Destroying Pop Psychology Is My Love Language

I remember when the book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus was published. It was shortly after I graduated college. The timing was perfect because I took a class in my senior year about female-centered religion. I learned about the cosmic imagery and worship of feminine energies present in pre-Christian religions. Men were associated with the sun, and women were associated with the moon. It helped me think of spirituality in a holistic way. We are all connected to the planet and with its cyclical seasons. That connection was all part of the cosmos itself. The title of John Gray's book made me believe the content was related to that concept. I was single and not happy about it. I hoped the book could help me bring those balanced cosmic energies to future relationships.

After reading the book I wanted to sue John Gray to get back the hours of my life I spent reading such crap. The book was not some deep exploration of male and female cosmic energies. The more I read, the more I realized it was sexism dressed up with psychobabble. Gray's theory is that we mentally and emotionally occupy different planets and those planets represent a rigid set of feminine and masculine behaviors. My takeaway from the book was, "This is how men are and this is how women have to treat them. Men, all your woman wants is a hug and sympathy. Women, leave your man alone in his cave unless you want his advice."

The more popular this book became, the more readers woke up to the message. I felt validated when another writer called it, "A pop psychology confirmation of the double standard." Critics began looking into his credentials. It turns out they were questionable. 

My favorite example of the book's failure hits a little closer to home. A friend of mine excitedly told me about how his long-time girlfriend read the book and how it all made sense to her. He couldn't stop recommending the book as a cure for relationship issues. Then his girlfriend left him and married someone else. 

John Gray was eventually disgraced.  I like to think men and women decided it's better to look at relationship issues as earthlings. Unfortunately other writers will come along and give some sort of catchy, pseudo-intellectual excuse for patriarchy.

Gray's rhetoric might have died, but there are other pop psychology theories that seem to be immortal. For example, have you ever taken a Myers Briggs test? Do you know your MBTI type? Can you define yourself by a set of letters?

A friend of mine introduced me to MBTI in college. She rigidly defined herself as an introvert and thus seemed to love how MBTI uses introversion and extroversion as a major personality trait. She had a copy of the full test and my friends and I had some fun taking it to see what our archetypes were.

Well, maybe "fun" isn't the word. I found the test overwhelming. I felt many of the questions were vague and difficult to answer. I was supposed to answer using my first instinct. That is not an easy task for an overthinker like me (ironically the test says I am "feeling" rather than "thinking"). I came out as an ESFJ. I know the E stands for extrovert, and that isn't a surprise. I'm still not clear what the rest of it is. I have taken versions of the test multiple times and usually I am an ESFJ, but sometimes I will be too unsure of an answer and decide not to give the same answer I gave the last time and I am labeled with a different archetype. Which one suits me better? Which one am I really?

One thing I noticed when I read the description of my ESFJ (or whatever score I had that day), was the description of my personality reminded me of a horoscope. One could take away the the term "ESFJ" and substitute "Cancer" and I think it would still apply. The description of my MBTI type could apply to me, but I wondered if it would apply to anyone who wanted that to apply to them. In other words, was agreeing the MBTI assessment was accurate simply an example of The Barnum Effect?

Years later I would learn the truth about Myers-Briggs. Its creators were not psychologists. Katherine Briggs developed the test using personality attributes she grouped together using biographies of famous people. She and her daughter Isabel Myers did not do anything to test or verify their work. The results are often not repeatable (as I proved to myself when I would receive a score other than ESFJ because of that answer I thought applied on a given day). It's pseudoscience at its best. 

Despite the lack of evidence that MBTI tells us anything important about one's personality, talents, emotional state, or work ethic, these test are often used to evaluate job applicants or potential romantic partners. My friend who introduced me to MBTI is now a therapist and has used it in her practice.

Now the latest bit of useless pop psychology has ingrained itself in our culture and it won't go away. While it has also become something of a joke, many people take it seriously. I'm talking about Love Languages.

When I first heard about Love Languages and the book this concept came from (The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts ), I didn't think it sounded like a bad idea. All humans have different communication styles and different ways of expressing their feelings for each other. I suppose two people in a relationship could run into conflict if they way they express affection or talk to their partners aren't the same. If someone values physical affection but feels her partner is all talk and no action, it can be frustrating. If someone values being smart and helpful, but his partner wants to go have a romantic dinner or cuddle on the couch with Netflix, he could feel unappreciated. It almost seems obvious to me that different personalities, behaviors, and expectations could cause two people in a relationship to have some conflict. I know Kevin and I sometimes butt heads about what we want and expect from each other. That's part of marriage. We deal with it (and I think we deal with it pretty well).

Out of curiosity, I wondered what my love language is. I am an affectionate person, but is it my entire way of expressing myself? I love going out and doing stuff with Kevin. It seems "quality time" would be a valid language for me. What would Kevin's language be? Is he more quality time or "acts of service" as he's the helpful type.

