D A R E
we believe that there’s more that connects us
than we are aware. . .
D A R E
BELIEVE IT
and D A R E
more to
Live Like It. . .
Because in the end. . .
THERE IS ONLY US
LOVE LANGUAGES
It’s really east to spell:
L O V E
but do you really speak its
L A N G U A G E (S). . .
Is There Science Behind the Five Love Languages?
Despite how popular love languages are, there is little research to support the framework. . .
Gery Karantzas, Ph.D., is currently a professor and director of the Science of Adult Relationships (SoAR) Laboratory in the School of Psychology at Deakin University. He is also a couples therapist and was the former national convener of the Australian Psychological Society Psychology of Relationships Interest Group. He just recently pulled back the curtain, once again, on the Language(s) of Love
Love languages—the concept coined by Baptist pastor Gary Chapman some 30 years ago—has taken the relationships world by storm. It’s often the “go-to” topic on first dates, and, for those in relationships, love languages are said to provide deep, meaningful, and reliable insights into how relationships function. Putting love languages into action is believed to increase relationship happiness.
The concept clearly has appeal. At last count, 20 million copies have been sold worldwide of Chapman’s 1992 book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts. The book has been translated into 49 languages.
There is only one catch. There is little evidence to support the idea that love languages are “a thing,” or that love languages do much of anything to help improve relationships.
There is only one catch. There is little evidence to support the idea that love languages are “a thing,” or that love languages do much of anything to help improve relationships.
What are the love languages?
According to Chapman, there are five love languages. Each of these love languages is a way to communicate your love to your romantic partner.
In his role as a Baptist pastor, Chapman had been counselling couples for years. It was through his observations of couples that the idea of love languages was born.
He believed love languages were an intuitive and simple way to teach couples about how to tune into each other’s ways of expressing love. And so, he began running seminars for husbands and wives, and the popularity of his seminars grew.
The five love languages are:
- acts of service (doing something that helps a partner, such as running an errand)
- physical touch (demonstrating physical affection, such as giving your partner a hug or kiss)
- quality time (spending time together and giving each other undivided attention)
- gifts (giving your partner a present that communicates thoughtfulness, effort, or expense)
- words of affirmation (such as expressing your admiration, or complimenting your partner).
Chapman suggests that people typically use all love languages, but that most people tend to rely on one love language most of the time. This is referred to as a person’s primary love language.
According to Chapman, people are more satisfied in their relationships when both partners match when it comes to their primary love language. However, people experience less satisfaction in their relationships when both partners do not share the same primary love language.
Another important aspect of the love languages concept is that relationships are likely to deliver the greatest satisfaction when a person can understand their partner’s love language, and act in ways that “speak to” their partner’s language. In essence, this idea is about tuning in to what a partner wants.
This is an idea that has existed across many models and theories about how relationships function well. That is, responding to a partner in a way that meets their needs and wants makes a person feel understood, validated, and cared for.
What does the evidence tell us?
Despite the popularity of the theory of love languages, only a handful of studies have been conducted and reported over the past 30 years. Research is largely inconclusive, although the balance sways more toward refuting rather than endorsing the love languages concept.
Let’s start with how love languages are assessed. In popular culture, the Love Language QuizTM is an online questionnaire that people can complete to find out about their love languages. Despite millions of individuals having taken the quiz (according to 5lovelanguages.com), there are no published findings as to the reliability and validity of the measure.
Researchers have developed their own version of the love languages survey, but the findings did not meet the statistical thresholds to suggest the survey adequately captured the five love languages. Also, their findings did not support the idea that there are five love languages.
Furthermore, a qualitative study, in which researchers coded the written responses of undergraduate students to questions about how they express love, suggested there may be six love languages. However, the researchers reported difficulty agreeing on how some of the students’ responses neatly fitted into Chapman’s love languages, particularly in the categories of “words of affirmation” and “quality time.”
Next, let’s turn to research testing a core premise of the love language theory: that couples with matching love languages experience greater satisfaction than those who do not. Evidence for this premise is very mixed.
Three studies, including one that used Chapman’s Love Language Quiz, have found that couples with matching love languages were no more satisfied than couples who were mismatched.
