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SHOES, CARS AND OTHER LOVE STORIES:
Investigating the experience of love for products
This research was partly supported by:
@ Beatriz Russo 2010
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ISBN 978-90-6562-255-6
SHOES, CARS AND OTHER LOVE STORIES:
Investigating the experience of love for products
Proefschrift
ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor
aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,
op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. ir. K. C. A. M. Luyben,
voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,
in het openbaar te verdedingen op donderdag 9 December 2010 om 15:30 uur
door
Beatriz RUSSO RODRIGUES
Mestre em Design
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
geboren te Rio de Janeiro, Brazilië
Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor:
Prof. Dr. P. P. M. Hekkert
Copromotor:
Dr. Dipl. Des. S. U. Boess
Samenstelling promotiecommissie:
Rector Magnificus
Voorzitter
Prof. Dr. P. P. M. Hekkert
Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor
Dr. Dipl. Des. S. U. Boess
Technische Universiteit Delft, copromotor
Prof. Dr. D. A. Norman
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and
Technology
Prof. Dr. M. Woolley
Coventry University
Prof. Dr. Ir. J. Dul
Erasmus University
Prof. Dr. J. C. Brezet
Technische Universiteit Delft
Dr. C. S. Porter
Loughborough University
Prof. Ir. M. B. van Dijk
Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
preserves."
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE 11
‘IS THIS LOVE THAT I’M FEELING?’ 15
Chapter 1: The experience of love for products 15
1.1 Descriptions of love 15
1.2 Preliminary study 17
1.2.1 Insights 18
1.2.2 Why investigate the experience of love for products? A
research perspective 22
1.3 This thesis 23
‘WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?’ 27
Chapter 2: Examining how to investigate the experience of love
for products 27
2.1 Product experience 27
2.1.1 Investigating product experiences 28
2.1.2 The appraisal approach 28
2.2 Investigating interpersonal love theories 30
2.2.1 Selection criteria 31
2.3 Tracing person-product love using interpersonal love theories 33
2.3.1 The Triangular Theory of Love 33
2.3.2 Relationship development & change 39
2.4 What have we learned and how to investigate the experience
of love for products? 45
‘HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE?’ 51
Chapter 3: The person-product Love Scale 51
3.1 Introduction 51
3.2 Identifying rewarding experiences with loved products 53
3.2.1 Phase 1 – Mapping person-product love stories 53
3.2.2 Phase 2 – Checking subscales items 55
3.2.3 Phase 3 – Testing the Love Scale 57
3.2.4 Phase 4 – Subscales validation 59
3.2.5 Phase 5 – Scale revision 62
3.3. Discussion 64
Note: 66
“MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE” 69
CHAPTER 4: The Experience Interaction Tool 69
4.1 Introduction 69
4.2 Assessing person-product relationship events 70
4.2.1 Phase 1: Structuring stories of relationship events 73
4.2.2 Phase 2: Collecting relevant action verbs 75
4.2.3 Phase 3: Manageable set of action verbs 77
4.2.4 Phase 4: Trialling the tool 82
4.3 Discussion 93
‘I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANY MORE’ 97
CHAPTER 5: Investigating the experience of love for products 97
5.1 Method 99
5.2 The study setup 100
5.2.1 Study 1: Women and shoes 100
5.2.2 Study 2: People and cars 100
5.2.3 Participant selection 101
5.2.4 Data collection 101
5.3 Question 1: How interactions and the experience of love are
connected in person-product relationships 102
5.3.1 Data analysis 103
5.3.2 Results from the small sample: connections between
interactions and the experience of love 103
5.3.3 Discussion of question 1 106
5.3.4 Findings on question 1 (from all the data) 108
5.3.5 Discussion of question 1 112
5.4 Question 2: how do the connecting aspects in an interaction
influence a change in the experience of love? 114
5.4.1 Data analysis on question 2 115
5.4.2 Findings on question 2 117
5.4.3 Discussion of question 2 118
5.5 Question 3: How do the connecting aspects in an interaction
influence change in the experience of love and the
development of the relationship over time? 119
5.5.1 Data analysis on question 3 120
5.5.2 Findings 121
5.5.3 Discussion of question 3 134
5.6 General discussion 134
5.6.1 Discussion of the approach 134
5.6.2 Discussion of the findings 135
‘THE THRILL IS GONE’ 139
CHAPTER 6: General Discussion 139
6.1 The experience of love for products 139
6.1.1 Investigating love in the field of design 140
6.1.2 How are interactions and love connected? 141
6.1.3 How do these interactions influence love over time? 142
6.2 Implications for design research and strategies: can we
design for love? 142
6.2.1 Can designers foster rewards of love and longevity in
person-product love relationships? A workshop 148
6.3 Implications for love research 152
6.3 Limitations and future research 154
REFERENCES 159
SUMMARY 167
SAMENVATTING 173
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 179
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 181
11
PROLOGUE
In 2003 I carried out a study in which I examined the influence of
affective experiences on the perceived usability of consumer products. I
noticed that some products, while effective, efficient and (somewhat)
satisfying, were not preferred by users. Rather, they preferred to use
products with which they resonated emotionally. Usability, - “the extent
to which a product can be used by specific users to achieve specified
goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction” (ISO 9241-11, 1996)
– for long has been seen as a critical factor for user acceptance.
However, by the time of my study, researchers had begun to recognize
that effectiveness and efficiency might not be the only qualities products
should have in order to promote user satisfaction: the ability of
products to satisfy people’s affective needs also seemed to improve
product acceptance and people’s well-being (for example, Picard, 1997;
Jordan, 1999; Hassenzahl, Platz, Burmester, & Lehner, 2000; Tractinsky,
Katz, & Ikar, 2000; Helander & Tham, 2003).
Did these findings also apply to my research? I was investigating
differences between the users’ judgment of products they owned and
resonated with emotionally and the users’ judgment of highly usable
products that served the same purpose (function). I carried out usability
tests in which participants tested both products and collected many
experience narratives. All products participants claimed to resonate with
emotionally did badly in the usability tests. Still, participants
favoured
using those products instead of the highly usable ones (Russo, 2004).
For example, in a particular post-test interview, while commenting on the
fact that her fingers were bleeding from using her nail clipper (figure 1),
just a moment ago, a participant said:
“It doesn’t really matter if once in a while I happen to cut my finger with it. I
really love this nail clipper (…) and nobody will convince me to ditch it
and use another one. In fact, I have another one and I have had it for a
long time. But since I got this one I always use it”.
12
The findings indicated that good usability – alone – was not a critical
factor to user acceptance, but
love
seemed to be. During the study,
many participants said they experienced
love
for the products they own,
use, and resonate with. When experienced towards a product, love
seemed to have the power to lessen the importance of effectiveness
and efficiency during product use as well as convey higher levels of
satisfaction.
Figure 0.1 – The beloved nail clipper ‘Canaglia’, from Alessi.
Design: Stefano Giovannoni.
Considering that nowadays we have access to products that are very
similar in terms of price, quality, and technical characteristics, products
with an affective appeal have competitive advantage when people make
purchase decisions (Desmet, 2002). Moreover, affective experiences can
satisfy our emotional needs, strongly influence our wellbeing, and
improve our quality of life (Desmet, 2002; Hassenzahl, 2008; Demir
2008; McDonagh & Lebbon, 2000). Researchers have also been raising
awareness about the role of affective experiences in the environmental
impact of products (Woolley, 2003; Van Hinte, 2004): products are
quickly discarded because they provide a limited scope for affective
experiences or provide experiences that are short-lived (Dunne & Raby,
2001). Enabling people to have more intensive and varied experiences
with products could make them keep the products for longer and
engage in long-term relationships with them (Chapman, 2005; Dunne and
Raby, 2001; Wooley, 2003).
For these reasons, it became essential that product developers
are prepared to deal with the affective experiences people have with
13
products (Denton, McDonagh, Baker & Wormald, 2004; McDonagh and
Lebbon, 2000). Design researchers are seeking to integrate into the
design domain knowledge of what experiences are, what they entail, and
to provide guidance for those who wish to design
for
experiences or –
at least – facilitate their occurrence (Forlizzi & Ford, 2000).
Although people often express love for a product, not much is known at
present about the experience of love in the person-product context and
its role in people’s satisfaction with product use. It might be worth
studying in order to provide product developers with opportunities to
support people’s wellbeing. What is the experience of love for products?
What is the role of product use in the experience of love? Can we
create products people would love? Motivated to investigate this
phenomenon I started my doctoral studies at Delft University of
Technology. At the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, design
researchers were joining efforts to investigate specific affective
experiences people have with products and to gather knowledge to
facilitate the occurrence of these experiences. Despite their appealing
motto –
creating successful products people love to use
– they also
seemed to be in need of an understanding of love for products and
provided me with an opportunity to study it. This thesis is the result.
15
‘IS THIS LOVE THAT I’M FEELING?’
Chapter 1:
The experience of love for products
1
In the prologue we proposed that investigating people’s experience of
love for products they own and use could provide insights into how this
experience supports wellbeing. With these insights, eventually, guidance
for product developers could be developed on how the experience of
love can be fostered through design. First, we look into how love has
been described. Then, we investigate what it means to people to love a
product they use and gather insights that help us describe what is the
experience of love for products in the context of use.
1.1 Descriptions of love
From Plato to contemporary researchers in various domains of the
humanities and social sciences, many have tackled the need to
understand what is widely considered to be the most powerful and
meaningful of all human emotions (Sternberg, 1988; Berscheid & Peplau,
1983). Love is a phenomenon present in all human cultures (Levinger,
1988). Because it has many forms and guises (Pope, 1980), researchers
and theorists have described it through many perspectives. Love has
been described in light of the affective phenomena it portrays as, for
example, an attitude (Rubin, 1973, Fromm, 1957) or an emotion (Casler,
1974; Ortony, Clore, and Collins, 1988). It has also been described in
terms of the behaviours people engage with when experiencing it (Buss,
1988; Levinger, 2002; Sternberg, 1988); in terms of the values and
1
Chapter based on Russo & Hekkert (2007), Russo (2009), and Russo, Boess,
and Hekkert (2011).
16
moral issues it involves (Badhwar, 2003; Brown, 1987; Velleman, 1999),
and in terms of its sexual outcomes (Freud, 1952). It has been
described as, for example, a source of motivation (Aron & Aron, 1996),
as stories (Sternberg, 1998; Reik, 1943), and as a bond of commitment
or attachment (Bowlby, 1999; Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw, 1988). Most
often, love is examined in the interpersonal context, whether between
peers, parent and child, siblings, or friends. However, can love for
products be said to exist as well? How has love for products been
described?
Brown (1987) and Chapman (2005) suggested that people think that,
when expressed towards products, love gains a metaphorical aura, as if
it could only be experienced towards people. Brown (1987) was probably
the first to include love for products in the philosophical literature on
love. He believed that much of what we experience as ‘love’ may be
truthfully extended to all possible objects since “there is nothing in
particular that we have to believe about the object of our love in order
to make it a possible recipient” (p.15). However, he also believes that
people may use the word
love
towards products simply to stress their
liking for it, or because some languages such as French have a single
word that corresponds to the words
love
and
like
. In the psychological
literature on love, Berscheid (2006) cautions that when expressions of
love
refer to a product these do not necessarily have the same (or
similar) connotation as when they refer to a person: “people generally
know what love means because they construe its meaning from
knowledge of precisely who, in what situation, in what culture, is using
the word to describe his or her attitudes, emotions, feelings, and
behaviours about a person or a thing” (p. 173). In design research
Chapman (2005) considers that love is something we
can
experience
towards products: “love abounds in both the made and unmade world”
(p. 68). However, he believes that, unlike interpersonal love, love for
products is incapable of mutual evolution and growth as it lacks
reciprocity. According to these authors, love for products is not
exclusively metaphorical and can be said to exist. However, they caution
17
that the word love may mean various things when employed towards
products, and that it may differ in character from interpersonal love.
Researchers of various areas have described love for products in
association with a number of phenomena. For example, Desmet (2002)
investigated emotions people experience when assessing the appearance
of consumer products and found that – at an early stage of
consumption – love was indistinguishable from desire as an experience.
Expressions of love towards products have been interpreted as
attachment (Mugge, 2007; Chapman, 2005), preference (Berscheid, 2006),
or a more intense form of liking (Brown, 1987). Love for products was
claimed to be an expression of self-love (Taylor, 1982), an extension of
the self (Ahuvia, 1993; 2005), and a form of brand loyalty (Whang, Allen,
Sahoury, & Zhang, 2004, Caroll & Ahuvia, 2006). It seems that, like
interpersonal love, love for products can also be observed through many
perspectives. However, none of the perspectives presented above
specifically reflect people’s experience of products they use, interact or
engage with. What does it mean to people to love a product this way?
1.2 Preliminary study
In order to understand what it means to people to love a product they
use, we turned to their own words; how they talk about a product they
love. This could help us decide whether love for products can be said
to exist. It could also provide first pointers towards a suitable approach
to researching person-product love if it was a phenomenon worth
studying. We set up an exploratory preliminary study in which we invited
people to discuss a particular consumer product they own, use, and
love. We chose to focus our investigation on loved
consumer products
that people own and use because this might generate insights of value
to product design.
The participants of the preliminary study were 24 (11 male, 13
female; 22-28 years old) international master students of the faculty of
Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, the
Netherlands. Lacking an
a priori
objective measure of love, we assumed
that when a person responds to our invitation to discuss a particular
18
loved product they do experience love for the product. Each participant
was met individually and asked to present from 1 to 3 consumer
products they own, use, and love, and to share their personal
experiences with these products.
Each interview session (one session for each product) lasted
between 35 and 50 minutes. Fifty-three love stories (unstructured self-
reports) about people’s experiences with products they love were
collected. Loved products were a broad range of consumer products:
from shoes to laptops, from mobile phones to hairbrushes (see figure
1.1). We conducted an initial analysis of the participants’ stories. We
grouped the participants’ statements into phenomena that seemed
relevant to affective experiences, such as duration and strength of affect
(Silverman, 2000). As we examined the stories, new phenomena were
found to be relevant and were also described.
1.2.1 Insights
The collected person-product love stories helped us understand what
people mean when they say they love a product they own and use.
First, descriptions of love portrayed a
meaningful relationship
between
people and a product specimen.
“I always remember the first time I saw these sunglasses. I was in this shop
in NY looking for glasses and I always had problems finding ones that fit
well and that look good. I saw these, put them on and I felt like they were
made for me (…) so I bought them (…) I felt like I had to have them (…) I
never had something like this with anything else. Just with these glasses”.
Second, throughout the stories, participants frequently pictured their
relationship with loved products as
very rewarding.
“I can do everything with this [photo] camera. I know every little piece of it,
every little detail (…) I love it so much (…) I’m so glad to have it”.
“Really, I can’t imagine having another mobile phone. It is old, but it does so
much for me”.
19
Figure 1.1 – A selection of products participants said they love.
From left to right: laptop, sunglasses, pen, MP3 Player, mobile
phone, external HD, running shoes, hairbrush, tennis racket, wallet,
bike lights, lamp, turntable, car, headphones, photo camera,
notebook, hammock, meat grinder, and nail clipper.
Third, love was portrayed as an
enduring
experience. Participants
described their love as spanning over time.
“I actually bought this pen a long time ago, like 4 years ago. I saw it and
didn’t even think much. I just bought it. It was, let’s say, ‘love at first sight’
20
(…) I still use it, of course. It doesn’t look as pretty as it used to, but I love
it, what can I do?”
Fourth, since it is enduring, love is more than
an experience
: it is a
container of experiences
. People often describe having momentary
affective experiences, both positive and negative, while also having an
overall experience of love for a product.
“I remember how I felt when I saw the photo camera the first time. It was so
shiny. I really wanted to have it (…) I used to play with it in the beginning, it
was kind of fun. Mostly because I wanted to get to know it, its functions and
all (…) one day I found a scratch on it and I got so mad. I thought it would
never be the same again. But then, as I got used to it, the scratch became
part of the camera (…) I really love it. It is a very good camera, but I think
that we’ve been through so much that it is impossible not to love it”.
“I was really happy to know it [backpack] was then mine (…) I’m still happy
about it”.
Lastly, people often describe the experience of love for products as
changing over time
.
“I bought these running shoes because I wanted to run. And I did use them
the whole summer. I was running around the city almost every day and I
loved wearing these shoes (…) but when winter came I went back to the gym
and I realized these shoes were not made for the gym. My feet hurt after a
while and I was very disappointed. I thought I could use them everywhere,
but no (…) I decided that I would not wear them at the gym, but I would try
to run outside when there was no snow and it is not too cold (…) my love
for them definitely went a bit down, but it goes right up when I am able to
wear and enjoy them”.
In sum, our participants described love as a rewarding, long-term, and
dynamic experience that contains other affective experiences and arises
from meaningful relationships with special products they own and use.
Given that love has been described in many ways, has love even been
described like this?
21
All the characteristics of the experience of love for products described
by our participants have been pointed out by interpersonal love
researchers – mostly social psychologists – as characteristics of inter-
personal partnering love. Partnering love is a kind of love experienced
towards
a significant other
, such as a lover or spouse. Interpersonal
partnering love has also been pictured as a rewarding experience (for
example, Sternberg, 1986/2006; Murstein, 1988); a long-term experience
that changes over time (for example, Kelley, 2002; Levinger, 2002, Pope,
1980; Sternberg, 2006); and as a meaningful experience that is best
described as a relationship (for example, Pope, 1980; Sternberg,
1988/2006; Kelley, 2002; Van Krogten, 1992; Maxwell, 1985; Reik, 1944).
Moreover, interpersonal love researchers have also posed that love is
not a single emotion but many (for example, Maxwell, 1995; Murstein,
1988; Pope, 1980). Researchers have also described how other affective
experiences play a role in the experience of love: for example, desire
(for example, Beal & Sternberg, 1995), disappointment (for example,
Levinger, 2002), contentment (for example, Berscheid, 2002), happiness
(for example, Brickman & Campbell, 1971), liking (for example, Sternberg,
1988; Berscheid, 2002), grief (for example, Berscheid, 2002; Levinger,
2002), and so on. In short, researchers of interpersonal love suggest
that love is a rewarding, long-term and dynamic experience.
Sometimes, our participants’ talk about loved products even sounded
like talk about people:
“It’s a real pity. Sometimes I cannot believe my mobile phone is gone”.
“I loved the shoes from the first moment I saw them. They had to be mine
(…) I even dreamt about them”.
Love for products, as described by our participants, seems to have
similar characteristics as interpersonal love. If we can accept that the
love people say they experience for their human partners
exists,
its
similarities to the person-product love stories collected here suggest
that person-product love can also be said to exist.
22
1.2.2 Why investigate the experience of love for products? A
research perspective
Let’s look back at the love experience presented in the prologue that
sparked this research. Even when bad things happen – for example,
fingers bleeding after using a beloved nail clipper – people still
experience rewards (rating and describing its use as satisfactory). How
could this phenomenon be explained? We will try to explain it as love, a
rewarding, long-term, and dynamic experience that contains other
affective experiences and arises from meaningful relationships with
special products people own and use. Investigating what underlies the
rewarding and dynamic nature of love could provide a basis for the
promotion of such emotional benefits and people’s wellbeing.
While examining what it means to people to experience love for
products they use, participants often described their efforts in
maintaining relationships with loved products for an extended period of
time.
“I clean it [meat grinder] every time I use it. If I don’t do it, it will rust and
won’t last very long (…) and I won’t be able to use it anymore (…) I don’t
want that to happen”.
“I don’t like to see it [hair brush] getting old but it is old, so I just accept it
(…) I also try to clean it once in a while. I want it to last longer”.
“You can see that the colour is fading. There used to be a butterfly here in
the front but it disappeared already. It [wallet] is getting old, I have it for
almost 5 years now. Already (…) but I don’t want to buy another one”.
“I have these shoes for almost 15 years! I’ve already dyed them, originally
they were light brown (…) I want to dye them again now but I am afraid the
leather can’t take it anymore. It will probably crack (…) I try not to use them
in situations in which they could get damaged, like if it is raining or
something”.
Given these statements, research on love for products people use could
also be a potential ally in reducing the impact of products on the
23
environment. The rewarding nature of love seems to be able to extend
the empathic bond between people and products over time.
In this research we investigate the experience of love for products and
seek to provide insights into how this experience supports wellbeing.
With these insights, guidance for designers could be developed on how
they can design for the experience of love and foster rewarding and
long-term person-product relationships.
1.3 This thesis
This thesis presents an iterative and systematic research into the
experience of love for products. Its six chapters describe a journey in
unravelling and clarifying this complex, powerful and, sometimes,
unexplainable experience people have with special products they love,
own, and use. The main questions addressed in this thesis are the
following. What is the experience of love for products? How can we
investigate love in the field of design? How are person-product
interactions connected to the experience of love? How do person-
product interactions influence the experience of love over time? These
questions are addressed with particular attention to the relevance of the
findings to design. As you accompany me in this journey, you will find
that love for products can be measured, explained through simple
concepts, linked to interactions people have with products, and tracked
over time.
In the next paragraphs I provide an overview of the studies that
are reported in the chapters of this thesis. The research was partly
carried out in collaboration with others, for example graduation students
and research assistants, and partly reported in published papers with
contributions from the supervisors of this PhD project and from fellow
researchers. Therefore, the form ‘we’ is generally used throughout this
thesis.
In chapter 2 we examine how the experience of love for products can
be investigated in a way that is useful to the field of design. Lacking a
structured design research approach to investigate the love described by
24
the participants of the initial study (this chapter), we examine whether
love for products can be explained by interpersonal theories from social
psychology. A study is reported in which we trace whether two theories
of interpersonal love match the participant’s stories about their loved
products. These were Sternberg’s triangular theory of love (1988) and
Levinger’s theory of close relationship development and change
(1983/2002). Both theories matched the participants’ stories well,
indicating that the rewards of love and the longevity of love
relationships have a similar structure in both interpersonal and person-
product contexts. Creating a conceptual connection between those two
theories provided us with a basis to investigate the experience of love
for products in this research.
In chapters 3 and 4, research tools are developed for the study of the
experience of love. Their development is based on the findings
presented in chapter 2. In chapter 3, through a content analysis of
participant’s love stories with products, we identify the rewards of love
that are specific to person-product relationships. Then, through a series
of statistical analyses, we develop and validate a psychometric scale
that measures the intensity of rewards of love for products. This scale
can be used as a research tool to assess the quality of the experience
of love at times in a person-product relationship. In chapter 4, through
a series of studies that rely on methods such as content analysis and
card sorting, we develop another research tool that assists participants
in sharing stories of moments in time in which they interacted with
specific loved products and experience love. A pilot study is carried out
in order to confirm the effectiveness of the tool. This tool is based on
a diary approach and also incorporates the psychometric scale.
In chapter 5 we use the combined tool developed in chapters 3 and 4
in two studies, each on a different product type. Person-product
relationships with two product types are studied: shoes and cars. In the
two studies, we examine
- how interactions and the experience of love are connected in person-
product relationships;
25
- how those connecting aspects influence a change in the experience of
love in an interaction, and;
- how these aspects influence love over time: through change in the
experience of love and through the development of the relationship over
time.
In chapter 6 we present the main findings of this research and discuss
their implications for design research and for strategies on how to
design for the experience of love, with the aim of fostering more
rewarding experiences and long-lasting relationships. Implications for
research on love in other fields are also presented as well as the
limitations of this research and directions for further research.
27
‘WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?’
Chapter 2:
Examining how to investigate the experience of love
for products
2
In the previous chapter, we explored what it means to people to love
products they own and use. The insights led us to consider person-
product love as a rewarding, dynamic, and long-term experience. In this
chapter we develop an approach to the in-depth investigation of the
experience of love for products, to be conducted in a way that is
relevant to the field of design.
2.1 Product experience
The term product experience refers to the aesthetic, cognitive, and
affective experiences people have with products. It has been defined as
an awareness of any change in affect due to human-product interaction
(Desmet & Hekkert, 2007). Product experiences can be very complex.
They happen in ‘a scene of various dynamic aspects’ in which they are
all tangled together and may occur simultaneously (Jääskö, Mattelmäki,
and Ylirisku, 2003). Experiences (like
love
, as seen in chapter 1) can be
‘containers’ of other smaller experiences (Forlizzi & Ford, 2000) and the
anticipation or remembrance of product experiences generates other
experiences (Desmet & Hekkert, 2007). All these factors make the study
of product experiences a challenging task.
2
Chapter based on Russo & Hekkert (2007); Russo (2009); and Russo, Boess,
and Hekkert (2011).
28
2.1.1 Investigating product experiences
Design researchers successfully investigated product experiences by
looking into interactions between people and products: product
experiences
arise from
person-product interactions (for example, Hekkert,
2006; Forlizzi & Ford, 2000; Desmet & Hekkert, 2007). Knowledge on
how experiences arise from person-product interactions can provide
insights with which to design
for
experiences. Several models and
frameworks have been developed that aim to elucidate the link between
experiences and interactions through various perspectives: for example,
by looking into the different sources of pleasure during interaction
(Jordan, 1999), the contexts and scenarios of experiences (for example,
Forlizzi & Ford, 2000; Hummels, Djajadiningrat, & Overbeeke, 2001;
Jaasko et al, 2003), the appraisal processes that give rise to
experiences (for example, Desmet, 2002; Demir 2009), the different levels
of cognitive involvement during experiences (Norman, 2004). No
approach has been developed yet that is specifically aimed at the
experience of love in the context of use. Out of all the approaches, only
Desmet’s (2002) appraisal approach aims to identify a variety of specific
affective experiences (emotions), such as joy, anger, boredom, and
amusement, and their specific appraisal structure. Could the appraisal
approach help us investigate the experience of love?
2.1.2 The appraisal approach
The appraisal theory claims that emotions arise from evaluations
(appraisals) we make of something during specified events (Scherer,
Banse, & Wallbott, 2001). The way we evaluate, for example, the
appearance or any other particular quality of a product while we
interact with it determines the affective experience we have towards that
product. Desmet (2002) investigated how people evaluate the appearance
of products at an early stage of consumption. He found that the criteria
people use to evaluate products are their personal concerns: a product
elicits an emotion if it is appraised as relevant to people’s concerns
(see figure 2.1). For example, one is proud of a car because its
appearance matches with one’s concern for social acceptance.
29
Figure 2.1 – Basic model of product emotions (Desmet, 2002).
However
,
unlike
surprise
,
fascination
,
irritation
, and many other emotions
people have with products that have a unique underlying appraisal
structure (Demir, Desmet, & Hekkert, 2009), love seems to have a
different structure.
First, despite the fact that many interpersonal love researchers
and theorists refer to love as an emotion (for example, Casler, 1974;
Ortony, Clore, and Collins, 1988), the experience of love does not fit
into descriptions of emotions. Emotions are acute and exist only for a
short period of time, lasting seconds or minutes at most (Ekman, 1994;
Desmet, 2002). Unlike this, as we have seen in chapter 1, people tend
to describe their love for a product as something that is dynamic and
endures over time.
Second, Desmet (2002) found that when participants said they
experienced love for a product they actually experienced desire. In the
stories we collected in the preliminary study (chapter 1) participants
often talk about experiencing
desire
when encountering the beloved
product for the first time. But they also mention other emotions
experienced with their beloved products over time, such as frustration,
happiness, anger, and so on. Here then, love is not similar to desire,
but
encompasses
it in participants’ retrospective reports, besides other
emotions. Love, as we have seen (chapter 1), seems to be a
container
of emotions
but not an emotion itself. Considering that the experience
of love for products encompasses other affective experiences, we can
30
conclude that employing the appraisal approach to investigate it might
reveal the emotional experiences love contains instead of the experience
of love per se.
Third, there may be another reason why the experience of love
cannot be grasped by the appraisal approach: the experience of love is
not
involuntary
. Although this may sound counterintuitive, as love is
often pictured as something people ‘fall in’ or ‘can’t help’ experiencing,
one must be
dispositioned
to experience love (Murstein, 1988).
Interpersonal love theorists have asserted that love stems from a
decision
people make to love someone
and
to maintain that love over
time (for example, Fromm, 1956; Sternberg, 2006; Murstein, 1988;
Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989, Berscheid, 2002). Therefore love does not
simply start and end like other affective experiences design researchers
have been investigating. Can we identify moments in time in which
people make these decisions to love products?
