Comprehensive Love, Attachment, and Parenthood Theories for Students

Intimacy

Emotional closeness and connection in a relationship.

Passion

The physical attraction and drive in Sternberg's theory of love.

Commitment

The decision and intent to maintain a relationship over the long term.

Consummate Love

A complete form of love that includes all three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Secure Attachment

An attachment style characterized by comfort with closeness and emotional intimacy.

Anxious Attachment

An attachment style marked by a fear of abandonment and a constant need for reassurance.

Avoidant Attachment

An attachment style involving discomfort with intimacy and a desire for emotional distance.

Eros

A passionate, intense, and physical style of love.

Storge

A friendship-based, companionate love style.

Pragma

A practical love style focusing on shared goals, compatibility, and logic.

Agape

A selfless, altruistic, and giving style of love.

Ludus

A game-playing love style that prioritizes fun over long-term commitment.

Mania

A possessive, jealous, and obsessive style of love.

Homogamy

The tendency to choose partners who share similar traits or characteristics.

Heterogamy

The practice of choosing partners outside of one's own social group or with different traits.

Propinquity

Geographic closeness that influences the selection of a partner.

Social Homogamy

The influence of similar social backgrounds and backgrounds on partner choice.

Matching Hypothesis

The theory that people seek partners with similar levels of social desirability.

Singlehood

The state of being unmarried, including those who are never married, divorced, or widowed.

LAT (Living Apart Together)

A committed couple who maintains separate residences rather than living together.

Multigenerational Household

A household containing three or more generations of family members.

Emerging Adulthood

A transition period where young adults may return home to save money or find stable employment.

Cohabitation

An arrangement where unmarried partners live together in a sexual relationship.

Serial Cohabitation

The pattern of living with a series of partners over time without marriage.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

The average number of children expected to be born to a woman in her lifetime.

Replacement-Level Fertility

The fertility rate required for a population to replace itself, approximately 2.1 in the U.S..

Pronatalist Bias

A social pressure or cultural expectation that individuals should have children.

Structural Antinatalism

Social conditions or policies that make it difficult or costly to raise children.

Voluntary Childfree

Choosing not to have children, often to maintain lifestyle freedom.

Multipartnered Fertility

Having children with more than one partner across different relationships.

Infertility

The clinical inability to conceive after 12 months of unprotected intercourse.

ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology)

Medical procedures used to address infertility, such as IVF.

Open Adoption

An adoption arrangement where birth and adoptive families share information and maintain contact.

Closed Adoption

An adoption where birth and adoptive parents do not share contact or identifying information.

Kinship Adoption

An adoption where a child is adopted by relatives, often following a parent's death.

Transracial Adoption

The adoption of a child from a different race or ethnic group than the adoptive parents.