Nothing in life comes easy so why would the understanding of love. Love can be as complex as a mathematical problem sometimes.
Providing a basic understanding of love as a concept and the type of relationship a person can be, An American Psychologist, Robert Sternberg developed The Triangular Theory of Love in the late 1980s.
The Triangular Theory of Love
According to the theory of love, Sternberg suggests that the concept of love consists of three main components: –
Intimacy:
The feeling of closeness with your partner, with deep trust, strong bonding, and connectedness with each other.
Passion:
The physical attraction, sexual intimacy with romantic feelings towards your partner.
Commitment:
Long-term commitment and loyalty to the relationship and shared goals with your partner.
Sternberg’s Eight Types of Love
As per the Theory of Love, Sternberg proposed 8 types or kinds of love depending on the presence, absence, or even the combination of these three components of love.
To maintain the perfect balance in a relationship all three components of love- Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment must be present. Too much presence of only one component or total absence of the other will always lead way to an unbalanced relationship.
Non-Love
The very first kind is nonlove, which lacks all the three components of love and hence this is described as just a causal everyday interaction with another person with whom you lack any kind of intimacy or deeper knowledge. It is just a brief encounter with people around.
Liking
This kind of love involves the intimacy component but lacks the other two- passion and commitment. It can easily be described as “Friendship”; people have a strong bond and closeness with each other which doesn’t include physical attraction and long-term commitment. According to Sternberg, if any other component of love along with intimacy is involved in a friendship, then it cannot be considered as liking.
Infatuation
The third type of love involves the passion component of love minus the intimacy and commitment part. This kind of love can be called “Love at First Sight” where you hardly know anything about the person but are only physically attracted to them.
Empty Love
The kind of love as it sounds is Empty indeed, without intimacy and passion it only has the component of committing to it. Now, interestingly this kind of love can be found at two levels of a relationship.
- The Final/Near Final– of a long-term relationship, where the partners involved have lost all feelings and closeness with each other.
- The First Stage– of a long-term relationship, where the partners involved know and feel almost nothing about each other like an arranged marriage.
Romantic Love
Romantic love can be described as liking with the addition of physical attraction and sexual intimacy towards the other person which lacks commitment. This kind of love is commonly found at the initial stage of the relationship, the “Dating Period” before any long-term plans and promises are made.
Companionate Love
The kind of love which has intimacy and commitment in a relationship but lacks passion is companionate love. This could be commonly found in long-lasting marriages, where the physical attraction dies over time but the partners are deeply connected and committed to each other.
Fatuous Love
This kind of love is found in relationships which has passion and commitment present but without the component of intimacy involved. The “whirlwind courtships” type, where you decide to get into a long-term commitment only based on passion and physical intimacy. As per Sternberg, this kind of relationship lacks understanding, and the connection between the couple is more likely to fail in the future.
Consummate Love
The final kind of love is the ultimate goal of a relationship, involving all the three components of love- Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment. This is the kind of love people ultimately aim to find. As Sternberg, this kind of love could be easy to achieve but it is very difficult to maintain it in the long run. An equal amount of effort and similar intentions between the couple are required to retain this kind of love.
An Understanding of Your Relationships
Although the Triangular theory of love has been criticized for oversimplifying the concept of love and romantic relationships, both are quite complex and vary from person to person. The theory still helps people navigate the basic understanding of the kind of love they have or want to have in a relationship.
Despite having been criticized for lacking in certain areas, Sternberg’s Theory of Love still holds true to some limits even after so many years of its development. The theory proposes the importance of intimacy, passion, and commitment in a relationship and how the dynamics of a relationship change or can be changed by the absence or presence of these components in the relationship.
Blog By : DEEBHA SITHTA
