The Psychology of your 20s - 332. The triangular theory of love

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

We all want to know the secret to true, lasting love so that we can perhaps have a shot at finding it. So in today's episode, we're breaking down perhaps the most famous theory on this very topic, Robert Sternbery's Triangular Theory of Love. In this episode, we talk about:  The 3 core ingredients of love: intimacy, passion, commitment How different combinations form different kinds of relationships Why “consummate love” is so rare, and hard to maintain What the theory leaves out: culture, trust, respect, asexuality, polyamory  A look at the newer “quadruple theory” of love  Listen now!    ORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person.

Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On The Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it.

With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hardway with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games.

This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that they're not. you need to listen to learn the hard way on the iha radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology hello everybody welcome back to the show welcome back to the podcast new listeners old listeners

wherever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s. Today, I'm introducing a new kind of episode to the show, a shorter episode than what you are probably used to, where we are going to cover some core psychology principles, theories, concepts, or studies that I think are interesting, that I think will help us understand our 20s better, but which don't necessarily have enough to say about them to be made into a full 45 minute to an hour long episode. And you guys know I love to yap. I can talk I can talk until the sun goes down. But these episodes are just going to be a little bit more bite sized, a little bit smaller for your 15 minute commute, for your 15 minute, I don't know,

arm workout for whatever you're doing, this is just going to be like a more bite-sized taste of our longer episodes talking about concepts that I still think deserve to be in the psychology of your 20s universe, but which just don't have enough research to them quite yet. For our inaugural Psychology Bites bonus episode, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite theories that I've been trying to make into a full-length episode for years. finally she is having her time to shine. We are talking about the triangular theory of love. Let's start with some very basic factual information. This theory was developed by the psychologist Robert Sternberg, and it's not just about romantic love. This theory is about how love forms,

how it lasts, how it changes, and it's about platonic intimacy, it's about familial intimacy, it's about commitment and the foundational reasons why we feel drawn or connected to certain people and what makes a relationship consummate love, what makes a relationship a kind of love that lasts. It is one theory in a long line of theories trying to synthesize, explain, simplify, categorize the thing that fascinates us more than anything else. it's just one of many theories trying to get to the bottom of what does love really mean? What is this thing that we all experience or hope to experience? Some other theories of note which you are maybe familiar with include things like attachment theory.

Basically that theory states that how we love and are loved is based on the love we received as children and how we were raised. There's also the reward theory of attraction, which basically states that, that we are drawn to people who make us feel good about ourselves and that reward inherent drivers within us or inherent desires or needs within us. Another particularly famous theory around love is John Allen Lee's color wheel theory of love, which defines three primary, three secondary,

and nine tertiary types of love based on different combinations of feelings. For example, Lodos love, which is primarily driven, by desire to have fun and to tease, pragma love, which is a convenient kind of love, kinship love, friendship love, there's a whole list that you can look up. We're not talking about that today. It's just another one of many theories in this kind of space, but the real one that kind

of shines through and that a lot of people talk about is the triangular theory. This is probably my favorite of all, which is, of course, why we are doing an episode on it. So this theory is almost 40 years old now. I think it's over 40 years old, sorry to say. And it suggests that we can describe nearly all types and forms of love based on three ingredients and their combination. The three ingredients for any type of relationship are intimacy, passion, and commitment. Let's break these down.

Intimacy involves feelings of familiarity, closeness, connectedness, a sense of similarity, shared hobbies, shared values, that kind of thing. Passion involves deep desire, attraction, romance, feelings of being swept off our feet, and commitment. Commitment means staying. It means trust. It represents shared goals and unity even in hard times. I like to explain this theory as a theory that likes us to think of love like a recipe for a cake. Depending on how much of each of these ingredients you put into the cake, you're going to get a different flavor.

A different flavor of cake that represents something different. It's still a cake. You're just influencing the recipe so that something different comes out. Basically, this theory, it describes love as a recipe, and you can make dozens of different things with just a few variations of ingredients. This is my own kind of metaphor for this theory, but the way Sternberg represents this is as a triangle. Obviously, it's called the triangular theory of love.

And intimacy, passion, and commitment are all points on the triangle. Each point represents one type of love, but so do the lines connecting those points and the center point of the triangle as well. I know it's quite visual, but I think giving you some combinations might help you understand this a little bit easier. on one side of the triangle at one point, we have passion. And if a relationship only has passion, it's a very simple kind of cake.

It's infatuation. It's limerance. It's one side. It perhaps it's purely sexual in nature. It's driven by feeling, longing, and, you know, the thing that we want the most in the present, which is this other person. But it doesn't have intimacy. It doesn't have commitment.

