A Summary of Sternberg’s (1986) A Triangular Theory of Love
Purpose
What is love? According to Sternberg, this complex human emotion can be explained and described using the Triangular Theory of Love. The article delves into its components, its replications of tests, and the comparisons to other rival theories. This theory states that are 3 vertices of love: the warmth and closeness of intimacy, the motivational arousals of passion, and the cold and cognitive decision and commitment. The 3 vertices further splits into 8 different kinds of love: non-love, liking, infatuation, empty, romantic, companionate, fatuous and consummate love. Furthermore, the geometry love includes 2 factors: the amount of love and balance of love. The purpose of the …show more content…
Sternberg and Grajek compared intimacy to 3 models of intelligence by cluster-analytic methods: Spearmanian, Thomsonian, and Thurstonian. They further used Rubin’s scales and Levinger et al. Interpersonal Involvement Scale to collect data from ages 18 to 70 years with a mean of 32 years old residents in southern Connecticut. These include a sample of 35 men and 80 women.
Sternberg compared the Triangular Theory to Berscheid-Walster’s distinction between romantic and companionate love and Maslow’s distinction of D-love and B-love. Both he described as incomplete. He also briefly mentioned Tennov’s concept of Limerence, Reik’s love is a search for salvation, and Freud’s love is the striving for an ego ideal.
Sternberg further connects with Lee’s taxonomy of the styles of loving: eros, ludus, storge, mania, agape and pragma. He states that it is related to the triangular theory of love, but is different in content. Lasswell and Lobsenz used this theory for a love scale questionnaire, and Sternberg, in turn, conducted his own experiment of 85 …show more content…
He also conducted an experiment using 24 couples from Yale University to fill out Rubin’s scales and Levinger et al. Scale of Interpersonal involvement in 4 ways for a total of 8 triangles per person. Additionally, he asked a questionnaire about the quality of the relationship they are in.
Results
Data supported Thomsonian model and not Thurstonian. Data also states that men love their significant others more than anyone, while women love theirs equally as much as they love others in their circle of family and friends. In most of the results, lovers are loved the most and siblings are loved the least. Sternberg concluded that the amount of love can only be predicted within a family and not outside. The correlation is 0.72.
The result is that it did not support Lee’s typology. From Berscheid’s, inspired by Mandler’s, theories, it is concluded that intimate love is a process of uncertainty reduction.
The result is when someone loses an individual in passion, they will be depressed and full of discomfort. Also, habituation is possible in passion. Most psychologists describe passion like an addiction to a
Purpose
What is love? According to Sternberg, this complex human emotion can be explained and described using the Triangular Theory of Love. The article delves into its components, its replications of tests, and the comparisons to other rival theories. This theory states that are 3 vertices of love: the warmth and closeness of intimacy, the motivational arousals of passion, and the cold and cognitive decision and commitment. The 3 vertices further splits into 8 different kinds of love: non-love, liking, infatuation, empty, romantic, companionate, fatuous and consummate love. Furthermore, the geometry love includes 2 factors: the amount of love and balance of love. The purpose of the …show more content…
Sternberg and Grajek compared intimacy to 3 models of intelligence by cluster-analytic methods: Spearmanian, Thomsonian, and Thurstonian. They further used Rubin’s scales and Levinger et al. Interpersonal Involvement Scale to collect data from ages 18 to 70 years with a mean of 32 years old residents in southern Connecticut. These include a sample of 35 men and 80 women.
Sternberg compared the Triangular Theory to Berscheid-Walster’s distinction between romantic and companionate love and Maslow’s distinction of D-love and B-love. Both he described as incomplete. He also briefly mentioned Tennov’s concept of Limerence, Reik’s love is a search for salvation, and Freud’s love is the striving for an ego ideal.
Sternberg further connects with Lee’s taxonomy of the styles of loving: eros, ludus, storge, mania, agape and pragma. He states that it is related to the triangular theory of love, but is different in content. Lasswell and Lobsenz used this theory for a love scale questionnaire, and Sternberg, in turn, conducted his own experiment of 85 …show more content…
He also conducted an experiment using 24 couples from Yale University to fill out Rubin’s scales and Levinger et al. Scale of Interpersonal involvement in 4 ways for a total of 8 triangles per person. Additionally, he asked a questionnaire about the quality of the relationship they are in.
Results
Data supported Thomsonian model and not Thurstonian. Data also states that men love their significant others more than anyone, while women love theirs equally as much as they love others in their circle of family and friends. In most of the results, lovers are loved the most and siblings are loved the least. Sternberg concluded that the amount of love can only be predicted within a family and not outside. The correlation is 0.72.
The result is that it did not support Lee’s typology. From Berscheid’s, inspired by Mandler’s, theories, it is concluded that intimate love is a process of uncertainty reduction.
The result is when someone loses an individual in passion, they will be depressed and full of discomfort. Also, habituation is possible in passion. Most psychologists describe passion like an addiction to a