Thursday, November 14, 2013
Week 12 Post 2
Robert Sternberg says there are three aspects of love: passion, intimacy, and commitment. The absence or presence of any of these three aspects form seven different types of love: liking, infatuation, empty love, romantic love, fatuous love, companionate love, and consummate love. Passion occurs early in a relationship, when there is intense physical, cognitive and emotional onslaught. Intimacy progresses slowly and involves knowing someone well, sharing secrets, and sex. Commitment takes time and grows gradually through making decisions together, mutual caregiving, and forgiveness. Commitment could take years to develop. I found this section interesting because I have never thought about love in these terms but it completely makes sense. When thinking of my own relationship, I believe I am in a consummate relationship. My relationship began with passion and falling in love. It became intimate when we share everything together and my boyfriend knows me better than anyone else. Although me and my boyfriend are not married, we have been together for almost two years and make some decisions together. Next year, I will be going to graduate school and my boyfriend has made the decision to move with me and get a job, since he has already graduated and looking for a job. It's interesting to think of my relationship in Sternberg's terms.
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To follow up with Sternberg's 3-factor model, I found a study that attempted to assess these with a questionnaire and figured these factors could be broken down into 4 instead of 3. The researchers used a sample of 412 people and the questionnaire included 4 categories: commitment, intimacy, erotic passion, and romantic passion. Commitment was made up of 21 items, intimacy 15, erotic passion 13, and romantic passion had 6. To simplify the results, the researchers took 5 items from each category and analyzed them based on 3 criteria: most common, least common, and most relevant factor contributing to the evaluation of the relationship. This questionnaire confirmed the ability to assess the Sternberg model in 4 dimensions. They did mention, however, that these factors only needed 5 items per factor, not the number of items they had originally asked. To conclude what they found in the study was that there was no need for an in-depth study to analyze a relationship, but only a simplified scale was needed (Yela, 2006).
ReplyDeleteI found what the researchers asked to assess the relationship interesting, if you have time look these up on page 23 of the study. I feel if you answer “no” to any of these, you should reconsider your relationship, especially in the commitment and intimacy categories. I personally think that if you are in a long term relationship you should be committed to the person and have an intimate relationship with that person. However, I feel if you answer "no" to some of the passion questions it depends on your personality and this can vary from individuals even based on biological factors; but if the relationship partners are on common terms and in agreeance the relationship can still be successful.
Yela, C. (2006). The evaluation of love: Simplified version of the scales for Yela's Tetrangular Model based on Sternberg's Model. European Journal Of Psychological Assessment, 22(1), 21-27. doi:10.1027/1015-5759.22.1.21