Love as a dynamic, long lasting, and ‘container’ experience is not an
emotion and does not fit into the appraisal theory. In chapter 1, we saw
that the experience of love for products has characteristics similar to
the love interpersonal researchers describe when they look at partnering
relationships. Interpersonal love researchers have developed many
models and frameworks to understand the experience of love and its
rewards, dynamics, and longevity. Could interpersonal research on love
provide an approach to investigate the experience of love for products
in design?
2.2 Investigating interpersonal love theories
Interpersonal love theories that examine partnering love have looked into
various aspects of love. Theories, models, and frameworks have been
developed to understand expressions of love (for example, Murstein,
1988; Wilkins & Gareis, 2006); people’s individual experiences (for
example, Sternberg, 1988/2006; Berscheid, 2006; Lee, 1988; Aron,
Dutton, Aron, and Iverson, 1989); types of love (for example, Sternberg,
1988/2006; Aron, Fisher, and Strong, 2006; Aron, Paris, and Aron,
1995); the time course of love (for example, Levinger, 2002; Cunningham
31
& Antill, 1981; Sternberg, Hojjat, and Barnes, 2001); the nature of love
(for example, Sternberg & Gradjek, 1984; Fehl & Russel, 1991); measures
of love (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989; Sternberg, 1997); maintenance and
repair of love relationships (for example, Canary & Daiton, 2006;
Sternberg, 2006; Levinger, 2002), and more. All these regard love as a
rewarding, dynamic, and long-term experience.
In order to examine whether these perspectives are useful to our
research, we propose to (1) trace whether these interpersonal love
theories seem to match the experience of love in person-product
relationships and (2) examine the extent to which the theories can help
us define an approach to investigate the experience of love for
products. However, considering the great number of perspectives
available, first we define criteria and use them to select those
interpersonal theories that are most relevant to our research and to the
field of design. Then, by comparing people’s stories about loved
products with interpersonal theories, we trace whether each theory
seems to match the experience of love for a product. We make use of
the stories as verbalized by the participants of the preliminary study
(chapter 1).
2.2.1 Selection criteria
Interpersonal love theories that can be relevant to design and useful to
investigate the rewards, dynamics, and longevity of the experience of
love for products should describe:
• A relationship of mainly two partners – so that insights can be
transferred to the situation of user and product;
• A relationship where dependency is not the main aspect – theories
that focus on dependent close interpersonal relationships (such as
between mother and child) are excluded here as these mainly
describe bonds of attachment instead of love;
• The different characters the dynamic experience of love may have –
this could help us investigate the interrelatedness between the
experience of love and interactions over time;
32
• The time course of the experience of love and love relationships –
this could help us understand what influences the experience of love
and the continuation of a love relationship over time.
No theory alone fitted all four criteria. However, together, a theory of
interpersonal love and a theory of interpersonal close relationship
development fitted the criteria and were selected. Both have been
empirically studied, based on observations and people’s accounts of
their own experiences.
• Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (1986/2006) describes the
components of love and what is experienced as love in close
relationships. The theory is the basis for a tool, the triangular love
scale. By tracing the intensity of each component of love, the tool
can indicate the quality of love at times in a relationship, enabling
intervention in case the intensity of components is unbalanced.
Additionally, ‘kinds of love’ indicate eight ways in which people
experience their interpersonal relationship. Sternberg’s theory has
influenced further analyses of interpersonal love (for example,
Murstein, 1988; Berscheid, 2006). However, Sternberg’s triangular
theory only assesses people’s individual experience of love at
isolated moments in time. His secondary theory – ‘love as a story’
(Sternberg, 1998/2006) – aims to describe the development of love
over time but offers an approach that considers the experiences of
both partners in a relationship, which is difficult if not impossible to
apply to relationships between people and products.
• Levinger’s (2002 – original work published in 1983) theory of
relationship development and change describes the time course of
close partnering relationships (for example, courtship, marriage) as
well as influences that provoke changes in the continuation of these
relationships. His descriptions involve events in which partners
interact. Although he does not focus on the experience of love but
on relationships between romantic partners, his relationship
descriptions also include experiences of love. Other researchers have
33
used similar descriptions of relationship phases (for example, Wish,
Deutsch & Kaplan, 1976; Pope, 1980) and processes within
relationships that influence its development (for example, Harvey &
Wenzel, 2006; Rusbult, Olsen, Davis, & Hannon, 2001; Clark & Monin,
2006).
In the next section, both theories will be described in more detail. In
parallel, we look for fragments in people’s product love stories that
seem to match what is described in the interpersonal theories.
2.3 Tracing person-product love using interpersonal love
theories
2.3.1 The Triangular Theory of Love
The triangular theory poses that the experience of love has three
components
: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Each component is
experienced through certain rewarding thoughts and feelings and is
characterized by certain rewarding behaviours.
The components of love
The
intimacy
component is a long-term experience and includes the
emotional investments and feelings of closeness, connectedness, and
bondedness that lead to the experience of warmth in loving relationships
(Sternberg, 2006). Intimacy comprises behaviours such as sharing one’s
possession and time, caring for someone, expressing empathy for
someone, and communicating honestly with someone. In the person-
product context, participants often expressed a close bond and
connectedness with loved products:
“I feel very close to it. This was not my first mobile phone, but it was the
most important one. I could do everything I wanted with it (…) and I have so
many stories of this phone”.
“I feel like I’m the only person in the world who has this wallet (…) I feel
really close to it, I can’t explain (…) it’s like we were made for each other or
something”.
34
The
passion
component comprises the motivational involvement in a
relationship and includes the drives that lead to romance, physical
attraction and sexual consummation. Passion is often expressed when
lovers kiss, hug, gaze at each other, touch, and make love (Sternberg,
1988).
Participants talked about their attraction to the physical
appearance of their beloved product and about their sensory
gratification from it.
“I really like to hold my tennis racket. It seems perfect for my hands. The
weight, the size (…) sometimes, when I am between matches, I just like to
hold it, to keep it in my hands. I don’t feel like abandoning it on the bench,
or inside my bag (…) I find it pretty, I like these curves”.
The
commitment
component comprises two scenarios: the short-term
scenario describes the cognitions and actions involved in making the
decision to love another and establish a relationship (Sternberg, 2006).
Participants gave hints of a similar process in person-product love when,
for example, deciding to own a product:
“When I saw the hairbrush the first time I realized I was looking for
something like this for ages (…) I needed it, and bought it immediately”.
The long-term scenario describes the commitment to maintain a
relationship and is expressed when lovers pledge and practice fidelity,
stay together through hard times, when they are (somehow) engaged
with each other and when they marry (Sternberg, 1986). We found
evidence of this scenario of commitment in our participants’ reports:
“This meat grinder is a quality product. I know I will have it forever (…) it is
not easy to clean it. It takes time and lots of effort. But I use it anyway. I
would not choose not to use it because it is hard work (…) the feeling I get
when I am using it pays off for the hard work”.
“The hammock is always there for me. Sometimes I am busy, have lots of
things to do. I look around and see my hammock there, waiting for me. I like
that. Of course I cannot always go for it, but I know it is there”.
35
Sternberg’s components of love provide a structure for the rewarding
experiences people have in a love relationship. By measuring the
intensity, presence, and absence of each of the components of love in
interpersonal relationships, Sternberg defined eight distinguishing
characters a relationship may have at a given time: the kinds of love.
Kinds of love
Although Sternberg calls these eight characters
kinds of love
, they
actually range from the absence of love to the presence of high
intensities of love. The kinds of love indicate the quality of love
relationships at particular moments in time. The first kind of love is
characterized by the absence of all components and is called
non-love
.
It characterizes the majority of interpersonal relationships, for example
with acquaintances, where nothing meaningful or long lasting is
experienced. Non-love may be experienced, for example, in the beginning
of a relationship that becomes meaningful over time. Participants
sometimes mentioned having had such kind of relationship with a
beloved product before the love started:
“It is funny. I bought it [notebook] because it looked nice. I had it for a long
time, but only a few months ago I realized how cool it is (…) I think that the
love grew from that”.
Consummate love
is the other extreme, comprising the intimacy, passion
and commitment components. It is a love many people aspire to.
Attaining it can be difficult, but sustaining it even harder, since
relationships tend to change over time. Our research participants often
expressed themselves in ways that suggest a consummate relationship
with beloved products:
“I think the sunglasses look beautiful [passion]. They fit me very well, they’re
my style [intimacy] (…) and I really hope I never lose them [commitment] (…)
I take very good care of them, but accidents can happen (…) but I hope I
can use them forever”.
Liking
describes a relationship involving intimacy only, via feelings of
closeness, bondedness and warmth, like in a true friendship. Liking is
36
experienced when people get to know each other but no great
commitment is made (yet) or passion has arisen. Liking may be
experienced
at times
in love relationships, however, its experience does
not necessarily involve the experience of love. As our participants were
asked to share their experiences with loved products, there were not
many stories where
only
liking a product was mentioned. Most stories
contained accounts of liking a product - the intimacy component – as
well as accounts referring to the other two components. One participant
compared his experiences with a mobile phone he ‘loves’ with another
one he simply ‘liked’:
“I liked this phone. I don’t have the same stories I have with this other one
[the loved phone]. But it is a fine mobile (…) I can use it, I know how it
works, but I don’t really love it”.
Infatuated
love
comprises only the passion component. It is experienced,
for example, in the beginning of a love relationship when not much is
known about the other (intimacy) and a commitment was not yet made.
It refers to what people often call ‘love at first sight’ and it is guided by
the appearance and idealization of the other. Participants mentioned
falling in love with their product and idealizing it:
“From the first time I saw the Mp3 player, I really wanted to have it (…) I left
the shop so I could think about it, if I should really buy it or not. But I
couldn’t wait and went back to the store ten minutes later (…) it is so hard
to explain why I wanted to have it. It looked really pretty and fashionable.
But now I look at it and I see that it is just an Mp3 player (…) Don’t get me
wrong, I love it. But I think I was a bit ‘overboard’ when I bought it”.
Although Campbell (1987) described the idealization of products as
restricted to the beginning of a relationship, we found indications of
infatuated love at a later stage. One participant idealized a car even
after it ‘died’ and was thrown away:
“Later we bought another car. Same brand, same colour, but definitely not
the same. No other car will be the same (…) we still think of it, and talk
about it (…) that was the best car”.
37
Empty love
comprises only the commitment component. It is experienced
in stagnant relationships that have lost their former mutual emotional
involvement and physical attraction. It also occurs at the beginning of a
functional relationship, such as an arranged marriage, in which a couple
agree to share a life together but intimacy and passion have not yet
developed. We found that participants held on to products although
passion had waned, or that they only started loving a product after
learning more about it:
“It’s getting old and parts of it [hair comb] are already breaking. I love it but
deep down I want to replace it. But I can only replace it for the same model
(…) it’s not pretty anymore. A bit dirty even. I tried to clean it but it is
impossible”.
“I got the bottle opener as a present from a friend and I kept it. I used it
once in a while but it was not special at all (…) only some time ago, years
after I got it, a friend told me how beautiful and special it looked. Then I
started to pay more attention to it. I even searched on the Internet and
found out a lot about it (…) that was when everything changed”.
Passionate love
combines the passion and commitment components, for
example in tumultuous love affairs where two people fall in love and
soon marry, not giving time for intimacy to blossom. Examples were also
found in the stories:
“When I saw a friend of mine using the bike lights, I had to have them (…)
the same day I went to the shop and they were sold out (…) for almost two
months I went to the shop every other day to check if they already had
them. I couldn’t stop thinking of them (…). One day I found them and didn’t
even think twice before buying”.
Romantic love
combines the intimacy and passion components. Lacking
commitment, romantic love is ‘liking’
combined with physical or other
attraction, and the idealization of the other.
“I find the lamp so beautiful. I remember the first month or two after I got it,
I couldn’t stop looking at it (…) I was addicted to it, really”.
38
Companionate love
combines intimacy with commitment. It is a long-term
committed friendship, as often occurs in marriages in which physical
attraction as a major source of passion has waned:
“The wallet is getting old, so I don’t think it is very pretty anymore (…) I just
have to accept that. But the memories I have with it are strong. I try to
clean it once in a while, or at least try to prevent the colour from fading”
Sternberg’s theory suggests that when the components of love are
experienced at a higher intensity and are in more balance, the love
relationship has a better quality. On the other hand, when the
components of love are experienced at a lower intensity and are less
balanced, the love relationship has poorer quality. Relationships that
possess better quality are more rewarding and people expect to
maintain them for longer.
Our participants’ talk of loved products
matched
the descriptions of
components and kinds of love described by Sternberg, leading us to
assume that these – as described by Sternberg – may also make up the
experience of love for products. The rewarding thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours of love were also rather similar between interpersonal and
person-product love. However, there is also reason to expect that they
are not
identical
. For example, drives and actions in the passion
component that are related to sexual consummation such as kissing and
making love seem to be less relevant in person-product relationships.
Commitment to a product is not expressed through marriage and
seldom through bonding ceremonies, although (as we have seen) buying
or repairing a loved product may be seen as an act of commitment.
Because there are similarities and differences between interpersonal and
person-product love, it could be valuable to investigate further what are
the specific rewarding experiences of love in the context of products.
Furthermore, participants seemed to be at ease with loving more than
one product (although many of them said they did not hold such
relationships with many products at the same time), something that is
less generally accepted in interpersonal relationships.
39
Although Sternberg’s theory provides valuable leads for the investigation
of person-product love, it does not cover all aspects we have seen in
the data: Sternberg does not describe the transitions between these
kinds of love over time. He only gives general indications of likely
intensities of intimacy, passion, and commitment throughout relationships
without detailing what prompts changes to occur and how. In order to
grasp the dynamics of love through time more fully, we turn to
Levinger’s (2002) theory of relationship development and change.
2.3.2 Relationship development & change
Levinger (2002) examined the development of close interpersonal
relationships by investigating stories of how partners interact over time,
from the perspective of one of the partners. By analysing these stories
he identified five phases: attraction, building, continuation, deterioration
and ending. He defined these phases in analogy to prototypical love
stories. Each phase is not a stable plateau, but rather represents a set
of dynamic tendencies in the course of a relationship. For example,
during attraction, potential lovers move towards each other and their
feelings develop. The attraction phase has a dynamic that makes the
next phase – building – likely and possible. The phases described by
Levinger have no clear beginning/ending, and sometimes (partly) overlap.
Levinger highlights six causes of change in relationships that can
influence their development. These influences are (1) the experiences
partners have over time, (2) the interactions between partners and with
others, (3) evaluations of rewards and costs, (4) changes in satisfaction
over time, (5) demonstrations of affection and (6) external or internal
influences in people’s lives, such as the coming of a newborn, a change
of job, or a fall into depression over the loss of a loved one.
The attraction phase
Two individuals meet and are attracted to each other’s appearance,
body language, or similar interests. They form impressions about each
other based on their moods, goals, and values (Levinger, 2002).
Participants in our study also shared such stories. For example, a
40
participant loved the looks of an antique meat grinder when he spotted
it for sale:
“I saw it on a flea market (…) I loved the way it looked. That is what
attracted me in the first place. It looks so robust (…) it looked like a quality
product”.
As seen in chapter 1, a participant fell in love with and purchased a
hairbrush mainly because they shared environmental values:
“One thing I really like about the hairbrush is that it is made with certified
wood. I know that no forests were destroyed, or that nature was not
endangered in any way for the making of this hairbrush (…) and these things
are really important to me. That is why I bought it”.
The building phase
A foundation for a relationship can be built by finding common ground
in personality, attitude, and interests. Interactions and such conditions
can transform the lovers’ relationship and roles (Levinger, 2002). For
example, two people meet, become friends, and then find themselves in
love. However, if unable to find common ground beyond fondness for
each other’s appearance, the relationship may end again. We found
person-product love stories that follow similar lines: a participant began
loving a tennis racket only when she found that it fitted her hand well
when she played:
“At the shop, I didn’t even like the tennis racket. I was looking for a blue
racket, just like the one a friend of mine has. But then that one was too
expensive (…) then I saw this one. I didn’t like the orange colour at all (…)
but after I started using it, everything was different. I love my racket. I even
like the colour now”.
In a counter example, a participant mentioned a failed relationship with
a pair of shoes she was first attracted to:
“When I bought these shoes I thought they were very pretty. I had to have
them (…) I don’t really like them now (…) they don’t fit my feet very well (…)
it hurt too much (…) I’ll just give them away”.
41
While Levinger does not describe such a case, we found that the
building phase can follow from an existing ‘liking’ relationship when it
turns into a ‘loving’ one (as described by Sternberg). This occurs after
there were external influences or after interactions became more
frequent, like in the story of this participant:
“I think I have this notebook for about 2 or 3 years (…) but only now, after
a friend of mine was all enthusiastic about it telling me how cool it is, I
started to look at it with a different eye (…) then I started to use it a lot
more, and discovered some things about it I didn’t know before (…) now I
like it so much, I use it all the time”.
The continuation phase
During the building phase both lovers begin to evaluate whether the
relationship is worth pursuing: whether the rewards are greater than the
costs. If so, they enter the
continuation
phase in which they interact
regularly (Levinger, 2002).
“In the beginning, it was nice to see how the mobile phone works, all the
functions it has (…) I used to spend hours on it (…) now I know how it
works. All its features, its little shortcuts. I can use it with my eyes closed”.
Lovers try to enhance the positive aspects of the relationship by
demonstrating affection, trust, commitment, equality, and mutual
satisfaction. They seek to make their relationship harmonize with and
become part of their social environment:
“Even though I love my tennis racket, I really like when people ask me if
they can try it (…) I’m not jealous but of course I’m afraid that it can be
damaged. But I like to see others enjoying it too (…) I want people to like it
as much as I do”.
Continuous evaluation of the relationship results in changes in
experienced satisfaction. In chapter 1, while presenting our initial
insights, we presented some such evaluations. They were, for example,
evaluations of negative experiences followed by doubts and then the
assessment that love was still present (for example, “I still love it”).
42
The occurrence of ‘critical events’ such as the birth of the first child or
the shock of a disabling illness can have a big impact on continuation
and mark a change for the better or the worse (Levinger, 2002). In our
study, a participant’s affection for her pair of shoes temporarily
decreased when one day she saw a friend wearing identical shoes. After
an initial disengagement she recovered from the disappointment and
concluded that she still loved to wear them. Another participant’s
affection for and commitment to his mobile phone increased after he
found it in the street, having it lost the night before.
“I was very drunk and I didn’t see that my phone fell to the ground. The
next day, when I woke up, I didn’t know where it was. I immediately jumped
on the bike and re-did my way back home the night before (…) and I found
it. Unbelievable, I was so happy (…) After that I always took very good care
of it. I always search my pockets now, just to check if it is in there”.
The deterioration phase
During the continuation phase a relationship may start to deteriorate. In
the
deterioration
phase at least one of the partners experiences the
costs of the relationship as greater than its rewards and may assess
the relationship as not worth saving (Levinger, 2002). Levinger found that
average marital satisfaction declines after some time and partners
disengage. Nevertheless, resolving conflicts or seeking professional help
can reverse the deterioration and reconciliation sometimes occurs
(Levinger, 2002). Our participants sometimes expressed disengagement
from long-term relationships:
“I look at the shoes and I remember so many stories, so many times I’ve
used them (…) but they are old-fashioned now. I don’t wear them so much
anymore, but I’m not throwing them away either”.
Other participants described how their relationship regained power –
within limits:
“Something inside the camera was broken and to fix it would cost a lot of
money. I couldn’t pay for it (…) I knew I had to buy another one and I did.
The new camera is nice, but nothing compared to ‘Erin’ (…) then I realized
43
that I could use ‘Erin’ to transfer the picture files to the computer. Its
software is a lot better than the one that came with the new camera. So I
managed a way to keep on using it (…) it is a new type of use, but still, it
is nice to be able to use it once in a while”.
The ending phase
Due to passiveness, evaluations of greater costs than rewards, and
failed attempts to restore a relationship, it may eventually end. A
relationship
break-up
can be triggered by a number of factors internal
or external to the relationship. Mutual disagreements, interest in another
person, depression or low self-esteem such as that caused by job loss
can be reasons why partners end a relationship (Levinger, 2002).
Relationships may also end naturally, with the death of a partner. In
cases such as this, the relationship is often partially maintained in
memory (Levinger, 2002). A few of our participants shared stories of
ending their relationship with a once-loved product, for example because
the feeling of love ended:
“A long time ago I had these shoes that I really loved. (…) But every time I
used them they bruised my toes so much (…) I made a lot of effort to keep
on wearing them. (…) One day I realized it wasn’t worth it anymore, I realized
I didn’t have good memories of them, you know. My shoes definitely didn’t
like me as much as I liked them. I kept them for a while, but later I just
gave them away”.
Another participant gave up on an old beloved car that broke down and
could not be fixed:
“What can I do? It is really gone. When the [car] motor stopped working, that
was the last straw! The door didn’t close properly and it wouldn’t start by
itself anymore, unless we give it a little push (…) anyway, it was dead
already, there was nothing we could do about it”.
Some stories reflected moments in which participants thought about
breaking up with a product in the future. It may be thrift that keeps
them from doing so, but it is also the desire to hold on to shared
values:
44
“I’m also keeping it [hairbrush] because I think it is a waste to throw it away.
This is made with the thought that the environment should not be destroyed.
And if I throw this away I would be contributing to it (…) but I know one day
it won’t make any sense to keep it’.
According to Levinger (2002), the end of a relationship is often painful
for the partners but also an opportunity for them to grow. Levinger
states that learning from mistakes can help people in a fresh start. A
few participants mentioned learning from a relationship to ‘make things
right’ in the next one:
‘Now, if I am at the shop trying out the shoes and they are not extremely
comfortable, I don’t buy them (…) even if it’s the most beautiful pair of shoes
I’ve ever seen (…) it is a pity, but I always have to convince myself that it is
not worth it’.
Levinger sought to increase the time span of relationships, but he was
pessimistic and assumed that most relationships are likely to fail. In our
stories, participants sometimes seemed reluctant to discard loved
products.
“It’s [nail clipper] a keeper. I don’t think I’ll ever replace it, or throw it away”.
However, possibly due to the high availability of products, person-
product relationships seem to follow a similar route:
“I love my shoes and I know I take very good care of them. I hate to see
them getting old, breaking, getting dirty. But still, I think that there is always
a potential for a new pair”.
Levinger’s theory provides a useful complement to Sternberg’s theory: it
sheds light on the dynamic course of relationships and emphasizes
events in which partners
interact
and influences that can change the
course of these events. Our participants’ talk of loved products also
seemed to match Levinger’s descriptions of relationships phases.
Therefore we assume that person-product love relationships may also
develop through similar phases. However, the influences with which
Levinger describes the phases of interpersonal relationships could impact
relationships with products differently. For example, a critical event such
45
as the birth of the first child or the shock of a disabling illness can
have a great impact in an interpersonal relationship. By contrast, a
critical event in a person-product relationship such as malfunctioning of
the product may lead to break-up, but still have a less drastic impact
on the person involved.
2.4 What have we learned and how to investigate the
experience of love for products?
The person-product love stories we collected matched the descriptions
of components and kinds of love established by Sternberg’s
interpersonal theory as well as Levinger’s descriptions of relationship
phases and its influences. Having traced how the two theories describe
our data, we can now assess what we have learnt from these theories
and formulate an approach to investigate the experience of love. Figure
2.2 summarizes the learnings.
Sternberg’s triangular theory of love provides us with an understanding
of the structure of the experience of love for products and the
rewarding experiences it includes. It also provides a link between the
rewards of love and the quality of love experienced at specific moments
of time. The triangular theory structures the experience of love by
indicating its three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment.
Each
component of love
refers to rewarding thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours people experience as love in a relationship. According to the
intensity and balance in which people experience each of these
components – at specific moments of time – a specific kind of love is
experienced (see figure 2.2).
The theory suggests that the intensity and balance of the three
components of love determines the quality of rewards experienced at
(Sternberg, 1988). When intimacy, passion, and commitment are
experienced at high intensities (consummate love), these are balanced
and a relationship’s quality is high; when blends of two components are
experienced at high intensities (romantic, passionate, and companionate
love), these are fairly balanced and relationships’ quality is moderate-
high; when only intimacy, passion, or commitment are experienced at
46
high intensities (liking, infatuated love, empty love), these are fairly
unbalanced and the relationship’s quality is moderate-low; when all three
components of love are experienced at low intensities (non-love), the
relationships’ quality is low (see figure 2.2).
Figure 2.2: Sternberg’s approach to the investigation of the
experience of love.
Sternberg’s theory provides little guidance regarding the interrelatedness
between interactions and the experience of love and the influences that
can alter the intensity of experienced components. His theory also does
not offer insight into how love and its components change over time.
Levinger’s description of relationship development and change provides
more insight into these aspects (see figure 2.3). By assessing sequences
of events in which partners interact over time, Levinger describes
influences that can alter the quality and the continuation of
relationships.
Figure 2.3 – Levinger’s approach to investigate close relationships.
47
The two theories have not yet been conceptually connected. Doing so
has potential benefits: it could help us link person-product interactions
to the experience of love in order to understand (1) how interactions
and the experience of love are connected in person-product
relationships and (2) how the connecting aspects in an interaction
influence a change in the experience of love. This could provide insights
that could eventually help in designing
for
the experience of love and
increasing its rewards. Moreover, adding a time perspective to the
experience of love could help us describe (3) how these aspects
influence change in the experience of love and the development of the
relationship over time. This could help designers ‘see’ the story of love
over time and possibly be of help to them in seeking to foster
rewarding and long-term person-product relationships. This is the
approach that will be used to investigate the experience of love for
products in this research. A scheme summarizing it is presented in
figure 2.4.
Figure 2.4 – The conceptual basis for the study of the person-
product love experience throughout relationship events:
interactions as the link between concepts from two theories.
In figure 2.4, the larger frame represents a person-product love
relationship. It contains the isolated moments in time, top, at which the
48
love experience and its components can be measured (Sternberg), and a
sequence of relationship events, bottom, in which a person and a
product interact in the course of a relationship (Levinger). The beginning
and the end of an interaction delimit them as events. Earlier in this
chapter we saw that experiences with products arise from person-
product interactions. In this approach, the experience of love is seen as
arising from interactions people carry out with products in relationship
events and as – over time – being influenced by these interactions.
In order to investigate love for products following this approach, like
Sternberg (1986), we must first identify the specific thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours that make up the components of love in the person-
product context and be able to measure their intensities over time. In
the next chapter we look into that. In addition, unlike the stories
Levinger collected, the stories we collected were not yet particularly
focused on relationship events and participants did not provide enough
detail of their own accord on what happened in these events. For
example, it was often not clear which interactions influenced experiences
described by participants. We were also not able to determine the
factors that can influence the experience of love and the continuation
of love relationships. A more structured assessment of person-product
relationship events is needed to help us identify these influencing
factors. This is developed in chapter 4.
51
‘HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE?’
Chapter 3:
The person-product Love Scale
3
In the previous chapter we proposed an approach to the study of the
link between interactions and the experience of love in person-product
relationships. With this approach we can examine how interactions
change the experience of love and how these changes occur over time.
In order to investigate these processes we must first identify the
rewarding thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of love in the context of
products and assess their intensities. In this chapter, we follow
Sternberg’s steps and identify rewarding experience of love for products,
and develop a measuring tool to assess it.
3.1 Introduction
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is considered to be the “most
significant theoretical approach to love” (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989, p.
789) and a “major contribution” to the field (Murstein, 1988, p. 32), due
to its simple and inclusive approach to the experience of love. As seen
in chapter 2, the triangular theory poses that the experience of love has
three key components – intimacy, passion, and commitment – each
containing a specific set of rewarding thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
people have when experiencing love for another. The love someone
experiences over time changes as the intensity of experienced intimacy,
passion, and commitment changes. By examining people’s talk about
their experience of love, Sternberg identified the specific rewarding
3
Chapter based on Russo, Laurans, Boess, and Hekkert (submitted).
52
thoughts, feelings, and behaviours people have when experiencing each
component of love. He used these to develop the triangular love scale
(Sternberg 1986, 1988): a 45-item psychometric measuring tool designed
to assess the intensity of the components of someone’s love.
