LoveFeeler is based on scientific research, which is a part of the Psychogalaxy research project www.psychogalaxy.com

Psychogalaxy is devoted to the psychology of social relationships. The aim of Psychogalaxy is to help people to understand themselves and their relationships with their friends and partners. On the other hand, Psychogalaxy is also a scientific research program. It conducts psychological research in human relationships with the intention of helping people to develop relationships that they are satisfied with and which make their lives better, more complete. Psychogalaxy is not a social network, but rather the psychological structure of the community that Psychogalaxy aims to map out. At this site, users can retain full anonymity, so they can participate in an exciting psychological study in complete safety.

In the Psychogalaxy, users fill out a variety of questionnaires and others psychological tests. The evaluation of the tests is based on groundbreaking psychological research that uses a systems theoretical approach and artificial intelligence modeling. The research has received post-doctoral research grants from the Hungarian Academy of Science and Germany’s Humboldt Foundation. The research in the background of Psychogalaxy is also a part of a larger, comprehensive series of research projects conducted at Károli University, Hungary. These have been aimed at computer analysis of the projective test situation, the systems theoretical approach to projective psychodiagnostics, the psychological applications of artificial intelligence and research methodologies for multiperson interaction dynamics. The Psychogalaxy research is led by the foremost researchers of these fields of psychology, Prof. Dr. Emőke Bagdy, Prof. Dr. András Vargha and Dr. Zoltán Vass.

LoveFeeler is a new project of this comprehensive research activity. It is based on theoretical research and the results of empirical studies as Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love (1986), Zick Rubin’s theory of Liking and Loving (1970), Love Styles of John Lee (1973), the Love Attitude Scale of Hendrick and Hendrick (1986) and other publications. In our research, we developed two new questionnaires to measure the partner’s on to the subject (who fills out the questionnaire) and the subject’s own feelings to the partner. After theoretical test construction, an initial evaluation study was conducted at the Karoly University, Budapest, followed by psychometric analysis and partial reconstruction of the scales. The modified versions were tested at the Psychogalaxy web site on a larger sample, consisting of 973 subjects. Data of the questionnaires together with demographic profiles were analyzed with methods of psychometrics and mathematical statistics as item analysis of subgroups (e.g. item-total correlations, Cronbach’s coefficient alpha), various paired samples t tests, cator analyses and related methods (as principal component analyses, principal axis factoring, maximum likelihood analyses), binary logistic regression and discriminant function analyses. This step resulted a new factor structure and significantly shorter scales. The last step of the psychological evaluations was the interpretation of the new scales by our psychologists, which led directly to the construction of the LoveFeeler software.

The scientific outcomes of the LoveFeeler projects are a new liking-loving scale, new factors of intimate relationships, and pattern structures within components, new relationship types and an effect matrix of the possible interactions of all possible types. We identified three components that are related to but not the same as Sternberg’s intimacy, passion, commitment components. One reason of the distinction is that the scale items are different from Sternberg’s original items. Another difference from Sternberg’s triangular theory of love is that we identified patterns of components in the various relationships, as well as new relationship types with unique psychological features.

LoveFeeler was developed by Dr. Péter Sváb, President of the Scientific Society For Organization and Management with Dr. Zoltán Vass, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Psychological Institute of the Károli University, Hungary, Budapest. A mathematical model of the relationship typology was proposed by Mónika L. Barlay, M.A and new love scale items were suggested by Viola Vass, M.A.

References

Hendrick, C, Hendrick S. S, Dicke, A. (1998). "The Love Attitudes Scale: Short form". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15 (2): 147–59.

Hendrick, C, Hendrick, S. S. (1986). "A theory and method of love". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50 (2): 392–402.

Lee, J. A. (1988). "Love styles". in Barnes MH, Sternberg RJ. The Psychology of love. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 38–67.

Lee, J. A. (1973). Colours of love: an exploration of the ways of loving. New York: New Press.

Rubin, Z. (1970). Measurement of Romantic Love. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 265-273.

Sternberg, R. J. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93 (2): 119–135.

Sternberg, R. J. (1988). The Triangle of Love: Intimacy, Passion, Commitment. New York: Basic Books.