Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love: A Psychological Theory of Love

The theory of love introduced by Sternberg consists of three components. Passion, Intimacy, Commitment. 

Intimacy covers feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bonds between people

Passion covers the thirst for romance, physical attraction and sexual activities. 

Commitment covers a decision to remain with one another and in the long term is to share the achievement and plans they have made with one another. , and in the long term, the shared achievement and plans made with that other. 

So in theory without any of these components there is no relationship. The most important idea to this theory is the reliance of combinations between intimacy, commitment or passion; this is where different forms of relationship emerges. For instance, as seen in the picture above; if there is only passion it’s infatuation. Without intimacy, when passion and commitment combines it creates fatuous love. And so on, so forth.

Regardless of the combination, however, the consummate love characterizes by having all three components which are: Intimacy, commitment and passion. In regards, this is called to be ideal, but is it impossible to achieve?

No it is able to achieve, like we see in parks. Old people holding hands, smiling at each other, hugging, kissing, I believe that is a form of consummate. However, seeing teenagers nowadays complaining about their relationship is just utter foolishness. If teens could take their time and read this, they would understand that the love they had for their ex-lovers is not the “real” kind of love they are looking for. I hope people become more aware of their own feelings so they don’t get too immerse into a relationship in which on produce sadness and vanity.

And as for this theory, I personally think that it only captures some aspect to a relationship. To the question of is this the solution to finding what type of love you have? I cannot answer, because love is a question to ones subjective mind.

What do you guys think?