What are the three dimensions of close relationships according to sternberg’s model?

Want To Deepen Your Romantic Relationship?

Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love posits that relationships are made up of a combination of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. The people in a relationship can share different types of love based on the components present in their relationship. Often, the ultimate goal for romantic relationships is to experience consummate love, which has all three components of intimacy, passion, and commitment. You can use this theory to strengthen your own relationships, and another method of deepening your love may be to work with an online therapist.

Sternberg's Theory Of Love

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love isn't the only theory in social psychology that looks to explain loving relationships. However, it does provide a thorough explanation of what love is and why we choose it. It was published in 1986 in Psychological Review, a notable journal that publishes important theoretical contributions to scientific psychology.

Who Is Sternberg?

R.J. Sternberg is a professor in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, as well as an honorary professor at Germany’s Heidelberg University. He has also served as a university president and a provost, and he held the Chair of Ethical Leadership for the George Kaiser Family Foundation.

A well-respected psychologist, Sternberg has been the President of the American Psychological Association and is the Editor of Perspectives for the Psychological Bulletin. He’s contributed much to the field of social psychology.

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love is only one of his interests. Sternberg has also been a part of developing theories and educating his students and the public on theories of intelligence, creativity, wisdom, leadership, thinking styles, ethical reasoning, and hate.

What Is Sternberg's Triangular Theory Of Love?

The Sternberg Theory of Love is based on the image of a triangle. The triangle represents the concept of love, and each point is a different aspect of love. You don't need all three aspects in any one relationship, but the totality of the concept of love includes all three points of the triangle.

The three aspects of love, according to the Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love, are intimacy, passion, and decision or commitment. Like a triangle, the love represented by these components can have different dimensions and different types of balance.

Intimacy

At the top of the triangle is intimacy, one of the three components of love in close relationships. Intimacy can bring feelings of warmth and affection. You may gain intimacy as you emotionally invest in the relationship. You might have some control over the intimacy you feel, but you usually don’t have total control over these feelings.

Sternberg described intimacy as the feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness in a relationship. Each of these components of intimacy can add to the amount of love you feel for someone, but you don't have to have all these feelings to achieve intimacy.

Passion

The left point of the Sternberg triangle is passion. When you feel passion, it may lead you to experience romantic love, physical attraction, and sex. Passion can include motivation for loving as well as other sources of arousal. It's a physiological experience that creates intense feelings and may result from both genetic and cultural factors.

Humans seem to be built for physical experiences of passionate love in close relationships. Through the vast expanse of human experience, arousal has often been important as a gateway to reproduction. Cultural factors play a role as well. Aspects of culture may not only tell us who's attractive, but they can also teach us socially acceptable ways to show our passionate feelings in relationships.

Your passion for someone might involve the following features:

• Romance: A feeling of general excitement and mystery associated with a partner or a relationship
• Physical attraction: Arousal that comes from recognizing the body, facial features, or physical movements as desirable
• Sex: Needs vary depending on the individual and type of relationship

Decision/Commitment

Philosophers frequently disagree about how much choice we have in life. Some say we control our destinies, while others say we're helpless to choose who we are and who we love. Of course, others feel that choice is real, but the actions of others limit it.

For Sternberg and many other psychologists, loving someone comes from a decision or a commitment. You can like the way someone looks. You can want to be close to someone. If you decide not to follow through by expressing your love and feelings, a loving relationship will most likely not develop. One’s commitment often determines the types and lengths of relationships that result.

Decision

Decision-making is the thought process we typically use when we choose whether to show the expression of love in the short term. By making decisions to love in the here and now, you may move closer to a long-lasting commitment in your relationships. On the other hand, you may prefer to keep the relationship casual, enjoying it for the moment without thinking about what lies ahead.

Commitment

Commitment in social psychology is a long-term decision to maintain the relationship over time and space. No relationships are without challenges of some kind. You may have to deal with poverty or illness together if you commit to each other. You'll likely experience times when your passion for your partner decreases, or when you feel less affection for each other.

Commitment can carry you through hard times and keep you together in good times. You can make a different decision every day, but when you decide to make or break a commitment, it can have a much greater impact on your well-being and your relationships.

How Do The Three Parts Work Together?

