Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love
I want to share something that I have often used in my sessions to help individuals explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences of love and relationships, and it is called Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love (Sternberg, 1986). This title might be about the most “wow you are definitely a psychologist” and unromantic sounding thing you can think of when talking about a topic as emotive as love, and I can remember having a reaction like that when I first heard about it in my human development classes in undergrad. I picked up a human development minor later in my undergraduate career as a junior, and after hearing my professor explain this theory, I sat back wishing I knew about it earlier because it made many of my previous relationship experiences make a lot more sense to me. The reason I bring it up so often in my sessions is that it can help us pause and find answers to relationship questions when we feel stuck, conflicted, or confused, so I wanted to write it out and share it here. That’s right: my clients can’t get away from this triangle and this is a shameless attempt at reaching even more people with it!
I used the word “unromantic” earlier intentionally somewhat as a misdirect because there are certainly more facets of love than simply romantic love. Triangular Theory of Love does a good job of highlighting other forms of love that we may often mix up and mislabel. This theory and model is by no means an all-encompassing description of love, and Robert Sternberg describes that:
“The triangular theory of love holds that love can be understood in terms of three components that together can be viewed as forming the vertices of a triangle. The triangle is used as a metaphor, rather than as a strict geometric model. These three components are intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment. Each component manifests a different aspect of love.”
Some important things to note about the triangle is that the points of the triangle represent intimacy, passion, and commitment, but they can also combine and interact to form more specific types of love, can fluctuate in the level of significance or intensity, can manifest differently in each relationship, and have no specific order or process. Let’s go through definitions, examples, and anecdotes of the vertices first.
Intimacy: Sternberg defines this as “feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness in loving relationships. It thus includes within its purview those feelings that give rise, essentially, to the experience of warmth in a loving relationship.” I like to describe this as actually liking someone, and this can include that you like spending time with them, getting to know them, and learning more about them. Your first thought when thinking of intimacy may be in a romantic context, but there can be intimacy/liking in friendships and with family members as well. The reason you have favorite friends and family members is likely due to the fact that you like them and have developed intimacy with them. Any examples that are popping into your head right now?
Passion: Another point of the triangle is passion, and Sternberg describes this as “the drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, sexual consummation, and related phenomena in loving relationships.” Think of those movie moments where an individual locks eyes with that stranger and you know that something is coming over them at that moment! Think of the word attraction, as well as increased temperature, hooking up, immediate gratification, shortness of breath, and increased heart rate to name a few things. Passion does not necessarily mean that it can only be short-term and in the moment, but it usually varies in intensity much more noticeably than intimacy and commitment. I did somewhat of a word cloud to list out some things, but what are examples of passion that you notice in your experiences?
Commitment: It looks like Sternberg added a component of “decision” to the commitment piece, which is news to me, so I’m choosing to focus more on commitment because that is what I understand more. Commitment is what it sounds like: how committed are you to this relationship? This is an interesting one for me because I grew up in the religious context of Christianity where there was always a heavy emphasis on commitment when discussing relationships and love. For example, the only reason to date was to determine if it could lead to a lifelong commitment in the form of marriage, and once this was established, passion in the form of physical intimacy could begin. Commitment took a foundational role in romantic contexts, and it also did in familial relationships by honoring parents and by extension, other family members.
This was true in my religious background, and I want to acknowledge that commitment to family is a significant and far-reaching component in many cultures historically and worldwide. Whether it be across ethnicity or within a specific family culture, commitment can take roles such as the sentiment that “family is family; you gotta stick to your family no matter what they do,” as well as honoring ancestors or putting aside individuality to pursue the hopes and dreams of the family. These are just two marks on a continuum of what commitment can look like within family cultures.
I will note, however, that according to our triangular theory of love, commitment in and of itself, without intimacy or passion, can be labeled as “empty love.” As a hypothetical example, think of a married couple who have been together for a long time and seem to really dislike each other but still stay together. Or think of someone who expresses that they want nothing to do with their family anymore for various reasons but still chooses to see them. To an outsider, it may seem simple enough to say, “I don’t see any liking or attraction here, why is this still a relationship?” But commitment is indeed a form of love, and it can be quite powerful and influential even without the other two and even when it may not be visible.
Having said all of this, I don’t want to paint a picture that intimacy, passion, and commitment are unhealthy if they are by themselves. Instead, I think it is important to correctly label what you are experiencing and looking for because a lot of trouble shows up in relationships when folks are labeling different loves as the same or when you think you are on the same page but pursuing different types of love. So to help with this, I want to go over how intimacy, passion, and commitment can interact and combine to form other facets of love and balance each other out.
Companionate Love: When intimacy and commitment combine and develop along similar trajectories, this forms companionate love. Put simply, you like this person, and you are committed to your relationship with this person! These are your best friends, and I immediately think of Frodo and Sam, Harry and Hermoine as examples. Strong intimacy can pull up commitment levels, and commitment can do the same for intimacy. Think Aang and Sokka, Legolas and Gimli, and Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: these pairs did not like or care for each other at the beginning, but commitment toward similar people, goals, or passions brought them closer together to where intimacy could develop.
Romantic Love: this is a combination of intimacy and passion. This can be a tricky source of confusion, conflict, and guilt for people in romantic relationships because there can often be miscommunication and misunderstanding about how important both intimacy and passion are for those in the relationship. One person may need more significant passion in the relationship and feel unloved if they do not receive this, and this can be very hurtful for the other who puts more energy into things that more directly speak to intimacy. Using this framework may help uncover where there is a disconnect or growth edge. Furthermore, I offer the perspective that even if intimacy or passion decreases and disappears, this does not mean that there can no longer be love or a relationship. This may indeed rule out a romantic relationship, and it is up to those involved to decide if another type of relationship can work.
Fatuous Love: This combines passion and commitment, and the most straightforward examples I think I can give for this are go-to hook-up partners and whirlwind romances. It may be news to some people, but many people can experience hooking up with people they feel no emotional connection to or straight up do not like. Folks in their life may wonder “why do they keep going back to that person? They told me themselves that they hate them!?” And that is because you can be very passionate about someone, committed to some kind of relationship or encounter, and not like them or connect with them at all. It may be that you love the experience of this person and how they make you feel, but that may not mean you love them. The term “whirlwind romance” can also be understood as “love at first sight,” and you can probably sit back and think of any number of reality TV shows like that (my fave is the UK’s Love Island hehe).
Consummate Love: This is where intimacy, passion, and commitment all combine. Initially, Sternberg limited this definition by stating that this is what “all marriages should strive for,” but I think he recognized how limiting this is and acknowledged that consummate love is not confined to the social construct of marriage. Passion is often the most visible and most rewarding aspect of the triangle, but it is also the quickest and easiest to fade. Passion can be an excellent starting point, but it cannot be the foundation of a relationship IF you are looking for a long-lasting relationship. Intimacy and commitment are needed for that, and the good news is that even though passion may fade, it does not mean that it is gone for good or impossible to get back. In the same way that passion can fluctuate, intimacy and yes, commitment too, can also fluctuate, and fluctuations do not necessarily mean that you no longer love someone.
This entire blog post has looked at a simple triangle with only THREE aspects of what love can look like; if love can be so vast and unfathomable, why would we put it on a dichotomy of it being either all there or all not? Hopefully, this blog post can give you another tool and more language to understand more about yourself and your relationships. You can tell how much fun I have writing about this silly triangle just by looking at how long this was. But even now, I can still talk about it!
