The six love styles: Eros to Agape, and what research says about them

The six love styles are a typology John Alan Lee proposed in the 1973 book Colours of Love. Lee drew contrasting ideal types of love from fiction and non-fiction, devised a new interview method that let people in love reconstruct their experience, and then tested and revised the types. A 1977 paper summarized the six that stood out as most significant (Lee, 1977).

As the book’s title suggests, Lee likened ways of loving to colours, which is why it is known as the Colours of Love theory (Smith & Klases, 2016). Three primary styles, Eros, Ludus and Storge, combine in pairs into three secondary styles: Mania (Eros and Ludus), Pragma (Storge and Ludus) and Agape (Eros and Storge). A secondary style is not simply halfway between its two parts, though. Clyde Hendrick and Susan Hendrick, who turned the theory into a measurement scale, compared the secondary styles to chemical compounds: Mania is made of Eros and Ludus but is very different from either. They concluded that the love styles are all equally valid ways of loving, and that there is not one type of love but many (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986).

One more point matters. Lee did not see love styles as personality traits: the same person may have one relationship closer to one style and another closer to an entirely different style, and the same relationship may change over time (Smith & Klases, 2016). So “I’m an Eros type” is better read as “right now, my attitude to love leans toward Eros”. The love style test is a light self-check of which of the six your attitude is closest to right now, and this guide covers the research worth knowing before you read that result.

Start with the three primary styles. The descriptions here follow a 2016 paper that summarizes how Lee and later researchers described each one (Smith & Klases, 2016). The names in brackets are the ones the mind.io love style test uses. Eros (Passionate) is an intensely emotional experience close to passionate love: a powerful attraction to the person and a tendency to fall completely and all at once, sometimes with a particular pull toward a specific physical type. Ludus (Playful) treats love as a game to be played, sometimes with several people at the same time, and is uneasy at any sign of growing dependence or commitment. Storge (Friendship) rests on companionship, trust and respect: the other person feels like an old friend with similar attitudes and values, commitment to the relationship is strong, and the feelings stay calm rather than overwhelming.

Then the three secondary styles. Pragma (Practical) takes a down-to-earth view of love: it consciously weighs where a potential partner comes from and looks for someone with a similar background and interests who could be a good partner for life. The Hendricks summed it up as logical, “shopping list” love (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). Mania (All-consuming) is love at great emotional intensity: it is described as wanting desperately to be loved, often doubting the other person’s sincerity, and easily turning to jealousy and obsessive dependence. Agape (Selfless) is all-giving love that feels responsible for loving and caring for the other person without expecting anything back (Smith & Klases, 2016).

“Primary” and “secondary” describe how the styles relate within the theory, not which is better. Research scales also measure each of the six separately, so one person can score high on several at once (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). Look at how the six scores mix, not only at the one on top.

When the Hendricks and colleagues began turning Lee’s theory into a scale, in a 1984 study, about 800 students at the University of Miami answered a 54-item questionnaire adapted from an earlier instrument. The results only partly supported the theory: the secondary styles, Mania, Pragma and Agape, emerged clearly, but the primary styles often came out combined with another style, and the Eros items tended to spread across the other styles (Hendrick et al., 1984).

Building on that work, the Love Attitudes Scale (LAS) appeared in 1986: 42 items, 7 for each style. In a first study of 807 people, factor analysis clearly separated six style scales; each scale was internally reliable, the six correlated only weakly with one another, and a second study of 567 people found the same structure (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). In 1998 a short form (LAS-SF) kept the best four of the seven items per style, in a 4-item and a 3-item version; across three studies with more than 2,700 participants, the short versions had even stronger psychometric properties than the original (Hendrick, Hendrick & Dicke, 1998). Many of the studies in this guide used one or the other.

The six-factor structure has held up fairly well across countries and ages. A study that ran confirmatory factor analyses on data from countries in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe concluded that Lee’s structure could be applied across multiple cultures (Neto et al., 2000), and the structure of answers was highly similar in college-aged and middle-aged participants (Butler et al., 1995). The picture shifts somewhat when other love scales are put alongside. A meta-analysis that pooled correlations between popular love measures from 81 studies (103 samples, 19,387 people) found three higher-order factors: general love, romantic obsession and practical friendship (Graham, 2011). Another meta-analysis of 33 studies suggested that the Storge subscale in Lee’s theory may measure something different from the friendship-style love scales of other theories (Masuda, 2003). The six styles are a useful frame, but not the only way to divide up love.

The mind.io love style test is different from these scales. Its 18 statements, 3 per style, were written by mind.io from Lee’s descriptions; they are not the LAS, a translation of it or an adaptation. You rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), and each style’s score is the average of its three answers turned into a 0 to 100 scale, so a change of 1 in the sum of the three answers moves the score by about 8 points. It is not a standardized scale with tested reliability and validity, and there are no norms to compare your scores with other people’s. With so few items, one or two answers can reorder the styles or produce ties, so treat the result as a starting point for reflection.

