Love Lab Theoretical Foundations

Love Lab members begin with Dr. Tom Oord’s definition of (compassionate) love, which is congruent with other psychological definitions of compassion: 

“To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote well-being.”

Two theoretical frameworks of compassionate love have been influential in the development of Love Lab projects. 

First, a systematic review of the compassionate love literature (Strauss et al., 2016), found that compassionate love is comprised of five elements (construct labels in italics have been added by me): 

• • 1) recognizing the existence of suffering (mindful awareness), 

  • 2) understanding the universality of human suffering (common humanity), 

  • 3) feeling for a suffering person (empathic concern and perspective-taking), 

  • 4) tolerating uncomfortable feelings (distress tolerance), and 

  • 5) motivation to act in order to alleviate suffering (kind intention and action). 

Second, Elizabeth Pommier (2011), in collaboration with Kristen Neff at UT Austin (Pommier, Neff, & Tóth-Király, 2020), developed a model of compassionate love that conceptualizes love as having three domains, which were originally measured with three positively valenced and three negatively valenced subscales: 

• • 1) perception of common humanity with others, 

  • 2) mindfulness of the other’s experience (especially of suffering), and 

  • 3) kind action in order to alleviate suffering. 

Love Lab Procedures

The following Love Lab procedures reflect the typical activities of the group. 

Team Meetings

• • Love Lab typically meets once a week throughout the traditional academic year, for approximately one hour per week. The activities completed by the group in each team meeting depend upon the current status of the research projects. Research projects are determined and planned by the entire group but may result from the leadership of the lab director and/or particular lab members.

Weekly Contributions

• • As both a research group and an undergraduate course, Love Lab (Collaborative Research) is designed to cultivate knowledge and skills, through a series of readings, discussions, semi-structured  assignments, and shared activities. Students work toward shared lab goals during lab meetings and on their own or in small groups between sessions. Students recieve course credit for their participation and have opportunities to build their academic resume (curriculum vitae, or CV), and present their research at conferences (e.g., MVNU's Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creative Work, Ohio Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference,  Ohio Psychological Association conference, Midwestern Psychological Association conference). The particular tasks assigned to group members vary and depend on group need, personal interest, and the stages of current projects.

Course Information

• • The Collaborative Research course offers students exposure to the process of collaborative research, as it is often conducted in an academic psychological research group or research laboratory. Students will engage in research projects from their start (reading literature, building methods, gathering data) through their finish (analyzing data, presenting the results). Data gathered from human participants supports learning about the factors that contribute to the development of compassionate love, the psychological barriers to extending compassionate love, and the impact of receiving/offering compassionate love on personal and relational well-being. 

  • During the fall semester, an emphasis is placed on the skills associated with the first half of the research process: reading literature, building methods, and gathering data. During the spring semester, emphasis is placed on developing the skills associated with the second half of the research process: analyzing data, interpreting findings in light of the prior literature, and presenting the results.

  • This course/research group is designed to train students in the skills of collaborative psychological research and is geared toward students who desire graduate-level training in psychology or related scientific fields. This course also prepares students for a variety of vocational roles that involve critical thinking and problem-solving, information literacy and stewardship, data collection, interpretation of data, assessment, program evaluation, presentation skills, leadership,  and/or multi-step collaborative projects.

  • Students may enroll in this course over multiple semesters. Prerequisites: None (Please seek approval from the instructor if you have not taken PSY 1013: General Psychology at MVNU).

  • Students can enroll in the Collaborative Research course at any point before MVNU's deadline to add new courses, which typically occurs within one week after the start of each semester. Students can audit the course if desired; a standard audit fee applies.

  • Students who have participated in Love Lab previously are regarded as leaders and peer mentors for newer lab members throughout the various stages of lab projects.

  • A course syllabus outlines the learning objectives, lab schedule, and specific research activities each semester. 

  • This website, the Moodle course site, and the Love Lab Team Drive are the primary sources of information and materials for lab members. Lab members will be given access to these when they enroll in the course.

Ethical Considerations

• All Love Lab team members should follow the American Psychological Association's (APA) guidelines pertaining to the participation of human subjects in psychological research. This includes, but is not limited to, using only research materials that have been approved by the MVNU Institutional Review Board (IRB) committee, securing informed and free consent from all study participants, and keeping participants' identities and data strictly confidential. In addition, team members agree to have all research materials and procedures approved by the faculty advisor/lab director prior to implementation. Finally, team members agree to follow APA guidelines in properly communicating the results of research and citing the work of others. Academic integrity is an essential part of the research process. Plagiarism or the deliberate misrepresentation of any information or data is unacceptable.

Conference Presentations

• • Students who contribute significantly to the development and implementation of Love Lab projects will have opportunities to present the results of the research projects at professional conferences. Authorship of conference presentations is determined by the level of contributions made by each of the student researchers, and it is a good idea to discuss each contributor’s desired level of authorship early in the process of designing the study, analyzing/interpreting the data, and preparing the conference proposal. Typically, students who are team leaders and who have more experience with Love Lab projects are primary authors on conference presentations. Co-authors on Love Lab presentations may meet outside of the regular team meeting, as needed, in order to consult with the lab director on data analysis, interpretation, and presentation. 

  • Love Lab-themed templates can be found for constructing papers, posters, and oral presentation slides in the “General Research Project Materials” subfolder within the Love Lab Team Drive.