I took a quiz online. According to the rules of the book, my love language is "gifts". I admit I have always been someone who loves receiving gifts, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all of my relationship. Gifts are not something I think of every day. One love language expert said it's natural to not want gifts as your love language because it can make you feel selfish. Supposedly the “gifts” love language isn't always about physical gifts but about intangible qualities like attention and reciprocity. But if you aren't talking about physical gifts, what differentiates that love language from acts of service or quality time? 

That's when I started to question this whole Love Language theory. Can the entirely of human emotion, communication, and behavior be pigeonholed into five different expressions? Why did the author of this book decide these were the ways we express love? What were his methods of devising these languages? Is there any empirical data showing that couples who understand their love languages have stronger relationships? 

I did some digging. How valid is this theory of Love Languages? Who developed it? Is this a method used in marriage counseling?

It didn't take much digging to find out the truth about Love Languages. There is no empirical data about them at all. Gary Chapman, the author of The Five Love Languages is an evangelical pastor and radio talk show host. His PhD is in education and not psychology. 

The book is problematic to anyone who doesn't believe in religious patriarchy. Like Mars/Venus, Chapman's book skews heavily toward the needs of men. It assumes a traditional household division of gender roles where the woman is the keeper of the home, and it is the right of the man to have his sexual needs met. It seems one can sum up the book by saying if a man performs an act of service such as doing laundry or washing the dishes (this is an "act of service" rather than simply contributing to the household in which he lives), a woman should make sure to provide "words of affirmation" (don't forget to thank him for doing "your" job, ladies) and "physical touch" (in other words, if he did something nice for you, put out whether you are in the mood or not). 

At this point a reader may protest that I shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We can pull some wisdom from the book, can't we? Improving communication and understanding your partner's needs are a key for a successful relationship. Your partner may express himself or herself differently from what you expect in a romantic relationship. Maybe this book will help us see our partners still loves us even though we have different expectations of what love looks like. Besides, we can define our own love languages. For example, how many of us cooking enthusiasts have  jokingly said our love language is food because we love to eat and cook for people? We all have unique ways to express ourselves, don't we? Shouldn't we learn to appreciate our partners' unique loving behaviors?

My take on it is if one's expectations differ that greatly from what a partner expresses, maybe these two people shouldn't be in a long-term relationship. Nobody should jump into a marriage, or other similar commitments, without understanding how one's partner will communicate or show affection. This is something we should all base our relationships on. We should know these things about our partners before we start to occupy the same living space. 

If two people haven't done their homework and learned to manage expectations before settling down, then they should see a professional counselor. Couples are not going to solve their relationship issues by reading a book that pigeonholes their behaviors into five vague categories. They need help communicating openly and honestly. Saying, "My love language is physical touch and your love language is gifts, so I will buy you flowers every week and you will give me more nooky," is not going to fix a marriage full of unmet emotional needs.

Gary Chapman writes from the perspective of an evangelical Christian and that's what makes this book useless for anyone else. Evangelicals live their faith in in a different way from other religions, or even other Christians. They marry young and marry quickly. Family and friends within the church circle will put pressure on a young couple to marry before they give in to unholy desires. They don't date for long periods of time so they have less time to learn about each other. They will be expected to have children immediately, which is going to focus the marriage away from the couple and on to the children. Evangelical marriages have a patriarchal structure where the man is seen as head of the household and the woman is submissive to him. They also take a strict view of gender norms. All of this is reflected in Chapman's writings. What if someone who doesn't understand Chapman's background and reads this book comes to believe this kind of sexism is part of love languages?  A reader could read the book and come away with the message that learning love languages will save your marriage, but gender inequality is embedded into love languages. I would hate to think there are couples out there who will read this book and believe the key to saving a marriage is adopting patriarchal gender roles.

(If you want to see an excellent debunking of love languages, click here.)

There is no magic formula for a successful marriage, but if I were going to give anyone advice, I would say couples should spend a significant amount of time getting to know each other before making a long-term commitment. Date a while. Spend time in each other's presence as much as possible. (I'm not even saying you have to live together if that's not your jam. Kevin and I didn't live together for long before we were married. We spent every weekend together, took vacations together, and talked every day. There were no horrible surprises once we married.) Make sure you always communicate your needs and your priorities. Understand each other's personality quirks. Don't assume you're compatible because your partner looks good on paper. 

If you are having issues in your relationship, get some professional help. Find someone qualified to help you communicate better.

Don't assume your relationship isn't working because you are an ENTJ and your partner is an ISFP.

Don't assume your relationship isn't working because one of you is from Mars and one of you is from Venus.

Don't assume your relationship isn't working because you don't understand each other's rigidly defined love languages.

If you look to pop psychology to solve your problems, you might as well assume your you have relationship problems because you are a Capricorn and your Partner is a Sagittarius.

In a nutshell….