Systematic review and meta-analysis of Erotic and Friendship-based Love

This systematic review aimed to find attitudes toward Erotic and Friendship-based love within Eastern cultures in comparison to Western cultures and appraise differences between individual Eastern countries vs. Western countries regarding these two styles of love. Likewise, addressing major moderators concerning Erotic and Friendship-based love are the secondary objectives of this review. The analysis included 89 articles compromising 25 countries (N = 37786), directly comparing Eastern and Western countries (as classified per U.N. conventions) in their attitudes toward love styles. The findings of our research revealed that Easterners identified themselves as having more Friendship-based love than Westerners.On the contrary, the cross-cultural differences in Erotic love are considered to be culturally universal. In this sense, Erotic love ascribed to strong personal feeling is hardly affected by the culture, which is inconsistent with Friendship-based love as it is more attributed to strict social rules. To explain the role of moderators in key measures, the subgroup analysis and meta-regression show that both Erotic and Friendship love decrease over time, and these love styles improve with the presence of children in the family. No religious belief predicts positively toward Erotic love and a negative trend toward Friendship-based love.