Question

Think about a relationship in your life and analyze it in terms of one of the intimacy models.

Answer 1

Sternberg has classified love by providing a triangular model of love. He suggested that love has three basic components; intimacy, passion and commitment. Every couple shares a different relationship and a different kind of love. Sternberg emphasised on every couple experiencing these three components in varying degrees which make it up to seven kinds of different expressions of love or relationships.

The seven kinds are as follows:

1. Liking=Intimacy alone: Friendship without any commitment or passion. Example, you liking a boy in your class.

2. Romantic love=Intimacy+Passion: Being romantically involved with a person in the sense, physical and emotional attraction with each other without commitment. Example, a romance that lasts only through the summer.

3. Infatuation=Passion alone: Being crazy about someone without intimacy and commitment. Example, love at first sight.

4. Companionate Love=Intimacy+Commitment= Having someone in your life as a partner, like that of in a marriage but the passion has faded. Example, being married to someone for over 15 years and feeling like the spark has died. You still love that person, he/she is still your best friend however, the passion no longer exists. The couple has just gotten complacent.

5. Empty love=Commitment alone: To be with someone without passion and intimacy. Example, sticking to a partner just because you are married. There is no passion and intimacy.

6. Fatuous Love=Passion+Commitment: Shallow relationships. Example, relationships that don't last for too long because commitment is dependent on passion. Once the passion fades away, there's no commitment left.

7. Consummate Love=Intimacy+Passion+Commitment: Sternberg described this kind of love as the 'ideal' love. This kind of love includes all the three components in the same measure. Example, Being together for over 50 years, happily married with the same amount of passion and intimacy as it was on the day you first met your partner.

Thinking about my relationship in life, I reckon, I am still at the Liking stage.