Are you are Romantic or a Realist?
The Love Attitudes Scale
By reading and selecting a number for each belief about love you will know if you are a romantic or a realist. There are no right or wrong answers.
.| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| Strongly agree | Mildly Agree | Undecided | Mildly Disagree | Strongly disagree |
| SA | MA | U | MD | SD | ||
| 1. | Love doesn't make sense. It just is. | 1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
| 2. | When you fall "head over heels" in love, it's sure to be the real thing. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 3. | To be in love with someone you would like to marry but can't is a tragedy. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 4. | When love hits, you know it. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 5. | Common interests are really unimportant; as long as each of you is truly in love, you will adjust. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 6. | It doesn't matter if you marry after you have known your partner for only a short time as long as you know you are in love. | 1 |
2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 7. | If you are going to love a person, you will "know" after a short time. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 8. | As long as two people love each other, the educational differences they have really do not matter. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 9. | You can love someone even though you do not like any of that person's friends. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 10. | When you are in love, you are usually in a daze. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 11. | Love "at first sight" is often the deepest and most enduring type of love. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 12. | When you are in love, it really does not matter what your partner does because you will love him or her anyway. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 13. | As long as you really love a person, you will be able to solve the problems you have with the person. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 14. | Usually you can really love and be happy with only one or two people in the world. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 15. | Regardless of other factors, if you truly love another person, that is a good enough reason to marry that person. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 16. | It is necessary to be in love with the one you marry to be happy. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 17. | Love is more of a feeling than a relationship. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 18. | People should not get married unless they are in love. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 19. | Most people truly love only once during their lives. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 20. | Somewhere there is an ideal mate for most people. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 21. | In most cases, you will "know it" when you meet the right partner. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 22. | Jealousy usually varies directly with love; that is, the more you are in love, the greater your tendency to become jealous will be. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 23. | When you are in love, you are motivated by what you feel rather than by what you think. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 24. | Love is best described as an exciting rather than a calm thing. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 25. | Most divorces probably result from falling out of love rather than failing to adjust. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 26. | When you are in love, your judgment is usually not too clear. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 27. | Love comes only once in a lifetime. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 28. | Love is often a violent and uncontrollable emotion. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 29. | When selecting a marriage partner, differences in social class and religion are of small importance compared with love. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 30. | No matter what anyone says, love cannot be understood. | 1 | 2 |
3 | 4 | 5 |
Scoring
Add the numbers you circled. 1 (strongly agree) is the most romantic response and 5 (strongly disagree) is the most realistic response. The lower your total score (30 is the lowest possible score), the more romantic your attitudes toward love. The higher your total score (150 is the highest possible score), the more realistic your attitudes toward love. A score of 90 places you at the midpoint between being an extreme romantic and an extreme realist. Both men and women undergraduates typically score above 90, with men scoring closer to 90 than women.
A team of researchers (Medora et al. 2002) gave the scale to 641 young adults at three international universities in America, Turkey, and India. Female respondents in all three cultures had higher romanticism scores than male respondents (reflecting their higher value for, desire for, and thoughts about marriage). When the scores were compared by culture, American young adults were the most romantic, followed by Turkish students, with Indians having the lowest romanticism scores.
Reference
Medora, N. P., J. H. Larson, N. Hortacsu, and P. Dave. 2002. Perceived attitudes towards romanticism: A cross-cultural study of American, Asian-Indian, and Turkish young adults. Journal of Comparative Family Studies 33:155Р78.
Source
Knox, D. "Conceptions of Love at Three Developmental Levels" Dissertation, Florida State University, 1969. Permission to use the scale for research available from David Knox at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or by contacting Dr. Knox, Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858.