In chapter 2 we examined whether love for products could be
explained through Sternberg’s (1986/2006) triangular theory of love. The
findings supported the assumption that the experience of love for
products encompasses components and kinds of love
similar
to the
ones described in the interpersonal triangular theory. The approach by
which we proposed to investigate the experience of love relies on the
assessment of these rewarding experiences. Therefore, before we initiate
our investigation, we must be able to identify the rewarding thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours associated to love for products. They may differ
from those associated to love for people. Moreover, a measuring tool is
needed which can assess the intensity of these components. The
preliminary study presented in chapter 1 lacked an
a priori
objective
measure of love and assumed that when a person responds to our
invitation to discuss a particular loved product they
do
experience love
for the product. Although all participants interviewed seemed to actually
love the products they claimed to love, we need a more objective
measure of this construct. This should allow us to study fluctuations in
the love experience due to internal and external causes.
In this chapter we describe a succession of efforts taken to identify the
rewarding thoughts, feelings, and behaviours each love component
entails in the person-product context. With those, we can develop an
effective, reliable, and concise measuring tool for the intensities of both
the overall experience of love and of each of its three components
separately. The development of this tool could also serve to confirm our
assumption that person-product love has the same structure
(components) as interpersonal love (chapter 2).
53
3.2 Identifying rewarding experiences with loved products
3.2.1 Phase 1 – Mapping person-product love stories
In chapter 2 we found that the rewarding thoughts, feelings, and
behaviours of intimacy, passion, and commitment
resembled
the ones
our participants reported to experience with products. For example,
commitment in person-product love is not expressed through the
consummation of marriage or other bonding ceremonies such as in
interpersonal love. However, purchasing the beloved product seemed to
be a ‘ritual’ through which commitment is experienced in person-product
love relationships. As a starting point in identifying the rewarding
experiences of intimacy, passion, and commitment people have with
products we decided to convert items from the Triangular Love Scale
(Sternberg, 1986) to a person-product context.
We mapped the content of the stories collected in the preliminary study
(chapter 1), searching for extracts similar to the 45 items of the
interpersonal
Triangular Love Scale
. Following a standard content
analysis protocol, which recommends first analyzing a small sample of
data to derive initial insights (Babbie, 2004), a random sample of 10
person-product love stories was first analyzed. No person-product
examples were found for 12 of the 45 items. These 12 did not seem
applicable to the person-product context, alluded to a broad or
unspecific concept, were difficult to cluster, or seemed exaggerated if
referring to a product. They are:
(23) ‘There is nothing more important to me than my relationship with ____’;
(17) ‘I find myself thinking about ____ frequently during the day’;
(27) ‘I cannot imagine my life without ____’;
(29) ‘When I see romantic movies and read romantic books I think about
____’;
(37) ‘I will always feel strong responsibility for ____’;
54
(26), ‘I adore ____’;
(7) ‘I give considerable emotional support to ____’;
(15) ‘I share deeply personal information about myself with ____’.
(22) “I would rather be with ____ than anyone else”
(33) “Because of my commitment to ____ I would not let other people come
between us”
(18) ‘My relationship with ____ is very romantic’; and
(28) ‘My relationship with ____ is passionate’.
The remaining 42 person-product love stories were analyzed according
to the 33 items left. This analysis revealed that some items reflected
similar phenomena when it comes to person-product love, as extracts of
person-product love stories often fitted more than one item. Consider,
for example, the story extract below that fitted both items 3 (“I am able
to count on ____ in times of need”) and 13 (“I feel that I can really
trust ____”):
“What I really love about it [bike] is that I can always trust it, it is always
there for me. For years this bike takes me to work, back home, to class in
the morning. It takes me everywhere”.
In order to avoid redundancy, similar items were grouped. In order to
contextualize scale items to person-product relationships, a number of
statements were adapted. For example, because participants often
referred to a mutual understanding between them and their beloved
products, the items 12 (‘
I feel that I really understand _____
’) and 13 (‘
I
feel that _____ really understands me
’) were merged into one item (
‘I
have a feeling that
____ and I understand each other well’).
Items 44 (‘I
plan to continue my relationship with _____’) and 45 (‘even when _____
is hard to deal with, I remain committed to our relationship’) were
combined into one item – ‘I am prepared to keep on using _____ no
matter what’ – as participants often talked about their motivation to
maintain their relationship at all costs.
55
This resulted in an initial set of 18 experiences people are expected
have with products they love. Each six of them are expected to reflect –
respectively – experiences of intimacy, passion, and commitment people
have with loved products (see table 3.1).
(1) ‘I feel close and connected to ____’
(2) ‘I feel that I can trust and rely on ____ when I need it’
(3) ‘I am willing to use my time, money, and physical effort to
keep on using ____’
(4) ‘I have a feeling that ____ and I understand each other
well’
(5) ‘I actively take special care to protect ____’
INTIMACY
(6) ‘I value having ____ around me’
(7) ‘I have a feeling that ____ was meant to be mine’
(8) ‘I really enjoy physical interaction with ____’
(9) “I prefer to use ____ more to using any other’
(10) ‘I find ____ very attractive’
(11) ‘I tend to idealize ____’
PASSION
(12) ‘I sometimes have fantasies about ____’
(13) ‘I feel that I will always use ____’
(14) ‘I feel responsible for ____’
(15) ‘I am prepared to keep on using ____ no matter what’
(16) ‘Because I plan to continue using ____, I try not to over-
use it’
(17) ‘I wouldn’t trade ____ for any other’
COMMITMENT
(18) ‘I am certain of my love for_____’
Table 3.1 – Person-product love experiences
As most items were redesigned, we must ensure they still measure the
components as expected. For that, we verified the content validity of the
scale.
3.2.2 Phase 2 – Checking subscales items
Content validity indicates to which degree items of a scale appear to be
a good measure of the concept one intends to measure. It helps to
identify whether items correspond to the same construct and, if not,
indicates need for improvement. In order to check the content validity of
our scale items, we selected 10 specialists and asked them to
determine which of the 18 items correspond to thoughts and feelings of
intimacy, passion, and commitment. Specialists were design researchers
in the field of user-centred design and product experience familiar with
56
people’s affective accounts. The specialists were first instructed to reflect
on their own concept of what intimacy, passion, and commitment to a
product represents. Then, they were asked to read carefully each of the
18 items and determine if each one of them refers to a thought,
feeling, or behaviour of intimacy, passion, or commitment.
According to the specialists’ ratings (table 3.2), most items corresponded
to the component they were first assigned to. However, most specialists
assigned item 3 to a component different from the one expected and
did not agree on the components associated with items 2, 5, 7, and 18.
(1) ‘I feel close and connected to ____’
INTIMACY (10x)
(2) ‘I feel that I can trust and rely on ____
when I need it’
COMMITMENT (6x) /
INTIMACY (4x)
(3) ‘I am willing to use my time, money, and
physical effort to keep on using ____’
COMMITMENT (7x)
(4) ‘I have a feeling that ____ and I understand
each other well’
INTIMACY (9x)
(5) ‘I actively take special care to protect ____’
INTIMACY (5x) /
COMMITMENT (5x)
INTIMACY
(6) ‘I value having ____ around me’
INTIMACY (8x)
(7) ‘I have a feeling that ____ was meant to be
mine’
PASSION (6x) /
INTIMACY (4x)
(8) ‘I really enjoy physical interaction with ____’
PASSION (7x)
(9) “I prefer to use ____ more to using any
other’
PASSION (7x)
(10) ‘I find ____ very attractive’
PASSION (9x)
(11) ‘I tend to idealize ____’
PASSION (9x)
PASSION
(12) ‘I sometimes have fantasies about ____’
PASSION (10x)
(13) ‘I feel that I will always use ____’
COMMITMENT (9x)
(14) ‘I feel responsible for ____’
COMMITMENT (8x)
(15) ‘I am prepared to keep on using ____ no
matter what’
COMMITMENT (8x)
(16) ‘Because I plan to continue using ____, I
try not to over-use it’
COMMITMENT (9x)
(17) ‘I wouldn’t trade ____ for any other’
COMMITMENT (8x)
COMMITMENT
(18) ‘I am certain of my love for_____’
COMMITMENT (6X) /
PASSION (4x)
Table 3.2 – Person-product love experience and expert component
ratings.
To ensure the content validity of the scale, those five items were
improved in order to better fit their corresponding constructs. Item 2, 3,
and 5 were modified to better fit the construct of intimacy and items 7
57
and 18 to better fit the construct of passion and commitment,
respectively. Items were modified as follows:
(2) ‘I feel that I can rely on ____ when I need it’
(3) ‘I thought that I would use and keep _____ even if it takes my time,
money, or effort’
(5) ‘I support and protect ____’
(7) ‘I have a feeling that ____ was specially made for me’
(18) ‘I care about ____’
3.2.3 Phase 3 – Testing the Love Scale
During phase three, our goal was to test the 18-item preliminary person-
product love scale on whether the items measure love for products and
whether the three-part structure of the scale would be reflected in the
data. Based on the triangular love theory, we expected all items to
exhibit some degree of correlation, as love relationships tend to involve
more than a single component of love. Still, items within subscales were
expected to correlate better than items between subscales, since these
refer to the same construct.
Therefore, in order to test the preliminary person-product love
scale, we asked 144 students from a design master program (74 men,
70 women, age = 23.3 ± 1.9) at Delft University of Technology to fill in
the love scale. Each participant was asked to rate, on a five-point scale,
the extent to which each of the 18 items corresponded to the thoughts
and feelings they experience with a specific product they love, own, and
use (1 = do not correspond; 5 = corresponds very well). Items in the
scale were presented in four balanced orders. The data collected were
subjected to a series of analyses to assess the dimensionality of the
questionnaire and refine the subscales.
The analysis techniques applied included principal components and
factor analysis (principal axis factoring) followed by orthogonal (varimax)
58
and oblique (promax with κ = 4) rotation. Different criteria (eigenvalue >
1, parallel analysis) yield very different numbers of factors or
components to extract (between 1 and 4 or 5) but the scree plots show
a big drop after the first factor, suggesting that a single factor accounts
for a big part of the common variance in the ratings. Because three
subscales were expected on theoretical grounds, reflecting the three
components of the love experience, we will nonetheless examine a 3-
factor solution (30% of variance explained).
Results from the various analyses were broadly similar, but the
factor analysis followed by oblique rotation produced a relatively clearer
picture and corresponds to the theoretical expectation that the
components of love are related to each other. Consequently, it will be
the only analysis presented here (for further details regarding the
preference for this approach, see also Fabrigar, MacCallum, Wegener, &
Strahan, 1999). The correlations among factors and between items and
factors in the structure matrix confirm that the scores are dominated by
the overall “love” construct but also suggest that the three factors do in
fact reflect the three components of love. An examination of the factor
loadings in the pattern matrix also supports this interpretation (see
note). Three of the intimacy items have their strongest loadings on the
first factor, four of the passion items on the second factor and two of
the commitment items on the third factor. However one item does not
correlate with any factor at all and 8 items do not have their highest
loadings on the expected factor.
Taken together, these findings support our expectation that all scale
items measure
love
and correlate with each other. However, the
theoretical structure of the three constructs was imperfectly reflected in
the scores. Two features of the data can explain these difficulties: a
potential bias in the choice of product and the general lack of
variability. Asking participants to choose a product they love might have
prompted them to select a product for which they experience a
relatively high level of several or all of the components at the same
time. It may have masked the patterns of difference that would appear
when considering a broader range of product-love relationships.
59
Additionally, examining only relationships with love products certainly
restricted the range of observed scores. Indeed, an inspection of the
distributions of item responses revealed that most participants only used
the two or three highest ratings for many items. This range restriction
combined with the 5-points response format resulted in a very coarse
measurement, attenuating correlations between items and hiding
potential subscales.
3.2.4 Phase 4 – Subscales validation
To overcome the technical difficulties identified in the first test of the
love scale and to assess its ability to measure each component of love
separately, we conducted two further studies. In the first study a group
of participants were asked to rate how much each one of the eighteen
items applies to their relationship with their mobile phone. In the second
study, three groups of participants were asked to fill in the scale
considering their relationships with a product with which they experience
one of the components of love. In both cases the response format was
changed to a 7-point rating scale to increase variability and limit
correlation attenuation.
For the first study, we recruited 66 students from an architecture master
program (26 men, 40 women, mean age=24) at Delft University of
Technology. They were asked to rate, on a seven-point scale, the extent
to which each of the 18 items corresponded to the thoughts, feelings,
and behaviours they have towards their mobile phones (1 = does not
correspond; 7 = corresponds very well). Items in the scale were
presented in three balanced orders. Mobile phones were selected
because most potential participants were likely to own one and this type
of product sometimes came up as an example of a loved product in
previous studies. Importantly, participants in this study were not selected
based on the level of love they experience towards their mobile phone
and their relationships are assumed to vary from no love at all to
different kinds of love.
60
As in the previous study, the data collected was subjected to a factor
analysis. The scree plot is compatible with one or two-factor solutions
while a parallel analysis and the “eigenvalue over 1” criteria both
suggested that a two-factor solution is the most appropriate. The two
factors account for 58% of the total variance. The first factor seems
dominated by intimacy, with all intimacy items (but also one
commitment item) exhibiting loadings over .6 on this factor. The second
factor clearly refers to passion with high factor loadings for the passion
items (all except one > .6). Commitment items tend to have lower
loadings and to be split between the two factors, with several moderate
to high loadings on the first factor. The correlation between both factors
was still quite high suggesting that the scales are closely related.
While we were unable to recover a separate commitment
subscale in this data, the structure of the ratings conformed relatively
well to the expectations, with all passion and intimacy items loading
highly on a different factor and no cross-loadings over .3. The internal
consistency of each subscale was also largely satisfactory (α = .91 for
intimacy, .88 for passion and .88 for commitment). Overall, the results
from this study confirmed that most, if not all, items of the scale are
related to the love construct and suggested that at least two subscales
might be used to assess different components of love.
The second study of phase 4 complements these results by taking a
different approach to the validation of the instrument. Factor analyses
are based on the correlation between items but are not sensitive to
their means. The last study was designed to look at the total scores on
each of the a priori subscales and to assess the ability of the love
scale to distinguish different criterion groups defined by the component
of love experienced.
To this end, 75 students from an architecture master program at
Delft University of Technology participated in the study (41 men, 34
women; mean age = 24). They were assigned to three separate groups
of 25 participants each. Each group was asked to use the 18-item love
scale (7-point range) to assess the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
they have with a product they feel intimate with, passionate about,
or
61
committed to, respectively. Prior to the assessment, a written description
of what is to be intimate with, passionate about, or committed to a
product was given to its corresponding groups: to be intimate with a
product is to feel a special and close emotional connection with it; to
be passionate about a product is to experience excitement and
enthusiasm to a product that appeals to you; to be committed to a
product is to be dedicated or devoted to its protection and integrity.
Factor analyses of this data produced clear groups of factors, with all
intimacy and all passion items defining the opposite ends of a bipolar
factor and all commitment items loading highly on a second factor.
Internal consistencies were also generally high, but these analyses might
not be entirely appropriate given the composite nature of the sample
(see Waller, 2008).
More importantly the patterns of scores in the three groups were
extremely clear (figure 3.1). The participants who were asked to reflect
about a product they felt intimate with reported a much higher level of
intimacy (30 ± 2.3 for a maximum score of 36) than participants asked
about a product they felt passionate about (11 ± 2.4) or committed to
(12 ± 2.8), F(2, 72) = 417, p < .001. Similarly, participants asked to
choose a product they felt passionate about reported a much higher
level of passion (26 ± 2.2) than either the participants reporting about a
product they were committed to (11 ± 2.8) or those reporting about a
product they were intimate with (8 ± 2.5), F(2, 72) = 383, p < .001.
Finally, the participants who were asked about a product they felt
committed to also reported a higher level of commitment (26 ± 3.4)
than participants reporting about a product they felt passionate about
(11 ± 2.6) or intimate with (12 ± 2.5), F(2, 72) = 201, p < .001.
62
Figure 3.1: Scores on each scale by group.
3.2.5 Phase 5 – Scale revision
One of the objectives of the validation studies was to provide an
empirical basis to revise the scale and reduce the number of items,
because a concise person-product Love Scale is quicker and easier to
administer when investigating the intensities of love experiences over
time. The different data sets were therefore reanalyzed together,
weighting the observations to adjust for the diversity in sample sizes.
The criteria considered suggested between 3 and 4 factors. Given the
theoretical background of the scale development, the three-factor
solution (49% of variance explained) will be presented in detail.
The factor structure is reasonably clear, all items have their main
loading on the expected factor and cross-loadings are generally low
(table 3.3). All items of the intimacy scales have very high loadings and
63
could be retained in the final version but INT3 has slightly lower
loadings and will not be selected.
FACTOR
ITEM
1
2
3
(INT1) ‘I feel close and connected to ____’
.81
.10
.02
(INT2) ‘I feel that I can rely on ____ when I need it’
.82
-.02
-.10
(INT3) ‘I thought that I would use and keep _____ even if
it takes my time, money, or effort’
.57
-.14
.11
(INT4) ‘I have a feeling that
____ and I understand each
other well’
.75
.02
-.12
(INT5) ‘I support and protect ____’
.80
.04
.03
(INT6) ‘I value having ____ around me’
.80
-.06
-.01
(PAS1) ‘I have a feeling that ____ was specially made for
me’
-.08
.67
-.08
(PAS2) ‘I really enjoy physical interaction with ____’
.02
.73
.06
(PAS3) “I prefer to use ____ more to using any other’
-07
.69
-.10
(PAS4) ‘I find ____ very attractive’
.16
.72
.12
(PAS5) ‘I tend to idealize ____’
.13
.52
.13
(PAS6) ‘I sometimes have fantasies about ____’
-.18
.63
-.08
(COM1) ‘I feel that I will always use ____’
-.12
.06
.68
(COM2) ‘I feel responsible for ____’
.16
.03
.70
(COM3) ‘I am prepared to keep on using ____ no matter
what’
.01
.07
.67
(COM4) ‘Because I plan to continue using ____, I try not
to over-use it’
-.25
-.02
.49
(COM5) ‘I wouldn’t trade ____ for any other’
-.07
-.07
.77
(COM6) ‘I care about _____’
.15
-.03
.50
Table 3.3 – Pattern matrix for the three-factor solution.
Item loadings for the commitment scale seem generally lower, with
COM4 and COM6 clearly below the rest of the scale. The case of the
passion scale is a bit more complex. PAS5 is the item with the lowest
loading but the differences are not very big. In fact, extracting four
factors splits the passion scale, revealing two correlated subscales,
defined respectively by PAS1 and PAS3, and by PAS2 and PAS4.
Selecting these four items should therefore maximize the scope and
validity of the reduced scale.
A shorter version of the person-product Love Scale was
developed following this analysis (see table 3.4). Its reliability was
64
assessed by computing internal consistency estimates (coefficient α) on
the second data set (mobile phones ratings): α = .86 for intimacy, .86
for passion and .82 for commitment. These internal consistencies are all
good and only slightly lower than those of the full 6-items scales (.91,
.88, and .88 respectively for intimacy, passion and commitment).
(1) ‘I feel close and connected to ____’
(2) ‘I feel that I can trust and rely on ____ when I need it’
(3) ‘I have a feeling that ____ and I understand each other
well’
(4) ‘I support and protect ____’
INTIMACY
(5) ‘I value having ____ around me’
(1) ‘I have a feeling that ____ was specially made for me’
(2) ‘I really enjoy physical interaction with ____’
(3) “I prefer to use ____ more to using any other’
PASSION
(4) ‘I find ____ very attractive’
(1) ‘I feel that I will always use ____’
(2) ‘I feel responsible for ____’
(3) ‘I am prepared to keep on using ____ no matter what’
COMMITMENT
(4) ‘I wouldn’t trade ____ for any other’
Table 3.4 – Final person-product Love Scale.
3.3. Discussion
Our goal in this chapter was to identify the experience of love for
products and develop a comprehensive, concise, and reliable scale to
assess it and its (hypothetical) three main components (intimacy,
passion, and commitment). As a starting point, we searched for extracts
of person-product love stories that were similar to the items of the
interpersonal
Triangular Love Scale
. In this analysis, some items were
excluded due to their lack of fit and others were redesigned to improve
their consistency and fit to a person-product context. These efforts
resulted in a set of 18 statements (items) that reflected the thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours people have for products they love (six
reflecting each love component). Next, as the items were re-designed, we
checked whether they were a good measure of the three love
constructs. Most items reflected their corresponding constructs and five
of them were improved to ensure a better fit.
65
Later, a study was carried out to test the love scale and check
whether it assesses love for products and if subscales could assess the
components of intimacy, passion, and commitment, independently. The
results confirmed that the 18-item scale is a reliable tool to measure
the experience of love for products. We also had reasonable indications
that the scale could assess the underlying structure of the experience of
love as being composed of intimacy, passion and commitment. Having
achieved such encouraging results, two further studies were carried out.
The first one confirmed that the components of intimacy, passion, and
commitment are independent from each other and that each component
can be assessed through a 4/5-item subscale within the person-product
love scale. Five items were excluded, leaving 13.
The findings indicate that the 13-item person-product love scale
is a comprehensive, concise, and reliable tool to assess the experience
of love for products and its three components (see table 3.3). The
findings also support our theoretical assumption, borrowed from
Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love, that intimacy, passion and
commitment
are
structural elements – components – of the experience
of love for products.
The person-product Love Scale allows us to perform periodical
assessments of the experience of love and understand its dynamics
through time. The independent assessment of the three components
allows us to get a more fine-grained understanding of these dynamics,
for example in relation to specific interactions. The 13 statements that
make up the person-product Love Scale correspond to the rewarding
thoughts, feelings, and behaviours people have when experiencing love
for products. These statements are useful to identify love and
distinguish it from other affective experiences. Therefore, the Love Scale
can be used effectively to ensure homogeneity among research
participants. It can also be used as a participant selection tool.
Product developers and industry could benefit from the use of
the person-product love scale. Results from its application can help
designers and product developers understand what is experienced as
love towards specific products. The insights can in turn inform the
66
design or re-design of products that can deliver more rewarding and
longer-term experiences.
Limitations of the scale should also be mentioned. The scale was
developed in the English language and the research participants were
not, for the most part, native English speakers. They took part in
international master programs and were educated in the English
language. Although the results indicate that the participants’ ratings are
consistent, it is possible that some items were misinterpreted and that
some ratings were imprecise due to shortcomings in English language
skills.
We should also clarify that the person-product love statements in
the scale are not expected to represent the whole range of love
experiences people can have with consumer products. These were
devised to measure the construct of love.
Having developed a measuring tool to assess the experience of love in
person-product relationships and the intensities of intimacy, passion, and
commitment, we now turn to the assessment of person-product
relationship events. In chapter 2 we have seen that, unlike Levinger’s
stories, the stories we collected were not yet particularly focussed on
relationship events and participants did not provide enough detail on
what happened in these events. Investigating relationship events could
help us identify interactions that are linked to the experience of love
and influences that could change the experience of love.
Note:
When using an oblique rotation, the phrase “factor loadings” is
somewhat ambiguous because factor weights, factor structure and factor
pattern are not identical (see, for example, Gorsuch, 1974). By
convenience, we will refer only to coefficients from the pattern matrix as
loadings. They can be interpreted as part correlations between factor
scores and observed variables, controlling for the correlations between
factors.
69
“MY LOVE IS YOUR LOVE”
CHAPTER 4:
The Experience Interaction Tool
4
In Chapter 2 we proposed an approach to the study of the link between
interactions and the experience of love in person-product relationships.
As a first step towards this we have identified the rewards of love that
people experience and developed a tool to assess the intensity of those
rewards (components of love) at particular moments in time. Now we
need to be able to assess how these rewards are connected to
interactions, conceptually and over time, in order to grasp the
development of person-product love relationships. In chapter 2 we saw
that, unlike the stories Levinger collected, the stories we collected were
not structured enough. The stories we collected were not yet particularly
focused on relationship events and participants did not provide enough
detail of their own accord on what happened in these events. For
example, it was often not clear which interactions influenced experiences
described by participants. In this chapter, we develop a structured
assessment of person-product relationship events: the Experience
Interaction Tool (EXITool).
4.1 Introduction
We defined
relationship events
as short periods of time in person-
product relationships in which people and products interact and
4
Chapter based on Russo, Boess, & Hekkert (2008) and Russo, Boess, &
Hekkert (2009). Research assistant Deger Ozkaramanli contributed to the
data analysis of a study presented in 4th phase of the development of the
experience interaction tool.
70
(occasionally) an experience takes place. For example, a moment in
which one hears their mobile phone ringing, take it out of their pocket,
press a button to answer the call, talk with the caller, end the call, and
put the mobile phone back in their pocket is a relationship event. This
definition was chosen for its general similarity to Levinger’s (2002)
descriptions of events in which partners in a relationship interact.
Investigating what happens in these events could give us clues which
interactions are linked to the rise and change of the experience of love.
Investigating time-sequences of relationship events could inform us about
the time course of the experience of love for products and the
influences within interactions that could affect it.
Interpersonal love researchers have used love stories to investigate
events throughout relationships. According to Kelley (2002), such
personal-life narratives are fundamental to the understanding of the love
phenomenon. Both theories from which we derived our approach to
investigate person-product love in this research have used personal-life
narratives to investigate the love phenomenon. Levinger (2002) used
personal-life stories to investigate the content of close relationship
events and make descriptions of interpersonal relationship development
and change. Sternberg (1986/2006) also relied on personal narratives to
theorize about the structure and meaning of the experience of love and
used prototypical love stories that inform us about patterns in the
experience of love over time. In the field of design,
experience narratives
are also perceived as a great source to access rich insights and to
analyse a given experience and the context in which it takes place
(Karapanos, 2010). Stories are the unique and personal means we use
to remember and communicate experiences we have (Forlizzi & Ford,
2000). Here we first examine the prospect of using people’s written and
spoken love stories as a means of assessing relationship events in
person-product love relationships.
4.2 Assessing person-product relationship events
In order to assess the content of relationship events and their
sequences over time, we conducted a trial study using personal-life
71
stories. In this study, we collected people’s retrospective accounts of
relationship events, aiming to grasp the interrelatedness between
interaction and the experience of love. Three participants (2 men and 1
woman) were selected by convenience. They were asked to share stories
of events in which they interacted with a particular beloved product and
experienced love. This approach differed from the story collection in the
preliminary study (chapters 1 and 2) in that participants were now asked
to focus particularly on events. Loved products were a hammock, a
folding bike, and a laptop. Each participant was interviewed twice and
asked to fill in a diary. In the first interview, participants were informed
about what relationship events were: they were given examples of a
number of interactions with products that could be linked to the
experience of love and should be reported. The examples consisted of
the typology of interactions proposed by Desmet & Hekkert (2007) as
relevant to product experiences (see figure 4.1). The participants were
then asked to share stories of times in which they interacted with their
beloved product. The interviews were audio recorded.
Figure 4.1 – Types of person-product interactions linked to
product experiences (Desmet and Hekkert, 2007).
After the interview, participants received a diary in which they were
asked to share more stories of relationships events as they remembered
them over a period of one week. The stories could be retrospective
stories of past events or stories of events that happened during the
week itself. After that period, in the second encounter, participants were
72
invited to discuss the stories and to place them in chronological order.
The participants were also asked to tell more stories if they had any.
Furthermore, the participants were asked how they felt about this form
of reporting and how easy they found it to do. In total, the three
participants shared fourteen stories of relationship events. Only three of
these were shared verbally during the second encounter (by two
participants).
The 3 stories the participants shared verbally during the interview
itself were transcribed. Then the content of each of the 14 stories of
relationship events were examined in search for a link between inter-
actions and the experience of love: we searched for statements of
rewards of love (chapter 3) and passages that indicated interactions.
This attempt to assess time-sequenced relationship events brought up a
few problems. First, participant’s accounts of relationship events were
difficult to manage systematically. People tell stories in ways they find
most convenient and, as a result, the stories were often long, complex,
and unstructured. The stories contained a large amount of partially
useless data that took a long time to assess. One of the participants
complained that it took him too long to write the stories. Second, the
participants said they experienced difficulties in distinguishing what is an
interaction. It still remained difficult to identify interactions and
corresponding experiences in the data, as the participants often only
mentioned one or the other. Third, the typology of interactions proposed
by Desmet & Hekkert (2007) did not inform participants – at a practical
level – about what interactions are. During the second encounter, two
participants said they had difficulties to share stories about events in
which non-instrumental and non-physical interactions occurred. In
addition, because they were not sure about which interactions to share
(as they stated when probed further about events), they purposely
omitted stories about certain relationship events. Still, in the stories
participants shared, they were many times able to link interactions to
experiences of love and even described effects that may have influenced
their experience love. For example:
73
“I was unfolding the bike when I noticed [interaction] that my new raincoat
was also red, like my bike [effect]. I didn’t notice it when I was at the shop
(…) you see, I’m so connected to this bike that I unconsciously bought a
coat to fit it [experience of love (intimacy) – ‘I feel close and connected to
the product’]”.
