ROBERT STERNBERG'S TRIANGULAR THEORY OF LOVE :LOVE IS A TRIANGLE
Dictionary definitions of love refer to a strong affection for another person due to kinship, personal ties, sexual attraction, admiration, or common interests.
Robert Sternberg, a theory of what he determined were the three main components of love and the different types of love that combinations of these three components can produce (Sternberg, 1986, 1988b, 1997a).
The Three Components of Love
INTIMACY : refers to the feelings of closeness that one has for another person or the sense of having close emotional ties to another. Intimacy in this sense is not physical but psychological. Friends have an intimate relationship because they disclose things to each other that most people might not know, they feel strong emotional ties to each other, and they enjoy the presence of the other person.
PASSION is the physical aspect of love. Passion refers to the emotional and sexual arousal a person feels toward the other person. Passion is not simply sex; holding hands, loving looks, and hugs can all be forms of passion.
COMMITMENT involves the decisions one makes about a relationship. A short-term decision might be, “I think I’m in love.” An example of a more long-term decision is, “I want to be with this person for the rest of my life.”
THE LOVE TRIANGLES A love relationship between two people can involve one, two, or all three of these components in various combinations. The combinations can produce seven different forms of love, Attraction: Sternberg’s Triangular Theory.
When intimacy and passion are combined, the result is the more familiar romantic love, which is sometimes called passionate love by other researchers (Bartels & Zeki, 2000; Diamond, 2003; Hartfield, 1987)
When intimacy and commitment are the main components of a relationship, it is called companionate love. In companionate love, people who like each other, feel emotionally close to each other, and understand one another’s motives have made a commitment to live together, usually in a marriage relationship. Companionate love is often the binding tie that holds a marriage together through the years of parenting, paying bills, and lessening physical passion (Gottman & Krokoff, 1989; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1987).
when all three components of love are present, the couple has achieved consummate love, the ideal form of love that many people see as the ultimate goal. This is also the kind of love that may evolve into companionate love when the passion lessens during the middle years of a relationship’s commitment.
No comments:
Post a Comment