Development of romantic fantasy

Excerpts from the following.

• Brehm, S. S. (1988). Passionate Love. In R. J. Sternberg & M. L. Barnes (Eds.), The Psychology of Love (pp. 232–263). Yale University Press.
• Singer, J. L. (1980). Romantic Fantasy in Personality Development. In K. S. Pope and Associates. On Love and Loving (pp. 172–194). Jossey-Bass Publishers.
• Friedlander, S. & Morrison, D. C. (1980). Childhood. In K. S. Pope and Associates. On Love and Loving (pp. 27–43). Jossey-Bass Publishers.

The Psychology of Love is a classic book with many useful chapters (by J. A. Lee, Hatfield, Shaver & Hazan, Peele, and others).

On Love and Loving is available to view on archive.org, with account creation. I obtained a copy of this book some time ago after finding Sternberg refers to it in his discussion of intermittent reinforcement [comparing Tennov and the chapter by Livingston], but it has other useful writings. One funny thing is that the authors in this book don't entirely agree on what "romantic love" means.

"Passionate Love" is Sharon Brehm's (1988) book chapter on limerence (she refers to Tennov), but she calls it "passionate love", and the chapter is mainly an overview of Stendhal's theory. Brehm was a president of the APA, later in life.

In light of what Stendhal and Teresa [of Ávila] have to tell us, I would propose that the core of passionate love lies in the capacity to construct in one's imagination an elaborated vision of a future state of perfect happiness. ... The capacity to imagine perfection varies widely. Some individuals have more of it than others; some cultures promote it more than others; and some historical periods may foster it more than others. (p. 253)

The takeover of emotion from other emotion-producing events permits the power of the image of the beloved to expand. Life becomes simplified, both cognitively and emotionally. Happiness is coming closer to the beloved; unhappiness is falling away from the beloved. As the process continues, one begins to evaluate almost everything that happens in terms of this central schema; one's entire world comes to rest on the fulcrum of the beloved. (p. 255)

...I have to wonder what passionate romantic love would feel like if there were a cultural tradition encouraging us to work with it rather than be assailed by it. (p. 259)

Jerome Singer's (1980) chapter contains one developmental idea of romantic fantasy. Singer conjures an idea similar to Brehm, that fantasy reduces complexity.

It is increasingly clear that the origins of imaginativeness and the stream of consciousness can be traced to the ongoing make-believe play of children (Singer, 1973; Singer and Singer, 1976). Piaget (1962) early called attention to the two major processes of accommodation and assimilation through which the child processes information in its earliest years until eventually it moves toward organized and logical thought. Accommodation involves attempts at an imitation of adult movements and gestures, and assimilation links such imitative efforts to the small number of already well-established memory schema available to the child. This effort at assimilation of new material into a relatively limited repertory of memories accounts sometimes for what we consider the quaintness of cuteness of children's play behavior. A four-year-old is seen playing on a kitchen floor, lining up toy soldiers in row after row, ready apparently for combat. Upon inquiry from his mother he replies: "I'm getting all my soldiers ready to rescue Daddy. I hear you talking on the telephone and saying that Daddy was all tied up at work." (p. 180)

The child who has created a brief miniature world, reducing the external environment from its complexity and confusion to a manageable size and then manipulating this small world in exaggerated fashion under one's own control, evokes the continuing affect of interest, surprise, and joy. The child engaged in make-believe play is already an active romanticist. (p. 181)

Despite the fears of many that exposure to stories and fantasy may lead children away from reality, there seems little evidence from research that this is the case. Instead, accounts of the lives of famous scientists and humanists and artists (Cobb, 1977) indicates a frequent experience of imaginative play and storytelling in the individual's early history. As I have suggested, the manipulation of complex and difficult-to-grasp objects as kings and queens, airplanes, rocket ships, or strange goblins provides the child with some capacity for feeling at least temporary control and gradual assimilation of the material into a set of stored memories and and new schema. (p. 182)

"Childhood" is a longer developmental theory of "romantic love", which Friedlander & Morrison (1980) specify as follows:

A precise and satisfactory definition of romantic love has eluded even those social scientists who have recently risen to the challenge of its scientific study. However, the phenomenon may be identified in one of its manifestations as an affectively charged subjective experience characterized by an intense longing for and preoccupation with another person. In the presence of this person the individual experiences powerful affect and physiological arousal; the individual aspires to be the exclusive recipient of the loved one's attention, interest, and approval, is painfully sensitive to indications of rejection, and is thus susceptible to feelings of jealousy when this aspiration goes unrealized. (p. 27)

Consideration of this description, as well as a review of varying theoretical discussions of romantic love (for example, Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Capellanus [13th c.] 1969; Koenigsberg, 1967; Reik [1941] 1957; Rubin, 1974; Walster & Walster, 1978), reveal that at the core of this experience is an internal need state that is frustrated in its efforts to gain satisfaction. The implicated need states tend to be variations on the theme of narcissistic injury or threat to self-esteem and include the wish to rediscover the total love of infancy, to master the trauma of losing the original love object, to achieve perfection, to relieve anxiety, or to make sense of otherwise confusing and incomprehensible affective arousal. Hence, both a need state and its frustration are central to the romantic love experience, and both, in concert, set the stage for the third and perhaps most definitive component of the romantic love experience—idealization of the object. It is the idealization of the object that invests it with the qualities and characteristics that establish its desirability to the individual. And finally, it is this investiture and idealization, in league with frustrated need state, that establishes the fourth and final component of the romantic love experience—the fantasy that possession of the object will satisfy the myriad of frustrated needs and thereby result in a blissful conflict-free existence.

