Sternberg's Three Dimensions of Love

There are three dimensions of love described by Sternberg. He also states that these dimensions relate to one another to form different kind of love that people can endure. The variety of love is captured in Sternberg’s theory of love’s essential ingredients. The three dimensions of love are intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy is a mutual understanding with warm affection, and mutual concern for each other’s welfare. Passion is when a person or couple feels strong emotion, excitement, and physiological arousal, often tied to sexual desire or attraction. Commitment is a conscious decision to stay in a relationship for a long time and it includes a sense of devotion to the person and the relationship. People in a committed relationship are willing to work to maintain it. According to Sternberg, there are certain types of love when one or more of these dimensions of love are interrelated. There are five different interrelated loves describes. There are: Romantic Love, Compassionate Love, Fatuous and Infatuated Love, Empty Love, and Consummate Love. Romantic love is a mixture of intimacy and passion. This love may not always include commitment, such as a summer romance that does not last longer than the summer. Compassionate love is a mixture of intimacy and commitment. This is a slow developing love built on high intimacy and strong commitment. Fatuous loves is a combination of passion and commitment often describing people in a whirlwind passionate romance, but barely know each other and it is unlikely to last. Infatuated love is mostly the same as fatuous, but may be described as people in awe, adoration, and sex related feelings. Both fatuous and infatuated love is regarded as forms of immature, blind, and unreasonable love built on passion. Empty love is relationships built on commitment only. This love is often described as an emotionally “dead” relationship that both members find some reason to stay together. Often times they stay together because of