Sternberg emphasized that, although love may be made up of the components of intimacy, passion, and decision, the components work together to form a complete whole. 

How do the three parts work together? Sometimes one component plays the most important role, while the others add to the overall experience of love.

For example, your decision to love your child may be the most important aspect of your love for them. Because you are typically responsible for them as they grow, you could be a very poor parent if you decided not to love them anymore. At the same time, you might feel emotionally very close to them. You may also feel passion for the potential that's within them. A parent’s love can be considered consummate love, companionate love, or other types of love, depending on the individual relationship between parent and child.

One component of love often increases another component. Imagine that you appreciate someone's physical beauty. This attraction can prompt you to connect with them on an emotional level. At that point, you might decide to show them your love at the moment or commit to them in the long term.

The Three Components In Different Types Of Love

The three components of love work together differently in various types of love.

• In liking, you experience intimacy without passion or commitment.
• In infatuation, you feel passion but not intimacy or commitment.
• In empty love, you commit to the relationship without feeling intimacy or passion.
• In romantic love, you feel passion and intimacy.
• In companionate love, you feel closeness and commitment, as in a lifelong friendship.
• In fatuous love, you feel passion and commit without feeling intimate, such as in a whirlwind courtship.
• In consummatelove, you experience complete love that’s a combination of all three components.

How Can You Maintain Love In A Relationship?

Sternberg published his Triangular Theory of Love in 1986. At that time, the divorce rate was almost 50%. As of 2018, the American Psychological Association quotes the divorce rate in the U.S. as between 40% and 50% for first marriages and higher for subsequent marriages. These figures only tell part of the story, though, since many couples stay together for a time without ever marrying.

Long-lasting loving relationships often require more than a verbal commitment. A decision to stay in the relationship with loving actions that maintain the three components of love is often necessary as well.

Below, learn about how to maintain each of the three aspects of love.

How To Maintain Intimacy

To maintain intimacy, it’s often helpful to spend quality time together. Stagnation can lead to the end of a long-term relationship. To keep the experience of love fresh and immediate, varying when and how you show your love is often effective. Leaving space for the relationship to change over time can increase your likelihood of staying together in the long term.

Making a concerted effort to work on both your physical and emotional intimacy (depending on your and your partner’s needs and preferences) can have quite an impact. Small efforts like making time to talk about your day together, sitting down for dinner without your phones, or scheduling regular date nights can facilitate intimacy.

How To Maintain Passion

Because you have less conscious control over passion, it can be the most challenging component in maintaining a long-term relationship. Passion is a motivation that often comes from need. To maintain passion, it can be effective to be mindful of your needs and your partner’s needs and how you can fulfill them both within the relationship. In many cases, passion tends to increase when both intimacy and commitment are present.

How To Maintain Commitment

Of the three components of love, you typically have the most control over your commitment to the relationship. The commitment often remains strong when you make the relationship an important part of your life. Your commitment can not only keep you in the relationship longer, but it can also make it possible for you to remain devoted to the tasks of increasing intimacy and passion.

If at any time you're dissatisfied with your relationship, a helpful strategy could be to assess the strength of each of the three components of love between yourself and your partner. You could then take action to increase your commitment and make efforts to improve intimacy, possibly leading passion to come more naturally.

Want To Deepen Your Romantic Relationship?

Online Couples Therapy May Help You To Maintain Love

It’s completely normal to experience challenges in relationships, but if you’re having a hard time maintaining love, then you may wish to seek out help from a mental health professional. Online therapy can be one great way to do this. If you and your partner have busy schedules, a potential benefit of online therapy is that you can schedule sessions at times that would be considered before or after hours at a traditional therapist’s office.

Many people wonder whether online therapy will be as effective as in-person therapy. This study from 2020 followed numerous couples as they went through the process of online couples therapy. Many of them expressed doubts at first, but after experiencing the process for themselves, they found it to be both effective and beneficial for their relationships.

Takeaway

The main idea of Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is that there are various kinds of love made up of three components, which are passion, intimacy, and commitment. For many romantic relationships, the ultimate goal is to experience consummate love, which is a combination of all of the components. Sternberg’s theory can be used as a tool to improve and deepen the love in a relationship. Another tool that may increase relationship health and satisfaction is online couples therapy, which may give you and your partner the opportunity to talk through issues and strengthen your bond.