As a result of this trial study some requirements could be set for the
Experience Interaction Tool (EXITool). The tool should aid the
assessment of relationship events by (1) sensitizing research participants
to think in terms of interactions and (2) offering participants a structure
to share stories. The aim of this tool is to (a) easily identify inter-
actions, (b) avoid unneeded data, (c) facilitate the systematic
assessment of interactions, and (d) link interactions to experiences. In
addition, the tool should be manageable and convenient to use.
The further development of the Experience Interaction Tool
followed an iterative course, where the results and findings of one
phase provided insights that helped in setting the objectives and goals
of the next one. For each phase, we report its goals and the methods
used to carry out the study and analysis, describe the results, and
discuss the findings.
4.2.1 Phase 1: Structuring stories of relationship events
Our first step was to identify a basic and common structure of
relationship events in the stories. Considering that the imposition of a
structure to storytelling might compromise the acceptance of the tool in
the research, we sought a way of reporting interactions and experiences
that is still natural to people. Although many of the 14 stories collected
in the trial study (this chapter) did not describe experiences and the
corresponding interactions, 6 of them did. Those we could use for a
content analysis. We analyzed the stories collected in the trial study
searching for commonalities in the structure of storytelling and in the
content of these stories. The content analysis consisted of, first, the
examination of a smaller sample in order to derive analysis codes and
second, the analysis of the rest of the stories considering these codes
(Babbie, 2004).
74
The analysis revealed certain structural aspects of stories of relationship
events that should be taken into consideration in the development of
the tool. The stories followed a basic structure: a participant performs
an action towards a product and/or a person. Subsequently, the
participant describes the experience of a positive or negative affect (e.g.
happiness, disappointment) towards either the product, the interaction,
others involved in the event, or towards him - or herself. The participant
then explains why that experience occurred and, often, expresses love
for the product (considering the experiences of love identified in chapter
3). Here, for example, is an extract of a relationship story in which the
participant was sitting in her beloved hammock:
“I sat on the hammock with my boyfriend. I was so happy that we were
sitting there, because I really enjoy the comfort of my hammock and
to chat with him (…) it feels as if this hammock is a part of us
[intimacy = ‘I feel close and connected to the product’]”.
Participants used action verbs to report interactions with their beloved
products. Action verbs are a type of verb that describes an act or
activity: things people do or could do (e.g., to use, to clean, to move).
According to Crawford (2005), verb thinking is “central to understanding
interactivity” (p. 91) since it focuses on the actions enacted by people
and any interactive system of artifacts. In order to encourage verb
thinking and ensure that interactions are reported, action verbs could be
a valuable means to sensitize research participants.
Moreover, the participants employed action verbs to account for
the actions taken by a person towards a product (e.g., “I carried my
bike”), actions carried out by a product towards a person (e.g., “the
laptop screen smacked my fingers”), and actions products carry out by
themselves (e.g., “the table collapsed”). On most occasions, the
participants were the ones who carried out actions towards the
products, sometimes together with others. Participants also reported
relationship events where they witnessed actions carried out by others
towards the product and vice-versa (e.g., “I was observing my boyfriend
reading on the hammock”).
75
Besides the structure of stories, another finding was considered useful
to the further development of the tool. Relationship events may contain
sequences
of interactions. For example, in an event in which a
participant was ‘buying’ his bike, he actually reported a number of
interactions, such as ‘
going
to the shop’, ‘
checking
the bikes’, ‘
choosing
the red bike’, ‘
paying
for the bike’, and ‘
taking
the bike home’. Some of
these interactions contained, in turn, other sequences of interactions: in
‘
checking
the bike’, for example, a participant reported ‘
looking
at the
bike’, ‘
rubbing
the leather seat’, ‘
touching
the metal frame’ and so on.
However, of all the interactions reported in each relationship event,
often one of them was associated with a love experience. For example,
in the entire event in which the participant bought his bike, he
considered ‘taking the bike home’ to be the most
meaningful interaction
because “at that moment I knew the bike was mine. I was so happy and
looked forward to spending more time with it”. When asked which
interactions the other participants thought were connected to their
experience of love, they referred to the interactions they picked as
‘special’, ‘the one that made me feel the love’, ‘the most important one’
and also ‘meaningful’.
This finding indicates that relationship events may encompass
several interactions but that only a specific – ‘meaningful’ – interaction
is strongly linked to love experiences. The tool must ensure that
participants report particularly those interactions in their stories that
were meaningful to them.
4.2.2 Phase 2: Collecting relevant action verbs
Following the findings from the previous phase, the goal of phase two
was to compile a list of action verbs in the English language in order to
provide research participants with inspiration on possible actions that
can be reported. These action verbs should encourage participants to
report relationship events and interactions linked to the experience of
love. The content of the three reports from the trial study and fifty-two
reports of relationship events from the preliminary study (Russo, Boess,
& Hekkert, 2010 and Chapters 1 and 2) were examined in search for
76
action verbs participants had used in order to report interactions in
relationship events. The outcome of this analysis was a list of forty-two
action verbs. This pool was considered to be very incomplete, since it
did not contain several action verbs (e.g., try, fix, design, smell) that
could conceivably describe interactions between people and products.
As it was not possible to find a complete list of action verbs, we added
four other lists of action verbs in order to extend the pool and improve
its scope. The lists were: a list of action verbs for writers (Rahmel,
2008), two lists of action verbs for resumes, and a list of action verbs
for communicators (Hart, 2004). These efforts resulted in a pool of 1454
action verbs. Not all 1454 action verbs collected seemed useful to
describe person-product interactions. For example, person-product
interactions involving an action like ‘dope’, ‘mentor’, ‘petition’ or ‘placate’
could not be envisioned. In order to obtain a selection of action verbs
that are relevant to our research, three English native speakers were
selected and asked to rate the pool of 1454 action verbs as relevant or
not to report person-product interactions. The verbs that were
considered relevant by at least two participants were selected. The three
native speakers made fairly similar verb selections. The selected verbs
formed a pool of 957 action verbs relevant to report person-product
interactions. Two of the three participants mentioned that many of the
verbs they rated as relevant to person-product context are not
commonly used. Verbs such as ‘abide’, ‘fondle’, or ‘plow’ are not
frequently used in everyday situations and would probably not be part
of the vocabulary of many people, especially those who are not native
English speakers. To eliminate the verbs that may not be part of the
vocabulary of future research participants, ten participants with an
international background and a good knowledge of the English language
were asked to indicate on a list of 957 action verbs which ones they
used frequently to report interactions with products.
Out of the verbs the ten participants indicated as being relevant
to a prospect participant’s vocabulary, only those indicated to be
frequently used by at least five participants were selected, leaving 451
action verbs.
77
4.2.3 Phase 3: Manageable set of action verbs
In order to inform participants about the relationship events and
interactions they are expected to report, it is essential to have a
manageable number of verbs. The pool of 451 action verbs collected
was still quite large and impractical to inform participants. According to
Lakoff (1987), things are categorized together on the basis of what they
have in common. Categorization is a very basic process used to make
sense of things (Lakoff, 1987). In the third phase, we worked towards a
taxonomy of action verbs. The taxonomy was expected to comprise and
organize the 451 relevant action verbs into self-explanatory groups of
interactions.
Through a card sorting technique (Spencer, 2009), three designers and
one non-designer were asked to categorize the 451 relevant action
verbs. The reason to ask designers was their specialist experience in
reflecting about products and interactions. The non-specialist was
selected in order to check if he/she would come up with different and
useful categorization criteria. Each participant was met individually and
received 451 cards, each containing the name of one relevant action
verb. They were informed about the purpose of the study and their task
was to develop a criterion to categorize those cards. Participants were
also asked to explain their choice of classification criterion, define each
category created, and try to come up with a different criterion to group
the action verbs. This procedure was repeated until the participant could
not develop new criteria. All taxonomies created and the criteria
developed were compared and analyzed. The final interaction taxonomy
was made based on its manageability and its expected ability to elicit
reports of relationship events.
Participants one and two (specialists) each adopted one classification
criterion. Because participants three (specialist) and four (non-specialist)
developed very similar criteria for their taxonomies, those were counted
as one. Because the number of action verbs to be categorized was
extremely large, the participants considered the task to be quite
laborious and time consuming. Therefore, only participant three
78
developed a second classification criterion. In total, four distinct
taxonomies were created.
Taxonomy 1 – Similarity of Actions
The criterion used by participant 1 to categorize the verbs was the
similarity between actions. Verbs were put together based on their
meaning, their connotation. Accordingly, twelve categories were created
and each one of them had between 0 to 4 sub-categories (see table
4.1). Each category contained actions considered to be ‘alike’ and was
named after their best example (prototypical verb). Each category refers
to a type of action.
We considered this taxonomy very relevant for the tool. The
twelve categories of this taxonomy are clear and mutually exclusive,
referring to types of interaction that may be carried out with products.
Taxonomy 2 – Human faculties
The criterion used by participant two to categorize the action verbs was
which human faculties were involved when performing interactions. First,
two categories were created:
mental actions
(e.g., think, anticipate) and
physical actions
(e.g., to touch, to transport). Later, another category –
social actions
– was included, representing those actions that are
carried out together with other people (e.g., show, tell). This
categorization is quite similar to the one proposed by Desmet & Hekkert
(2007) that, previously, was found not to inform participants on
interactions that could be reported. Moreover, the categories were not
mutually exclusive: first, the participant classified action verbs in terms
of ‘mental actions’ and ‘physical actions’. Later, the category ‘
social
actions’
was included, referring to actions that are carried out together
or in the presence of others, whether the action was mental or physical.
For these reasons, this taxonomy does not seem useful to inform
participants about interactions, nor to help them report relationship
events.
79
Category
Sub-category
Examples
Criterion
Operate
(start/stop)
Utilize, activate
Use
Test
Experiment, test
Actions that refer to the
instrumental use of products.
Move
Rotate, turn
Manipulate
Handle, touch
Handle
Hold
Support, grab
Actions that are performed
with the hands, whether it is
related to changing product’s
position (to move), handling it
(to manipulate), and supporting
it (to hold).
Sense
-
Smell, see, taste,
hear, feel, touch
All primary actions related to
the five senses.
Make
Build, construct
Do
Reproduce
Copy, duplicate
Actions in which the product is
made, designed, or reproduced.
Resize
Enlarge, shorten,
stretch
Modify
Adjust, adapt
Change
Customize
Personalize,
decorate
Actions that refer to modifying,
changing the product in terms
of size or appearance.
Accommodate
Settle, fit
Position
Align, straighten
Arrange
Organize
Classify, order,
list
Actions referring to the
arrangement of the product.
Preserve
Maintain, save
Repair
Recover, polish
Care
Assist
Help, collaborate
Actions carried out in order to
keep the product for longer,
whether by preserving,
repairing, or assisting it.
Hit
Slap, kick, punch
Violate
Break
Crash
Violent, abusive actions carried
out in order to harm or not.
Analyze
Study, check
Observe
Monitor, view
Investigate
Explore, research
Examine
Evaluate
Measure, rate
Any action referring to the
examination of products
whether it refers to a visual
analysis or observation or to
the investigation of product
characteristics and its
measurement.
Give
Donate, award
Sell
Commercialize,
trade
Concede
Abandon
Leave, delete
All actions in which one gives
away the product, whether it is
temporarily or definitive.
Get
Capture, retain
Find
Discover, detect
Obtain
Select
Pick, choose
All actions in which one gets
hold of the product or act in
order to get hold of the
product.
Tell (report,
suggest)
Recommend,
describe, inform
Share
Show
Indicate
Actions that are carried out
together with others, whether
they refer to talking about the
product or showing the
product.
Table 4.1: Taxonomy 1 – Similarity of Actions
80
Taxonomy 3 – Relationship life-cycle
The first criterion adopted by participant 3 to categorize the action
verbs was based on actions that are likely to occur in specific phases
of product consumption lifecycle, or person-product relationships. The
first category created was named
contact
and it refers to all actions
that may occur in the initial phase of person-product relationships. This
category comprises actions that are likely to occur prior to the start of
the relationship with the product (e.g., find, investigate), or when the
person gets in touch with the product for the first time (e.g., spot,
check).
The second category was named
consumption
and it refers to all
the actions likely to occur when the person acquires the product (e.g.,
buy, get, receive) and consumes it (e.g., use, press, carry). The third
category created was named
avoid discard
and it refers to all actions
that are expected to be carried out by a person in order to keep the
product for longer, whether in order to recover it (e.g., repair, fix),
modify it (e.g., renew, change), or to clean it (e.g., maintain, sanitize).
The fourth category was named
discard
, and it refers to all
actions carried out when products are discarded, whether the discard is
voluntary (e.g., give, abandon) or involuntary (e.g., lose, break). This
category also included after-life actions, which are those that can be
carried out after the product is discarded (e.g., recycle).
This categorization was considered problematic because it depends on
the frequency of certain actions in specific phases of person-product
relationship development. At this point, it is not known what phases
characterize person-product love relationships. Neither it can be
assumed that certain interactions occur more frequently (or even
exclusively) at particular times. This classification would either force
certain everyday actions such as
touch
,
move
, into one particular phase
of a relationship, or its categories would become not mutually exclusive.
Taxonomy 4 – Macro and micro-level actions
Participant 3 adopted a second classification criterion, similar to the one
created by participant 4 to categorize the action verbs. As the
81
differences are small, here they are discussed as one. Taxonomy 4 was
based on two distinctive levels of interaction that occur in sequence
during relationship events: the macro-level actions and the micro-level
actions. The macro-level actions are those people often refer to when
they talk about a relationship event. Usually it refers to the most
representative interaction (e.g., ‘
buying
my bike’ represents an event in
which a bike is purchased) or the most meaningful interaction (e.g., one
that is linked to the experience of love) in an event. The micro-level
actions refer to all the other interactions that take place in a
relationship event (e.g., ‘
seeing
the bike’, ‘
touching
the bike’, ‘
testing
the
bike’).
The reasoning behind this categorization is hierarchical where, in
a same relationship event, an action holds several smaller actions. This
structure of relationship events was highlighted by the findings of the
first phase of the development of the tool. The employment of this
categorization in the tool may be useful as it may help research
participants understand the sequences and hierarchies of interactions
within relationship events. However, the categorization is unstable as an
action may be macro-level in one relationship event and micro-level in
another.
Conclusion of phase 3
Based on this analysis, taxonomy 1 was considered to be the most
manageable and useful classification to sensitize participants with types
of interactions that can be carried out with products. Although this
classification results from the efforts of only one participant, it consists
of informative and intuitive categories that are stable and different from
each other. Based on this classification, we created a set of twelve
action cards (see figure 4.2), each referring to one type of action and
containing examples of similar actions. These cards are expected to
sensitize participants about interaction types that can be relevant to
product experience and aid storytelling: (1) inform them about which
interactions they could report, (2) aid the remembering of interactions
that were carried out in their relationships with beloved products and,
consequently, (3) aid the structure of their reports.
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Figure 4.2: Action cards based on final taxonomy of actions.
4.2.4 Phase 4: Trialling the tool
The fourth phase of tool development was in two steps and aimed to
verify the effectiveness (1) of the action cards in sensitizing participants
in research and aiding storytelling, and (2) of the storytelling structure
found in the first phase of the tool development. This structure was
introduced in a diary expected to help participants report stories of
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relationship events, sequences of interactions within relationship events,
and corresponding love experiences. Diaries are more convenient than
verbal data collection as they allow participants to share stories in
privacy, at their own pace, as they are remembered, and less biased by
the researcher. The diary was divided into two parts: the past and the
present. In the past part, participants were asked to report all the
moments when they interacted with the product they love, since the first
time they ever saw the product until the day they got the diary. In the
‘present’ part, participants were asked to report all the moments they
interacted with the loved product from the day they received the diary.
The past part of the diary was expected to give insights on whether the
cards can aid the remembrance of past interactions. Including the past
was valuable because it was expected to allow the study of the
relationship over time. The diary contained 20 pages and each page
referred to one relationship event.
The goal of this phase is not to confirm or refute the usefulness
of the tool, but rather to bring up issues that may support its further
development. In this phase, two studies are carried out addressing the
following questions:
– Do the action cards encourage participants to report relationship
events?
– Do the action cards aid participants in remembering past relationship
events?
– Does the structure imposed facilitate the systematic analysis of
interactions?
– Can interactions be easily identified in the stories?
Step 1: Pilot study
In this trial, we investigated the experience of love in relationships
between women and their most beloved pair of shoes (for the full study,
see chapter 5). First, two participants were selected to carry out the
trial study. Both participants selected claimed to love shoes and to own
at least one pair of shoes that is much loved. At the start of the study,
they were asked to fill in the love scale tool and participants were
selected if scores of love were high in at least two components of love
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(love scale, see chapter 3). Each participant received a diary and two
sets of action cards: one set of 12 separate cards, and a two-page
version of the 12 cards printed inside the diary. First, they were asked
to look at the cards in order to get acquainted with them. Then
participants were asked to use the cards to remember events in their
relationship with their most beloved pair of shoes and report those
events in the diary (both past and recent events). Each page of the
diary contained instructions for how to report a story of a relationship
event: participants were asked to give a name to the event (e.g., “the
day I saw them the first time”) and then report, in eight boxes, the
sequence of interactions carried out in that event (see figure 4.3). For
each interaction reported, they were asked to identify who carried out
the interaction.
Figure 4.3 – Diary pages (pilot study).
After reporting the sequence of interactions, participants were asked to
mark which one of those interactions they considered to be the most
meaningful one. Then they were asked to discuss why that specific
action was the most meaningful one and rate to what extent they
experienced each of the items of the love scale (see chapter 3) at the
moment the meaningful interaction occurred. Participants kept the diary
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for a week. After that period, they were interviewed and asked to share
their experiences with the diary and cards.
Insights and Improvements
In the interview, both participants said they had read all the cards
beforehand and that they had used the cards as inspiration to write the
events. Participant 1 mentioned that each time she felt like writing a
story, she would sort one action card out of the group, read all the
actions in it, and then try to remember events in which at least one of
those actions were carried out. By the end of the study, she reviewed
all the cards just to ensure all interactions were covered. Participant 2
mentioned that, every time she would sit to write down stories in the
diary, she would put all the cards on a table and go through all of
them, trying to remember stories.
Both participants confirmed that the action cards helped them
remember stories:
“I tend to remember stories, especially if they are about my shoes. But I’m
sure that if I didn’t have these cards, I would never remember all the things I
wrote here. At least it would have been very difficult” (participant 1).
Both participants said they preferred the separate set of action cards to
the printed version of the cards in the diary.
“It is a lot easier to check these cards. The other version is fine, but I didn’t
use it at all. The cards are nicer; you can pick them up, sort them, and put
them on the table while you write. I liked it more” (participant 2).
Both participants found it difficult to fill in the boxes with sequences of
interactions. In their own words, reporting only interactions seems
“unnatural” and “weird”.
Uncomfortable with writing only the interactions and interactants for
each event, participant 01 wrote down the stories on a separate paper
and later added them to the diary. After that, she used the boxes to re-
tell the interactions in the stories. Similarly, participant 2 suggested that
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it should be easier to first write the stories and then present the
actions carried out.
Participant 1 first tried to use the verbs in the cards to fill in
the sequences of interactions. As she found this extremely time
consuming, she preferred to write actions as she had them in her
memory. Participant 2 didn’t even consider using the cards to write
down the stories but mentioned that
“a few times”
she had consulted
the cards while filling in the sequences of interaction. Still, sequences of
interactions were reported with clarity: both actors and actions involved
were filled in and the action considered to be ‘the most important’ was
highlighted. Both participants said that the most meaningful interaction
was always very “obvious” and that it was very easy to identify it and
the reason why they considered that specific action more important
than other ones in the same event. Many times, the actions were
considered important because
“when that happened, I loved my shoes
even more”
(participant 2).
Considering some of the difficulties faced by participants in the pilot
study and their suggestions, we improved the diary by implementing an
area where participants can first write down the story (freely), and later,
re-tell the story in terms of the actions that were carried out. The
sorted version of the action cards was better accepted by participants
and thought to contribute to the reporting of relationship events and
the interactions within them.
Step 2: The study
Similarly to the pilot study, here we tested the effectiveness of the diary
and the cards in assessing participants’ experiences in both remembered
and actual relationship events. Sixteen female participants were selected
for this study on the basis of owning at least one loved pair of shoes.
Participants received a new version of the diary (see figure 4.4) and a
set of action cards and were asked to share, in a period of
approximately 30 days, all the events in which they interacted with their
most beloved pair of shoes. Participants were advised to get acquainted
with the cards and use them as an inspirational tool to recall and
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report relationship events and interactions. After four to five weeks, the
diaries were collected and the participants were interviewed. The sixteen
diaries and interviews were analyzed according to the participants’
performance in reporting structured events, interactions, and experiences.
Participants’ opinions regarding the diary’s structure and the use of
action cards were also considered.
Figure 4.4 – Diary pages (final version).
Analysis & Results
The content of the 16 interviews was subjected to a content analysis
(Babbie, 2004) in order to assess the usefulness and disadvantages of
the action cards. The analyst listened to the content of a random
sample of 5 interviews, derived codes of analysis, and gave a brief
description of these codes. Codes referred to whether participants
followed the instruction given by the researcher and read or did not
read the action cards prior to storytelling, whether the participants used
the cards when writing stories, whether they sorted out cards for
inspiration, whether participants experienced the cards as a helpful
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instrument, and so on. Based on the codes and descriptions, the analyst
analyzed the 11 remaining interviews.
The structure of the relationship events reported in the diaries
was analyzed according to how well they followed the storytelling
structure proposed. The relationship events reported in the diaries were
examined in order to check whether the structure of interaction events
was reported as desired. Each report of a relationship event was
examined on whether it contained the following: whether participants
mentioned the carrier of the action, the action carried out, and the
object towards which the action was carried out. If this structure was
complete the event
complied
with our criteria regarding the desired
structure of storytelling. Reports in which some interactions were
reported according to the criteria but some others were not, were
considered to
comply moderately
with our criteria. Reports in which
actions are not reported at all and the carrier of the action and/or the
object was not made explicit were considered
to not comply
with our
criteria.
Action cards
The 16 participants reported a total of 163 relationship events. This
represents an average of 10.2 stories per participant. From these stories,
88 referred to relationship events that occurred in the past and 75
referred to events that occurred while they had the diary. Of the 163
events reported, six did not refer to the most beloved pair of shoes.
According to the interviews, only 7 participants claimed to have followed
the instructions and examined all the cards before reporting stories in
the diary. Some said that reading the cards inspired them to report
interaction-related stories in the diaries:
“When you came here and said that I should report interactions, I thought
‘ok, that is simple’. But then later I opened the diary and saw these cards
and opened them over my bed. Then I could see that there was a lot more I
could say about my shoes (…) I mean, first all I was planning to say are a
few times that I used it, but then I knew that I could tell a lot more stories.
Even I didn’t know those were stories”.
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Six participants said they had not examined the cards at first. They said
they only examined them when new stories could not be remembered:
“I know I should have looked at the cards at first, but I was so excited to
write about the stories I remembered already, that I just didn’t even look at
them. But after five stories, I picked the cards up and examined them very
carefully, trying to relate the verbs to things I may have done with my
shoes”.
The remaining 3 participants did not use the cards at all.
“Cards? Oh, these cards. Well, as you can see I didn’t even open them. I
didn’t think it was necessary. I can remember things I’ve been through with
my shoe”.
“Well, I didn’t really use these cards. Once I looked into a couple of them,
but for me it was quite obvious of what I was supposed to report here (…)
so, no, I didn’t really see them”.
Of the 13 participants who have eventually examined the action cards, 8
sorted them prior to reporting stories and actions, for inspiration.
“Well, what I found really nice is that, after I wrote down all the stories I
remembered already, I would sometimes sit down with the diary and pick one
or two cards from the deck. Then I would really focus on those actions and
try to remember more stories, and write them down in the diary”.
Seven participants, of the 13 who eventually used the cards, expressed
their liking for the action cards and claimed that without the action
cards they would have not remembered stories:
“I believe that if it wasn’t for these cards I would only have three past
stories. Because it is very easy to remember the day you bought the shoe,
and the first time you wear it, or when someone compliments on your shoes,
but for the rest it is more difficult (…) and I ended up writing down seven
stories. So I think these cards are really good”.
“How many? Six stories? Yes, I am really surprised because usually I have no
memory (…) but my shoes, of course I can remember some things. But for
example, I saw in one of the cards ‘to photograph’ and I thought ‘oh yeah,
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that was that time when I was taking pictures of my shoes, and I took
pictures of this pair of shoes’. So, you see? The cards did help”.
The other 6 participants did not express a like or dislike for the action
cards.
The participants that did not use the action cards reported 3 to 4 past
stories and the ones who used the cards reported from 3 to 15 past
stories. The participants who did not use the cards reported from 1 to
4 recent stories. The ones who used the cards, reported from 1 to 9
recent stories. One of these participants had bought the shoes a week
before the study and only had one past story to report. Also, because
the study was carried out during wintertime, four participants (3 who
used the cards and 1 who did not use them) did not wear their most
beloved pair of shoes during the period of study and only reported
from 1 to 3 recent stories.
Diary (structure of reports)
From the 163 relationship events reported in the diaries, 41 complied
with our expectations, 107 complied moderately with our expectations,
and 15 did not comply with our expectations. The three participants who
mostly reported sequences of interactions in a way that complies with
our expectations said they had studied the action cards before reporting
their stories. These participants were the ones who reported the highest
number of stories. Two participants who reported very few events, of
which most did not comply with our expectations, did not use the cards
at all. The remaining 11 participants reported most interaction events in
a way that complied moderately with our expectations.
Five of the 11 participants whose reports complied with our
expectations moderately said in the interview that instead of simply
reporting the actions, they wanted to share what and how they feel
about the events. For instance:
“Sometimes, instead of just putting down the actions, I wrote how I felt. I
think it was difficult just to put the actions, as if there is something missing
(…) Just actions cannot tell a story!”
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Even though most participants shared some of their experiences instead
of only actions in the sequences of actions in the diary, it was still
possible to recognize the actions even when participants did not follow
the structure as advised. However, this made the analysis of stories and
identification of interactions again more time-consuming.
Unexpectedly, in the course of the diary, 4 participants started to report
stories about other pairs of shoes or other things that had nothing to
do with the interaction with their most beloved pair of shoes. This might
indicate that participants understood the structure of their love and its
resemblance to their love for people.
“After a while I just wanted to tell stories. And while doing this diary thing I
got so much in contact with my shoes, I started analyzing them and my
history with them so much that I think I even have stories here that have
nothing to do with them (…) for example, in the last story I was comparing
my relationship with shoes and my relationship with men. I realized that I act
in the same way when I love shoes and when I love a man. I thought it was
so funny, I just wanted to report that”.
The presence of the diary (and the task) seemed to influence the
participants’ relationship with their loved shoes to some degree. Some
participants felt pressured to create new stories in order to report them:
“Sometimes I would think ‘oh, it’s been three weeks I don’t wear my shoes’. I
should wear them otherwise I won’t have any stories to tell”.
Similarly, participants who did yet not own the beloved shoes for very
long seemed distressed and tried to compensate for the lack of past
stories:
“Are you sure it is not a problem? I only have one story from the past. But
the thing is, when I got the diary, I only had these shoes for a week (…) it is
not a problem? I feel bad because I wanted to do more. But I tried to
compensate with more recent stories”.
Six participants said that the diaries were time-consuming and that, if
they had had more time, they would have probably written more stories.
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“I think I sat down a couple of times and wrote all I could remember (…)
you know, it was Christmas time and I had a lot to do for the festivities”.
“I really liked to do it and to keep a diary for my shoes was something
totally out of ordinary, but I am a mother and I barely have time for myself
(…) I am surprised I wrote 13 stories, but it did take some of my precious
baby-free time”.
All 16 participants said they had written down at once all the stories
they could remember. After that, 12 participants reported stories
whenever they would find some time and could sit down to write all
stories they could remember, including the recent ones.
“Yes, it did take some of my time. I tried to write things down as I would
remember them, but it never worked like that. Most of the times I would just
sit down and try to write them all at once”.
The remaining 4 participants reported stories as they remembered them.