However, a more recent study found that partners with matching love languages experienced greater relationship and sexual satisfaction than partners with mismatched love languages. This research also found that men who reported greater empathy and perspective taking had a love language that better matched the language of their partner.
Finally, what does the research say about whether having a better understanding of your partner’s love language is linked to higher relationship satisfaction? Only two studies have investigated this question. Both found that knowing your partner’s primary love language did predict relationship satisfaction in the present or into the future.
So, as you can see, not only is there very little research investigating love languages, but the research to date doesn’t strengthen belief in the powerful properties of love languages.
COULD IT BE
THAT THE GREATEST WAY TO SAY,
“I LOVE YOU”
is still the way you
SHOW IT
and not the way you
s p e a k
i t. . . ?
THE UN-CONFUSED THERMOMETER
The Seven of Pentacles–Marge Piercy
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the lady bugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
I came across this nice Spring Time poem as the weather forecaster is telling us that snow and wintry weather is about to descend down upon us
IN MARCH
(uhhhhhhh just 10 days away from Spring)
which is enough to make any Thermometer
(AND US)
be a little more than confused
THE UN-CONFUSED THERMOMETER
Sometimes a Place
can have all four Seasons
in one day
that’ll schizophrenically
have you guessing how to dress
so you’re not shivering or sweating
at any unknowingly moment
confusing the most sophisticated
of Thermometers
And yet you meet
THAT Heart
that’ll have you begging
for the harshest of Winter’s Terriblesnesses
so IT could forever be Warmed
Now any Caring Catalyst
S H O W S
that it’s not the Season we’re in
we dress for
but the Season we bring
to the worst
t e m p e r a t u r e s
a confused Thermometer
can ever read. . .
A VILLAGE
Yes. . .
A Village it does take
To Be
Joy to the weary
Music to the heart
Health to the sick
Wealth to the poor
Food to the hungry
Home to the wanderer
Jubilation to the jaded
A Village it does take
To Be
Joy to the weary
Music to the heart
Health to the sick
Wealth to the poor
Food to the hungry
Home to the wanderer
Jubilation to the jaded
A Piece of Peace
A Village it does take
and sometimes it does take
THAT VILLAGE
One in All to ALL
. . .If you a Village
will be
Join me
my Caring Catalyst
V I L L A G E R
and sometimes it does take
THAT VILLAGE
One in All to ALL
. . .If you a Village
will be
Join memy Caring Catalyst
V I L L A G E R
NEIGHBOR
Neighbor By JJ Heller, David Heller, and Andy Gullahorn
Sometimes it’s easier to jump to conclusions Than walk across the street It’s like I’d rather fill the blanks with illusions Than take the time to see
You are trying to close the back door of your car You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms You are more than just a sign in your front yard You are my neighbor
I can get so lost in the mission Of defending what I think I’ve been surfing on a sea of opinions But just behind the screen
You are grateful that the work day’s finally done You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone You are tryin’ to feel a little less alone You are my neighbor
When the chasm between us feels so wide That it’s hard to imagine the other side But we don’t have to see things eye to eye For me to love you like you are my neighbor My neighbor
Oh, to fear the unfamiliar Is the easy way to go But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know
There’s a light that shines on both the rich and poor Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for ‘Till I can’t see a stranger anymore I see my neighbor May my heart be an open door to my neighbor You are my neighbor
S O M E T I M E S
Music is more than MUSIC
and Words are more than
W O R D S
From the beginning of time the question has rung out,
sometimes louder than softer:
JUST WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
No matter what you say, You
SHOW THE ANSWER,
Person by Person,
Neighbor by Neighbor…
with this certainty:
It just isn’t the person next door or across the street…
SO JUST WHO IS
YOUR NEIGHBOR. . . ?
GONE FISHING
Sometimes the greatest
F I S H
caught are the ones
you never put a line in the water
to catch. . .
In fact,
those fish swim everywhere
in, out, through your imagination
for the greatest tales ever. . .
When this not-not-so-small-minnow
jumped into my boat
I wasn’t ‘fishing’ for it but
it caught me way before I even thought of reeling it in. . .
It birthed
almost immediately these
poetic thoughts:
FIRST TIMES
I don’t remember
the first time
I sucked a lemon
but I’m sure it
prepared me for the
second time
I knowingly wouldn’t
suck up to pucker up
again. . .
