Research Questions:

(1) What are the stages of love throughout a partnership?

(2) How do individuals practice partnership based on their conceptualization of love?

(3) How do individuals define and practice love based on social and cultural influences? 

Romantic love:

the unison of physical, spiritual, and emotional attachment to and engagement with another person

Partner love:

the phases of love experienced throughout a partnership (committed love, platonic love, married love, familial love, romantic love, etc.)

Through a grounded theory approach, this study utilized qualitative methods to highlight themes of love in participant’s experiences and trends in individual’s narratives.  Grounded theory allows for theoretical conclusions to come from the the analysis of the data.  Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss developed the sociological strategy they called grounded theory based on a method of comparative analysis (Glaser and Strauss 1967).  With grounded theory, they stress the importance of evaluating a theory based on the process of creating it.  Evidence is used to illustrate concepts rather than concepts used to determine what evidence to explore.  I employed grounded theory because it allowed me to discover conceptualizations without structuring or biasing the data based on pre-conceived notions.  I implemented a loosely structured interview guide in all in-depth interviews, but allowed for interviews to naturally flow where participant’s thoughts and experiences led.  Love stories were collected to examine how individuals construct their own narratives and to identify how they define and practice love within their own lives.

Participants were collected in a convenience sampling.  Individuals interested in participating signed up for an interview through an online website built for the project or anonymously submitted their love story through the site.  I built the site with the aim of engaging respondents in a fun manner without influencing how they framed their responses.  Traditional symbolic images of love were displayed to catch potential respondent’s attention and to maintain it.  Advertisement for the project was done through social media sites, Facebook, Reddit, Imgur, Craigslist, and Chicago Marketplace, as well as by word of mouth.  In total, thirty in-depth interviews were completed ranging from twenty minutes to seventy-five minutes.  All respondents were interviewed once.  I sent a follow-up survey prior to writing the report to note any changes in relationship status.  Seventy percent of individuals responded.

18-79

years old

71%

in a relationship

29%

Single, recently uncoupled, online dating

All transcripts were hand-coded for the first and second-cycle coding.  Types of coding were selected based on Johnny Saldaña’s methodologies outlined in The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers.  First-cycle coding was completed through open-coding after each document had been read twice.  Open-coding allowed for all pertinent details in each transcript to be identified, noted, and reviewed.  Then holistic coding was applied to the transcripts.  Holistic coding is an exploratory, macro-level method used to identify themes and issues within the transcripts.  With open-coding, the documents are analyzed line-by-line and, with holistic coding, sections are examined as parts of the whole.  Employing both levels of coding allowed for a thorough preliminary examination of the texts.  After completing the first and second-cycle coding a master category list was developed, which included seventy-two categories with sub-categories attached.  Once hand-coding was completed, all transcripts were uploaded into the qualitative data analysis software, MAXQDA, and third-cycle coding was completed.  The third-cycle coding method was picked specifically for each transcript depending on themes identified during first and second-cycle coding.  

In Vivo coding was used in transcripts where the interviewee referred to their relationship and their partner in specific and identifiable ways.  It is a foundational method for grounded theory that is the process of recording and coding data in the exact words participants used.  It was employed to capture the spirit of the participant’s statements on love, while honoring their voice.  

For interviews that stressed the significance of how they met their partner or an experience they went through, Process coding was utilized to highlight the action of events and the thoughts behind decisions to move forward or to walk away.  Process coding is labeling data with gerunds when respondents describe observable activities or conceptual actions.  Emotion coding, or the labeling of emotions recalled or experienced by participants, was applied to transcripts to extricate feeling behind actions and the state of the participant while recollecting different parts of their narrative.  

To capture the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the interviewee, Values coding was used on transcripts where the individual’s perspectives on love and relationships were grounded in a specific type of upbringing or worldview.  Utilizing values coding allowed for a thorough examination of the subtext of statements as well as a way to ground the words in the experiences of the interviewee. Versus coding, or the identification of dichotomous or binary terms and ideas, was applied for interviews where the participant demonstrated dissonance in their explanations and thoughts.  It aided in illustrating binaries through which individuals were conceptualizing their experiences.  It was especially useful when individuals expressed wanting to be a certain way counter to societal expectations despite their actions aligning with normative thought.  Finally, Narrative coding was applied to all collected love stories. Narrative coding aids in identifying the human condition within the story and was employed in order to highlight how stories were being constructed and how identity and ideals were developed through the narrative.