Correlates of romantic love.

Hypothesized the existence of relationships between internal-external control and romantic love, on the basis of a social influence interpretation and the view that romantic love is culturally stereotyped as an external force. Rotter's Internal-External Control Scale and a romantic-love questionnaire were administered to 243 undergraduates. Consistent with the hypothesis, proportionally fewer internals than externals reported having been romantically attached. Also as expected, internals reported experiencing romantic attraction as less mysterious and volatile and were more strongly opposed to an idealistic view of romantic love. In comparison to males, females were more likely to have experienced romantic attraction and were less idealistic and cynical about love but more pragmatically oriented toward it. These sex differences are accommodated within a functionalistic interpretation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)