This conceptualization of romantic love accords the process of idealization an essential and definitive role in the romantic love experience. While recognizing that this is not the only factor that is operative in the occurrence of this phenomenon, we have chosen to focus our discussion on the role of idealization and fantasy. Our decision emerges from the belief that idealization and fantasy are the sine qua non of the romantic love experience, and that they have particular relevance to childhood in general. (pp. 27–28)

Although not exclusively, it is to a significant extent by virtue of the occurrence of idealization that romantic love can be distinguished from similar forms of interpersonal attraction phenomena, including, for example, liking (Berscheid and Walster, 1974; Rubin, 1974), companionate love (Walster and Walster, 1978), or attachment (Bowlby, 1969; Harlow, 1958).

... As already described, a frustrated need state, most often a threat to or actual loss of self-esteem, is an integral part of the romantic love experience and provides the impetus for idealization of the romantic object. The recognition of one's own imperfection and incompleteness is at the root of the idealized perception of the romantic object as self-sufficient, all-powerful, and omniscient—in a word, perfect. The object of romantic love is viewed as possessing all those characteristics that the individual lacks and which, if possessed, would restore the valued experience of self as complete and perfect. Thus the motive to possess the romantic object is related to the wish to achieve perfection and completeness (see Reik [1941] 1957).

In order to permit the attribution of such idealized characteristics to the romantic love object, the individual selected to serve this function is often one who is not readily available or knowable. ... Myths and classical literature—Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet—contain this theme of unattainability, and empirical study tends to support this notion (Driscoll, Davis, and Lipetz, 1972). (p. 28–29)

[nb. Driscoll was a study on whether parental interference intensifies romantic love, i.e. the Romeo and Juliet effect, rather than showing romantic love objects tend to be unattainable.]

Consideration of our everyday vocabulary confirms the existence of romantic love in childhood. Puppy love, infatuation, and the ever-present crush immediately call forth images of childhood, and, not surprisingly, each is thus often preceded by the modifier "childish." In fact, it can be argued that romantic love, by definition, is childish and the special province of childhood. (pp. 29–30)

In other words, by "romantic love", these authors refer to limerence.

These are the type of authors which Tennov (Love and Limerence, e.g. ch. 5) spends a lot of time criticizing. In any case.

Romantic ideation is evidenced in the child who is preoccupied with images and wish-fulfilling fantasies characterized by an anticipated relationship with the chosen object in which frustrated needs are satisfied and anxiety reduced. ... The content of the fantasy often serves a major adaptive function, enabling the child to cope with the many stresses of childhood, including and especially separation from his or her parents at a time when discovery of self is associated with low self-esteem. The romantic fantasy provides a compensatory image of the self when the child has a contrasting image of self that is unintegrated and associated with anxiety. (p. 36)

These authors spend a lot of time talking as if childhood fantasy is related to a child's egocentrism, narcissism, or Oedipal concerns, unlike Jerome Singer. Note that Singer seems to have some actual evidence which he appeals to.

Friedlander & Morrison also have a version of the imaginary friend theory of limerence.

The imaginary playmate represents one manifestation of the romantic ideation typical of childhood and, as such, it bears a fundamental similarity to the romantic love experience. Both are motivated by a frustrated need state and represent the child's effort, in the absence of the skills and capabilities necessary to obtain gratification in the real world, to satisfy that need and restore a sense of well-being, mastery, and self-esteem. Similarly, fantasy and idealization play a primary role in both phenomena. Finally, in each of these instances of romantic ideation, it can be seen that the requirements for idealization, the essence of romantic love, are permitted and facilitated by the cognitive phenomena characteristic of childhood. (p. 39)

It has been suggested that romantic love is the precursor of that love which is characterized by caring and concern for the beloved (see Walster and Walster, 1978). We have suggested that romantic ideation and love precede the development of the child's capacities to secure gratification in the real world. It may thus be the case that romantic love and ideation represent the beginning efforts of the individual to manage unfamiliar and anxiety-producing developmental challenges, the successful negotiation of which requires skills and abilities that are as yet undeveloped or absent. To the extent that such fantasy activity substitutes for the development of those capacities necessary for substantial gratification in the real world, the process may have adverse consequences and signal immaturity. However, to the degree that it serves as a transition to and aid in the development of the requisite abilities, as it optimally does in the child, romantic ideation and love may contribute to and facilitate the developmental process. From this perspective, romantic love is childish only in the sense that it, like most everything else, makes its first appearance in childhood. (pp. 41–42)

Also see "Unmet needs theory and readiness".