Love languages were invented to sell a book in 1992.
https://www.mic.com/p/do-love-languages-actually-matter-psyc...
“I don’t consider it to be an evidence-based practice, but I do find it to be a very useful tool and use it in all of my work with couples,” says Stefani Goerlich, a Detroit-based psychotherapist.
research conducted in 2017 suggests that the five love languages only work when “both spouses exhibit appropriate self-regulatory behaviors.”
Also, just because something only works within specific parameters (spouses with self-regulating behaviors), doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just isn't a cure-all. It would be like saying antibiotics are BS just because they only work on a subset of bacterial infections.
Another study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233241159_Speaking_...
That doesn't mean psychology in general is pseudoscience. But it does mean this is a bad study that tells us almost nothing, and if this is representative of the quality of studies on the love languages overall, then we basically have no evidence one way or another about them.
> What evidence do you have that the two studies are bad?
The study indicts itself (i.e. it describes its methods, and the methods are not ones that lead to strong evidence).
The study population is only non-representative if applying it to populations that don't match. For example, this study supports the results for university students 18-22. Again, we come back to the point that just because it only applies for a subset does not make it "BS".
So what's wrong with the other study? Or will it be more of the same generalized claims about poor methods without any specific details from the study being given, nor any supporting facts to back up your determination?
When you sample a non-representative subset, you often get different results from the population at large. For example, you might get a different answer if you ask the Porsche enthusiasts club what the best car is, compared to if you ask random people in the population.
Undergrads are the same way. Asking a group of people, almost half of whom are virgins, questions about romantic relationships . . . well let's just say it might not generalize to the adult population.
This is covered in detail in any intro stats course or textbook. You may also be able to Google something like "unrepresentative subset psychology" to get an explainer. I can't do the issue complete justice in a comment here.
> So what's wrong with the other study?
I'm sorry, I did not sign up for reviewing every study you link me to. I reviewed the one, and explained my perception that it is a good example of the overall quality of the research on this topic. If you want an assessment of the other study, you'll need to look elsewhere.
It sounds a bit like trolling when you call something BS, then the source you give shows evidence that it does work in some populations. Then there are two other supportive studies. Yet you want to give non-sensical and non-applicable examples of asking Porche owners questions.
That's obviously not true. Show me the high quality research studies backing up the idea that a hammer is useful for hammering nails or that a flat-head screwdriver is useful as a improvised chisel. The way to tell if a tool is useful is if you use it and it works for your application.
> Love languages were invented to sell a book in 1992.
Can you clarify? Are you saying that someone first decided they were going to sell a book in 1992, and "invented" love languages to "fill in the blank" in order to do so? Or are you just talking about the normal situation of someone introducing a new idea of theirs (or in this case, schema) in the form of a book?
I get the impression that you're objecting to the concept as not really a thing because it doesn't have a deep history. However, not all real things have names, or always had names.
If your partner doesn't want to touch you, what's the most likely explanation? That they "don't speak your love language", or that they aren't attracted to you?
Ok, and if you are that partner, but you don't want to lose the relationship, what's an easy response? "I don't want to touch you because I don't find you attractive," or "I'm sorry babe, I do love you, but we just don't speak the same love language"?
The whole thing is very Cosmo. It's designed to sell in the same way as Cosmo.
I do agree with the part about not touching though. It seems like a lot of problems are invented in marriages because people are unwilling or unable to say or even think the ugly truth that they simply don't want to have sex with their partner anymore.
Another example: what if someone feels "loved" when they're bought gifts, but that's because they're materialistic, a gold digger? Likewise if someone wants to be touched because they're more interested in sex than a relationship, and they derive validation from your sexual interest. "It's just their Love Language" is technically correct, but it's the wrong lens to apply to those situations.
In the examples you provide, I would say that it's exactly the right lens to apply to those situations - it's imperative for both parties to understand that those are the factors that matter instead of trying to work out a relationship around them, ignoring those core issues; and this lens allows to understand/specify/communicate it better.
Like, if someone does derive validation from your sexual interest, then that's a quite important thing to understand for the partner (even if for them personally the concept of needing such validation is a bit alien, because their self-worth is filled differently), because that's not going to change easily and is going to be a big factor in making the relationship work. And if someone is materialistic, pretending otherwise won't be helpful and neither will trying to change someone's values, that generally takes huge time and effort and/or crisis events. Of course, obtaining a proper understanding may also mean understanding that the relationship should not continue, but for such relationships that's also a beneficial result.
There may be more effective ways of facilitating this communication and common understanding of the partner's inner needs, e.g. perhaps couple's therapy can do it faster, but that's a quite expensive process and a simplified set of metaphors can be a cheap and useful approach ("A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points") if there's sufficient material to ensure that both partners, likely coming from very different perspectives given that they have this communications problem, get a common understanding of how they understand them.
I think GP would agree that this type of self help book is not a Rosetta Stone and its core truth may be somewhat banal ie think about what makes your partner feel special not only what makes you feel special. Maybe part of the success formula for these pop psyc books is that we need these truths to be wrapped in a story and labeled so we can remember them more easily.
Here's a question: you like the framework. Have you ever seen a specific relationship be saved by it?
However, your objections seem to be about something other than what I'm talking about - what I hear in your responses is something like equivocating "Understand that it's their love language" with "you should accept it unconditionally", especially in the context of abusive relationships, which is definitely not what I'm arguing about. The decision whether a particular relationship is good for both people involved and whether should continue is orthogonal to that aspect, and "love languages" don't/shouldn't affect that decision; But in the context of various one-sided and possibly relationships, however, understanding that (for example) one partner really only cares about sex in this relationship and doesn't care about the other aspects - well, that's useful information to make the decision whether to move on away from the relationship.
I see it's use solely as a means of improving communication, and it's scope limited for couples which have a problem with that communication (which is common) and also a mutual desire to improve it (which is not that common, and already excludes many destined-to-fail relationships), in this regard, it's useful only if applied by the couple, not by one of them. It's definitely not an universal solution - it solves a particular type (though IMHO popular) of miscommunication, and if the couple has fixed those, this book will be useless for any other types of problems in their relationship.
So?
> It's a framework that's designed to sound plausible, like a horoscope. It's not designed to be accurate, it's designed to make you go, "oooooh" and repeat the trademark. "Having relationship issues? Oh, have you heard of the Love Languages®? I read about it the other day..."
That sounds like you think it was constructed in bad faith. Do you have any evidence for that?
A model that's simplified can still have value even if it doesn't perfectly fit every situation.
> If your partner doesn't want to touch you, what's the most likely explanation? That they "don't speak your love language", or that they aren't attracted to you?
I'm only passingly familiar with the love languages thing, but I think it does have a point, and I've experienced some of the differences in relationships that is schematizes. Reducing it to sexual attraction is kinda missing the point.