
My stance on the 5 Love Languages is that one should not have blind faith in the measure and make all their relationship decisions based on the results alone, however it seems like it can be a useful device for couples to use to get to know each other better at any stage of their relationship. With further research, it could be established as a meaningful tool in the field of interpersonal relationships.
Link to the test: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/
260 307 848
Egbert, N., & Polk, D. (2006). Speaking the Language of Relational Maintenance: A Validity Test of Chapman’s (1992) Five Love Languages.Communication Research Reports, 23(1), 19–26.