Other Commonly Asked Questions

What Are Sternberg's 7 Types Of Love?

Robert Sternberg published his Triangular Theory of Love in 1986. Sternberg’s theory established seven different types of love that are combinations of the three components of love: intimacy, passion, and commitment.

The first type of love is liking, which involves intimacy, but no commitment or passion. Liking is often the type of relationship between friendly acquaintances or good friends. Liking can also occur between business partners; they work together and thus have some level of intimacy, but they’re not committed to or passionate about one another.

Next, there’s companionate love, which has intimacy and commitment, but no passion. An example of companionate love is a lifelong friendship; you may be committed to being friends and have quite a bit of emotional intimacy, but there’s no passion component or sexual desire there. Companionate love can also be had between people who have been married for a long time and no longer have a sexual relationship, but are still emotionally intimate and completely committed to each other.

Empty love consists of commitment without any intimacy or passion. A marriage in which the spouses have drifted apart and rarely communicate or have sex, but are still committed to each other and intend on maintaining their long-term commitment, is an example of empty love. Essentially, empty love occurs when loving relationships lose their spark. Empty love is often the type of love present in an arranged marriage as well, at least initially.

Another type of love is fatuous love, which has the passion component and the commitment component, but no intimacy. Fatuous love is often described as the “Vegas wedding” type of love. The two people involved are passionate about each other and committed to being together, but they’ve typically rushed into the commitment and thus haven’t had time to forge true emotional intimacy.

Infatuation only has the passion component, without any commitment or intimacy. An example of infatuated love would be two people that have a strong physical attraction or lust for each other, but haven’t built their relationship any further than their mutual sexual attraction and perhaps sexual consummation. Infatuated love is sometimes referred to as love at first sight, or the type of love that occurs when someone is “struck by Cupid’s arrow.”

Next, there’s romantic love, which has the passion component and the intimacy component. This is typically the kind of love between two involved parties who have been dating for a while but have not yet considered making a more significant commitment to each other. Romantic love is more about enjoying spending the time you have with each other.

Finally, consummate love has all three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Consummate love is sometimes called complete love, and it’s thought to be the true point of a lasting long-term relationship. Committed romantic relationships in which both partners feel passion for and intimacy with each other display consummate love and are considered the ideal relationship. It’s necessary to put in regular effort to maintain consummate love, as a drop in passion, intimacy, or commitment will change it into a different type of love.

What Are The Three Parts Of Sternberg's Love Triangle?

The three parts of Sternberg’s love triangle are intimacy, passion, and commitment. In different combinations, these components of love interact to represent different types of love.

Intimacy refers to a feeling of emotional safety, of knowing that you can tell your partner anything and trust that they will be there for you. It can also be described as giving and receiving emotional support, which can also be displayed through physical affection (for example, a hug to show support or a massage to help relieve stress).

Passion refers to not only sexual desire and sexual consummation, but also to the intense feeling of needing to be with your partner and dreaming about having a future with them. Passion can be feeling excited and happy whenever you and your partner are reunited after a day apart. It’s often a type of deep affection that can lead to great sex and passionate love.

Commitment refers to the decision to love each other and the conscious decision to continue loving each other as time goes on. Those who have made this commitment remain together even through hard times, and thus, commitment is typically the difference between short-term relationships and long-term relationships. Relationship duration can be greatly impacted by the emotional investment of commitment.

What Are The 8 Forms Of Love According To Sternberg?

Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of love includes seven or eight types of love, depending on your perspective as to whether non-love counts as a type of love. All social and personal relationships may fall into one of these types of love (or non-love). According to Sternberg’s theory, each type of love is made up of a different combination of the components of love.

1. Non-Love: The absence of intimacy, passion, and commitment (casual interactions)
2. Liking: Intimacy without commitment or passion
3. Companionate Love: Intimacy and commitment without passion
4. Empty Love: Commitment without intimacy or passion
5. Fatuous Love: Passion and commitment without intimacy
6. Infatuated Love: Passion without commitment or intimacy
7. Romantic Love: Passion and intimacy without commitment
8. Consummate Love: All components of love, including intimacy, passion, and commitment

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