Triangular theory of love

The triangular theory of love is a theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. In the context of interpersonal relationships, 'the three components of love, according to the triangular theory, are an intimacy component, a passion component, and a decision/commitment component'.[1]

  1. Intimacy – Which encompasses feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness, and bondedness.
  2. Passion – Which encompasses drives connected to both limerence and sexual attraction.
  3. Commitment – Which encompasses, in the short term, the decision to remain with another, and in the long term, the shared achievements and plans made with that other.

'The amount of love one experiences depends on the absolute strength of these three components, and the type of love one experiences depends on their strengths relative to each other'.[2] Different stages and types of love can be explained as different combinations of these three elements; for example, the relative emphasis of each component changes over time as an adult romantic relationship develops. A relationship based on a single element is less likely to survive than one based on two or three elements.

Contents

Forms of love

Combinations of intimacy, passion, commitment
  Intimacy Passion Commitment
Nonlove      
Liking/friendship
x
   
Infatuated love  
x
 
Empty love    
x
Romantic love
x
x
 
Companionate love
x
 
x
Fatuous love  
x
x
Consummate love
x
x
x

The three components, pictorially labeled on the vertices of a triangle, interact with each other and with the actions they produce so as to form seven different kinds of love experiences (nonlove is not represented). The size of the triangle functions to represent the "amount" of love - the bigger the triangle, the greater the love. The shape of the triangle functions to represent the "style" of love, which may vary over the course of the relationship:

Criticism

Sternberg's triangular theory has been placed within the context of 'a broader interest in taxonomising that has now become a major feature of the field'[12] of personal relationships. The danger is perhaps that (at its worst) such an approach may verge on compulsive thinking: 'compulsive thinking is abstract thinking...general, directed towards systematization and categorization; it is theoretical instead of real'.[13] Its protagonists' need 'to try to dominate with the intellect, to keep control - to "overstand" - is the very thing which prevents these folks from allowing themselves..to grow in all those directions connected with feeling, where they're not so developed'.[14]

Love, actually, may be one of those areas of life where 'success depends upon "tacit knowledge," i.e., upon knowledge that is acquired through practice and that cannot be articulated explicitly'.[15] Nevertheless, 'the strength of Sternberg's triangular theory of love is that it is elegantly simple and flexible'.[16]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Robert J. Sternberg, "Triangulating Love", in T. J. Oord ed. The Altruism Reader (2007) p. 332
  2. ^ Robert J. Sternberg, "A Triangular Theory of Love", in H. T. Reis/C. E. Rusbult eds., Close Relationships (2004) p. 258
  3. ^ Sternberg, in Close Relationships p. 266
  4. ^ Sternberg, in Close Relationships p. 267
  5. ^ Sternberg, in Close Relationships p. 268
  6. ^ Sternberg, in Close Rerlationships p. 268
  7. ^ Sternberg, in Close Realationships p. 268
  8. ^ J. B. Ashford et al, Human Behavior in the Social Environment (2009) p. 498
  9. ^ Sternberg, in Close Relationships p. 268
  10. ^ "Cupid's Arrow - the Course of Love through Time" by Robert Sternberg. Publisher: Cambridge University Press (1998) ISBN 0-521-47893-6
  11. ^ Robert J. Sternberg, "Liking versus Loving" Psychological Bulletin (1987) p. 341
  12. ^ Robin Goodwin, Personal Relationships across Cultures (1999) p. 12
  13. ^ Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (London 1946) p. 297
  14. ^ R. Skynner/J. Cleese, Life and how to survive it (1994) p. 364
  15. ^ Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970)p. 44
  16. ^ E. Kennedy-Moore/J. C. Watson, Expressing Emotion (2001) p. 138

References