Triangular Theory: Components and Types
Robert Sternberg (1986, 1987) proposed that love comprises three components: (1) Intimacy—warmth, connection, self-disclosure, mutual understanding, support. Reflects feeling close and bonded.
(2) Passion—sexual arousal, attraction, physiological excitement, desire. Reflects intense positive feelings and motivation for union. (3) Commitment—decision to maintain relationship, dedication to partner's welfare, investment in future.
Reflects rational choice and intentional maintenance. These three components combine to yield seven love types: (1) Nonlove (absence of all three)—friendship without deeper feeling.
(2) Liking (intimacy alone)—platonic closeness without passion or commitment. (3) Infatuation (passion alone)—sexual/emotional intensity without deep knowledge or commitment; 'love at first sight.'
(4) Empty love (commitment alone)—maintenance of relationship without current intimacy/passion; potential end-stage of consummate love. (5) Romantic love (passion + intimacy)—emotional and physical attraction with mutual understanding; common in early relationships.
(6) Companionate love (intimacy + commitment)—deep friendship with dedication; common in long-term partnerships. (7) Consummate love (all three)—ideal love combining desire, understanding, and commitment; difficult to maintain long-term (Sternberg 1986).
Empirical validation: latent profile analysis of relationship ratings (Acker & Davis 1992, N=500 couples) confirmed five of seven types existed; empty love and infatuation alone were rare. Longitudinal trajectories show: new relationships begin high in passion, declining over 3-5 years (Sprecher & Felmlee 1992) while intimacy and commitment grow, consistent with theory's developmental predictions.
Love as Story Theory
Sternberg (1998) extended the triangular model with love as story theory, proposing that people understand relationships through narrative frameworks—stories with protagonists, plots, beginnings, and endings. These stories derive from early family models, cultural narratives, and personal experience.
Sternberg identified several love story types: (1) Fantasy love ('happily ever after')—love should be effortless and magical; challenges suggest incompatibility. (2) Garden variety love—love requires cultivation through work.
(3) Business love—relationships are transactions with costs/benefits tracked. (4) Travel love—relationship is a journey with exploration and surprises. (5) Cookbook love—relationship follows set recipes; deviation signals failure.
(6) Humor love—relationships are enjoyable, light-hearted, with shared laughter. (7) Horror love—relationships are sources of suffering and drama. The stories have developmental origins: people whose parents showed 'cookbook love' (rigid rules, little adaptation) tend to adopt cookbook narrative; those experiencing parental divorce may adopt horror narratives; secure attachment predicts more flexible, travel/garden narratives.
Critically, relationship satisfaction depends on story alignment: couples with similar love stories show higher satisfaction (r=0 45) and stability (Sternberg & Weis 2006). Mismatched stories predict conflict: one partner's fantasy story colliding with partner's cookbook story creates expectations mismatch (Tsapelas et al.
2009). Longitudinal follow-up shows that couples explicitly discussing their love stories and aligning them report 22% higher satisfaction post-intervention (Sternberg & Dobson 2000).
Hatfield's Passionate and Companionate Love
Elaine Hatfield and Richard Rapson (1987, 1993) distinguish passionate from companionate love. Passionate love—intense sexual and emotional desire, physiological arousal, idealization of partner, despair without reciprocation—is driven by dopamine and norepinephrine, peaks early in relationships, and fades over 6-36 months as adaptation occurs (Sprecher & Felmlee 1992).
Companionate love—affectionate care, mutual support, commitment, respect, shared life goals—is driven by oxytocin and vasopressin, emerges gradually, and sustains long-term. Hatfield's Passionate Love Scale (brief version, 10 items) shows passionate love peaks 6 months into relationship (mean=7
8/9), declining to 6 2 at 1 year, 5 3 at 5 years (Sprecher & Felmlee 1992). Paradoxically, satisfaction remains stable or increases as passionate love declines, suggesting companionate love maintains satisfaction (Acker & Davis 1992).
Cross-cultural data (Hatfield & Rapson 1987, N>6,000) show passionate love peaks universally at 6-12 months regardless of culture (romantic love exists across all societies studied). However, cultural variation exists in companionate love valuation and expression: individualist cultures (U
S , northern Europe) value companionate love highly; collectivist cultures (China, India) may emphasize loyalty and family obligation over companionate intimacy. Interestingly, passionate love reemerges in relationships facing loss or threat (Reis et al.
1993), suggesting it is adaptive for recommitment during crisis. The distinction clarifies why early relationships feel more intense (passion + forming companionship) than long-term relationships (established companionship, diminished passion).
Aron's Self-Expansion Model
Arthur Aron and Elaine Aron (1986, 2013) propose that love results from self-expansion—increasing one's resources, self-efficacy, and perspective through incorporating partner's traits and experiences into self-concept. People are attracted to partners who offer expansion opportunities (novel perspectives, skills, social circles, emotional resources).
The process involves: (1) motivation to expand (intrinsic human drive); (2) partner as expansion vehicle; (3) shared activities facilitating perspective inclusion; (4) cognitive process of incorporating partner qualities into self. Neuroimaging (Aron et al.
2005) showed that viewing images of romantic partners activates ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens (reward/motivation regions), overlapping with self-referential processing regions, suggesting literal cognitive merging of self and partner. Behavioral support: couples engaging in novel shared activities report higher satisfaction (Cohen's d=0
58; Aron et al. 2000) and reduced divorce risk (27-year follow-up, Aron et al. 2009). Self-expansion accounts for passionate love (high expansion potential initiates intense attraction) and companionate love (established expansion provides deep satisfaction).
The model predicts relationship declines when expansion opportunities diminish: routinized couples show declining satisfaction (r=-0 38 with perceived novelty; Sprecher & Felmlee 1992) unless partners actively pursue new experiences together (Johnson & Rusbult 2001).
Couple therapy employing novel activity prescription (derived from self-expansion model) shows 30% improvement in satisfaction over 12 weeks (Carson & Carson 2002), supporting the mechanism's clinical relevance.