Abstract

NINA ESTRELLA, Ruth. Meaning of the Love in the Puerto Rican Adolescence. Acta de investigación psicol [online]. 2011, vol.1, n.3, pp.473-485. ISSN 2007-4719.

Few studies have touched on the theme of romantic relationships in the adolescent stage. Love in adolescence is particularly a topic of which there are no known works. It is for this reason that this study was conducted, as well as our eagerness to understand the meaning of love and its proprietary characteristics according to each stage of adolescence. Participants consisted of thirty-two (32) secondary school students, whose responses were subjected to the semantic networks technique proposed by Valdez (1998). The word love was chosen as the stimulus. Results indicate that respect is the word closest to love, and there were significant differences in gender. Future studies are proposed that may analyze love in the diverse stages that romantic relationships develop, among other topics.

Keywords : Adolescence; Love; Semantic networks.