This study reports Ihc initial results of an attempt to introduce and validate a social-psychological construct oi" romantic love. Starting with the assumption that love is an interpersonal attitude, an internally consistent papcr-and-pencil love scale was developed. The conception of romantic love included three com- ponents: affiliative and dependent need, a predisposition to help, and an orienta- tion of exclusiveness and absorption. Love-scale scores were only moderately correlated with scores on a parallel scale of "liking," which reflected a more traditional conception of interpersonal attraction. The validity of the love scale was assessed in a questionnaire study and a laboratory experiment. On the basis of the emerging conception of love, it was predicted that college dating couples who loved each other a great deal (as categorized by their love-scale scores) would spend more time gazing into one another's eyes than would couples who loved each other to a lesser degree. The prediction was confirmed. Love is generally regarded to be the deep- est and most meaningful of sentiments. It has occupied a preeminent position in the art and literature of every age, and it is presum- ably experienced, at least occasionally, by the vast majority of people. In Western culture, moreover, the association between love and marriage gives it a unique status as a link between the individual and the structure of society. In view of these considerations, it is sur- prising to discover that social psychologists have devoted virtually no attention to love. Although interpersonal attraction has been a major focus of social-psycho logical theory and research, workers in this area have not at- tempted to conceptualize love as an inde- pendent entity. For Heider (1958), for ex- ample, "loving" is merely intense liking— there is no discussion of possible qualitative 1 This report is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Michigan. The re- search was supported by a prccloctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health and by a grant-in-aid from the Society for the Psycho- logical Study of Social Issues. The author is grate- ful to Theodore M. Ncwcomb, chairman of the dis- sertation committee, for his invaluable guidance and support. Mitchell Baris, Cheryl Eisenman, Linda Muller, Judy Newman, Marlyn Rame, Stuart Katz, Edward Krupat, and Phillip Shaver served as ob- servers in the experiment, and Mr. Shaver also helped design and assemble the equipment. 2 Requests for reprints should be sent to the author, Department of Social Relations, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.