love scale
a measure of the strength of one person’s feeling of love for another. Because love is a complex state occurring in many different forms, the various scales that have been devised do not always recognize the same components of this multifaceted emotion. As examples, the measure assessing passionate love developed by U.S. social psychologist Elaine Hatfield (1937– ) concentrates on items dealing with sexual desires as well as other, more cognitively oriented items, reflecting a preoccupation with the love object and idealization of this person, whereas the romantic love scale devised by U.S. social psychologist Zick Rubin (1944– ) involves elements of both passionate and companionate love and includes items dealing with willingness to confide in the loved person and the desire to be with him or her. See also liking scale.