“I cannot say that I did it everyday, but most days I would just look at the
diary and think if there was something I could tell (…) but sometimes during
the day, I would remember something and then at home I would just get the
diary and write it down”.
Although 6 participants were enthusiastic and said they enjoyed the task
of filling in a diary (
“It was really fun”
), 3 participants mentioned in the
interview that filling in the diary was boring.
“I don’t like to write. I would just prefer to talk about my shoes. I love to
talk about my shoes! (…) But just writing these stories down, I kept of
thinking: ‘is anyone going to read it? Can anyone understand my
handwriting?’ I’m not sure. It is a bit boring thou”.
Two other participants wrote all their stories in the computer, then
printed them and glued them into the diary.
“I must say I am not very used to writing anymore. So I hope it is not a
problem, but it was just easier and faster to write stories on the computer”.
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4.3 Discussion
This analysis provided some useful insights to improve the efficiency,
efficacy, and reach of the tool. The action cards seem effective and
efficient in sensitizing research participants about what interactions are
and what relationship events they should report. The cards helped them
remember and report both past and recent relationship events and the
interactions within them. Participants who used the action cards reported
more past events (from 1 to 15 events) and more recent events (from 1
to 9 events) than those participants who did not use the cards. As
practice seems to increase the effectiveness of the action cards, the
familiarization with the action cards should not be simply
advised
to
participants but should be a compulsory part of the study where
participants are required to examine the cards and practice their use.
Familiarizing participants with the cards at the time the diary is handed
to them may potentially increase the number of stories.
The set of twelve cards each referring to one of the categories
of actions may not be complete. After analyzing the actions reported in
the sequences of interaction events, the actions ‘think’ and ‘solicit/ask’
were mentioned quite a number of times. Those verbs were not included
in the final set of verbs.
Although two participants said they preferred to talk rather than write
about products they love, and although some regarded the diary as
time-consuming and even boring, the diary still seems to be a better
vehicle to collect stories than talk. For one, this is because the diary
makes it easier to analyse the data in the first place. Compared with
our preliminary study (chapter 1), it took less time to transcribe the
stories and find the interactions and experiences in them. A second
reason is that the diary provides autonomy to share stories at any time
participants find convenient. To facilitate the access to the diary and
improve its convenience, a digital version of the diary may be
considered in the future. Since many people can be expected to have
access to computers and digital communication devices, we could
explore more diversified and interactive ways of collecting these reports.
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Many participants seemed unable to follow the structure imposed
for the reporting of interactions (reports that did not comply or
complied moderately with our expectations). Participants persisted in
reporting their experiences when they were asked to report interactions.
Nonetheless, most participants reported the meaningful interaction in the
relationship event, which allows us to link it to their experiences.
Considering that our tool relies on participant’s recall of their
experiences, we must reflect on that and the possible limitations of the
tool. According to Robinson & Clore (2002), an emotional experience
can neither be restored nor retrieved, but only constructed on the basis
of recalled contextual cues derived from episodic memories. Episodic
memories are those specific to particular events from the past.
Therefore, the accuracy of one’s remembered events depends on the
degree to which contextual cues are still present in the person’s
episodic memory (Karapanos, 2010). However, in case these contextual
cues are absent, one might access one’s semantic memories in order to
reconstruct the past. These are not tied to any particular event,
consisting of static generalizations or beliefs about something and may
be, therefore, (somewhat) distorted from reality (Karapanos, 2010). Since
more stories were gathered from those people who used them, the
action cards seem to help participants access their episodic memories.
In addition, carrying out the study at the participants’ home and having
the loved product around them during the study might have helped
participants share accurate stories. However, as yet, we do not know the
extent to which participants’ stories were accurate.
Another limitation of this tool should be mentioned. The study in
which we investigated the effectiveness of the action cards was not
controlled, as all participants received the action cards to report
relationship events and meaningful interactions. Because some of the
participants chose not to use the action cards during the study, we
were able to compare the reports of the participants who used the
cards and the reports of those participants who did not. It is possible
that the participants who did not consult the action cards reported
fewer relationships events because they were less interested in the
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study. A study that compares a group that uses the action cards with a
group that does not could provide a more precise assessment of the
value of the cards in informing participants about relationship events.
Having developed two research tools necessary to the research
approach proposed in chapter 2, the person-product Love Scale (chapter
3) and the Experience Interaction Tool (this chapter), in the next chapter
we present the application of the research approach in two case
studies.
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‘I CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING ANY MORE’
CHAPTER 5:
Investigating the experience of love for products
5
The aim of this thesis is to understand how the experience of love
arises and changes over time in person-product relationships. In chapter
2, we found that two seminal theories on interpersonal love can be
used as a basis for this. They are Sternberg’s theory of the experience
of love and Levinger’s theory of the development and change of close
relationships. These interpersonal theories matched the descriptions of
love for products as verbalized by the participants of our preliminary
study. Aligning both theories with each other – by developing tools to
study both in parallel in actual relationships – provided a basis for the
study of the person-product love experience and relationship events over
time (see figure 5.1). The interactions within the events were adopted as
the link between the theories. The Love Scale developed in chapter 3
and the diary method developed in chapter 4 were combined into the
EXITool.
The application of the EXITool to existing person-product
relationships should now provide insights into the following questions: (1)
how interactions and the experience of love are connected in person-
product relationships, 2) how the connecting aspects influence a change
in the experience of love during a relationship event, and (3) how these
aspects influence change over time, in the experience of love and in the
development of the relationship. With these insights, we hope to derive
5
Research assistant Deger Ozkaramanli and graduation students Stefanie
Tumewu and Sanela Halilic partially contributed to the data collection
and/or analysis of the studies presented in this chapter.
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conclusions on what promotes wellbeing in person-product relationships
and what makes these relationships last.
Figure 5.1 – The conceptual basis for the study of the person-
product love experience throughout relationship events: meaningful
interactions as the link between concepts from two theories.
In chapter 1 we examined people’s talk about their loved products and
found that the experience of love – besides being a very rewarding,
dynamic, and long-term experience – was also a container of
experiences: while experiencing love, people also have a large variety of
positive or negative affective experiences such as desire, disappointment,
joy, anger, and so on. In chapter 2 we saw that appraisal processes
within interactions lead to these affective experiences. So we have
reason to expect that the connection between interactions and the
particular experience we are looking for – love – will also have
something to do with appraisals. However, we also know that this
connection is not straightforward.
We already know that the experience of love is connected to a
particular interaction within relationship events. In chapter 4, when
assessing the structure of relationship events, we found that a
relationship event may contain several different interactions. However,
participants only associated to the experience of love an interaction
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they consider to be
meaningful
. Therefore, in this chapter, when we
investigate participants’ stories of relationship events, we focus our
investigation on these meaningful interactions participants report.
The way we interact with a computer can differ in many ways
from the way we interact with a chair, a desk, or a pen. Because we
are looking here at the impact of interactions on experiences, we must
ensure that our findings can be generalized to more than one type of
product. The scope for in-depth comparisons between products is limited
in this thesis. The decision is therefore made to focus on two types of
products that often seem to be loved by their owners and will elicit very
different interactions: shoes and cars. A comparison between the
interactions with these products is made. Two parallel studies are
conducted on existing relationships with products using the EXITool, one
for each type of product.
5.1 Method
Using the EXITool we now study the experience of love over a number
of interactions and over a certain period of a relationship in order to
answer the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter. The
EXITool consists of a diary, to be kept for several weeks. The diary is
provided to the participant during an initial interview and discussed in a
final interview when it is picked up again. Each page of the diary asks
the participant to tell the story of one relationship event. The participant
is asked to indicate which interaction is meaningful within the event. The
same page also presents the love scale and asks the participant to rate
their experience of love in relation to this meaningful interaction. The
participant is thus asked to recall their experience of love at the
moment when the meaningful interaction occurred. The same method is
applied to the study on shoes and the study on cars. The two studies
are analysed in parallel.
The data resulting from this study is analysed by means of a
content analysis (Babbie, 2004) in an iterative process. A first content
analysis of the stories in the diary should indicate which aspects of
meaningful interactions the participants connect with the experience of
love in their reports of relationship events. The outcomes from this
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analysis are then linked to the ratings of love (from the love scale) that
participants gave in the diary at the same time. From this we conclude
what it is within a meaningful interaction that influences a change in the
experience of love. A second content analysis focuses on the reported
events in sequence. It investigates how the particular aspects within
meaningful interactions influence change in the experience of love over
time and in the development of love relationships.
To answer each of the three questions posed, we present a data
analysis, our findings, and discuss what those findings mean to this
chapter and their respective link to the next iteration in the analysis.
Finally, a general discussion of the approach and the findings is
presented.
5.2 The study setup
5.2.1 Study 1: Women and shoes
In the first study we investigate relationships between women and their
most beloved pair of shoes. The choice of selecting only female
participants was due to a request made by the multinational company
that sponsored this study. Still, women often express their love for
shoes, are happy to share their feelings and thoughts about their
beloved shoes, and tend to be open and comfortable about these
relationships. Interactions with shoes are not limited to wearing them:
women also tend to clean and protect them, gaze at them with
admiration, touch them, talk about them with others and so on.
5.2.2 Study 2: People and cars
In the second study, we investigate relationships between people (both
men and women) and their beloved cars. Like shoes, a car is a type of
product that is often loved and with which people build strong
relationships. People also clean and maintain their cars, admire them,
touch them and discuss them. Relationships with cars can be expected
to cover different interactions from relationships with shoes as, for
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example, a driver sits inside a car and uses his/her whole body to
interact with it, a car can be used together with others, and it is used
at a different speed.
5.2.3 Participant selection
In order to select participants for the studies, first we placed
announcements throughout the campus of Delft University of
Technology, in the Netherlands, searching for women who loved shoes
and people who loved cars. Twenty-two women volunteered to
participate in the shoe study and 11 people to participate in the car
study. Many of these respondents were not directly associated to the
university and took notice of the study through friends or family who
work or study at the campus. To ensure participants really loved their
shoes or cars, we asked participants to fill in the love scale considering
a particular pair of shoe or car they own, use, and love the most.
People who scored above moderate-high in the love scale (between 3.2
and 5.0) were selected. Sixteen women (21-60 years old) who claimed to
love shoes and have a special relationship with at least one pair of
shoes and ten people (26-42 years old; 5 men and 5 women) who
claimed to love their own car were selected to participate in this study.
All participants resided in the Netherlands.
5.2.4 Data collection
All participants were met individually for a first interview (open-ended
interview). They were asked to talk about their love for the specific pair
of shoes or car they claim to love. By the end of the interview,
participants received a set of action cards and a diary in which they
were asked to write up to 20 stories of relationship events (times they
have interacted with their beloved shoes or car). The diary contained a
written introduction to the study, instructions for use of the diary and
action cards, as well as examples of how to report stories of
relationship events and use the love scale. The interviewer read those
instructions together with each participant and encouraged the use of
the action cards to remember and report relationship events. The
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examples given of how to write stories in the diary were also examined
in order to ensure participant’s confidence in using the diary.
Participants were asked to write stories of times they interacted with
their beloved pair of shoes or car from the first time they had seen
them until the end of the study. Participants kept the diary for a period
of five weeks in the shoe study and 3 weeks in the car study. Weekly
contact with participants was made to remind them of sharing stories in
the diary. After that period, a second interview marked the end of the
study. Participants were asked to sort the stories of relationship events
shared in the diary in order of occurrence. They were then asked to
indicate which story corresponds to the moment they first experienced
love for the product.
253 stories of relationship events were collected in total (163 in the
shoe study and 90 in the car study) in 26 person-product relationships
(16 in the shoe study and 10 in the car study). In each of these
stories, participants indicated which of the interactions reported in the
story was the meaningful one and then rated their love in connection
with it using the love scale.
In the following, the data are presented and analysed according to each
of the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter.
5.3 Question 1: How interactions and the experience of
love are connected in person-product relationships
The data collection using the EXITool provided accounts of meaningful
interactions and corresponding ratings of the love experience. This now
allows us to trace what in the interaction produces or influences this
love experience. Although appraisal processes are expected to be
involved, we do not yet know how, or whether other processes are
involved in this as well. Therefore, before we link participants’ diary
stories to the Love Scale data that shows the intensities and balance of
love components (rewards of love), we examine how the participants
themselves link – in their stories – the meaningful interactions and
rewards of love experienced. After we have identified how participants
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make this link, we can connect the outcomes to the ratings of the
experience of love and understand how it produces a change in the
experience of love (question 2).
5.3.1 Data analysis
In order to establish a conceptual connection between interaction and
the love experience, a content analysis was performed. First, this was
done on a small sample of data in order to derive initial insights from
a manageable data set (10 random stories, 5 from the shoe study and
5 from the car study). In the small data set, the content of the stories
of relationship events was examined and the interaction participants
themselves indicated to be the meaningful one (in the diary) was
extracted. Then, we identified in the stories passages associated to
these meaningful interactions that indicated a reward of love. We did
this by comparing the relevant passages of the text to the 13 rewarding
thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of love that constitute the love scale
(chapter 3). For example, story passages like
“they [shoes] looked
gorgeous”, “they [shoes] were so pretty”,
or
“It [car] was so shiny. I
loved how it looked”
were considered to fit the passion statement “I
find the product very attractive”. Having identified in participants’ stories
the meaningful interactions and the rewarding experiences related to
love components, we then examined the content of the stories in search
for a link between these two. First we present here the results based on
the small data set. We then discuss what they mean, also in the light of
findings from other researchers, and then analyse the remaining stories
collected.
5.3.2 Results from the small sample: connections between
interactions and the experience of love
Positive affective state
In 6 of the 10 random stories of meaningful interaction involving a
rewarding experience of love, participants reported that during the
meaningful interaction they experienced happiness, relaxation, joy, or
excitement. These can be grouped as positive affective states. They were
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followed by a rewarding thought, feeling, or behaviour of intimacy,
passion, and/or commitment.
“Then I put the shoes on and looked [meaningful interaction] at them, on
my feet, through the mirror. I was so happy [positive affective state]. I
loved them! I thought they were made just for me [passion]”.
“One night I was driving [meaningful interaction] my car (…) it was so
peaceful, I was very relaxed [positive affective state]. I felt very
connected to my car [intimacy]”.
Positive affective state following the occurrence of an incident.
In 4 of
the 6 stories, with a positive affective state in them, participants
reported this state as a consequence of something within the
interaction, like a specific incident. Such an incident might be, for
example, receiving compliments regarding the loved product.
“I was wearing [meaningful interaction] them when my friend came and
complimented me on my shoes [incident] (…) I was so proud [positive
affective state] of my shoes”.
“I was driving [meaningful interaction] home that night (…) then my
neighbour came to talk about the car [incident] (…) I liked [positive
affective state] that other people also like my car”.
Positive affective state following an evaluation of the loved product.
In 2
of the 6 stories with a positive affective state in them, that state was
not reported as resulting from any specific incident but apparently as
resulting from the evaluation of a quality of the product itself such as,
for example, the appearance of the product.
“They look awesome [evaluation of product]. (…) I was so happy [positive
affective state] that I bought these shoes [meaningful interaction]”.
“I looked at it [meaningful interaction] and realized how nice it is [evaluation
of product]. I was very proud [positive affective state]”.
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Negative affective state
In the remaining 4 of the 10 random stories, participants reported the
experience of a negative affective state, such as anger, unpleasant
surprise or frustration.
“I was so angry [negative affective state]. These shoes tend to be
comfortable, but sometimes they really hurt [meaningful interaction - wearing
shoes]”.
“I went to check the engine oil of my car [meaningful interaction] (…) I was
surprised and not happy that my car uses a lot of engine oil [negative
affective state]”.
Negative affective state following the occurrence of an incident.
When a
negative affective state was experienced during a meaningful interaction,
it also sometimes followed an incident. In this small sample these were,
for example, problems with the loved product, such as the shoes
causing the user pain and the car having a flat tire.
“Later that day I couldn’t stand to walk on those shoes [meaningful
interaction]. My feet hurt so much [incident] (…) I was so angry [negative
affective state]”.
“I was driving [meaningful interaction] back home (…) and I heard one of
the tires ripping off [incident] (…) I was tired and frustrated [negative
affective state]”.
Evaluations of expectations towards the product and
efforts to overcome incidents following a negative
affective experience
In the four events involving a negative affective state, we observed in
the participants’ stories that after experiencing the negative affective
state, the participants seemed to initiate a second evaluation: an
evaluation of their previous expectations regarding a product’s
performance and the anticipation of efforts they would have to take to
overcome the obstacle posed by the incident. A rewarding thought,
feeling, or behaviour of love was reported in only one of these events. It
is in the first quote below: a thought of commitment. The second quote
106
is an example of an event and evaluation in which no reward of love is
mentioned.
“Then the heel broke [incident]. I was so disappointed [negative affective
state] because these are new shoes and the heels are not supposed to
break now [expectation that heels should last longer] (…) But I need to
fix them. I don’t want to lose these shoes [commitment]”.
“I was a bit disappointed [negative affective state] because of that dent
[incident]. I wanted to fix it but it costs not only money but also time
to take it to the shop [efforts to overcome the incident] (…) but I
didn’t expect it to look like this, it is not an old car [evaluation of
expectation that a new car should look good]”.
5.3.3 Discussion of question 1
These initial findings indicate that positive and negative affective
experiences arise from the evaluation of certain incidents and, in the
case of positive affective experiences, from what seemed to be an
evaluation of a quality of the loved product. The question that arises
from this is whether these evaluations are the same kind of
assessments that are described in appraisal theory. As seen in chapter
2, the appraisal theory claims that emotions arise from assessments
people make of a specific stimulus in relation to their personal concerns
(Desmet, 2002). According to appraisal theorists, an ‘antecedent event’ –
such as the incidents our findings indicated – and a certain quality of
an appraised object – such as its appearance – can be stimuli for an
appraisal that results in an affective experience (for example, Russel,
2003; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Scherer, 2001; Roseman, 2001).
Our findings so far indicate that the positive and negative affective
experiences our participants described in their stories do indeed result
from appraisals of product qualities or antecedent events during the
interaction, just as appraisal theorists claim. These evaluations in an
interaction are somehow connected to the rewards of love. However, as
discussed earlier in this chapter, we have reasons to believe on the
basis of interpersonal love theory that the experience of love does not
arise in the same way as other affective experiences do.
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These initial findings also indicate that, after a negative affective
experience, participants engaged in a second evaluation in which they
contrasted their expectations towards the product with the perceived
efforts to overcome the problem encountered during the interaction. In
interpersonal love theories, such evaluations are also mentioned. People
make these evaluations with respect to the standards or expectations
they hold for what they feel they deserve (Harvey and Wenzel, 2006): a
person compares their experience in an interaction with their personal
standard or expectation of what constitutes acceptable outcomes. When
outcomes surpass the comparison level the person is satisfied with the
relationship; when outcomes fall short of this perceived standard the
person is dissatisfied. Our initial findings seem to fit this description,
suggesting that person-product love has the same structure. However,
our initial findings did not indicate that such evaluations also occur
when participants have positive affective experiences. According to
Harvey and Wenzel (2006), such evaluation processes may become
more
salient
when a relationship is in trouble. Therefore, although a link
between evaluations of rewards and costs and the experience of positive
affect were not visible in our participants’ first ten randomly selected
stories, it may not mean that such evaluations do not occur.
This second evaluation of rewards and costs that people make
may refer to the decision moments within interactions in which people
decide on whether to love a product or maintain that love. In chapter 2
we saw such decisions moments being described by participants. We
also saw from theory that unlike other affective experiences, love does
not arise involuntarily from appraisals, but from one’s
deliberate decision
to love another. Social Penetration theorists agree that love is a
decision one makes, but also pose that this decision is not always
deliberate: even without thinking about it, humans weigh their
relationship and interaction with another human on a reward/cost scale
(for example, Kelley & Thibaut, 1978).
According to our initial findings, appraisals that lead to the experience
of positive or negative affect and evaluations of relationships’ rewards
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and costs – that happen within meaningful interactions – seem to be the
processes that connect meaningful interactions to the experience of
love. This provides a preliminary answer to question 1. A more definitive
answer can be obtained by examining the remainder of the data.
With these preliminary findings in hand, next, we analyzed the
content of the remaining reports of meaningful interactions in search for
whether (1) these evaluation processes are visible and connected to the
experience of love, (2) positive and negative affective experiences result
from the evaluation of other stimuli besides antecedent events and
product qualities; (3) negative affective experiences are also involved in
the assessment of a quality of the loved product; and (4) evaluations of
rewards and costs are also made when positive affect is experienced.
These aspects of question 1 have not been answered in our initial
findings.
5.3.4 Findings on question 1 (from all the data)
In looking through all of the data, it was found that all the interactions
indicated as meaningful by participants had related passages of text in
which a positive or negative affective experience was reported.
Positive affective state
In 161 of the 253 reports of meaningful interactions collected (64%),
participants reported the experience of a
positive affective state
. Like in
the examples from the initial findings, these were often positive emotions
such as desire, joy, and happiness. However, sometimes, participants’
reports only referred to these positive experiences as
pleasurable
. Other
times, they used the word ‘love’ to describe a positive affective
experience they had. This was interpreted when the word ‘love’ was not
directed at the product itself but at a specific action or experienced
quality involving the product. This also indicates that the word ‘love’ is
used by participants to simply indicate a momentary affect rather than
the experience of love.
“I always feel good [positive affective state] when I wear it [shoes]”.
“I just love [positive affective state] the way they [shoes] look on my feet”
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“It feels really nice [positive affective state] to drive it [car]”.
“I love to drive this car [positive affective state]”.
Positive affective states following the evaluation of an antecedent event.
In 23 reports of meaningful interactions (14%), participants reported
their positive affective experience arising from the appraisal of an
antecedent event
. In both studies, these referred to
receiving pleasant
and (sometimes) unexpected compliments
on the loved product.
“Then she complimented me on my shoes [antecedent event]. She said
they were very pretty and asked me where I bought them (…) I was
flattered”.
“I was washing it [car] and a guy who was passing by in the streets said
the car looked really good [antecedent event] (…) it is nice to hear that,
it made my day (…) I was happy about my car”.
Positive affective states following the appraisal of product qualities.
In
the remaining 138 reports of meaningful interaction (86%), participants
reported positive affective experiences arising from their appraisal of a
quality of the product during the meaningful interaction. These qualities
referred to the product’s appearance, tactile qualities (for example,
comfort), sound, or smell.
“I was admiring myself in the mirror (…) I love the way they [shoes] look on
my feet [appraisal of product quality] (…) ”.
“It still had that smell of a new car [appraisal of product quality] (…) I
thought it was fantastic”.
Negative affective state
In 91 of the 253 reports of meaningful interaction (36%), participants
reported having had negative affective experiences. Like in the examples
from the initial findings, these were, for example, disappointment,
sadness, or anger. Sometimes, these negative affective experiences were
reported as an unwanted experience.
110
“It drives me crazy [negative affective state]. No matter how many times I
clean it [shoes], I can always see these spots”.
“But it kept on making this strange noise every time I shift the gears (…) it
is so annoying [negative affective state]”.
Negative affective states following the evaluation of an antecedent event.
In 53 reports of meaningful interaction (21%), participants reported the
negative affective experience arising from their appraisal of an
antecedent event
. This referred to
unexpected problems
participants had
during the interaction, such as damage, malfunction, and usability
problems. These were evaluated based on participant’s expectations
regarding the product’s use or appearance.
“Then the tip of the heel got caught between the cobble stones and
broke [antecedent event]. I was so angry! [Negative affective state] (…) They
were new and already damaged”
“I guess someone hit me on the side (…) and the passenger door would
not open from the inside anymore [antecedent event] (…) it was so
annoying [negative affective state], I couldn’t believe my car was broken”.
Negative affective states following the evaluation of product qualities.
In
the remaining 38 reports of meaningful interaction (15%), participants
reported the negative affective experience arising from their evaluation
of a particular quality of the product during the interaction. Product
qualities mentioned were, for example, its appearance, sound, smell, or
tactile qualities such as discomfort, The participants evaluated these
based on their expectations for their love relationship regarding the
product’s use or appearance.
“It was so sad [negative affective state]. They were not that pretty anymore
(…) the fabric was all worn out [appraisal of product quality]”.
“It was very painful [discomfort – appraisal of product quality] (....) these
shoes were killing my feet. (…) I was really angry [negative affective state]”.
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“That noise was not normal [appraisal of product quality] (…) I was very
disappointed [negative affective state] to see that my car was not the same
anymore”.
Evaluations of relationships’ rewards and costs –
Negative affect
In all the events in which participants had negative affective experiences
(91 events, 36%), they evaluated the rewards and costs of their
relationship against each other. The
rewards
referred to participants’
personal
standards for love in
the relationship with the loved product
(as identified in section 5.3.3).
Costs
referred to the anticipated efforts
participants would have to take in order to overcome the obstacle
posed by the antecedent event or the appraisal of product qualities
during the meaningful interaction. These evaluations were also made
considering participant’s expectations for their love relationship regarding
the product’s use or appearance.
“I never had problems with it before. These shoes are always
comfortable [rewards] (…) but that day they really hurt me [costs] (…)
it is disappointing”
“It seemed like the gearbox was broken. I couldn’t change gears properly (…)
I hate when things like this happen. It always takes so much time and
money to fix these things [costs] (…) but I had to admit that this car
never asked for much. It is always there for me [rewards]”.
Costs outweigh rewards.
During these evaluations, participants’
anticipated costs sometimes seemed to outweigh the rewards of their
relationship (25 events, 10%). In most of these events (21 events, 8%)
participants did not report any rewarding experience of love.
“I decided then not to fix them [shoes] anymore. It just costs too much
money and I couldn’t afford it [costs outweighs]”
“The bump is still there [in the car] (…) I wish it [car] looked a bit better,
but there are so many of those that one more or one less
wouldn’t make a difference [costs outweighs]”.
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Rewards outweigh costs.
Some other times, rewards seemed to outweigh
the costs (66 events, 26%). In these events, participants reported
rewarding experiences of love. In many of these (42 events, 17%) the
rewarding experience reported included rewarding thoughts, feelings, or
behaviours of
commitment
.
“Then leather got all scuffed in the front of the shoe (…) but they are so
comfortable and nice [rewards] that I thought I should give it a chance
(…) it was a bit expensive [costs] and the shoes would not look perfect,
but it was probably still worth it. So I had them repaired [thought
and behaviour of commitment]”.
“There was mud all over my shoes (…) they were so destroyed [costs]. I
was so angry, for a minute I thought of throwing them away (…) but of
course I ended up fixing them [behaviour of commitment]”.
“People usually just do something for the car when it is broken. It does
take time to maintain it [costs]. But I don’t see it as a waste of time (…)
I’m always maintaining it [behaviour of commitment]. It is nice to see
your car always looking nice [thought of passion]”.
5.3.5 Discussion of question 1
The findings from the entire data set confirm our initial findings and
indicate how participants connect interactions and the experience of
love in their stories. When a particular quality or qualities of the product
change during an interaction, people evaluate that interaction in relation
to their personal concerns. This results in a positive or negative
affective experience. When this evaluation resulted in a positive affective
experience, participants reported rewards of love. When there was a
problem and the evaluation resulted in a negative affective experience,
the participant thought ahead to the efforts needed to overcome the
problem (costs) and evaluated the interaction in relation to their
standards for love (rewards). If the product still fit their standards, they
often reported a reward of love (rewards outweighed). If the product did
not fit their standards for love, rewards of love were not reported (costs
outweighed).
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Our findings did not provide enough indications that an
evaluation of rewards and costs also occurs when positive affective
experiences are reported, and not just when there are negative affective
experiences. Still, whether there was such an (unreported) evaluation or
not, the experience of a positive affect was always followed by a report
of rewards of love (see figure 5.2).
Figure 5.2 – The connection between interactions and the
experience of love for products according to participants’ reports:
evaluation processes within meaningful interactions.
Considering the first question proposed in this chapter, the analysis of
participant’s reports indicated two evaluation processes within meaningful
interactions that are connected to the experience of love: an evaluation
of antecedent events and product qualities – that resulted in positive or
negative affective experiences – and an evaluation of the relationship’s
rewards and costs. The first process evaluates the moment of
interaction: how people evaluate (or in appraisal theory’s terms,
appraise) a particular stimulus (antecedent event or product qualities)
within the interaction. The second process, which was only reported
when negative affective experiences occurred, evaluates the moment of
interaction in relation to the relationship: how the product’s appearance
or use at that moment of interaction matches a person’s standards for
a love relationship.