The most consistent finding is that people higher in Eros and Agape rate their relationships more positively, and people higher in Ludus less so. In a study of 70 heterosexual undergraduate couples, Eros and Agape were positively related to reports of relationship quality and Ludus negatively (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987). Two studies of unmarried dating couples found Eros and Agape going with intimacy, passion, commitment, satisfaction and constructive ways of handling conflict, and Ludus going the other way on the same measures (Levy & Davis, 1988). A study of 186 couples (Morrow et al., 1995) and one of 92 couples (Vedes et al., 2016) pointed the same way. In the 92-couple study, how the two partners coped with stress together accounted for part of the link, and the links were stronger for women than for men.

Meta-analyses that combine scales from several theories look similar. In one that pooled 33 studies, relationship satisfaction was highly correlated with passionate love, while its correlation with companionate love was unclear because results varied so much (Masuda, 2003). In one that pooled 81 studies, the general love factor went with higher satisfaction and longer relationships, and the romantic obsession factor with the opposite (Graham, 2011).

For the other three styles the results are mixed. Mania went with passion but not with high conflict or dissatisfaction, and neither Storge nor Pragma showed the expected links (Levy & Davis, 1988). The 70-couple study likewise supported Lee’s theory for Eros, Agape, Ludus and Mania, but not for Storge and Pragma (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987). On the other hand, a 2025 study of 349 university students found that Storge, along with Eros, had a direct positive link with relationship satisfaction and Mania a weak negative one, and that every style except Pragma predicted satisfaction directly or through intimacy (Ercan et al., 2025). In a study of 343 Japanese undergraduates, Eros was linked with positive feelings in romance, and Pragma and Ludus with negative feelings (Kanemasa et al., 2004).

Keep a few things in mind when reading these results. They are all correlations measured at one time, so they cannot show that Eros makes a relationship good; people may answer more like Eros because their relationship is going well. Most participants were university students and dating couples, and the findings are group averages. They do not mean that a high Ludus score will spoil a relationship or that a high Agape score brings happiness, and they do not rank any style as a better way to love.

In the 1984 study of about 800 US students, men and women answered differently on 29 of the 54 items: men tended to score higher on Eros and Ludus, women on Pragma, Storge and Mania (Hendrick et al., 1984). According to a later paper’s summary of the 1986 study, men again scored higher on Ludus and women on Storge, Pragma and Mania, but there were no gender differences on Eros or Agape (Smith & Klases, 2016). What the two studies share is higher Ludus among men and higher Storge, Pragma and Mania among women; the Eros difference did not hold. In the same authors’ own study of 108 adults in relationships in Britain and Hong Kong, though, women scored higher on Pragma but men scored higher on Storge and Agape (Smith & Klases, 2016).

Differences are not the whole story. Among 1,090 people surveyed in the US in 1988, 1992 and 1993, women leaned toward friendship-based love and men toward game-playing love, yet the correlations between measures showed many similar patterns for women and men (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1995). A study comparing young people in Japan (223), Russia (401) and the US (1,043) found many cultural differences across love variables, including love styles, not always in the expected direction, and some of the gender differences and similarities seen in the US were not replicated in the Japanese or Russian samples (Sprecher et al., 1994).

How much culture matters depends on the style. In a study comparing data from several continents, the hypotheses were well supported that Mania, Eros and Agape, which involve strong personal feelings, are largely free of cultural influence, while Pragma, Storge and Ludus, which involve stricter social rules, depend on culture (Neto et al., 2000). A study of 343 Japanese undergraduates also mostly supported Lee’s theory and the conceptual validity of the six styles (Kanemasa et al., 2004). In Korea, a study of 510 nursing students found higher average Eros and Pragma in upper years than in lower years, and Eros scores that differed by attachment style (Ju & Jun, 2013).

Most of these studies report group averages from university students, and the Korean study was limited to students in one field, so it cannot describe Koreans in general. Rather than guessing your style from your gender or nationality, look at your own result.

Attachment styles look at worry that a partner will leave (anxiety) and unease with closeness (avoidance); love styles look at what you believe love is and how it should be. A study that analysed the two together found four factors. Eros loaded on the factor contrasting secure with avoidant attachment; Agape and Ludus formed the two ends of another factor; Mania grouped with anxious-ambivalent attachment; and Pragma largely formed a factor of its own. The researchers’ preliminary interpretation was that neither theory is complete on its own and that combining them would give a better account of relationships (Levy & Davis, 1988).

In a study of 374 undergraduates, attachment style was also strongly related to various forms of love; as a later paper summarizes it, anxious attachment was related to Mania and avoidant attachment to Ludus (Feeney & Noller, 1990; Smith & Klases, 2016). In a study of 302 undergraduates, neuroticism (a tendency to be easily emotionally unsettled) had no direct link with the love styles: its influence ran through anxious attachment, and no personality trait predicted Agape (Heaven et al., 2004).

