DO WE AGREE ON WHAT MAKES US FEEL LOVED? CULTURAL CONSENSUS OF FELT LOVE IN CONSENSUAL NON-MONOGAMOUS AND BISEXUAL INDIVIDUALS

Love is a phenomenological force that permeates our social realities, and we all have universal experiences with love and its various manifestations in our daily lives. From the scientific community to laypersons, there have been various attempts to define this construct called love. Traditionally, research on love focused on experiences and definitions of love from the heteronormative and monogamous relationship structures. The present study seeks to contribute to this understudied gap by examining how different diverse groups define love and respond to questions defining feelings of love. Utilizing the statistical framework Cultural Consensus Theory (CCT), this approach permits the examination of shared cultural knowledge of what scenarios are indicative of felt love and cognitive decision-making process when responding to questions about cultural knowledge. Utilizing various targeted sampling methods to recruit from diverse populations, 887 U.S. (monogamous and consensual non-monogamous) adult participants comprised one sample and 488 U.S. (heterosexual and bisexual) adult participants comprised the second sample. Results generally indicate that diverse individuals converge on cultural consensus of what everyday scenarios are indicative of felt love. This study explores how diverse groups may have differences in cognitive decision-making process of degree of cultural knowledge, any guessing biases when uncertain about cultural knowledge, and guessing tendency to acquiesce when responding to questions. Overall, this study seeks to contribute to the love literature, experiences of love, cultural knowledge of love, and recognition of diverse definitions of love.