114
Although the second process is the one in which participants evaluate
their relationship, both processes may influence the quality of love
(rewards) and the longevity of love relationships. In chapter 2, we saw
that Levinger (2002) called these evaluated antecedent events
critical
incidents
and emphasized the crucial role they have in the development
of relationships. In addition, Berscheid (2002) claimed that the
experience of positive or negative affect has a critical influence on the
survival of relationships as this can influence people’s decision to
maintain the relationship. Moreover, the moments in which people
evaluate the rewards and costs of their relationship are also expected
to influence people’s experience of love for products and the longevity
of love relationships. As seen in chapter 2, these decision moments are
vital to the understanding of changes in the experience of love
(Sternberg, 2006) and the development of close relationships (Levinger,
2002; Kelley, 2002).
We now know how meaningful interactions are conceptually
connected to the experience of love. We do not yet know, however,
whether the outcomes of the evaluation processes we identified here
lead to a specific intensity and balance of the love experience. Next, we
link the outcomes of the evaluations that people make to the intensity
and balance of the love components as rated through the love scale.
We examine how these affective experiences and evaluations of rewards
and costs influence the quality of the experience of love.
5.4 Question 2: how do the connecting aspects in an
interaction influence a change in the experience of
love?
We now examine the link between outcomes of evaluations within
meaningful interactions and the intensity of love measured through the
love scale. Our goal is to understand the extent to which the two
evaluation processes within meaningful interactions are linked to the
intensity and balance of the love components. Findings are expected to
indicate, for example, evaluation outcomes that result in higher or lower
intensities or balance of love components.
115
5.4.1 Data analysis on question 2
First, in order to determine the intensity and balance of the love
components, we calculated the scores of each component of love –
collected through the Love Scale – that corresponded to the meaningful
interaction in each of the 253 relationship events collected. The scores
were calculated as follows: each item of the scale was rated on a 5-
point scale. For each subscale (intimacy, passion, or commitment), we
summed up their ratings and divided them by the number of items each
contained (intimacy = 5 items; passion = 4 items; commitment = 4
items). Sternberg’s theory (1986/2006) is not specific about the degree
of intensity and balance of love components for each category of love
(kinds of love) people can experience. He considers that kinds of love
are determined by the high/low intensities of love and the
presence/absence of love components. It means that if a component is
experienced at low intensities, it makes the quality of experienced love
unbalanced. Therefore, based on the indications Sternberg provided for
kinds of love one can experience, we determined that scores between
1.0 and 2.3 indicated low intensity; scores between 2.4 and 3.0
indicated moderate-low intensity; scores between 3.1 and 3.7 indicated
moderate-high intensity; and scores between 3.8 and 5.0 indicated high
intensity.
Second, we grouped the findings in search for events in which
the 3 components of love were experienced (a) at high intensities and
balanced [consummate love]; (b) at high intensities and moderately
balanced [passionate, romantic, or companionate love]; (c) at low
intensities and moderately balanced [liking, infatuation, or empty-love];
and (d) at low intensities and unbalanced [non-love] (see chapter 2).
Third, we calculated the frequency in which each intensity and balance
of love (a-d) occurs in the different evaluation processes (1-3). Fourth,
we grouped the findings according to (1) momentary evaluations that
resulted in positive affective experiences, (2) momentary evaluations that
resulted in negative affective experiences and relationship evaluations in
which rewards outweighed costs, and (3) momentary evaluations that
resulted in negative affective experiences and relationship evaluations in
which costs outweighed rewards. Table 5.1 shows these findings.
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High
intensity &
Balanced
Consummate
love
High intensity
& Moderately
balanced
Passionate,
romantic, or
companionate
love
Low intensity
&
Moderately
balanced
Liking,
infatuation, or
empty-love
Low
intensity
&
Unbalanced
Non-love
N=253
Shoe study
n=163
Car study n=90
(All three
components
scored
high/moderate-
high)
(Two
components
scored
high/moderate
high, one
component
scored
moderate-
low/low)
(One
component
scored
high/moderate-
high, two
components
scored
moderate-
low/low)
(All three
components
scored
low/moderate-
low)
Momentary
evaluations
that resulted
in a positive
affect
N=161
(shoes n=114;
cars n=47)
58%
28%
12%
2%
Momentary
evaluations
that resulted
in a negative
affect;
Relationship
evaluations in
which rewards
outweighed
costs
N=67
(shoes n=46;
cars n=20)
14%
30%
37%
19%
Momentary
evaluations
that resulted
in a negative
affect;
Relationship
evaluations in
which costs
outweighed
rewards
N=25
(shoes n=3; cars
n=22)
-
8%
16%
76%
Table 5.1 – Frequency of kinds of love in relation to appraisal
processes.
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5.4.2 Findings on question 2
The findings that are presented in the table are explained below, in
terms of how each of the outcomes from our previous findings (5.3.4)
fitted the different intensities and balance of love.
High intensity and balanced love components
(consummate love)
Components of love were experienced at high intensity and in balance
in 58% of the meaningful interactions in which participants reported a
positive affective experience and in 10% of the meaningful interactions
in which participants reported a negative affective experience and
rewards outweighed costs. In none of the meaningful interactions in
which costs outweighed rewards components of love were experienced
at high intensities and in balance.
High intensity and moderately balanced love
components (passionate, romantic, and companionate
love)
Components of love were experienced at high intensity and in moderate
balance in 28% of the meaningful interactions in which participants
reported a positive affective experience, in 30% of the meaningful
interactions in which negative affective experiences were reported and
rewards outweighed costs, and in 8% in which the costs outweighed
rewards.
Low intensity and moderately balanced love
components (liking, infatuation, and empty-love)
Components of love were experienced at low intensity and in moderate
balance in 12% of the meaningful interactions in which participants
reported positive affective experiences, in 37% of the meaningful
interactions in which negative affective experiences were reported and
rewards outweighed costs, and in 16% in which the costs outweighed
rewards.
118
Low intensity and unbalanced love components (non-
love)
Components of love were experienced at low intensity and unbalanced
in 2% of the meaningful interactions in which participants reported a
positive affective experience, in 19% of the meaningful interactions in
which negative affective experiences were reported and rewards
outweighed costs, and in 76% in which costs outweighed rewards.
5.4.3 Discussion of question 2
Our findings indicate that the experience of positive affect stimulated
more intense and more balanced components of love than the
experience of negative affect. However, when rewards and costs of a
relationship are evaluated positively (rewards outweigh costs) after
negative affects are experienced, the components of love are as
moderately balanced and intense as when positive affects are
experienced. For example, when positive evaluations of relationships’
rewards and costs are made, the components of love are more intense
and balanced than when negative evaluations of relationships’ rewards
and costs are made. When costs outweigh rewards, the three
components are experienced at very low intensities and unbalanced,
indicating that love is not present (figure 5.3).
Figure 5.3 – Influence of the outcomes of evaluation processes
within meaningful interactions on a change in the experience of
love.
119
These findings indicate that the outcomes of momentary evaluations of
meaningful interactions (appraisals) and the evaluation of those in
relation to the relationship (rewards and costs) influence a change in
the experience of love. When the evaluation of a meaningful interaction
contained a negative affective experience, participants evaluated how
much the product – in the light of its new observable qualities (broken,
scratched, old) – fit their standards of how a loved product look,
behave, or be like. If the product still (somehow) fit their standards for
love (rewards outweighed), participants reported a reward of love and,
according to our findings here, experienced love at a specific level.
However, if after the interaction the product did not fit a person's
standards for love, the participant did not report a reward of love and,
according to our findings, also experienced love at lower quality.
It seems that, as interactions over time change qualities of the
product, whether perceived or actual qualities, these qualities influence
whether people perceive that product as worthy of love or not,
influencing change in the experience of love. Next, we examine these
same processes in sequences of relationship events. This should provide
us with an understanding of how these processes influence changes in
the experience of love for a product over time and in the development
of person-product relationships.
5.5 Question 3: How do the connecting aspects in an
interaction influence change in the experience of love
and the development of the relationship over time?
In this third part of the analysis, we examine how people evaluate their
relationship with a loved product over time in order to understand how
interactions, product qualities, and evaluations of rewards and costs
provoke change in the experience of love over time and in the
development of love relationships. Our goal now is to identify (1) which
product qualities people evaluate at different phases of a relationship,
(2) in which way these are evaluated, and (3) how these evaluations
change the quality of love over time and influence relationship
development. Findings should indicate, for example, details of how
people evaluate their relationship at different phases, and how different
120
outcomes of their evaluation can change the quality of their experience
of love.
5.5.1 Data analysis on question 3
In order to identify the phases of person-product love relationships, we
first compared the sequences of events in two relationships – one with
shoes and one with cars – to Levinger’s descriptions of each relation-
ship phase (Levinger, 2002, as seen in chapter 2). Levinger’s descriptions
provide a general idea of the beginnings and ends of each person-
product relationship phase as well as the kind of events likely to occur
in each phase. We then compared the kinds of events described by
Levinger with the events in the remainder 24 shoe and car relationships.
With each of the relationships we looked at, we corrected or adjusted
our general or aggregated descriptions of events.
Second, by comparing each of the 253 relationship events
collected to the general descriptions of events in the different
relationship phases, we identified which events were the most typical for
each of the five phases of love identified. Third, we examined the group
of events obtained for each phase for (1) product qualities participants
often evaluated in the particular phase, (2) similarities between
participants on how these were evaluated, and (3) how these evaluations
typically changed the intensity and balance of people’s experience of
love in that phase. The change provoked in the intensity and balance of
the experience of love is presented according to Sternberg’s
classification of kinds of love (figure 5.4).
The findings are presented and discussed according to each of the five
relationship phases identified, including descriptions of the beginnings
and endings of each relationship phase.
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Figure 5.4 – Classification of kinds of love according to the
intensity and balance of love components.
5.5.2 Findings
The attraction phase
Phase description.
The
attraction phase
in person-product love
relationships starts when a product is seen for the first time and ends
when it is purchased. In both case studies, relationship events were
reported that matched this phase. The stories reported in each event
referred to first encounters, which means, moments in which (1) the
product was seen for the first time, (2) was tested (try shoes on, test
drive the car); (3) a participant decided on whether to buy the product
or not; and (4) the final moment of this phase when the beloved
product is purchased. Thirty-six events of the 253 relationship events
collected matched at least one of these four types of events.
Product qualities evaluated in connection to the experience of love.
Participants’ reports indicated that, in this phase, evaluations of rewards
and costs involve product qualities they consider important in order to
start a relationship. Because the product was often purchased at first
sight, the evaluation of the product was mostly restricted to its
appearance, tactile properties, and perceived technical quality. The
quotes show interactions and evaluations participants gave. Their
corresponding Love Scale rating is shown in brackets.
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“They [shoes] were beautiful (…) it was also pure leather, which is always
better” (consummate love)
“It [car] looked quite nice (…) the engine was in great condition” (passionate
love)
However, if participants are able to learn more about the product in this
phase – for example, trying out the shoes or test driving the car – they
gain limited awareness of the use of the product: participants know how
it fits (shoes), how comfortable it is to use it (shoes and cars), how it
drives (car), and what to expect regarding its usability and durability.
“I thought they [shoes] were a bit too high, but as I tried them on I realized
how comfortable they were” (consummate love)
“I bought them [shoes] but I knew I would not be able to wear them all the
time. The heels are way too high for me (…) it is not comfortable, but it’s
ok” (romantic love)
“The guy told me I could drive it [car] around the block (…) It was better
than I expected” (companionate love)
Still, often the products were only purchased if participants thought
those qualities were worth the price of the product.
“I loved them [shoes], but they were way to pricey for me (…) but I knew I
would not give up” (romantic love)
“I had to think about it. It [car] was a bit more expensive than the other car
I saw earlier (…) but it looked nicer. So I bought it” (consummate love)
In two cases in the shoes study and one case in the car study, product
qualities were evaluated due to an antecedent event: the participant was
complimented for the product’s appearance. In these cases, this
antecedent event seemed to highlight that quality of the product, which
led the participant to report rewards of passion and commitment.
“My boyfriend was very excited about it. He said that I looked much better
on these shoes than the other pair I was trying on (…) I liked it, it made me
think that these shoes really look nice” (passionate love)
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“I really liked the car and my girlfriend did too. She said the car was ‘hot’”
(passionate love)
In which way did participants evaluate product qualities?
If product
qualities fitted the participants’ standards of what a product should be
like, look like, or feel like in order to experience love, they reported
rewards of love. Different product qualities were associated with
particular rewards of love. For example: comfort, use, and usability were
associated with rewards of intimacy. Comfort and appearance were
associated with rewards of passion. Durability and price were associated
with rewards of commitment.
“They [shoes] looked perfect (…) so I bought them (…) I was so excited
about my beautiful shoes [passion]” (consummate love)
“Then I thought to myself: those shoes belong to my feet! [passion] (…) They
were really comfortable and of course, gorgeous [passion]” (consummate
love)
“Seemed like a robust car, tough. I seemed like it would last long”
(companionate love)
“It really seemed like I could trust it. I was happy about that car” (romantic
love)
In cases in which the product did not seem to fully fit a participant’s
standards to start a love relationship, the participants tried to cope by
enhancing other qualities of the product that seemed dearer to them.
For example, enhancing the value of the product’s appearance or
durability in comparison with its comfort or price (or the other way
round).
“They were not the most comfortable shoes in the world [product did not
fully fit participant’s standards for comfort], but they looked good”
(passionate love)
“The price was a bit over my budget [standard to start a relationship], but
the car was in great condition (…) that is more important” (romantic love)
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“I drove really nicely so I was sure I was going to buy it (…) the paint was
just starting to fade and I thought that was a downer [product did not fully
fit participant’s standard for appearance]” (companionate love)
Because of the limited awareness participants have of the product in
this phase, participants sometimes reported fantasizing about using the
product. This way, qualities that are not observable are imagined –
fantasized – and also evaluated in relation to their standards for love.
For example, in the shoe study, participants often fantasized about
wearing or owning a pair of shoes in order to convince themselves to
buy the shoes, even though they did not fully fit the participant’s price
range or comfort standard.
“I was walking around in the shop, in front of the mirror and could see
myself out in a party, wearing a black dress I have (…) I had to buy them
but they were so expensive (…) I bought them anyway” (consummate love).
When shoes did not fit or were not comfortable, not fitting the
participant’s standard for love, the participants anticipated stretching or
padding shoes (or feet) in order to make the shoes comfortable, so
they would better fit their standards for love. Similarly, when a car’s
mechanics or appearance did not fit a participant’s standard, he
anticipated repairing the car, so that the car would fit his standards for
love better.
“There were some little things that I knew I could fix, like the lights and a
couple of dents. So it really didn’t matter (…) it would look good, so I knew I
could buy it” (romantic love)
One participant in the shoe study and two in the car study mentioned
that they did not love the product at the time they purchased it. The
products did not fit their standards for love at the beginning of the
relationship. Instead, love grew in time, as new qualities of the product
were perceived that fit their standards for love.
Event during the attraction phase:
“When I bought them [shoes] I just needed boots that fitted me. They looked
ok, but I didn’t think I loved them at the time” (liking)
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“It was a nice car (…) it looked good (…) but I didn’t really love it” (empty
love)
Event later in the relationship:
“Then she said my boots looked really nice (…) I started thinking that they
did look nice (…) I guess that is when I realized that I did loved my boots”
(passionate love)
“I was really happy with it because the car proved to be much better than I
expected” (passionate love)
The build-up phase
Phase description.
The build-up phase in person-product love
relationships starts when the product is purchased and ends when
participants have gained experience regarding the use of the product in
real conditions and the product is no longer new to the person.
Although the end of this phase is slightly blurry, as knowledge about a
product can be gained through interactions during any phase of a
relationship, the events examined matching this phase (n=74) referred to
interactions after purchase in which participants used and/or admired
the product. If, while in the attraction phase, participants anticipated
improving a particular quality of the product – such as the fitting of the
shoes, the mechanics or appearance of the car – these improvements
are also made in this phase.
Which product qualities did participants connect to the experience of
love in this phase?
In this phase, participants assessed qualities of the
product that could not be assessed before purchase because they
mostly only become apparent in use. The product qualities that
participants reported here were: tactile properties, comfort in use,
quality, usability, appearance and durability of products. The participants
seemed to associate these product qualities to particular rewards of
love. For example: comfort to intimacy and user experience and
appearance to passion.
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“It was nice because I could walk the whole day without having any problems
with it (…) then I knew that I could really wear them at many occasions”
(consummate love – high intensities)
“It drives very smoothly and it really looks nice (…) I thought it really fitted
me” (consummate love – high intensities)
In which way did participants evaluate product qualities?
In this phase, if
after using the product under real conditions a new quality of the
product was considered to fit the participants’ standard for love, the
participant described particular rewards of love. This happened, for
example, when a participant discovered that a pair of shoes thought
uncomfortable at the attraction phase turned out comfortable after all.
In the car study, this happened when a participant found that her car
was less noisy than she imagined.
“They ended up being more comfortable than I expected (…) and that is
really important for a pair of shoes” (romantic love)
“While I was driving to work I realized that it was so silent. It almost made
no noises (…) I was a bit surprised because it its not a new car (…) it gave
me the feeling that it was a really good car” (consummate love)
Antecedent events such as receiving compliments on the car or shoes in
this early phase also allowed participants to re-think the appearance or
overall qualities of the product in relation to their personal standards.
“I thought they [shoes] were pretty but after that compliment my shoes were
prettier than ever! (…) I realized that they were not only pretty but also
stylish” (passionate love)
“Then I was in the garage and the neighbour came to say that the car was
really nice (…) indeed, it is a nice car (…) I guess I was a bit frustrated
before, because it makes a squeaky sound when I turn the car on”
(consummate love)
On the other hand if a product that was thought to have certain
qualities did not fit a participant’s standards for love when they started
to use it, the participant reported the experience of a negative affect. In
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these cases, participants tried to cope in order to make the product still
fit their standards for love. They did that by (1) fixing the problem that
caused the negative affect, such as repairing a broken heal, or fixing a
dent in the car.
“I tried to wear them but five minutes after I already had a blister (…) I was
a bit angry (…) then I tried to stretch it. I put the shoes on while wearing
wet thick socks. I know it sounds weird but I’ve done it before and usually it
works (…) when the shoes dried out they were fitting quite ok” (passionate
love)
“But I managed to fix it (…) I didn’t want my car to look like that (…) I loved
that my car looked nice again [passion]” (consummate love)
Another way participants coped with disappointments was by (2)
adjusting the importance of that product quality to fit their standards
for love. For example, by reminding themselves of another quality of the
product that could outweigh the quality with which they experienced
problems.
“The heel was scratched (…) it didn’t look perfect anymore (…) but at least
they are very comfortable [intimacy] and I know I can wear them a lot
[commitment]” (consummate love)
“I know it doesn’t look like a new car, but it is my car (…) the engine works
pretty well (…) I can trust it [intimacy]” (companionate love)
Participants’ quotes above show that, if they made these adjustments
(either fixing the problem or adjusting the importance of the product
quality) and considered the product to somehow fit their standards for
love, rewards of love were described.
On the other hand, if the product could not be fixed, rewards were not
reported. To two participants in the shoe study it happened that their
new loved shoes were irreparably damaged in this phase. One of them
described how much passion she lost for her new pair of loved shoes
when they were irreparably scratched by accident.
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“I just couldn’t believe it! My shoes were already damaged! (…) I searched on
the Internet to see if I could fix the leather, but once you have a scratch it
just can’t be fixed (…) it is just that they didn’t look pretty anymore. I was
very sad” (empty love)
The other participant in the shoe study had the leather of her new
boots prematurely wrinkled when she wore them for only the 5
th
time.
The events reported after this event fitted descriptions of the
deterioration phase and the levels of intimacy, passion, and commitment
were unbalanced and moderately low.
“I noticed the formation of folds and wrinkles on parts of the shoe and I
didn’t like it (…) I like it when these wrinkles are living signs from use, but
these were new shoes (…) and the wrinkles appeared in parts of the shoe I
would not expect” (non-love)
The continuation phase
Phase description.
The continuation phase in person-product love
relationships started when participants seemed to have gathered enough
knowledge about the product, have adjusted to the outcomes of
previous interactions and have grasped the real qualities of the product
(instead of imagined ones). The participants have decided at this point
on how the product fits their standards for love, and the relationship
then moves into the third phase,
continuation.
The continuation phase is
where most of the relationship takes place. It is characterized by the
repetition of events in which person-product interactions of various types
take place and can influence, at times, all qualities a product may have.
It is difficult to pinpoint when this phase ends since it depends on the
outcomes of all events it includes and on how well people can adjust to
the outcomes of the interaction, making efforts to maintain the love
(repair, care). One hundred and thirty-five of the 253 events reported
were considered to fit the description of this phase.
Which product qualities did participants connect to the experience of
love in this phase?
In the continuation phase, participants associate a
great number of product qualities with different rewards of love.
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However, the link they make between product qualities and rewards
sometimes differs from the link they made in the previous phases. For
example, qualities of user experience participants associated in the
earlier phases to passion were sometimes in this phase associated to
intimacy. Comfort, that was previously associated to intimacy, now was
linked to behaviours of commitment. This seems to indicate that product
qualities could lead to different rewards of love at different times in a
relationship.
“It feels so good every time I wear these shoes [user experience] (…) it
makes me feel more connected to them [intimacy]”
“Every time I drive other people’s car I realize how comfortable my car is
[user experience] (…) it makes me care a bit more for it [commitment] (…) I
don’t want to lose it”.
In which way did participants evaluate product qualities?
In this phase,
every event contained evaluations by participants that either (1)
contributed to a participant’s experience of love (positive affect) – as
momentary interactions highlighted a quality of the product that is then
re-evaluated and strengthened – or (2) forced the participant to adjust
the product to their standards of love (negative affect) – whether by
repairing a particular quality of the product affected by the interaction
or by reorganizing the importance of that quality of the product in
order to ensure fit to the person’s standards for love. These are the
same processes as those described in the two previous phases. What
differs in this phase is that when problems occur (negative affect is
experienced), participants often evaluated openly how much they
were
willing to
adjust their love standards of product qualities so that the
product still fit them.
In order to allow the new qualities of the product to contribute
to a positive change in their experience of love, participants must first
have judged that the product can keep providing rewards of love.
“Buy the time I went home I had blisters all over my feet (…) I kind of knew
they were not that comfortable, but still I was a bit disappointed because
every time I wear them they destroy my feet (…) I don’t want to stop wearing
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them because these are the most beautiful shoes I have [passion]. They also
fit most of my dresses (…) they practically go well with everything I have
[intimacy]. So I guess it is ok to keep on wearing them, but then I have to
be careful and not wear them when I have to walk for too long” (passionate
love)
“It sometimes gives me problems, like it did now. But it is still a great car
[intimacy] and I think I can keep on using it for quite some time
[commitment] (…) But I hope that it doesn’t give me very serious problems in
the future” (consummate love).
As we can see in the participant’s quotes, their judgement of whether
the product can keep providing rewards of love depends on how well
they can envision the product qualities they consider fitting to their
standards for experiencing love in the future. In case the product quality
being evaluated is judged to still fit their future standards for love,
participants often reported rewards of love.
In case a participant judged the product quality being evaluated as not
fitting their standards for love, they sometimes tried to adjust the
importance of that quality in relation to other qualities the product is
expected to have in the future. For example, a participant expected his
car’s usability to still fit his standards for love even though the
deteriorating appearance of his car does not fit his standards for love.
Transferring the importance of the car’s appearance to its usability
helped him to cope with the initial mismatch with his standards and
keep on loving the car.
“It was quite a long distance for this car and it did it very well (…) everyday
it looks a bit worse but, on the other hand, I feel that it will keep on
working like this (…) I really hope it does” (passionate love)
In case a participant evaluated the product and could not adjust the
importance of product qualities in their prospect standards for love, they
reported an intention to decline the efforts to maintain the relationship.
“It was already the third time that I had to change the heels. It is a bit
annoying (…) If I have to change it another time, I would have spent the
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same amount of money I paid on the shoes just to repair it (…) it will
probably be the end of it. It is sad, but they are not that new anymore”
(empty love)
In one case in the shoe study and another one in the car study, both
the beloved pair of shoes and car were owned and used for 7 years. It
shows that whether the relationship continues or moves to the
deterioration phase depends on whether it is possible to keep on using
the product. It depends on whether the product breaks or is seriously
damaged, and on the efforts participants are willing to make to adjust
the qualities of the product.
“I can’t wear them all the time. Only if I’m in the house or I go to a
neighbour or somewhere close. I’m afraid they may get damaged and I can’t
wear them anymore” (consummate love)
“That’s when I realized I’m also endangering my husband if we keep the car.
And I thought I may have to get a safer car at some point” (consummate
love)
The deterioration phase
Phase description.
The deterioration phase in person-product
relationships is characterized by a decrease of efforts or a decrease of
use in order to maintain the love. Only 4 relationships in the shoe
study and 3 relationships in the car study matched the description of
this phase. The product qualities that were evaluated in this phase,
varied immensely, just like in the continuation phase.
In which way did participants evaluate product qualities?
How
participants evaluated the product in this phase differs from the
previous phase. Participants either (1) cannot envision a potential for the
relationship to continue and, therefore, deliberately diminish the efforts
to adjust the product to their standards for love; or (2) can still
envision a potential for that relationship to continue, but the product
has deteriorated (broken, aged) and cannot be used anymore. In the
first case, the rewards of love were often low and unbalanced. In the
second case, the rewards of love were often high and balanced.
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“It is the third time I have to fix them and it is just so much work (…) these
shoes are already quite old and whatever I do won’t make them look any
better” (liking)
“It was probably not worth to fix it because the car will probably not last
much longer (…) it was great as it lasted, but I’ve been thinking of getting
another car. Maybe its time” (empty love)
“When I wear them I feel the heels are almost coming out, they are a bit
loose (…) I don’t think I can wear them for much longer (…) it is really a
pity, I love them so much (…) I wish I could still use them for a long time”
(consummate love)
“I just wanted to keep the car for as long as possible (…) it was obvious
that it was not going to live for too long, but I tried not putting it through a
lot of effort. Maybe it could last a bit longer” (consummate love)
One participant in the shoe study reported in the diary that as she
started to wear her newly loved pair of boots (in the build up phase)
she realized that those boots did not fit her standards for love because
they deteriorated too fast. The status of her relationship, in her own
words and in her ratings, turned from a ‘love’ relationship to a ‘liking’
relationship.
“I was very excited in the beginning about these boots (…) I think that was
the problem (…) also because they are new and they don’t look so good
anymore (…) I don’t really think I love them now. I like them like some other
shoes I have” (empty love)
The quote shows that this participant’s standards for a liking relationship
are lower than her standards for love. From then on, she rated her
interactions with her boots moderately high in intimacy (corresponding
to liking) low/moderately low in passion and low in commitment.
The ending phase
Phase description.
Only 1 event in the car study was about actually
ending a relationship. Considering this (one) participant’s descriptions,
the ending phase begins when the person realizes that important
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qualities of the product cannot be adjusted to the participants’ standard
for love, because the participant cannot make the efforts to maintain
the product or, in the specific case of cars, because using the product
could have irreversible consequences to her wellbeing. In this case,
driving her old beloved car became so dangerous that she had no
choice but to send it to the car scrap disposal.
“I loved that car, but it was just too dangerous to drive (…) it probably could
not be fixed and even if we could fix it, we would not be able to afford it
(…) it is very sad. We were driving it for the last time, taking it to the car
trash (…) as we left it there I thought I was going to cry”.
The participant reported a last story from after the break-up that
showed how upset she was about the loss of her beloved car. In this
story, she remembers her old beloved car and compares it with her new
car. Even though she does not own the car anymore, her ratings for
love, in this event, were high and balanced.
“I have so many memories attached to that car, we did so much together
with it (…) it is really sad (…) I have a new car now. It is the same brand,
the same model, and even the same colour as the old one, but it is not the
same as the car I loved (…) I didn’t look for a car that looked exactly the
same as the one I had. For some reason the son of someone I know was
selling his car and it happened to look like the same one I had (…) we
bought it because we could afford it and, from all the cars we have seen,
this one was in best condition. Still, in the beginning, I didn’t like the new
car. I thought that the old one was so much better, even though I could not
trust it anymore in the end. I mean, this one is newer, everything works. The
other one was literally falling apart. But I still miss it (…) I thought that the
fact that this new car looks the same as the old one is some sort of a sign
(…) as if it is an opportunity to start a new relationship. So far, it could be.