It's the simple cake. It's the passionate cake. If you only have commitment on the other. side of the triangle, you have empty love. Yes, you are loyal to one another, but romance and passion and intimacy have faded. You don't have that organic closeness. Think, you know, people who have stayed married for the kids, even when all else has faded, you know, there is still a kind of love there, but it's not the same as what they had. We also have purely intimacy. So intimacy is the other kind of part of the triangle, and that is like friendship. If you're just intimate,

with someone and you just have closeness or familiarity, but you don't have romance or commitment, you guys are just friends. So three different kinds of love. Now for our combos, are you guys ready? If you have intimacy and passion, you have romantic love, you're dating, it's like the early months or the early maybe years. You don't know if you're going to go the distance, but you're having a really great time and you feel really close and comfortable and like in love with this person. If you have intimacy and commitment, you have companion love. And this. And this is, you're going to go to the can also be platonic. Think those like lifelong friends who like live with each other in their 60s. Think people who are older and they no longer have the same sexual feelings for each other,

but they're still all in on their relationship. Their love, these kinds of love is, they're just as real as any other kind of love. It just doesn't have that other ingredient to the relationship that Sternberg says creates consummate love. It doesn't mean it's any less meaningful. Fatuous love is when we have passion and commitment, it's incredibly rare because it doesn't have intimacy, which you think would be needed to connect those two things. Think like whirlwind courtships. People who get married after a few weeks, they have passion, sorry, and they have commitment, they don't have intimacy, there's no real bond there yet, but we would hope it would develop over time. Again, super rare, probably the most rare version or combination

And finally, the one we've been talking about this whole time, consummate love. This is described by this theory as the complete form of love representing the ideal romantic relationship that we are all striving for. We have intimacy, passion and commitment combined. This is the center of the triangle. Now, some things to dispel about consummate love. It's wonderful, it's beautiful, it's what we all strive for. it might not always last.

This theory is not saying that once you have this thing, you have the perfect relationship. Having it for a certain period doesn't mean you're entitled to it forever. In fact, there's actually this urban myth going around that the reason Sternberg was so obsessed with theorizing about love was because he kept getting divorced and he wanted to know why the triangle kept collapsing in for him. But yes, it is a little bit of an urban myth. But, you know, based on his own personal experience, he does caution in his papers on the subject that maintaining consummate love may be harder than just achieving it. You know, he really does stress that these are just, all these components are important.

Having intimacy, having passion, having commitment are important, but they are just the beginning. You have to translate those components of love into action. without expression, even the greatest of loves can die. And I think that's a really important message, not just for people in the 20s, but of any age, if you have a love that you want to last, you have to understand that love, especially the triangular theory of love, makes it so that this is also a verb. This is something that we act on. I think there's this idea that like when you meet the right person, you just know and it should

feel easy. And this theory says that, yes, you may have everything you need to experience consummate love in the beginning, but it is not just the sum of its parts. You have to work for it. And the reason I really love this theory is because it doesn't think of love as stationary. It actually allows us to explain how love goes through many stages. We're going to take a short break, but when we return, I want to discuss what these stages actually are. 2%. That is the number of people who take the state. when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%,

I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong.

Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations

with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch.

Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth, or are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd, found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed

revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in someone, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see

what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been the same thing. Greg, a lesbian, Michael Maranjini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by.

Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck.

I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So like I said before, the triangular theory of love likes to explain how love goes through stages. It likes to kind of suggest that we begin with either passion or intimacy, then we gain the other, and then finally we have commitment. So at any given stage in a relationship, you can kind of place where someone is in the timeline of love by looking at where they sit on this triangle. If they're in the beginning stages, they might just have passion. if they're in the middle stage of their relationship, they might have passion and intimacy. If they're in the consummate stage, they have passion, intimacy and commitment.

But then as you maybe go further along on your relationship, you might lose the passion and just have commitment and intimacy. And then you might lose the intimacy and just have commitment. And then you might lose the commitment and have nothing. It also describes some of the relationships that happen in between, like situationships, like affairs. It describes friendships. It describes people who stay for the kids. It describes, you know, the people that you meet in those brief moments, maybe you're only for a couple of hours or for a week and you never see them again. You have this brilliant, beautiful moment.

Basically, I like that it doesn't show love as this static thing or as this, you know, singular kind of thing. I also like that for a theory and a rather dated one at that, it actually has a lot of real-world application and modern-day evidence. For example, a 2020 study looked at the application of this theory in 25 countries from all inhabited continents. It had over 11,000 respondents and it found that, yes, this theory actually does hold up under many different contexts and in many different cultures. This theory of love does represent many of the kinds of relationships. that people will experience and go through. Another reason I like this theory is because it can kind of act as a litmus test for whether the relationship you're in is fulfilling all that you want it to fulfill.

