Psychological+aspects

Psychological Aspects of brotherly love: Is it an emotion or a choice?

Renowned psychologists such as Eric Fromm, Sigmund Freud, D. McClelland, Robert J. Sternberg and Zick Rubin will give us their opinion of what love is as well as how it may relate to brotherly love which leads us to an interesting conclusion of love and Jose Marti’s poem Verse XXXIX. //** “People care deeply about equity in a loving relationship. **//
 * Sigmund Freud believes that our relationships with our parents dictated what kind of attraction we would be most susceptible to.
 * Many psychologists explain that love is a conscious decision to commit to someone and not necessarily always an emotional physical feeling.
 * According to Erich Fromm, you will definitely find compassion, human kindness and need.
 * D. McClelland says that:
 * //“Poets don’t speak in terms of selfish advantages, of love as a means-ends relationship, but about an altruistic, undying devotion."// **
 * //“Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.”// **
 * In general, love may be understood as part of a survival instinct, a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuations of the species.
 * In a Wikipedia article entitled Love, states that “there are conceptual differences towards love in the different cultures which make it extremely difficult to create a precise definition of any type of love.” It seems that psychologists explain love to be a cognitive and social phenomenon.
 * Robert Sternberg (1986) argues that love is part of a triangular theory: intimacy, commitment and passion.
 * Zick Rubin a psychologist in the 1970’s defined love by psychometric also with 3 factors forming love: attachment, caring, and intimacy.
 * Erich Fromm (1956), indicates that love is not just a feeling but is also entails actions.
 * Fromm also feels that brotherly love is the most fundamental of loves. It is composed of a sense of responsibility, caring, respect, knowledge of any other human being, the wish to further his life. Brotherly love is the love towards all humans and is not known as having exclusivity. It is based on the experience that we are all one. Fromm also states that “by having compassion for the helpless ones, love of the poor and a stranger are the beginnings of brotherly love. Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold. (A child loves a parent because he needs them, and the helpless one (animal/human) loves his master or employer because he needs them to survive.)” Fromm,(1956).