The 5 Love Categories: Do You Really Know What Love Is?

In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Jenny announces to him that he does not know what love is. Years later, he remembered that statement, which must have hurt his heart to have carried it with him all those years. He then counters her opinion with the simple statement, "I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is."

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It was obvious in the film that she and he had quite different views of what love actually is. Jenny, at first, in her young adult years, tried to find love at the end of a cocaine line. Forrest, in contrast, found love by taking the struggling Jenny into his home, by adopting his son, whom he did not know even existed, and by comforting his dying mother. These are quite different views of what love is. What is your view?

To assist you in answering the question, “What is love?” let us examine some categories of love and see which one most appeals to you. Please keep in mind this question as you answer: Which of these categories represents the absolute highest form of love and why?

The Five Love Categories

In ancient Greece, there were four words for love: philia, eros, storge, and agape (Lewis, 1960). Let us define each below and add a fifth idea.

1. Philia denotes friendship between and among people. The city of Philidelphia is known as the city of “brotherly love.” Friendship and brotherly affection suggest mutual trust, affection, and harmony. Friends have each other’s backs as they can confide in and protect each other.

2. Eros is romantic love. The partners have strong feelings for one another and are dedicated to each other. As with philia, there is mutuality. Even though conflicts can arise, there is sufficient affection to keep the relationship intact.

3. Storge is the natural love that, for example, a mother has for her child. The mother nurtures, protects, and helps the child grow. Although this can be a struggle at times, there is a give-and-take of mutual affection. This is not the same as philia because, in philia, the two parties are usually equal in status and in their power to serve the other. In storge, there is an imbalance in that power to serve given the young age of the infant or toddler.

4. Agape, over the centuries, has come to be seen as a willed “yes” to another person, even when it is very difficult to assist the other. A parent who is up all night with a sick child is giving more than storge because now the parent is in physical and perhaps emotional pain. This kind of love persists through the hard times, and the person willingly engages in agape, not because of an expected reward, but instead because the other is in need (Kreeft, 2011). Forrest was demonstrating the maturity of agape love as he cared for Jenny and his son.

5. Although not appearing in ancient Greek literature, a newly emerging theme is compassionate love. This is a generalized set of thoughts and feelings toward all of humanity. It includes an appreciation of the human qualities of all persons (Fehr, Harasymchuk, & Sprecher, 2014).

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Agape differs from compassionate love in this: One can have compassionate love by sitting in one’s hammock in the backyard while feeling the cool breeze move gently through the trees. Agape requires you, in contrast, to get out of that hammock and make a commitment to another person (or persons) even when it is inconvenient or even painful for you to do so. There is little research to date on agape. See the pioneering research of Hendricks and Hendricks (1986).

Which Is the Highest Form of Love?

Which of these five categories is the highest form of love? Which is likely to help a couple to find at least some happiness, even surprising happiness, in years of marriage without divorce? Having studied the psychology of forgiveness for the past 36 years, I see that agape, in particular, will help a couple to persevere “until death do you part.” Eros will attract one to the other, but what happens when the flame of physical attraction dims? Agape would have each member of the couple exercise a strong will and stay together.

Why? It is because agape helps people to see others as true persons who have built-in worth, not just because of what can be given physically, but, more importantly, because the other is a person who is special, unique, and irreplaceable, which becomes more central than erotic feelings. Philia is not high enough either, because once the mutuality ends, as the two develop different interests, the friendship may fade. Agape tells us that we are more than our interests.

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When you love in an agape sense, you give up your own needs for the other’s good. This is not self-flagellation, but instead an important paradox: As you reach out to the other, it is you who benefits, along with the other. I have seen this in our studies of forgiveness. As a person is good to those who are not good to the forgiver, it seems that the forgiver is giving up freedom and rights. Yet, our research shows that the one who forgives, who sees the personhood in the others and wants to be good to those others, reduces in the happiness-choking resentment and grows in self-esteem and hope (see, for example, Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2015).

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Which Love Is Characteristically in Your Mind and Heart?

As you look back at our five categories of love, which one would you have seen as the solid understanding and expression of love? Which do you characteristically carry around in your mind and heart? Notice how often in that list you have an opportunity to choose mutuality and pleasant feelings rather than a harder road of love in service to another person who deserves this simply because of personhood.

Do you think those who enter into committed relationships would be more likely to see that relationship through to the end if agape was in the minds and hearts of both partners prior to making the commitment? Why, then, is not agape a common topic of discussion in families and communities? What opportunities are we missing, and how can we change that?