ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a general theory of love that applies across a broad range of contexts, including interpersonal and person-object situations. It draws in part on data from a larger study that included directly relevant questions about what consumers mean when they say they love something. The chapter uses the terms self and identity interchangeably to refer to a person's conscious and nonconscious idea of whom and what they are. Although one's physical body and one's consciousness are seen by most people as important parts of their self-identity, the self generally extends far beyond these two elements. The notion that love involves an integration of the self and the love object (LO), so that the LO becomes an important part of the lover's identity, has a long tradition in Western culture. Passion is the desire to invest mental and emotional energy in increasing or maintaining the extent to which an object is integrated into the self.
