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In a series of two studies and one experiment the link between people´s concepts of passionate love and their emotional experience of it were explored. Passionate love was measured with the Passionate Love Scale (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) and people´s concepts of passionate love with single items and with an open question for people´s concepts. Concepts were evaluated on the three attitude dimensions valence, emotionality, and complexity. Study 1 (Hawaiian student sample) and study 2 (German student sample) revealed the same results, gender specific correlations between different attitude dimensions and the Passionate Love Scale. Men showed a link between the complexity of the concepts and passionate love, while for women a link between the valence of the concepts and passionate love was found. Possible explanations for this gender difference are discussed. The experiment was designed to explore possible causality for the female link between the valence and passionate love, using a priming paradigm. The manipulation did not succeed because of methodological difficulties. Proposals for further research are provided.

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1993 bis 2002 Allgemeine Hochschulreife am Gymnasium Korntal-Münchingen. 2003 bis 2010 Studium der Diplom-Psychologie an der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen 2005/2006 Studium der Psychologie an der Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao, Spanien 2008/2009 Forschungspraktikum, University of Hawai i at Manoa, Honolulu, USA.

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