Who knows?”
This last story reveals that rewards of love can still be experienced from
memories when the loved product is no longer owned.
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5.5.3 Discussion of question 3
Our findings indicate that change in the experience of love throughout
the development of person-product relationships depends on (1) the
person’s standards for love in relation to a particular product; (2) the
importance the person grants to different product qualities; (3a) how an
interaction influences qualities of the product; or (3b) how an interaction
changes how the person perceives qualities of the product; (4) how the
person evaluates those product qualities as fitting their standards for
love; and (5) how far people can or are willing to adjust their
assessments, by (a) adjusting the importance of product qualities to
their current standards for love or (b) anticipating the importance of
that quality to fit their standards (figure 5.5).
Figure 5.5 – Factors within person-product interactions that can
influence change in the experience of love over time and the
longevity of person-product relationships.
5.6 General discussion
5.6.1 Discussion of the approach
Our choice of conceptually connecting two distinct theories of
interpersonal love in order to investigate the experience of love for
products and its development over time enabled us to understand two
things. First, it enabled us to understand the processes in which the
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experience of love arises and changes. Second, we were able to identify
differences within these processes at different times in a relationship:
our findings explain what provokes changes in the quality of the
experience of love over time. Sternberg claimed that the experience of
love changes over time but did not yet show what provokes this change,
whereas Levinger charted changes in relationships over time but did not
explain how these are provoked by different qualities of the experience
of love. The development of the Love Scale and the diary tool in
chapters 3 and 4 helped us achieve this. Applying these tools as the
combined EXITool in the two studies reported in this chapter provided
an understanding of how interactions are connected to the experience
of love and how they change it over time.
5.6.2 Discussion of the findings
The analysis carried out in this chapter concluded that the experience
of love for products arises or changes over time according to two
evaluation processes people engage in while interacting with a product.
The first process refers to an evaluation of the moment in which
people and products interact. This evaluation involves, according to
appraisal theorists, a contrasting of people’s expectations (concerns) with
(1) qualities of the product that have changed during the interaction
(caused by antecedent events) or (2) with the person’s changed
perception of product qualities during the interaction. This first
evaluation process results in the person having a positive or a negative
affective experience.
People then engage in a second evaluation process, in which they
evaluate how well the product at that moment fits their standards for
love, considering its actual, perceived, or anticipated qualities. This
implies that each person expects different product qualities to give them
rewards of love (intimacy, passion, and commitment). This second
evaluation process refers to the decision moments in a relationship that
exchange/social penetration theorists call an evaluation of rewards and
costs. Our findings indicate that when the first evaluation process results
in a positive affective experience, people then evaluate how that product
adds to their standards for love. And they experience an increase in the
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intensity and/or balance of their experience of love. When the first
evaluation results in a negative affective experience, people then
evaluate how that product fits or could fit their standards for love. This
second evaluation changes the experience of love to high or low in
intensity and to balanced or unbalanced depending on many aspects
that differ according to the moment in time the relationship is in.
We then confirmed that Levinger’s five phases of interpersonal
love can also be found in person-product love relationships. Person-
product relationships develop over time and several aspects influence
changes in the experience of love and in the development of love
relationships. They occur during the second evaluation process
mentioned above. The influencing aspects in it are a person’s standards
for love in relation to a particular product, the importance granted to
different product qualities, the way interactions influence qualities of the
product or changes in the person’s perception of these qualities, and
the way a person evaluates those product qualities as fitting to their
standards for love. This fit to a person’s standards for love depends, in
turn, on whether the person can or is willing to adjust their evaluation
of product qualities. They can adjust their evaluation either by adjusting
the importance of product qualities to their current standards for love
or by thinking ahead to the importance of that product quality to them
in the future
The findings present factors that can be addressed when one wants to
facilitate the experience of love, increase the rewards one experiences
with products and foster more longevity of person-product relationships.
Some of these factors can be designed for or facilitated, such as
product qualities or positive or negative affective experiences. Others
could be generalized into patterns to inspire the design of products,
such as generalizing people’s standards for love for a specific type of
product and designing products that hold qualities that fit these
standards. Still, as pointed out in chapter 2, loving a product is the
result of a decision a person makes. The studies presented in this
chapter (chapter 5) revealed that this decision depends not only on
characteristics of the product but also on people’s willingness to adjust
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and maintain their love. Could products inspire product owners to be
more generous in their assessments? In chapter 6 we discuss these
findings in relation to the overall research questions. The implications of
these findings are also discussed, especially with regard to possibilities
for design researchers and designers to use the findings in order to
facilitate the fostering of rewarding and long-term person-product
relationships.
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‘THE THRILL IS GONE’
CHAPTER 6:
General Discussion
The aim of this thesis is to understand how the experience of love
arises and changes over time in person-product relationships. This
required insights into what the experience of love for products is, how
this experience can be investigated in the field of design, how person-
product interactions are connected to the experience of love, and how
these interactions influence the experience of love over time. In this final
chapter we answer these questions and discuss the implications of our
findings for design research, for design strategies and for research on
love generally. We present the limitations of this research and point to
directions for future studies.
6.1 The experience of love for products
Defining the experience of love is not an easy task since love
researchers consider love to be many different things. The large number
of definitions that has been given for the experience of love is
overwhelming and some of these are even in conflict. Defining love in
the field of design, specifically, is an even greater challenge. Although
people often mention love for products casually, it has rarely been
researched. Similar phenomena to love have been researched in the
context of first time attraction, for example as a reason for product
purchase, but love in the context of long-term product use has not
been researched. From the statements of participants in a preliminary
study we gathered that the experience of love for products in the
context of use refers for them to a very rewarding, long-term, and
dynamic experience they have in meaningful relationships with special
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products they own and use. This perspective on love provides the
opportunity to investigate the rewards of love and the longevity of love
relationships.
6.1.1 Investigating love in the field of design
In order to find a way in which love can be investigated, various
research perspectives on love were studied and relevant ones selected
according to a set of criteria. In chapter 2 we found that descriptions of
love in two theories of interpersonal love matched the stories that
participants of the preliminary study (chapter 1) told us about products
they loved. These theories are Sternberg (1986/2006) and Levinger,
(2002). Their match with our data indicated that love in the person-
product context has many similarities with love in the interpersonal
context. In line with Sternberg’s theory on the experience of love, we
found in people’s stories that their love for a product brings them
rewarding thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. These rewards can be
understood in terms of three components: intimacy, passion, and
commitment. In line with Levinger’s theory on close relationships, we
found in the same story data that the relationship between people and
their beloved product changes and develops over time. It is influenced
by decisions people make about their love during interactions with their
product. These decisions cause the relationship to develop through
various phases. Connecting these two theories provided a conceptual
basis for the investigation of love for products and specifically for an
understanding of the way person-product interactions are connected to
love, how this connection influences change in the experience of love
over time and how the connection affects the longevity of love
relationships.
Research tools
The operationalisation of this conceptual basis for the research required
the development of two research tools. The development of the Love
Scale (chapter 3) provided a means to measure the intensity and
balance of the rewards of love and to assess the quality of a love
relationship at certain interaction moments. We identified particular
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rewarding thoughts feelings, and behaviours that characterise the love
for products and that differed from interpersonal love. These product-
related thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of love made up the items in
the product-specific Love Scale. The second research tool that is
developed is the Experience Interaction Tool (EXITool – chapter 4), a
diary to be used for several weeks. It was developed to help research
participants remember times they interacted with a beloved product
throughout their relationship with it and to help them organize their
stories. This enables them to indicate the moments – identified as
meaningful interactions – in which their love starts and/or changes. The
Love Scale was incorporated into the EXITool. This made it possible to
measure the experience of love at the particular meaningful interaction
moments participants identified, and thus to assess the experience love
over the course of time.
6.1.2 How are interactions and love connected?
Two evaluation processes that take place during interactions influence
the experience of love. The first evaluation process refers to a
momentary appraisal of the product, in which a person evaluates the
product in that moment of interaction against their personal concerns.
This appraisal can result in a positive or negative affective experience,
depending on what happens during the interaction and how the
interaction changes the product or the person’s perception of the
product. The second evaluation process within the interaction refers to
the person assessing whether qualities of the product were changed by
the interaction, factually or in the person’s perception of these qualities.
The person compares the outcome of this assessment with their
standards for love. These standards refer to specific qualities of the
product that a person expects in order to experience rewards of love.
If the momentary evaluation during the interaction results in a positive
affective experience, then a person judges in the second evaluation how
much the product fits their standards for love. Evaluations that follow a
positive experience often increase the intensity of and balance between
the three components of the experience of love. If the first evaluation
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results in a negative affective experience, the person also evaluates how
much that product fits their standards for love. Just as with a positive
experience, the second evaluation following a negative experience also
provokes a change in the quality of love. However, whether this change
results in the person experiencing rewards of high or low intensity, in
balance or unbalanced, depends on an additional set of possible
influencing factors.
6.1.3 How do these interactions influence love over time?
Factors influencing the change of the experience of love over time
include, for example, the importance attributed to different product
qualities. Influencing factors come to play when an interaction changes
qualities of the product or a person’s perception of these qualities, and
when the interaction results in a negative affective experience. The
person then evaluates the product’s qualities on whether they fit the
person’s standards for love. Another factor on which this evaluation
depends is whether the person can or is willing to adjust their
assessment, either by adjusting the importance of product qualities to
their current standards for love or by thinking ahead to the importance
of that product quality to them in the future, again in terms of
standards they hold. Each of these factors can affect both the love
experience (causing it to change) and the longevity of a love
relationship. The influence of these factors is different in each of the
five developmental phases of a love relationship. The influence depends
on whether the relationship is in the attraction, build-up, continuation,
deterioration or ending phase at the moment in which the person makes
an evaluation of product qualities.
6.2 Implications for design research and strategies: can
we design for love?
The research described in this thesis aimed to contribute to design by
offering design researchers and designers knowledge that can aid the
understanding of and ultimately the design for the experience of love
for products. The findings that are presented suggest that, in order to
facilitate the experience of love and foster rewarding and long-lasting
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person-product relationships, one must consider the processes in which
love occurs and changes during interactions, as well as the aspects that
can influence this change, and how the change in turn affects a
relationship at different phases. We now look into the ways our findings
could contribute to various areas in the field of design.
Designing for affective experiences
Design researchers have previously engaged with the momentary
evaluations people make of products. The link between product qualities,
interaction, and people’s concerns has been studied in relation to
people’s affective experiences with products (for example, Westbrook,
1987; Desmet, 2002; Yeung & Wyer, 2004; Demir, 2010). By identifying
and generalizing people’s concerns and linking them to the experience
of specific emotions, researchers have derived strategies to design for
these specific emotions. However, these efforts often focus on facilitating
positive emotions or dimensions of emotions (pleasure) and avoiding the
occurrence of negative ones (for example, Jordan, 2003; Desmet &
Dijkhuis, 2003, Desmet, van Erp, Hu & Van der Veen, 2008).
Our findings in this thesis suggest that negative affective
experiences can also benefit the quality and development of
relationships with products. Meaningful interactions with products are
decision moments in which people contemplate and evaluate their
experiences against their standards for love and in which they exercise
generosity towards a product’s faults. Moreover, we have seen that
evaluations of moments in which negative affective experiences occur
can result in a positive change in the quality of the experience of love.
Further research could look into how and when these negative affective
experiences provide benefits to love relationships with specific products.
This could help facilitate the experience of rewards of love and motivate
people to re-think the fit of their product with their standards for love.
Moreover, design researchers have paid little attention to the possibility
of changes in people’s concerns towards the product over time. They
have investigated affective experiences with products at early phases of
a relationship (for example, Desmet, 2002; Yeung & Whyer, 2004;
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Westbrook, 1987) or throughout relationships (for example, Jordan,
2002; Hassenzahl, 2003; Mugge, 2007; Demir, 2010). Our findings
suggest that people’s standards for love towards products can change
over time. A product that fails to meet a person’s standards at different
times in a relationship could lead to a decrease in experienced rewards
and early disposal.
The investigation of other longer-term affective experiences such as trust
and satisfaction could help design researchers, especially researchers
concerned with the usability of products, to better understand how these
experiences change over time. The experience interaction tool (EXITool)
developed for this research to investigate the experience of love for
products could also facilitate the longitudinal assessment of these
experiences.
Identifying people’s standards for love
Our research suggests that, in order to love a product people expect
the product to hold certain qualities that can grant them specific
rewards of love. These expectations refer to people’s standards for love.
The expectations differ according to the type of product and according
to the phase a relationship is in. For example, the expectations people
hold towards the appearance or usability of a car differ from the
expectations people hold of the same qualities towards a pair of shoes.
And people’s expectations of the usability of a car that contribute to
their love are different at the attraction phase of a relationship than at
the deterioration phase. Identifying people’s standards for love in
relationships with different products and at different times in a
relationship could help to identify design strategies.
Design researchers who use the appraisal theory in order to design for
emotions have identified and generalized people’s concerns in order to
predict, among other things, product qualities that can elicit specific
emotional experiences (for example, Demir, 2010; Ludden, 2008). Their
approach to design is to focus on the emotional intent in order to
design products that fit this intent. Similarly, identifying and generalizing
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people’s standards for love in relation to different types of products and
at different moments in a relationship could be used to inform
designers about qualities of products that could match people’s
expectations for love. This could help them design with intent for the
experience of love. Identifying what people expect from a product (their
standards) in order to experience rewards of intimacy, passion, and
commitment at different moments of a relationship could help facilitate
the design of products people would love.
Investigating the link between product qualities and
rewards of love
Consumer researchers in the field of design have been trying to
understand consumer passions in order to turn them into marketing
opportunities or improve shopping experiences (for example, Richins,
1997). The findings from our research show that passion alone does not
lead to a balanced experience of love and could lead to the early
disposal of products. Designing products that cannot satisfy one’s
standards for love as a whole – considering its three components –
could have, in the words of Chapman (2009), “destructive implications
for the sustainability of consumerism” (p.31).
In chapter 5 we found that participants often associated specific
qualities of products to specific rewards of love. This association also
varied according to the specific phases of a relationship. For example,
the appearance of a pair of shoes was often associated to the
experience of passion in the attraction phase and, sometimes, intimacy
in the deterioration phase. The usability of a car was associated to
either intimacy or commitment, depending on the phase of a relation-
ship. A further investigation of the link between product qualities and
rewards of love at different times in a relationship could be used to
inform product developers of the product qualities that need to be
addressed in order to promote more balance between the components
of love and promote more rewarding and long-lasting relationships.
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In the prologue of this thesis, it was suggested that loved products
seemed to have the powerful ability to improve users’ perceptions of
effectiveness and efficiency of use and, consequently, convey higher
levels of satisfaction. In chapter 5, we found that if a particular quality
of the product does not fit people’s standards for love in that
relationship, they focus their evaluation on other product qualities that
do fit their standards and can grant them rewarding experiences. In the
case portrayed in the prologue, the appearance and ‘fun to use’
qualities of the nail clipper were more rewarding than its lack of
usability. It means that, designing for rewards of love that mainly reflect
usability does not guarantee that products will be rewarding, used, or
even kept. According to den Ouden et al. (2006) 48% of returned
products are not attributed to a violation of product specifications, but
are returned for other reasons. Reasons might be that they failed to
satisfy users’ needs or just a user’s remorse. Our findings in this thesis
show that a balance between rewards of intimacy, passion, and
commitment should be aimed at in order to promote more rewarding
experiences (in use) and the longevity of person-product relationships.
Diagnosing, predicting and designing for rewards of
love throughout the design process
Knowledge on the experience of love could be inserted throughout the
various phases of the design process. For example, in the ideation of
new products, rich representations of the developmental phases of love
relationships, the different intensities of love one can experience, or
qualities of a product that contribute to the experience of love could be
discussed. The person-product Love Scale developed in chapter 3 could
be used to assess the intensity and balance of rewards of love that
specially created personas or participants in usability tests experience
with products. For the re-design of existing products, the EXITool in
combination with the person-product Love Scale could be used to
assess people’s love for the existing product at different phases of their
relationship as well as product qualities that could be improved in a
new product.
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Knowledge on the impact of product qualities on the rewards of love
people experience at different phases of a relationship could help
designers prioritize their choices for product qualities to be designed
for: for example, selecting materials (appearance/user experience) that
could provide rewards of passion at later stages of a relationship; or
developing product features that inform about the (perceived) usability
at early phases of a relationship; or using technologies that are
adaptable and can bring rewards related to the three components of
love at different phases of a person-product relationship.
Promoting contemplation and generosity in a
relationship
So far we have seen that rewards of love could be promoted in order
to facilitate the experience of love for products. However, our findings
indicate that whether a relationship will be maintained or discontinued
depends highly on how dispositioned people are to maintain their love
for products. People who are dispositioned to maintain the relationship
can be more generous when assessing a product’s match to their
standards for love. Earlier, we proposed that carefully planning the
design of negative affective experiences at specific moments in a
relationship could inspire people to evaluate their relationships positively.
Throughout this research, we also found indications of other strategies
that can help the longevity of a relationship.
First, our records of participants’ testimony of their experiences
with the diary after the study indicate that writing stories about their
relationships helped participants analyze their behaviours and be more
generous in their interactions. For example:
“I’ve been quite busy lately and I couldn’t dedicate as much time as I wanted
to write down stories. But I must say I really enjoyed writing in this diary (…)
it was so nice to remember all the stories, all we’ve been through (…) it also
made me think a lot about my relationship with other shoes I have, other
products also. My fridge for example! I’ve wanted to get a new one, but now
I think I will keep it for a while more. It still gives me lots of loving”
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“Sometimes I’m not so happy about my car. But while I was writing the
stories, it made me feel so great about having it (…) the other day I tried to
start the car but the engine was making this strange buzzing sound. It
happened a few times already and usually I get very irritated. But not this
time. I just smiled and told the car not to worry that I would take good care
of it (laughs). Yes, I talked to the car (laughs)!”
Second, the interviews we carried out with shoe lovers before the study
as well as the stories they shared in the diaries showed that many of
those women – who sometimes owned over a 100 pairs of loved shoes
– were not only experienced consumers or users, but also experienced
lovers. Their experience taught them to work with the ‘give and take’ in
their relationships with pairs of shoes. For example:
“When I buy a pair of shoes I know what I’m looking for in it, I know what
I’m getting from it (…) and if in the end that doesn’t happen, I know there is
always something special about it that I will love”
“I know that if I go out and damage my shoes, I’ll be very disappointed and
maybe will not be able to wear them anymore (…) I don’t even like to think
about it (…) so I avoid wearing shoes that are covered in fabric when it is
raining or when I have to walk in the streets for too long (…) it’s too risky”
These quotes show that enabling users to be more reflective of their
relationships could help them to become more generous towards their
products. Perhaps products can stimulate people to reflect at moments
of interaction and be more generous in their evaluations.
6.2.1 Can designers foster rewards of love and longevity in
person-product love relationships? A workshop
In order to examine how designers could engage with the knowledge
this research provides about the experience of love, we organized a
workshop with 6 design master students and 2 design PhD students (all
female, 23-34 years old) at the Middle Eastern Technical University
(METU) in Ankara, Turkey. The objective was not to test any particular
design strategy. Instead, we wanted to gather insights into the ways the
designers would adopt the theory and express it in a design process.
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First, participants attended a 1-hour lecture about the main findings of
the research from the shoes study. Then, as part of the workshop, they
were asked to form 3 groups and work on 3 exercises. The workshop
lasted for 2 hours plus a 30 minutes break between exercises 2 and 3.
The first exercise – empathy – was to share with their group members
their own love stories with products in order for them to identify with
the experience of love (similar to empathy exercises recommended for
example by Van den Hende, 2010 or Forlizzi & Ford, 2000). The second
exercise – conceptualization – was to propose a fictional relationship
between a persona and a beloved product considering all aspects of
love they were exposed to during the lecture (similarly to persona
exercises recommended for example by Jordan, 2002; Sleeswijk-Visser,
2009). The third exercise – design – was to propose strategies to foster
the rewards and longevity of the relationship identified in the first
exercise. After the third exercise participants in each group presented
their results. Next, we present their strategies in each exercise and then
briefly discuss what it could mean to design for love.
Empathising with the data
Each one of the three groups used the offered theories differently in
trying to understand their own love stories with products such as a
wristwatch, mobile phones, or a pair of shoes. The first group identified
components of love in their own relationships and product qualities
associated with each phase of their relationship with the beloved
product. The second group identified qualities of their loved products
that are relevant to each phase of their love relationship, rated the
intensity of love they experienced in each relationship phase, and
highlighted particular interactions they often carried out with their
beloved product in each phase. The third group mapped sequences of
events in their relationship and highlighted moments in which
interactions changed their experience of love.
During the final presentation, participants in two groups shared their
thoughts about this exercise. This is one example of a participant of
group 2:
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“To be honest, I never thought of me having a relationship with the products
I own and even the products I love (…) these phases really helped me
understand how my relationship works and how I deal with these products
(…) it was also nice to hear other people’s stories and see how they do
that”.
Transferring knowledge from theory to design process
During the second exercise, the first group conceptualized a series of
fictional scenarios that depicted the phases of a relationship between a
female persona and a beloved diamond ring. These were presented as a
storyboard. Ratings of intimacy, passion, and commitment were given to
each of the phases, with respect to the interaction and product qualities
involved in each event. The second group conceptualized a relationship
between a female persona and a corset and described six sequences of
events depicting the attraction and build up phases. In each of these
events, descriptions of particular rewards of love experienced by the
persona and product qualities associated with it were described. The
third group conceptualized a relationship between a female persona and
a juicer, highlighting important events that led the persona to have
positive and negative affective experiences and describing how she
coped with moments in which problems in the relationship occurred.
Design strategies devised
In order to design products that promote rewarding experiences of love
and long-lasting love relationships, the participants in the first group
proposed general design strategies. For example, focusing on the quality
of materials in order to prolong passion or predicting how different
product qualities would naturally degrade over time and identifying what
rewards should be promoted in order for love to be maintained.
Although naïve, group one devised an interesting strategy that could
help promote reflection and generosity at times people evaluate
products. This consisted of designing products that become more
expressive when problems in a relationship occur. For example:
“When problems occur, a product should remind the user to appreciate it
and keep on loving it (…) for example, what if my phone recognizes that I’m
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angry at it and displays a message saying ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘please, don’t judge
me for that’ (…) the idea is that people could become more sympathetic
about the product’s faults”
The participants in the second group used scenarios and personas to
describe their predictions regarding influences that could lower people’s
commitment to keep the relationship and argued how certain qualities of
materials (resistance, colour) could be used to design a corset. The
participants in the third group also suggested a strategy that could
stimulate reflection and, consequently, help people gain experience in
the ‘love game’, being more generous in the judgements. Their strategy
was to design a service, such as a website, in which people can share
their experiences with loved products and gain inspiration from other
lovers on how maintain their relationships for longer.
“People are just not used to think of their relationship with products (…) to
be honest, I never thought I had a relationship with products I own. Once it
clicked, I feel that I will look at products with a different eye (…) but
something like a website could be useful. People can share their experiences
and be inspired by other people’s experiences (…) that could help them see
more potential in their products and gain experience in this love game”
Implications for the design process and design
strategies
Stimulating the designers to use their own love stories to empathise with
our findings seemed to have helped them understand the processes in
which love occurs during interactions and many of the factors that can
influence change in the experience of love and love relationships.
Considering the limited time span the designers had to take in our
research findings on love for products and experiment with them during
the workshop, they provided interesting leads on how to deal with
knowledge on the experience of love. For example, the use of
storyboards to represent events in different relationship phases and the
association of product qualities to rewards of love, and descriptions of
how personas coped with problems during interactions.
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The strategies they devised, specially the ones aimed at
improving contemplation and generosity, are inspiring and seem
promising in promoting rewarding and especially long lasting person-
product love relationships.
6.3 Implications for love research
Our findings indicate that love for products is not (always) metaphorical
or simply a more intense form of liking. Our findings show that love can
be truthfully extended to products (as Brown, 1987, suggested) because
the processes in which love is experienced and change over time are
the same as in interpersonal love. In chapter 2 we saw that the
structure of rewards of the experience of love for products and its
development and change over time were equivalent to interpersonal love.
In chapter 3 we confirmed that the experience of love for products had
the same structure of rewards – intimacy, passion and commitment – as
proposed by interpersonal love theory. In chapter 5 we were able to
confirm that the experience of love for products can be described in
terms of the same developmental phases as interpersonal love:
attraction, build-up, continuation, deterioration, and ending.
However, as Berscheid (2002) suggested, love for products also
differs from interpersonal love because what we can expect from a
product-love relationship differs from what we can expect from an
interpersonal relationship. In chapter 3, as part of the development of
the person-product love scale, we compared expectations people have
for love in interpersonal relationships (items in Sternberg’s triangular love
scale) to person-product love stories. Our findings suggest that these
expectations involve the same components (intimacy, passion, and
commitment). However as people and products hold different qualities
and, presumably, different importance in people’s lives at most times,
there are differences in the actual thoughts, feelings and behaviours that
lead to the way love is experienced towards people and towards
products. Many of the items from Sternberg’s original 45-point
interpersonal love scale did not apply to person-product love. Further
research may uncover more items that are specific to person-product
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love than the 13 items that could now be identified for the person-
product Love Scale.
We saw in chapter 1 that love has been described as an emotion,
something involuntary that, at times, seems to have ‘a mind of its own’.
However, we have seen in this research that love from the perspective
of a relationship is not involuntary and being more generous in our
evaluations can help people benefit from this relationship with products.
Could research on love for products inspire people to love? It seems so.
In all studies presented in this research, participants expressed how
unaware they were of the potential of their relationship with the
products they own. By remembering, analyzing, and writing about their
personal love stories in the diaries, participants were often stimulated to
re-think their relationship with the objects around them and work
towards strengthening their bonds.
Could research on person-product love inspire research on interpersonal
love? Possibly. Kelley and colleagues (2002) claim that interpersonal
relationships are so complicated because people “do not have the clear
identity and boundedness of physical objects”: “the student of
interpersonal relationships is confronted with some 700 variables (terms,
concepts, factors) and their possible interrelations” (p. 20). All these are
distributed over two individuals that can actively influence change in
their relationship (Levinger, 2002) and often hold different expectations
towards their relationship (for example, Sternberg, 2006). This research
suggests that further research on the experience of love in person-
product relationships can portray love as a simpler experience, making it
possible to grasp its variables and understand it as a whole.
The research presented in this thesis portrays person-product
love as something more stable and, therefore, easier to understand than
interpersonal love. Some participants in this research, who learned to
contemplate their relationships with objects, reported a transfer of
insights on the experience of love from the person-product context to
the interpersonal context. For example, a participant who tested the
EXITool in a study reported in chapter 4:
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“As I was writing the stories, I started thinking about other products that I
had in my life, how I felt about them. I started to find tendencies in my
relationship with products (…) later I realized that I threat my products the
same way I treat my boyfriends (laughs). Amazing how similar it is (…) it
made me think a lot. I realized that love is not that complicated. That it is
possible to make it work”.
In addition, the link made in this thesis between Sternberg’s theory of
love and Levinger’s theory of relationship development and change has
never been made in interpersonal context. Doing so could represent
additions to both theories as it provides opportunities to understand
influences that can change the quality of the experience of love (as an
addition to Sternberg) and the link between interactions and the
experience of love in the development of interpersonal relationships (as
an addition to Levinger). A structured diary-based tool such as the
EXITool can provide interpersonal love researchers with the opportunity
to carry out often time-consuming and difficult to manage (Vangelisti &
Pearlman, 2006) longitudinal studies in interpersonal context.
6.3 Limitations and future research
Although the stories participants shared in the EXITool and the ratings
they gave in the Love Scale were essential to our understanding in this
research, the retrospective nature of the stories and ratings may have
been influenced by people’s current experiences. Further research could
examine whether this holds true and how this influences the findings
presented here. Moreover, having identified many of the influences that
can impact the experience of love, these could be incorporated into the
EXITool, facilitating the data analysis.
Our choice to focus this investigation on the processes in
person-product relationships and on the influences on person-product
interactions directed our findings to a focus on the experience of love
itself and, consequently, away from more detailed insights on person-
product interactions that could also be useful to the field of design. For
example, investigating the link between rewards of love and particular
qualities of interactions or a closer examination of the link between
specific product qualities and specific rewards of love could provide
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designers with more specific information regarding the experience of
love. Methods such as Necessary Condition Analysis (Dul, Hak, and
Goertz, 2010) could help understand particularities between some of the
variables (factors) we identified and their influence on the experience of
love.
