Summary Of Sternberg's Triangular Theory Of Love

Project Summary

Background

A healthy romantic relationship is built upon both psychological and physiological factors. In view of Sternberg’s (1986) ‘Triangular Theory of Love’, a satisfactory and long-lasting relationship consists of three elements – intimacy, passion and commitment. Intimacy pertains to the feelings of connection, closeness, and bonding between partners. Passion refers to attractiveness and physical interaction. Commitment means the trust, loyalty and level of involvement in the relationship. As commitment encourages positive feelings, thoughts, and actions, like investing more resources, understanding and embracing their partners (Caryl, Agnew, & Arriaga, 2011), acceptance and encouragement between couples are more presumable

At the beginning, participants were asked to list 10 factors that they deem are most important in maintaining a satisfying relationship. Then, participants would complete three items as used in the study conducted by Tsapelas, Aron, and Orbuch (2009). The first item was how often they felt their relationship was in a rut in the past month, with answers ‘often’, ‘sometimes’, ‘rarely’, and ‘never’. The second item inquired the extent of the participants satisfying to their relationship; their answers can be ‘very satisfied’, ‘somewhat satisfied’, ‘somewhat dissatisfied’, and ‘very dissatisfied’. The third item was a measure of closeness in which the couples were required to select from 7 pairs of circles overlapping each other in different

Often had it been thought that suspicion is the culprits of terminating a relationship. According to a previous research, 86% of divorced couples pointed that ill communication considerably led to their failure in marriage (Aron & Aron, 1986). This further proved that communication is extremely crucial in romantic relationship. For example, couples can make mutual understanding through good communication with honest talking and patient listening (Chapman, 2003). This kind of effective communications can abolish potential misunderstandings and conflicts.

Concerning the second part of the interview, this current conducted study makes similar results as the past studies launched a number of years ago in western countries. The research findings significantly show that boredom negatively correlate to satisfaction and closeness, as proved by other scholars