The Love Attitude that Influences One’s Happiness: The Relationship Between Love Attitude Scale Scores and Oxford Happiness Scores of Selected College Students

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic wrought havoc upon many romantic relationships throughout the world. Since romantic love has been established as a source of happiness and that there are varying attitudes toward love, this study sought to ascertain whether differing love attitudes are associated with happiness. 116 romantically involved participants volunteered to be the respondents of this study. They were 2nd year college students of a private school in Marikina City, Philippines. The Love Attitudes Scale: Short form or L.A.S. was administered to measure the 6 love attitudes of the respondents, namely (1) Eros or passionate love, (2) Ludus or game-playing love, (3) Storge or friendship love, (4) Pragma or practical love, (5) Mania or possessive, dependent love and (6) Agape or altruistic love. On the other hand, the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire was administered to measure the respondents’ degree of happiness. The findings revealed that the respondents’ highest love attitude is Eros or passionate love while Ludus or game-playing love is the lowest. In addition, the respondents’ Oxford happiness scores indicated that the respondents were only slightly happy. A significant low positive relationship between the respondents’ Pragma love attitude scores and Oxford happiness scores was found. This implies that among the 6 love attitudes, only the respondents’ Pragma love attitude score has a significant relationship with their Oxford happiness score, and that as one increases, the other slightly increases and vice-versa. Keywords: Love Attitudes Scale, Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Love, Happiness, COVID-19