The research presented in this thesis did not particularly consider the
influence of certain aspects such as culture or gender on the outcomes
of the experience of love and the development of love relationships.
Following the research carried out in this thesis, Tumewu (2009)
investigated cultural differences and similarities between Dutch (using our
data sample) and American women and their love relationships with
shoes. Her research provided first indications of the impact of culture
on the experience of love and the longevity of love relationships. Her
findings suggest that differences in cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001)
such as masculinity (Americans) and femininity (Dutch) as well as short-
term orientation (Americans) and long-term orientation (Dutch) influenced
people’s evaluations of rewards and costs especially at later phases of
person-product relationships. The findings indicated, for example, that
the quality of love Americans participants experienced was often lower
than that of the Dutch participants who also kept their relationships for
longer.
Tumewu’s study also provided indications that the nature of the
experience of love is the same in other parts of the world than the one
in which the research presented in this thesis was conducted. American
participants reported the structure of interactions, its interrelatedness to
the experience of love and to the continuation of relationships, and the
phases of love in the same way as the Dutch participants. This indicates
that the EXITool and the product lover’s evaluation processes found in
this research are not culturally sensitive.
Moreover, an investigation of gender differences in the
experience of love could be useful to determine design parameters for
products that are exclusive or at least directed at either male or female
users. The study of social influence in the experience of love can also
be of value to design. In chapter 5, we had indications that people
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outside the relationship can influence how lovers evaluate their loved
product. For example, the product would be evaluated positively and
people would evaluate the interaction as contributing to the experience
of love after others complimented them on their products.
In the beginning of this thesis we considered, based on Chapman’s
(2005) argument, whether love for products is incapable of mutual
evolution and growth as it lacks reciprocity. Following this present
research, Halilic (2010) investigated the effect of reciprocity in the
experience of love for products. She found that the concept of
reciprocity involves a person perceiving the other as reciprocal, whether
the other intends to be reciprocal or not. Based on that, she provided
indications that depending on how people perceive traits of personality
in products during interactions, a product is sometimes perceived as
reciprocal. This can influence how people evaluate product qualities
during interactions, both when positive or negative affective experiences
occur. Further studies on reciprocity and the link between the
personality of products and rewards of love during interactions could
shed more light on this. Such research could help in designing for
interactions that promote generosity, more intense and balanced rewards
of love, and longevity in person-product relationships.
The influence of subconscious mechanisms (such as chemical reactions
as in, for example, Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 2001) on the state of love
was not taken into account in this research. We have little access to
why we make certain decisions and perform certain behaviours because
the process of decision-making is mostly unconscious (for example,
Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Instead, we focused on the outcomes of such
processes: people’s conscious thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This
reliance on people’s deliberate recall and reflection of their own
experiences amplifies this gap. Future research could look into these
less observable (and potentially significant to design) aspects of person-
product love. Still, in tune with the aim of this research, investigating the
conscious aspects of person-product love did provide us with
opportunities to understand this experience in ways that are relevant to
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the design profession. Social psychologists who investigate love as a
relationship (like Sternberg and Levinger) also focused on the conscious
aspects of love relationships to promote conscious change in the way
people deal with their relationships.
The journey into the experience of love for products, as far as this PhD
research goes, has reached its final destination. It has clarified what the
experience of love for products is, how the longevity of person-product
relationship can benefit people’s wellbeing and the sustainability of the
environment, and how design researchers and designers could facilitate
it. Some avenues for further research have been pointed out. As it
happened to many of those who joined this journey – whether by
participating in its studies or collaborating in the data collection and/or
analysis – I trust this research has also inspired you to see the
potential every product has in granting rewarding experiences. Most
importantly, I hope to have conveyed that products can be a source of
continuous gratification if you are generous enough to accept their
faults and prolong their life span.
159
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SUMMARY
The initial motivation to investigate the experience of love for products
came from a previous research (Russo, 2004 and prologue). I was
intrigued by the fact that participants in a usability test seemed to be
emotionally involved with some products they owned, stating that they
loved them. This involvement seemed to increase their acceptance of
the product, moderate their perception of effectiveness and efficiency in
product use, and to give them higher levels of satisfaction than should
be expected on the basis of the observed usability of those products.
People often mention their love for products casually. Does this common
phenomenon point to a deeper relationship people have with particular
products they own and use? The experience of love has been studied
as part of other phenomena in the field of design, and similar
phenomena to love have been researched in the context of first time
attraction, for example as a reason for product purchase, but
particularly love in the context of long-term product ownership and use
has not been researched. The research questions for this thesis are:
What is the experience of love for products? How can we investigate
love in the field of design? How are person-product interactions
connected to the experience of love? How do person-product
interactions influence the experience of love over time?
In chapter 1, a preliminary study was carried out aiming to clarify what
people mean when they say they love a product. At that point we did
not know if love for products could be said to exist, or whether
whatever it is relevant to design. In that preliminary study, we invited
people to share their experiences with loved products in a 40-minute
open-ended interview. Over 50 stories about loved products were
collected. From the descriptions that the participants gave about their
love for a product, it could be gleaned that their love is a rewarding,
long-term, and dynamic experience that contains other affective
experiences and that arises from a meaningful relationship with a special
product they own and use. Love relationships seem to bring emotional
168
rewards that benefit people’s wellbeing. It seemed that because of these
rewards, people engaged in efforts to keep loved products for longer.
Promoting such rewarding and long-term relationships in design could
help improve wellbeing in relationships with products and even help
reduce the impact of products on the environment. The research in this
thesis investigates the experience of love for products and seeks to
provide insights for design researchers and designers into how they can
foster rewarding and long-term person-product relationships.
In chapter 2 we examine how to investigate the experience of love in
this thesis. Can existing approaches in the field of design be used to
investigate love for products? Design researchers previously studied how
the appraisal of products during interactions leads to the experience of
emotions, providing a basis to facilitate the design of these experiences.
However, although experiences are expected to arise from interactions,
others have said that love is not an involuntary emotion and does not
fit the appraisal theory. Social psychologists who investigate
interpersonal love as an experience that arises from relationships claim
that love involves a decision one must be dispositioned to make. These
interpersonal love researchers developed a number of theories and
classifications of processes through which love occurs in relationships.
Their theories were considered useful to this research since they shed
light on the rewards and interactions that promote wellbeing and the
continuation of love relationships. We found that participants in our
initial study indeed mentioned experiencing rewards from the interactions
with their products. Two particular interpersonal theories were selected
as relevant to our research. They were selected according to a number
of criteria we set to ensure relevance to design. The two theories are
Sternberg’s (1988) triangular theory of love, and Levinger’s (2002) theory
of close relationship development and change. In a second analysis of
our data from the preliminary study, we traced in the participants’
stories whether the two theories could explain what the participants’ love
for products is like and how it changes and develops over time. We
found that the theories matched well with the experience of love as our
participants shared it in their love stories.
169
In line with Sternberg’s (1988) triangular theory of love, our findings
suggest that love is experienced through a number of rewards one can
have in a relationship. These rewards of love can be understood as
being made up out of three components: intimacy, passion, and
commitment. The quality of the experience of love depends on two
things: the intensity with which these components are experienced, and
the balance between the components. In other words, it depends on
whether the intensity of experience is the same across all three or
stronger in one or two of them than in the other(s). Each combination
of various intensities and balances makes up a different kind of love.
Furthermore, in line with Levinger’s (2002) theory of relationship
development and change, we saw in the participants’ stories that their
love changes over time influenced by moments in which the lovers
interact. These moments also affect the development of love
relationships over time. Conceptually connecting these two interpersonal
theories provided us with a basis to investigate how interactions and the
experience of love are connected in person-product relationships and
how this connection influences change in the experience of love.
Moreover, adding a time perspective to the experience of love could
help us describe what aspects influence change in the experience of
love and the development of the relationship over time.
In order to assess the quality of the experience of love for products
during specific moments in which a person interacts with a product, we
need to identify and measure this quality. In chapter 3, through a
content analysis of person-product love stories, we identify rewards of
love that are specific to relationships with products as opposed to
people. These efforts resulted in a set of 18 rewarding thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours people have when experiencing love towards a
product and that are partly different from interpersonal love. Through a
series of studies and statistical analyses, a 13-item person-product love
scale is then developed. The scale assesses the intensity and balance
(quality) of love at times in a love relationship. The findings support the
theoretical assumption that intimacy, passion and commitment are
structural elements of the experience of love for products, just as they
170
are of the experience of love for people. The newly developed research
tool – the person-product Love Scale – can be used to measure the
intensity in which the three components of love are being experienced
and their balance at moments of interaction. The intensity and balance
indicate the quality of the love experienced when people and products
interact.
In order to identify which aspects of interactions influence the
experience of love for products, we need to analyse the participants’
interaction stories. A pre-study in which we collected participants’ stories
of moments in time in which they interact with products indicates that it
is not easy for research participants to describe their interactions with
products. In addition, the stories they share are difficult to manage
systematically. Therefore, another research tool was developed in
chapter 4: the Experience Interaction Tool (EXITool). The EXITool consists
of a set of 12 action cards and a diary. The cards are designed to
inform participants how interactions with products can be described and
to help them remember interactions with their loved products. The diary
provides a structure for the participants’ stories – connecting
interactions to the experience of love – and collects sequenced stories
of interactions that happened over time in a relationship. The tool was
developed through a series of iterative studies. Methods such as content
analysis and card sorting were used to develop the set of action cards
and diary. The person-product love scale developed in chapter 3 was
incorporated into the EXITool in order to be able to conceptually link
ratings of love to each story of interaction reported in the diary. This
could provide insights into the connection between the experience of
love and person-product interactions over time
In chapter 5, two studies were carried out – one on love for shoes and
one on love for cars – to investigate the three questions posed in
chapter 2. The tools developed in chapters 3 and 4 were used in these
studies, incorporated into the EXITool. The EXITool was given to
research participants (for 5 weeks in the shoe study and for 2 weeks in
the car study) to collect their stories and ratings of love at moments in
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which they interacted with their loved shoes or cars during that space
of time.
A content analysis of the stories participants shared in the diary
revealed two evaluation processes that connect person-product
interactions to the experience of love. The first evaluation was a
momentary appraisal that leads to positive or negative affective
experiences (emotions). In the second evaluation participants assessed
how qualities of the product were changed (or perceived to be changed)
by the interaction and also how the product now fitted their standards
for love. The findings suggest that people have expectations (standards)
about qualities of products and how these qualities give them rewards
of love.
As we connected these findings in a second analysis to the
ratings of experienced love that participants had given at the same
interaction moments, it was found that depending on how the
interaction changes qualities of the product (or people’s perceptions of
those qualities), the quality of the experience of love changes. When
products or interactions are appraised positively, the experience of love
was more often intense and the components of love were in balance.
When products are appraised negatively, the experience of love can be
either rewarding and the components of love are balanced, or it can be
unrewarding and components of love are unbalanced. Whether one or
the other, change in the experience of love seemed to depend on
additional influencing factors such as, for example, the moment in time
in a relationship the interaction occur.
Therefore, a third analysis aimed to identify these additional
factors that seemed to influence changes in the experience of love. This
analysis looked into sequences of events over a period of time during
which participants interacted with their loved products. The phases of
interpersonal love described in chapter 2 were used as initial codes for
this content analysis. The same five developmental phases of person-
product love relationships (attraction, build-up, continuation,
deterioration, and ending) were also identified in our data and described
through a content analysis of all stories of interactions collected in both
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studies. The stories of events in each of these relationship phases were
analysed, revealing five factors that can influence one’s experience of
love throughout a love relationship and influence its development. These
are (1) one’s standards for love of a particular product; (2) the
importance a person attributes to different product qualities; (3a) how
an interaction influences qualities of the product; or (3b) how an
interaction changes how the person perceives qualities of the product;
(4) how the person evaluates those product qualities as fitting their
standards for love; and (5) how far people can or are willing to adjust
their assessments, by (a) adjusting the importance of product qualities
to their current standards for love or (b) anticipating on the value of
that quality to them in the future.
The findings of this research inform us not only about what it is to love
a product. They also present opportunities for design researchers and
product developers to foster rewarding experiences and long-lasting
person-product relationships. In chapter 6, we discuss the implications of
the thesis for design research and design strategies and present
opportunities for future studies. Opportunities lie, for example, in
investigating the link between the rewards of love and specific product
qualities; in designing products that can grant rewards associated to the
three components of love; and in designing tools that can improve
contemplation and generosity during the evaluation of products. Future
research could also look into other influences on the experience of love
for products than those found in this research, such as social influences
or the influence of different cultures.
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SAMENVATTING
De aanvankelijke motivatie om de liefde voor producten te bestuderen
kwam uit een eerder onderzoek (Russo, 2004 en proloog). Ik was
geïntrigeerd door het feit dat deelnemers aan een gebruiksonderzoek zo
emotioneel betrokken waren bij een aantal producten dat zij bezaten,
dat ze zeiden er van te houden. Deze betrokkenheid leek hun acceptatie
van het product te vergroten, de waargenomen bruikbaarheid in termen
van effectiviteit en efficiëntie te beïnvloeden en een grotere voldoening
te geven dan verwacht op basis van de geobserveerde bruikbaarheid van
die producten.
Liefde voor producten komt vaak terloops ter sprake. Ligt aan dit
fenomeen een diepere relatie ten grondslag tussen mensen en de
producten die zij bezitten en gebruiken? De ervaring van liefde is eerder
bestudeerd als onderdeel van andere verschijnselen op het gebied van
design, zoals in de context van de eerste aantrekkingskracht als reden
tot aankoop. Liefde in de context van langdurig bezit en gebruik is
echter nooit onderzocht. De centrale onderzoeksvragen in dit proefschrift
zijn: wat is de ervaring van de liefde voor producten? Hoe kunnen we
liefde op het gebied van design bestuderen? Hoe beïnvloeden mens-
product interacties de beleving van liefde over de tijd?
In hoofdstuk 1 is een inleidende studie uitgevoerd om na te gaan wat
wordt bedoeld als iemand zegt dat hij of zij van een product houdt.
Voor deze studie hebben we mensen uitgenodigd hun ervaringen over
liefde voor producten te delen in een open interview. Meer dan 50
verhalen over geliefde producten werden verzameld. Van de
beschrijvingen die de deelnemers gaven over hun liefde voor producten
kon worden afgeleid dat hun liefde een bevredigende, langdurige en
dynamische beleving is, die andere affectieve ervaringen insluit die
voortkomen uit een betekenisvolle relatie met een product dat mensen
bezitten en gebruiken. Liefdesrelaties blijken emotionele voldoening te
geven die bevorderlijk is voor het welzijn van mensen. Het leek erop dat
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als gevolg van deze voldoening mensen zich inspannen om geliefde
producten langer te behouden. Het bevorderen van dergelijke lange
termijn relaties zou dus welzijnsbevorderend kunnen werken en wellicht
zelfs bijdragen aan duurzaamheid. Met het onderzoek in dit proefschrift
willen we begrijpen hoe de ervaring van liefde voor een product zich
ontwikkeld om zo inzicht te krijgen in hoe design onderzoekers en
ontwerpers waardevolle en lange termijn mens-product relaties kunnen
bevorderen.
In hoofdstuk 2 hebben we bekeken hoe de ervaring van liefde kan
worden onderzocht. Kunnen bestaande methodes op het gebied van
design onderzoek worden gebruikt om liefde voor producten te
onderzoeken? Veelal bestuderen onderzoekers hoe de evaluatie van
producten tijdens interacties leidt tot emoties, waarmee een basis wordt
gelegd voor het ontwerpen van deze ervaringen. Echter, hoewel alle
ervaringen voortvloeien uit interacties, zeggen anderen dat liefde geen
enkelvoudige emotie is en niet past in deze taxatietheorie. Sociaal
psychologen die inter-persoonlijke liefde onderzoeken als een ervaring
die voortkomt uit relaties, beweren dat liefde gaat om een beslissing die
men neigt te maken. Deze onderzoekers ontwikkelden een aantal
theorieën en classificaties van de processen die zich voordoen in
liefdesrelaties. Hun theorieën zijn bruikbaar voor dit onderzoek omdat ze
inzicht geven in de interacties die de voortzetting van liefdesrelaties
bevorderen. Twee specifieke inter-persoonlijke theorieën werden
geselecteerd voor ons onderzoek vanwege hun relevantie voor
designonderzoek. De twee theorieën zijn Sternberg’s (1988)
‘driehoekstheorie van de liefde’ en Levinger’s (2002) ‘theorie van hechte
relatie ontwikkeling en verandering’. In een tweede analyse van de data
van de eerste studie gingen we na of de twee theorieën ook van
toepassing zijn op de liefde voor producten en hoe die liefde verloopt
en zich ontwikkelt over de tijd. We concludeerden dat beide theorieën
de ervaring van liefde, zoals beschreven in de verhalen van de
deelnemers uit onze studie, goed konden beschrijven.
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In overeenstemming met Sternberg’s (1988) driehoekstheorie van de
liefde, suggereren onze bevindingen dat liefde ervaren wordt door een
aantal beloningen die men kan vinden in een relatie. Deze beloningen
kunnen bestaan uit drie onderdelen: intimiteit, passie en toewijding. De
kwaliteit van de ervaring van liefde hangt af van twee dingen: de
intensiteit waarmee deze onderdelen worden ervaren en de balans
tussen de onderdelen. Iedere combinatie van intensiteit en balans
resulteert in een ander type liefde. Daarnaast, en in overeenstemming
met Levinger’s (2002) theorie, zagen we in de verhalen van de
deelnemers dat hun liefde in de tijd verandert en wordt beïnvloed door
momenten van interactie. Het conceptueel verbinden van deze twee
inter-persoonlijke theorieën gaf ons een basis om te onderzoeken hoe
interacties en de ervaring van liefde met elkaar verbonden zijn in mens-
product relaties en hoe dit verband de verandering in de ervaring van
liefde beïnvloed. Het toevoegen van een tijdsperspectief aan de ervaring
van liefde stelt ons in staat te beschrijven welke aspecten de
verandering in de ervaring van liefde veroorzaken.
Om de kwaliteit van de ervaring van liefde voor producten te bepalen
op specifieke momenten van interactie met een product, moeten we
deze kwaliteit kunnen meten. In hoofdstuk 3 identificeren we beloningen
van liefde die specifiek zijn voor relaties met producten op basis van
een analyse van de inhoud van mens-product relatie verhalen. Dit heeft
geleid tot een set van 18 items waarin gevoelens en handelswijzen
worden beschreven die mensen hebben wanneer ze liefde voor een
product beleven, en die deels verschillen van inter-persoonlijke liefde. Op
basis van een serie studies en statistische analyses is vervolgens een
schaal voor mens-product liefde ontwikkeld. Hiermee kan men de
intensiteit en balans (kwaliteit) van liefde beoordelen op momenten in
een liefdesrelatie. De schaal is gebaseerd op de theoretische
veronderstelling dat intimiteit, passie en toewijding structurele elementen
zijn in de ervaring van liefde voor producten, net zoals ze dat zijn in de
ervaring van liefde tussen mensen. De mens-product liefde schaal kan
worden gebruikt om de intensiteit te meten waarin ieder van de drie
componenten van liefde wordt ervaren en hun onderlinge balans op een
176
bepaald moment. De intensiteit en balans geven zo de kwaliteit van de
ervaren liefde weer.
Om te identificeren welke aspecten van interacties de ervaring van liefde
voor producten beïnvloeden, werden de verhalen van de deelnemers aan
het onderzoek geanalyseerd. Een voorstudie van dergelijke verhalen gaf
aan dat mensen vaak niet weten hoe ze hun interacties met producten
moeten omschrijven. Bovendien zijn de verhalen die mensen delen
moeilijk systematisch te structureren. Hiervoor is een tweede research
tool ontwikkeld in hoofdstuk 4: de ervaring interactie tool (EXITool). De
EXITool bestaat uit een set van 12 actiekaarten en een dagboek. De
kaarten zijn ontworpen om de deelnemers te laten zien hoe interacties
met producten beschreven kunnen worden, en te helpen de interacties
met hun geliefde producten te onthouden. Het dagboek geeft een
structuur voor de verhalen van de deelnemers (door interacties te
verbinden met de ervaring van liefde) en verzamelt verhalen van
interacties in een relatie. De tool werd ontwikkeld in een serie van
iteratieve studies. Methoden zoals inhoudanalyse en kaartsortering
werden gebruikt om de actiekaarten en het dagboek te ontwikkelen. De
mens-product liefde schaal zoals ontwikkeld in hoofdstuk 3 werd
toegevoegd aan de EXITool om de beoordeling van liefde conceptueel te
verbinden aan elke beschrijving van een interactie uit het dagboek. Dit
kan inzicht geven in het verband tussen de ervaring van liefde en mens-
product interacties over de tijd.
In hoofdstuk 5 zijn twee studies uitgevoerd, een over liefde voor
schoenen en een over liefde voor auto’s, om de drie hoofdvragen te
onderzoeken die gesteld zijn in hoofdstuk 2. Beide tools ontwikkelt in
hoofdstuk 3 en 4 zijn gebruikt in deze studies. De EXITool werd aan de
deelnemers van het onderzoek gegeven (over een periode van vijf weken
in de schoenen studie, en twee weken in de auto studie) om hun
verhalen en beoordelingen van liefde te verzamelen op momenten van
interactie met hun geliefde schoenen of auto’s in die periode.
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Een inhoudelijke analyse van de verhalen van de deelnemers in het
dagboek brachten twee evaluatie processen aan het licht die mens-
product interacties verbinden met de ervaring van liefde. De eerste
evaluatie was een kortstondige inschatting die tot positieve of negatieve
affectieve ervaringen (emoties) leidt. In de tweede evaluatie beoordeelden
deelnemers hoe de kwaliteiten van het product veranderden (of gedacht
werden te veranderen) door de interactie, en hoe het product nu aan
hun normen voor liefde voldoet. Deze bevindingen suggereren dat
mensen verwachtingen hebben over kwaliteiten van producten en hoe
deze kwaliteiten hen beloning van liefde geven. Terwijl we deze
bevindingen in een tweede analyse koppelden aan de beoordeling van
liefde die deelnemers ervaren tijdens dezelfde interactie momenten,
bleek dat afhankelijk van hoe de interactie de kwaliteiten van het
product veranderen (of de waarneming van de kwaliteiten) de kwaliteit
van de ervaring van liefde ook veranderd. Wanneer producten of
interacties als positief worden beoordeeld, dan was de ervaring van
liefde vaker intens en de onderdelen van liefde in balans. Wanneer
producten als negatief worden beoordeeld, kan de ervaring van liefde
ofwel belonend zijn en de onderdelen van liefde in balans, ofwel niet
belonend zijn en de onderdelen van liefde niet in balans. Verandering in
de ervaring van liefde leek af te hangen van andere factoren zoals het
moment in een relatie wanneer de interactie plaatsvond.
Om deze reden is een derde analyse uigevoerd naar de bijkomende
factoren die de verandering in de ervaring van de liefde leken te
beïnvloeden. In deze analyse is gekeken naar opeenvolgende
gebeurtenissen in een tijdsperiode waarin deelnemers omgingen met hun
geliefde producten. De stadia van inter-persoonlijke liefde omschreven in
hoofdstuk 2 zijn gebruikt als aanvangscodes voor deze inhoudsanalyse.
Dezelfde vijf ontwikkelingsstadia van mens-product liefdesrelaties
(aantrekkingskracht, opbouw, voortzetting, achteruitgang en beëindiging)
werden ook geïdentificeerd in onze data en beschreven door een
inhoudsanalyse van alle verhalen van interacties verzameld in beide
studies. De verhalen van de gebeurtenissen in elk van deze fasen in een
relatie werden geanalyseerd, waarbij vijf factoren naar voren kwamen die
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de ervaring van liefde gedurende een liefdesrelatie en de ontwikkeling
ervan kan beïnvloeden. Deze zijn (1) iemands normen voor liefde voor
een bepaald product; (2) het belang dat een persoon hecht aan
verschillende producteigenschappen; (3a) hoe een interactie kwaliteiten
van het product beïnvloedt, of (3b) hoe een interactie de kwaliteiten die
de persoon waarneemt verandert; (4) hoe een persoon de product
kwaliteiten beoordeelt zodat deze passen in zijn/haar normen van liefde;
en (5) hoe ver mensen hun beoordeling kunnen aanpassen of bereid zijn
om hun beoordeling aan te passen, door (a) het aanpassen van het
belang van product kwaliteiten aan hun normen van liefde of (b) het
anticiperen op het belang van die kwaliteit om het aan te passen aan
hun normen.
De bevindingen van dit onderzoek geven niet alleen weer wat het is om
een product lief te hebben, maar bieden ook kansen voor design
onderzoekers en product ontwikkelaars om waardevolle ervaringen en
langdurige mens-product relaties te bevorderen. In hoofdstuk 6
bespreken we de implicaties van het proefschrift voor designonderzoek
en ontwerpstrategieën, en stellen mogelijkheden voor toekomstige studies
voor. Mogelijkheden liggen bijvoorbeeld in het onderzoeken van de
schakel tussen de beloningen van liefde en specifieke productkwaliteiten,
in het ontwerpen van producten die beloningen kunnen toekennen
geassocieerd aan de drie onderdelen van liefde, en in het ontwerpen
van tools die reflectie en vrijgevigheid kunnen verbeteren tijdens de
evaluatie van producten. Toekomstig onderzoek zou ook kunnen kijken
naar andere invloeden op de ervaring van liefde voor producten dan die
in dit onderzoek, zoals sociale invloeden of de invloeden van
verschillende culturen.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus
(“for each is to the other a theatre large enough” Epicurus, 341 BCE – 270
BCE)
Every person I have in my life – even if for a short period of time – has
the power to show me two things: who they are and who I am not. By
showing me who they are – even in the simplest ways – you inspire me
to see things through other perspectives, search for new experiences,
and integrate things in my life that help me be a better and happier
person. By showing who I am not, you provide me with opportunities to
learn more about myself.
A group of very dear and special people – my family and old
time friends – have been accompanying me for long. In the past 5
years, as I have changed surroundings, a whole new group of people
have entered my life: friends, colleagues, housemates, acquaintances,
neighbours… Some have definitely come to stay. Others dropped by or
accompanied me for shorter or longer periods of time. All I have met
have affected me for good and I’m very thankful for that. Without your
presence, wisdom, support, gestures and (most importantly) – LOVE – I
would not be who I am. Thank you!
Still, I would like to give special thanks to people who directly
contributed to this work. To all the people who participated in this
research, friends, and colleagues who shared their personal (and many
times intimate) experiences with me. To the members of the DA section,
StudioLabbers
, and my students for your direct input in this work and
inspiration. Most importantly, I would like to thank my dear promotors
Paul and Stella for their guidance, efforts, and dedication: You’ve made
this journey possible! Thank you!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beatriz Russo was born on the 19
th
of November 1979 in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. She began her studies – product design – in 1998 at the
Industrial Design Department of the
Centro Universitario da Cidade
(UniverCidade). As she completed her bachelor degree in 2002, she
began a specialization in the field of Human Factors at the Pontifical
Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). In 2003 she was
accepted as a student in a master research program in the same
institution – at the Department of Arts & Design – with a project that
investigated the impact of people’s affection for products in their
usability. During her masters she was awarded with a grant for academic
excellence (CAPES, Brazil) and worked as an assistant researcher at the
Laboratory of Ergonomics & Usability of Interfaces (LEUI). Besides
lecturing and supervising students’ projects in post graduation courses in
a number of academic institutions, she organized two yearly conferences
(ErgoDesign & USIHC).
In 2005 her research project was accepted by the National
Council of Research and Scientific Development (CNPq – Brazil) and she
received a grant to pursue her PhD abroad. In October 2005 she began
her doctoral research at the Industrial Design Department at TU Delft on
the subject of the experience of love for products. During her PhD, she
tutored/supervised design bachelor students in practice-based courses
such as Design & Experience and Bachelor Eindproject as well as master
students in their research graduation projects. She also presented her
research on the experience of love for products at conferences, in
journal papers, book chapters, and gave lectures and workshops on the
subject both in industry and academia. She was nominated for best
paper award at the 6
th
Design & Emotion Conference (Hong Kong, 2008)
and best presentation at the PhD Day (Delft, 2008).
