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What fuels passion? An integrative review of competing theories of romantic passion

Carswell, Kathleen L.; Impett, Emily A.

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Authors

Emily A. Impett



Abstract

In an integrative review, we examine four theories and models of romantic passion to determine what causes feelings of romantic passion. Although a growing consensus has emerged for the definition of romantic passion, we suggest that this is largely not the case for the source of romantic passion. We outline how four different perspectives—Limerence Theory, the Rate of Change in Intimacy Model, the Self-Expansion Model, and the Triangular Theory of Love—propose four different potential sources of romantic passion and review empirical support in favor and against each. For each of these perspectives, we additionally outline the predicted trajectory of passion that follows from each theorized source of passion, as well as each perspective's view on the ability for passion to be controlled and up-regulated. In identifying ways in which these theories and models offer conflicting predictions about the source of romantic passion, this review points to ways in which a more comprehensive model may be developed that integrates across these four perspectives.

Citation

Carswell, K. L., & Impett, E. A. (2021). What fuels passion? An integrative review of competing theories of romantic passion. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(8), Article e12629. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12629

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 14, 2021
Online Publication Date Jul 6, 2021
Publication Date Aug 7, 2021
Deposit Date Aug 13, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Electronic ISSN 1751-9004
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 15
Issue 8
Article Number e12629
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12629

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Published Journal Article (191 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Social and Personality Psychology Compass published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.




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