Triangular Theory of Love- Literature Review on Robert Sternberg’s Love Theory
Remember those stories your mother told about the moment you and your siblings were born and the doctors put you in her arms? She saw you and held you for the first time and instantly she fell in love. Or even after watching a Broadway show or a movie premiere for the first time, have you ever felt the experience of falling in love with a character or actor? Let us not forget about your longtime best friend, you know, the person who you view as more than a friend, but less than a lover? What are all these different types of love? How can one differentiate being in love from being infatuated from having love for someone? Although empirical research on the theory of love is scarce and limited because “love” is difficult to study and very subjective, Sternberg (1986) gives audience a clear understanding of the topic of love as he introduces the triangular theory of love. According to Sternberg, there are three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment. The following literature review is aimed to inform and give readers a better understanding of the different components of love, the sub-components of love, and the ideal love that romantic couples should aim towards.
The Triangular Theory of Love deals with both, love in different types of relationships and the nature of love (Sternberg, 1986). As mentioned, Sternberg’s theory, states that love is derived from intimacy, passion, and
Love is unique in its striking ability to be a driving force in dictating interpersonal relationships. It patterns behavior and orients individuals towards their distinct, unique attractions. According to Velleman, love penetrates deeper than one’s qualities; it extends to one’s rational will, or the essence of a person. To him, though love appears to have particularity, it is also a moral emotion. Kolodny subscribes to the relationship theory, asserting that an ongoing, interpersonal, and historical relationship with a relative is a part of the reason for love. In Kolodny’s view, the existence of the true self is irrelevant, as is the morality of love. Both Velleman and Kolodny disprove the quality theory; however, their perceptions of love and its morality differ. I believe that Kolodny is correct in his view that morality is irrelevant to love and that there must be factual reasons for love. Although it is enticing to believe that one is attracted to the essence of another, the essence is not motivation enough for love. The relationship theory takes into account the motivation needed to love a particular person from a historical, interpersonal, and ongoing perspective.
When one looks at romantic love, one would conclude that it is a social dyad that brings about certain responsibilities between two people in a relationship such as honesty, protection, openness and expressions of love. (William, 2008: 76). Contrasting with
Love is a powerful emotion that every human being has experience at least once in their life. There are numerous connotations that refer to this emotion, but there is only one kind of love that can make a person change completely in unexpected ways. It is the kind of love that consumes the soul and everything within. Mixed with excitement, adventure, heartbreak, happiness and joy; it is a big ball of feelings, all concentrated in one simple, yet extremely complicated necessity to have, protect, please and give all of oneself to that one person. In certain occasions, love can grow very intense and, consequently,
The nature of love according to Nozick is the desire to form a “we” with the person you feel romantic love for, the desire to become one with the loved one. When two individuals are mutually in romantic love with one another, they both desire to form a “we” with each other. Once two romantic
In the movie Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, two different kinds of love are exposed. The love relationship between Ilsa Lund and Rick is a more passionate relationship while the one between Ilsa and Victor Laszlo is more intimate. Love is composed of different feelings and because of that it can be expressed, as seen in Casablanca, in different ways. “The Intimate Relationship Mind”, a text by Garth J. O. Fletcher and Megan Stenswick, helps support that claim providing a scientific background on how love is shaped by those different feelings. It says that “love is composed of three distinct and basic components that each represent evolved adaptations; namely, intimacy, commitment,
The article '' love: the right chemistry'' by Anastasia Toufexis efforts to explain the concept of love from a scientific aspect in which an amateur will understand. Briefly this essay explains and describe in a scientific way how people's stimulation of the body works when you're falling in love. The new scientific researches have given the answer through human physiology how genes behave when your feelings for example get swept away. The justification for this is explained by how the brain gets flooded by chemicals. The author expresses in one point that love isn't just a nonsense behavior nor a feeling that exhibits similar properties as of a narcotic drug. This is brought about by an organized chemical chain who controls different
Hazan and Shaver (1987) proposed the theory that ”Romantic love is an attachment process.” (Hazan & Shaver, 1987), which the individual will experience differently depending on the attachment history that has been formed by the internal working models based on the social interaction with caretaker as an infant. According to Bowlby, these internal working models are essential for attachment patterns throughout life from childhood till adult love relationships (Fraley, 2010).