Candle flame burns
Electrical outlet shocks
Black ice falls
Hit the thumb instead of the nail hammerings
Hot pans on hotter stoves
Stumbles off of shaky branches
All First Times
that make a
Second Time
not so much a lesson learned
as one to be remembered
to ever be taught
again. . .
FISHING BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO FISH Courtney Martin Through the pines and the one maple I hear her. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. There she stands legs impossibly long pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy pole in her hands and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook. I don’t tell her, but I do think Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that. Fishing before you know how to fish. Leaving before you know how to leave. Speaking before you know how to speak. Fighting before you know how to fight. Loving before you know how to love. Dying before you know how to die. We are all the child with the pole worrying about who we’ve hurt. And we are all the fish on the hook, hoping for mercy. Her aunt hears her muttering prayer and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands and dislodges metal from cheek. And this, too, is all of us. Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying and a witness we forgot was listening. Thank you, Miss Courtney for taking us Fishing before we knew we even had a pole, bait and some not-always-needed-know-how. . . . |
LEVEL UP
N O
I didn’t lose my mind; this is the the video I posted on this past Monday’s blog and as A Caring Catalyst but also a real, live CHANGE MAKER. . .
This hairstylist had a job he was paid to do. . .
Beyond the job, he had the same options every other cause-driven compassionate human being has for comforting someone who is struggling.
Maybe think of these options as “Levels of Sacrificial Giving.” Each level requires a bit more sacrifice on the part of the giver, thereby imbuing the act with an increasing measure of beauty.
LEVEL 1: WORDS
Saying something genuine to affirm the sufferer’s enduring worth.
LEVEL 2: UTILITY
Supplying helpful goods, services, or money for the sufferer’s use.
LEVEL 3: TOUCH
A tender gesture to inhabit the same physical space as the sufferer.
LEVEL 4: TRANSFER
A permanent exchange from giver to sufferer (e.g., organ donation).
LEVEL 5: CO-SUFFERING
Voluntarily joining the sufferer to share the experience of their pain.
This hairstylist is a Level 5 Giver.
It begs the simple question:
ARE YOU A LEVEL FIVE GIVER
I’ve come to learn that no ironclad argument exists for convincing someone that Level 5 Giving is worthwhile or even rational.
The beauty of an act of Level 5 Giving either pierces you in a life-changing way or it doesn’t.
My hope for you and me is that this act, or another like it, so pierces us that we level up our giving in a world that is groaning louder and louder for it every day. . .
JOIN ME
Lets LEVEL UP
always to a better way. . .
A DEEPER “I’M SORRY”
“I’M SORRY”
See, that wasn’t so hard was it
B U T
Did you mean it. . .
Did they feel it. . .
DID THEY BELIEVE IT. . . ?
Do you use these words
when you apologze?
It’s time to stop, researchers say
There’s something very powerful about receiving or giving a heartfelt, genuine apology.
Bad apologies, on the other hand, can be disastrous and lead to more hurt.
The new book, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies, draws from a broad range of research to explain the power of apologies, why we don’t always get good ones, and the best way to tell someone you’re sorry.
Co-authors Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy break down the six (and a half) steps to great apologies. They are:
- Say you’re sorry. Not that you “regret,” not that you are “devastated.” Say you’re “sorry.”
- Say what it is that you’re apologizing for. Be specific.
- Show you understand why it was bad, take ownership, and show that you understand why you caused hurt.
- Don’t make excuses.
- Say why it won’t happen again. What steps are you taking?
- If it’s relevant, make reparations: “I’m going to pay for the dry cleaning. Just send the bill to me. I’m going to do my best to fix what I did.”
“These six steps are relevant for adults, for children, for corporations, for institutions, for governments,” Ingall said. “And six-and-a-half is ‘listen.’ People want to be heard, and don’t jump over them. Let the person that you hurt have their say.”
Ingall said saying the word “sorry” may seem obvious, but it didn’t always happen. Instead, people say things like they’re “regretful,” and this isn’t the same thing.
“Regret is about how I feel,” Ingall said. “We’re all regretful. ‘Sorry’ is about how the other person feels. And when you apologize, you have to keep the other person’s feelings at top of mind.”
