Open AccessNOTIONS ABOUT LOVE AND CULTURE: RESULTS OF AN EMPIRICAL STUDY
Author(s) -
О В Маслова,
И. А. Джидарьян
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
vestnik kemerovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2078-8983
pISSN - 2078-8975
DOI - 10.21603/2078-8975-2016-2-114-119
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , feeling , ambivalence , friendship , passion , idealization , social psychology , value (mathematics) , psychology , pleasure , falling in love , patience , power (physics) , gender studies , philosophy of love , sociology , psychoanalysis , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , neuroscience , computer science , psychotherapist
This research focuses on the value-meaning aspect of love in different cultures. In this study, we looked at people from Central African Republic (CAR) and Russia, and tested the hypothesis on how much influence a culture has on the way love is viewed. 50 people from Central African Republic and 50 people from Russia took part in this research. Groups had equal gender representation (25 females and 25 males in each group) and comparable age. As a methodology, we used our questionnaire “Notions about love” and classical associative experiment. Comparative analysis of the data showed that notions of love even in such distant cultures have many more similarities than differences. In both groups (Russia and CAR), the idealization of this feeling (love) prevails. Love is seen as a power that helps people create, grow and overcome obstacles. Another similarity is that both groups associate love with dedication and the meaning of life. Data from the associative experiment confirms this commonality, because in both groups, love is associated with passion, friendship and patience. At the same time, the results of this experiment show that concept of love is ambivalent among the Russians: they associate love not only with positive feelings, but with suffering and selfsacrifice. Russians are more likely to agree with relatively negative statements about love. Notions about love among people from Central African Republic is mostly associated with religion and action-related components.