These links do not always come out the same way. In a study of 56 adults in Britain and 52 in Hong Kong who were in relationships, avoidant attachment predicted Ludus as expected, but anxious attachment, against the researchers’ predictions, predicted higher Agape and lower Mania. The researchers suggested that the sample may have held few highly anxious people, while calling this purely speculative (Smith & Klases, 2016). Mania is not the same thing as anxious attachment, so if you wonder about anxiety or distance that keeps coming back in your relationships, take the attachment style test separately and read attachment styles in dating as well.

Love styles can shift with your love life. Of 235 college students, the 125 who were in love scored higher on Eros and Agape and lower on Ludus than the 110 who were not, and a larger data set of 789 people showed the same (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1988). These results compare different people at one point in time rather than following the same people. In the 186-couple study, relationship status, age and relationship length were also linked with love styles, which led the researchers to suggest that love attitudes may change with time and experience (Morrow et al., 1995). A study comparing college-aged and middle-aged adults found that age was related to Mania and Agape scores, particularly for women (Butler et al., 1995).

There is also research on where love styles come from. A study of twins and their families found that, unlike other personality and attitude domains, where genes account for about 50% of the differences between people and the shared family environment matters little, differences in love styles were due almost entirely to the environment, with the family environment shared while growing up playing a sizable part (Waller & Shaver, 1994). It is a single study, but the result points to experience and family environment rather than genes; it does not show how much one person’s style changes over time.

Partners tend to resemble each other. In the 70-couple study, partners were significantly similar on every style except Pragma and Mania, and the gaps between partners on Eros, Agape and Ludus were related to relationship quality, in patterns that differed for women and men (Davis & Latty-Mann, 1987). The 186-couple study also found matching, except on Ludus and Mania, but the best predictor of relationship quality was a person’s own love style, not the other person’s. The partner’s styles were related too, though less strongly, and gaps between the two were linked with negative outcomes for women but not for men (Morrow et al., 1995).

Are couples with the same style happier, then? In a study of 146 married or cohabiting couples, sharing the same main style was not linked with greater satisfaction; Storge and Pragma were the most common styles in that sample (Agus et al., 2021). In a study of 87 married couples, spouses were similar on some styles, and a gap between them could go with lower or higher satisfaction depending on whether the husband’s or the wife’s satisfaction was looked at (Odilavadze et al., 2019). We found no research supporting compatibility charts that say which style pairs work or clash. Use your results to talk about what love looks like to each of you, and start with your own attitudes, which were more strongly linked with relationship quality in the research.

Q. Is one of the six love styles the best? A. No. The researchers who built the scale saw all six as equally valid ways of loving (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986). Some studies link Eros and Agape with more relationship satisfaction and Ludus with less (Levy & Davis, 1988; Morrow et al., 1995), but these are average trends at one point in time and cannot judge any one person’s love life.

Q. Are the six love styles the same as MBTI love styles? A. No. Lee’s love styles are attitudes about what love is and how it should be, while the MBTI sorts personality preferences into 16 types. This guide covers only Lee’s six styles; how the MBTI types tend to love is covered separately in MBTI love styles.

Q. How accurate is the love style test? A. The mind.io test is a light self-check made of 18 statements (3 per style) that mind.io wrote from Lee’s descriptions. Research uses the 42-item Love Attitudes Scale (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986) or its short form (Hendrick, Hendrick & Dicke, 1998); the mind.io test is not taken from either and has not been tested for reliability or validity. Look at the shape of all six scores rather than the top one.

Q. Does a Mania result mean I am obsessive? A. That does not follow. The Mania score shows how much you agreed with three statements; it is not a measure that diagnoses obsessiveness. The research is mixed, too: one study found Mania going with passion but not with dissatisfaction (Levy & Davis, 1988), and another found it linked with slightly lower satisfaction (Ercan et al., 2025). Mania did group with anxious attachment in one analysis (Levy & Davis, 1988), so if you often want to check how the other person feels, work out together how to put that need into words. But if jealousy turns into checking a partner’s phone or controlling who they see, that is control, not love, whatever your score. The guide to jealousy in relationships can help.

Q. If my partner and I have different love styles, are we a bad match? A. There is no evidence for that. In couple studies, relationship quality was more strongly linked with a person’s own style than with the partner’s (Morrow et al., 1995), and couples who shared the same main style were not more satisfied (Agus et al., 2021). Use the difference as a clue to what love looks like to each of you.

Q. Can your love style change? A. It can. Lee did not see love styles as fixed traits (Smith & Klases, 2016), and people who were in love scored higher on Eros and Agape and lower on Ludus (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1988). That study compared different people at one point in time, though, rather than following the same people. Take the test again in a new relationship or after a few months and compare.

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