Then there are the words not to say during an apology.
Ingall points to words like “obviously” (“If it was obvious, you wouldn’t have to say it”) and “already” (“‘I’ve already apologized’ is a thing we hear a lot”), and the qualifiers like “sorry if…” and “sorry but…” and “I didn’t meant to.”
“Intent is far less important than impact when it comes to apologies,” Ingall said.
McCarthy adds that a bad apology can even make things worse.
“It’s akin to the cover-up being worse than a crime, if you make an apology that says, you know, ‘You shouldn’t even have a white sofa,’ or, ‘You shouldn’t have been standing there,'” she said.
On the other hand, a great — even late — apology can have tremendous healing power, the authors say.
“I received a letter years after a breakup from a boyfriend,” Ingall said. “And he just said, ‘I wanted you to know I’m getting married. And I’m aware that I was often not a good boyfriend. And I want you to know that I was listening, even when it didn’t seem like I wasn’t listening. And I’m going to be a better husband because of our relationship.'”
So. . .when’s the last time you apologized. . . ?
How did that go for you?
Is it worth showing up and maybe saying
maybe SHOWING it in another way. . .
I’m Sorry. . .
maybe it’s worth another try in another way just to make sure your
“I’M SORRY
goes a little bit
d
e
e
p
e
r
.
.
.
.
CHANGEMAKING
C H A N G E M A K I N G
. . .isn’t always about launching and scaling new ventures and initiatives. Sometimes it’s about turning an everyday moment into a moment of positive change. These are opportunities that we can’t plan for, but that when they appear, give us a chance to step up, take action, and change someone’s life. Some call that microleadership. . .I merely call it CHANGEMAKING or better, LIFECHANGING and the best part about THAT is everyone of us is capable of making IT happen at any time with anyone. . .This video is a moving example of how we all can have impact, anywhere.
Watch this barber shave off his own hair in unity with a cancer patient shaving hers and see how these small acts can add up to huge impact and then go and DUPLICATE IT as often as you can, everywhere you can, with whoever you can. . .
Being a CHANGEMAKER is being A Caring Catalyst on steroids
K I C K
I T
U P
YOU-NIQUELY YOU
THE OLDER WE GET
THE CLOSER WE GET
well. . .
You can fill in the ________________________________
What some call
R E T I R E M E N T
others call: STARTING OVER
others call: THE NEXT CHAPTER
others call: THE GRAVY YEARS
others call: THE BEST PART
others call: RE-TIRED-MENT
others call: _______________
A couple of Sunday’s ago I switched from reading the New York Times Sunday Edition to watching “60 Minutes” One of it’s featured stories was about Hans Zimmer. It immediately got me to writing this Friday Blog post and even more about being devoted to never retiring and most of all always (ALL-WAYS) reinventing myself to continually being: MYSELF–AN (EVER EVOLVING) ORIGINAL
All of this prompted was prompted by this interview with German-born composer Hans Zimmer. You may not know his name as well as John Williams, but he has scored many blockbuster films like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Dune,” and “Lion King.” He said from his earliest days learning the piano, “I did not want to play other people’s music.” He has certainly passed well beyond that: it’s hard to categorize his work (or even to completely discern all the instruments that make his unique compositions.) Towards the end of the interview he was asked about RETIREMENT and he in essence said that he couldn’t imagine it because he was energized and at his best and gets jazzed by creating/re-creating himself. (THAT ONE STRUMMED THE STRINGS ON MY HEART AND BLEW THE WOODWINDS OF MY SOUL) We all know it’s not terribly easy to BE ORIGINAL. There will always be pressures to conform, to not “rock the boat,” to “get back in line.” We also know that great strides personally and professionally are rarely made by settling for cutting with the grain. This week’s challenge (and I’m right there with you) — what can you initiate this week, TODAY, that will set new standards, travel down new paths, and establish once and for all that you are an original?
ITS NOT ENOUGH TO OWN YOUR OWN FINGERPRINT. . .
You have to make sure
that you make indelible
I M P R I N T S
And lasting impressions
YOU-NIQUELY
your own to have and share
now and
for-an-evermore. . .
BE THE SYMPHONY
you are ever composing
and never forget to
CONDUCT IT
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