The distinction between passionate and companionate love has been further refined by psychologist Robert Sternberg (1986, 1988), who has proposed an interesting theoretical framework for conceptualizing what people experience when they report being in love. According to Sternberg, love has three dimensions or components: passion, intimacy, and commitment (I Figure 7.1):
Passion is the motivational component that fuels romantic feelings, physical attraction, and desire for sexual interaction. Passion instills a deep desire to be united with the loved one. In a sense, passion is like an addiction, because its capacity to provide intense stimulation and pleasure can exert a powerful craving in a person.
Intimacy is the emotional component of love that encompasses the sense of being bonded with another person. It includes feelings of warmth, sharing, and
emotional closeness. Intimacy also embraces a willingness to help the other and openness to sharing private thoughts and feelings with the beloved.
■ Commitment is the thinking or cognitive aspect of love. It refers to the conscious commitment
decision to love another and to maintain a relationship over time despite difficul — the thinking component of Stern
berg’s triangular love theory.
ties that may arise.
Sternberg maintains that passion tends to develop rapidly and intensely in the early stages of a love relationship and then declines as the relationship progresses. In contrast, intimacy and commitment continue to build gradually over time, although at different rates (I Figure 7.2). Thus Sternberg’s theory provides a conceptual basis for the transition from passionate to companionate love. Passionate love, consisting mainly of romantic feelings and physical attraction, peaks early and quickly subsides. However, as passion weakens, many couples experience a growth in both intimacy and commitment as their relationship evolves into one of companionate love (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). If intimacy does not flourish and if a couple does not make a mutual decision to commit to
I Figure 7.2 Sternberg theorizes that the passion component of love peaks early in a relationship and then declines, whereas the other two components, intimacy and commitment, continue to build gradually over time.
Love and Commnunication in Intimate Relationships
each other, their relationship will be on shaky ground when passion fades and conflicts surface. In contrast, commitment and a sense of bondedness and mutual concern can sustain a relationship during periods of dissatisfaction and conflict.
All three of Sternberg’s love components are important dimensions of a loving relationship, but they typically exist in different patterns and to varying degrees in different relationships. Moreover, they often change over time within the same relationship. Sternberg suggests that such variations yield different kinds of love—or at least differences in how people experience love (see Figure 7.1). For instance, the absence of all three components yields what Sternberg calls nonlove (what most of us feel for casual acquaintances). When only intimacy is present, the experience is one of friendship or liking. If only passion exists, without intimacy or commitment, one experiences infatuation. The presence of commitment without passion and intimacy yields empty love (such as might be experienced in a long-term, static relationship). If intimacy and commitment exist without passion, one experiences companionate love (often characteristic of happy couples who have shared many years together). When passion and commitment are present but without intimacy, the experience is fatuous love, a kind of foolish involvement characteristic of whirlwind courtships or situations in which one worships and longs for another person from afar. Love characterized by passion and intimacy but no commitment is described by Sternberg as romantic love. Finally, when all three components are present, the experience is consummate love, the fullest kind of love, which people often strive for but find difficult to achieve and sustain.
Empirical research has provided some support for Sternberg’s love model. One study of dating couples reported that the presence of two of Sternberg’s love components— intimacy and commitment—was predictive of relationship stability and longevity (Hendrick et al., 1988). Another investigation found that married people demonstrated higher levels of commitment to their relationships than unmarried people did, a finding consistent with Sternberg’s model (Acker & Davis, 1992). This same study found that, although intimacy continued to rise in longer relationships, passion declined for both sexes but more sharply for women than for men. Further investigations of Sternberg’s triangular theory found that lovers’ definition and communication of the three components of love remained relatively stable over time (Reeder, 1996) and that compatibility of a couple is enhanced if both partners possess similar levels of passion, intimacy, and commitment (Drigotas et al., 1999).