1. According to Robert Sternberg, love goes through 3 stages of love he calls “The three dimension of love; passion, intimacy, and commitment. Sternberg believes when you go through the three dimension of love, there are also seven different type of love. The seven different type of love is liking, infatuation, empty love, romantic love, fatuous love, companionate love, and consummate love. The first dimension of love is passion; it is the process where we first start falling in love with a partner. Passion is what I call the “getting to know each other” stage of a relationship. The second part of the three dimension of love is intimacy. Intimacy is when you feel close to a person whether it’s emotionally or physically. It is also a stage where you share your deepest secret about you to the person who you feel that you’re in love with. Intimacy is where you feel the closest in your relationship. The third and final stage of the three dimension of love is commitment. Commitment is the phase where people decide that being with that one person is enough and they would spend the rest of their life being together that leads to marriage and children. I feel that Sternberg’s dimension of love is associated to Erikson’s intimacy vs. isolation. “Adults seek someone with whom to share their lives in an enduring and self-sacrificing commitment. Without such commitment, they risk profound aloneness and isolation.” (Berger, p.525) I believe
The love story is one of the oldest and most cherished traditions in any world culture. The prevalence of romantic works throughout history, whether Greek myths, Jane Austen’s dramatic narratives, or today’s dime-a-dozen romantic novels, ultimately encourages us to believe in the power of true love. We identify with the archetypal star-crossed lovers, who combat established convention in order to assert their romance, because we too yearn for our own “happily-ever-afters.” When used in conjunction with reason, love is the highest form of compassion – without it, we could not possibly interact productively with one another or develop as individuals. But when we take a new perspective and examine love as an independent,
Love is said to be the greatest human experience in which mankind are privilege to partake in. To love can be a wondrous experience filling life with bliss and other strong emotions. Some people believe to love is to be alive and be able to see the good in the world and others. The purpose of this paper is to examine and find a better understanding of what is love, to explore what people believe love to be, and what lies surround the perception of love and to explore and expose what the meaning true love is or at the very least the authors understanding of the perception of love. In addition to exploring the concept, deception and the truth of love,
Sternberg's Theory of Love describes three components that make up different combinations or levels of love that can be shared between two people. The three components are intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy refers to understanding and concern for the other person. This component deals with warm affection and getting to know each other on a deeper level. Passion refers to stronger feelings of emotion,
Love is one of the strongest emotions. It can create and destroy events in one’s life. It can also change an individual for the better or worse. Due to its power, its effects seem to be everlasting, and can help change an individual’s psychological and social elements.
As Sternberg has came up with the theory of the three types of relationship that develops in early adult relationships. This is to argue that consummate love is the type of love that can make a relationship last for long, this is because this type of love has all the three types of love in a triangle, which are passion, intimacy and commitment and it is the strongest and the lasting type of love (Louw, Ede & Louw, 2008). This means that in this love there is physical and sexual attraction, emotional feelings and sharing, and also the intention to maintain the close relationship even though there are problems(Louw et al.,2008).
Love is a powerful feeling; it makes you do crazy thing. Many people spend years trying to find it, others give up thinking they’ll never find it. Love has been defined as an intensive feeling of a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. Of course, Love doesn 't have to romantic and/or sexual. People who are ace, as in asexual, aromantic and agender, can still be in relationships that are satisfying for them without the needs of a romantic relationship. Familial love is also non-romantic-sexual. However, in this paper, we will be talking about romantic-sexual love, what it is, and why I believe it’s so important to understand and experience.
When discussing love, people generally think about the love between a husband and wife, or the love between a couple in a romantic partnership, and that is one type of love that I will be discussing. In addition to romantic love, there are other types of love also. There is the love we have for our children, our families, and also the love that we have for our friends. All of these types of love share some of the same attributes, however, they have differences also. In reading and researching different types of love, I have found that romantic love and friendship seem to be the most similar in nature, although they have differences, they share a lot of the same attributes. I found that friendship and romantic love tend to have more similarities than differences. In this paper I will examine romantic love and friendship. I will discuss the definitions of the two, and what elements each of these have. I will discuss the different theories of love, and I will compare and contrast the similarities and differences between romantic love and friendship.