Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1978, Vol. 36, No. 11, 1302-1309Effects of Erotica Upon Men's Loving and LikingResponses for Women They LoveMarshall DermerUniversity of Wisconsin—MilwaukeeThomas A. PyszczynskiUniversity of KansasIn two studies, the construct validity of the Rubin Love scale and its dis-criminant validity in relation to the Rubin Liking scale were examined. InStudy 1, males were asked to describe their loved ones on a series of measuresafter having been exposed to either erotica or control materials. Analysis of thewithin-condition correlations revealed convergent and discriminant patterns in-dicating construct validity. Analysis of covariance also revealed convergent anddiscriminant patterns: Only scores on the Love measures reliably increased fromthe control to the erotica condition. In presenting a behavioral analysis of thedifferential impact of erotica upon Love as opposed to Liking scale responses,it was assumed that (a) women are more likely to reinforce suitors for emittingstatements more similar to the Love than to the Liking items and (b) men aremore likely when sexually aroused than when not aroused to express statementsmore similar to the Love than to the Liking items to their loved ones. In Study2, a series of surveys offered support for these assumptions. Overall, the resultswere interpreted as corroborating the construct validity of the Love scale andwere embedded within a behavioral analysis of love in general and the determi-nants of Love scale responses in particular.Rubin (1970) denned love as "an attitudeheld by a person toward a particular otherperson, involving predispositions to think, feel,and behave in certain ways toward that otherperson" (p. 265). In conceptualizing love as ahypothetical construct, and conforming withCronbach and Meehl's (1955) description ofconstruct validation, Rubin developed a mea-sure of romantic love and showed it to bemoderately independent of a measure of liking.Perhaps because Rubin conceptualized loveto be a predisposition, construct validationThis research was supported by the GraduateSchool of the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.Special thanks are due Cardell Jacobson for encourag-ing us to conduct this study and Jeffrey Edelstein,Nathan Glassman, and Robert Rinka for serving asexperimenters. We also wish to thank Robert A.Baron, George Levinger, and Zick Rubin for theircomments on an earlier version of this manuscript.A portion of this research was completed while thesecond author was an undergraduate at the Universityof Wisconsin—Milwaukee.Requests for reprints should be sent to MarshallDermer, Department of Psychology, University ofWisconsin—Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin S3201.efforts—in contrast to research on liking—have primarily involved an examination ofbetween-person covariation (Dion & Dion,1976; Rubin, 1970, 1973, 1974). The spe-cification of situational variables that controlLove and Liking scale responses has not, how-ever, been emphasized.Homans (1974, p. 66) has suggested thatit is a history of exchange of a variety of rein-forcers with a particular other that renders arelationship personal. An extension of such abehavioral analysis suggests that a loved onemay function as a discriminative stimulus andgeneralized reinforcer, by having reinforcedthe lover's orienting, approach, and other be-haviors (Gewirtz, 1972, p. 148) with avariety of reinjorcers—especially reinforcersthat cannot be readily obtained from others.Whether the attitude, or more simply the be-havior, (see Skinner, 1953, p. 162) of a lovervis a vis a loved one is best described, forexample, as romantic or conjugal dependsupon the role relationship between the loversand the nature of the reinforcers exchanged.For Rubin, romantic love refers to the sortCopyright 1978 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/78/3611-1302$00.751302EFFECTS OF EROTICA UPON LOVING AND LIKING RESPONSES1303of love that may exist between unmarried, op-posite-sexed partners (Rubin, 1973, p. 122).Given this conception of love, we were puzzledby the absence of any reference to interper-sonal sexual behavior within the Love scale.This class of reinforcers would appear to be amajor determinant of romantic love amongcollege youth. For example, in Peplau, Rubin,and Hill's (1977) sample of college studentswho were "going together," about 70% re-ported being "in love" and 82% reported hav-ing sexual intercourse within their currentrelationship. If the two classes of behavior,being "in love" and having sexual intercourse,are independent, then about 56% of the sam-ple was both "in love" and having sexual inter-course.Given the assumption that sexual behavioris closely related to romantic love, we at-tempted to determine whether erotica mightaffect males' interpersonal responses regardingwomen they love. Essentially we randomlyassigned males, who had earlier reported beingin love, to a condition in which they readeither erotic or control materials before eval-uating their loved one on Rubin's Love andLiking scales. We were interested in whethererotica would differentially affect Love andLiking scale responses. Differential impactwould indicate that the scales have differentdeterminants and would enhance constructvalidity. Evaluations of the loved one's phys-ical attractiveness and sexual receptivenesswere also included, since similar measures hadbeen utilized in an earlier study of the effectsof erotica upon initial impressions (Stephan,Berscheid, & Walster, 1971). Analyses of thewithin-cell correlations between these responseclasses permitted examination of convergentand discriminant validity as in Rubin's (1970)work.Study 1MethodParticipantsFifty-one undergraduate men who reported hetero-sexual romantic involvement participated in theexperiment in exchange for extra credit in their intro-ductory psychology courses at the University ofWisconsin—Milwaukee.ProcedureAt the beginning of the semester, a general surveywas administered in introductory psychology classes.Three of the SO items pertained to the respondent'sromantic involvement:1. Is there one member of the opposite sex towhom you feel more attracted than to allothers?2. If "yes," to what extent do you believe yourselfto be in love with this person ? (Place one checkmark anywhere along the following scale . . .)3. If you are at all in love, could you please indi-cate the initials of the person with whom youare in love ?The rating scale for the Love (premeasure)