Last update: 25 November 2015
“The human heart is a many-stringed instrument; the perfect connoisseur of men knows how to make them all vibrate, like a good musician ”.
– Charles Dickens –
Robert Sternberg is an American psychologist who launched an original theory on love and relationships. His assumptions about it are known under the generic name of "Triangular Theory of Love".
According to this theory, for true love to exist there must be three essential components: passion, intimacy, and decision or commitment. Each of these concepts is defined in this way:
- Passion: sexual or romantic desire of great intensity, accompanied by a strong one tendency to seek physical and / or emotional union with the other.
- Intimacy: knowledge of the other and trust in what he is, what he does and what he feels. Closeness and concern for his well-being. Need for closeness and mutual discovery.
- Decision or commitment: willingness to maintain the bond and a feeling of responsibility about it. Interest in overcoming adversity and preserving affection, which goes beyond temporary circumstances.
Based on this triad, Sternberg proposes the idea that there are seven ways of loving, depending on how each of these three elements appears and manifests itself. The seven modes are:
Sympathy relationship
It manifests itself when there is intimacy between two people, but there is neither passion nor commitment. This way of loving is typical of friendships. In general, these are relationships that last longer, even if no formal commitment is involved.
Infatuation
We talk about infatuation when there is passion, but there is neither intimacy nor commitment. It is typical of the so-called "love at first sight" and, usually, it defines short and obvious relationships. As the name indicates, the feeling can be very intense and persistent, but not deep.
Empty love
It is typical of relationships in which there is no passion, no intimacy, but they persist thanks to commitment of both sides. It is a type of bond, or phase, that couples who have been together for a long time go through.
Romantic love
In romantic love we find passion and intimacy, but without commitment. It is a "walking on the clouds", enjoying the presence of the other, but without the slightest desire to make the bond true. In general, this kind of love it disappears when adversity or difficulty arises.
Love-friendship
In this kind of love we find intimacy and commitment, but not passion. They both enjoy being in each other's company and have made the decision to maintain this bond, even if there is no sexual or romantic desire. It is a way of loving typical of great friends or more mature couples.
Fatuous love
In these relationships, there is a great passion component and a strong commitment, but there is no intimacy. Usually, the decision to stay together stems from sexual or romantic desire, but not from trust or compatibility. These relationships are typical of very insecure or dependent people.
Love lived
Represents the ideal model of love, where we find all three essential components: passion, intimacy and commitment.
Sternberg argues that this love is uncommon, but also that the hardest thing is not to find it, but to keep it. To do this, we must remember that affection must be shown continuously and that it must be nurtured.
Components and preferences
Thanks to an empirical research conducted by the University of Santiago de Compostela, it was concluded that both men and women value the intimacy component a lot, in any kind of relationship.
As for passion, many of the couples who participated in the study stated that it is difficult to find a complete harmony in the passionate feelings. Sometimes, men need it more than women or vice versa. Almost everyone has said that passion is lost over time.
Research has observed that something similar happens with the element of commitment or decision. It is not easy to find a symmetry between both members of the couple on this point. It seems that, over time, women expect a higher level of commitment, while men don't.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