I think in our 20s we encounter a lot of half-baked relationships and we go back and forth on, is this person right? Is this relationship right or not? Should we stay? Should we go? And this is a great way of kind of analyzing our relationship and saying, okay but do we have intimacy? Do we have passion? Do we have commitment? If I seriously look at my relationship and it's missing one of these things, well, I actually don't have consummate love as much as I might feel like I have some kind of love. The thing is you probably do have some kind of love, but is it the kind of love that you expect and that you want that will fulfill all three of these needs for you? Now, something you may have noticed is that whilst the

triangular theory of love is definitely a good start. It is kind of missing some things. It's definitely got the foundations down pat. It's definitely stripped love to its very bare scientific stumps. But some researchers have remarked that it doesn't talk about culture. It doesn't really talk about the context in which a relationship is taking place. It treats the love between two people as if it's occurring in a vacuum. It doesn't include things like family expectations. It doesn't include things like values, religion, money, other circumstances that are keeping people apart. All these things do impact whether love lasts and where we sit on the triangle. I think favorable or unfavorable circumstances or the practicality of one's love should also be a

factor as to whether a consummate love will be achieved or will last. But again, I think this theory doesn't claim to have predictive powers over whether a love will last, you know, so we can't ask from it more than it wants to give. It kind of just gives the ingredients which will cause it to form. So again, maybe I'm asking a little bit too much from a scientific theory, but it's still something to think about. Another criticism is that it doesn't specify whether multiple multiple consummate loves can occur at the same time. You know, people in polyamorous relationships, for example, would claim that that can occur. But this is an old model and it doesn't kind of include or represent some of the newer forms of love that we are experiencing or seeing in the modern day,

especially since it was first created, founded in the 80s, when there was definitely a lot of love that wasn't socially acceptable or talked about, but was still valid. Finally, and this is the biggest issue I find with this theory, it doesn't cover whether one person can be in consummate love and another person just being in passionate love or fatuous love or empty love at the same time. it doesn't explain or provide an explanation as to whether two people in the same relationship can actually be at different spots on the triangle what kind of love is occurring then do both

people have to be experiencing the same combination for the love to be that thing or could you have consummate love on one end fatuous love on the other and does that still count as a kind of love You know, this theory is very one-dimensional, right? It is literally a 2D triangle, look it up, you'll see what I'm talking about. But the feelings we feel towards someone at any given moment are multidirectional and they are 4D, 5D, 6D, and they are complex. You can have all three ingredients and still not be able to be together because you know it won't work or because distance keeps you apart or because there's another factor here that isn't being explained by this model. And, you know, what about people with relationship anxiety? Where do everyday doubts about our relationship fit into this?

Does having doubts mean you can never be in consummate love? I don't think so. I think it's a very natural part of a relationship. And this is just another reminder that a theory is not a full, it's not going to provide the full picture. It's not going to explain everything. It's just a theory. This is where the quadruple theory of love comes in,

which has expanded on the triangular theory of love to kind of give it some more texture. The quadruple theory was first introduced in 2020, so a long time after the triangular theory. It's much newer and it proposes that love is built on attraction, connection slash resonance, trust and respect. This model, I think, describes how love develops over time much better. It also allows for more types of love to be analyzed since it has that fourth factor. I think it allows for parental love, love between friends, polyamorous love to fit into this model. And I like that it also includes resonance and trust rather than just commitment because you can be committed in a very basic way and still not trust the person you're with or have respect for them. So I think that this does go deeper into like the complex factors and the human emotion of it all.

It also describes the love cycle in a more, I think a less stagnant way. If you want to look up the quadruple theory of love, it actually has a model and a visual representation for the love cycle. It describes, which I think is a lot more comprehensive and beautiful. I think it's less of a black and white model as well, I love. But yes, this is a very new theory. It doesn't have as much evidence. But I do think a combination of the triangular and the quadruple theory would give us a much more complete version of what love looks like as humans. But I want to know. Do you think that with all this conversation about theories, love could ever actually ever be fully explained by

a model or by a theory like these ones? Are researchers and psychologists just trying too hard to categorize something that can't be categorized? That's the big question. I keep coming back to at least. If we know every and any theory will be an oversimplification in some way or exclude some kind of love in another way, why do we keep attempting to create these models? And is love something that really needs to be studied or graft or can it only ever just be experienced? And that unique experience is as comprehensive as we may ever make of it. I don't know. I go back and forth. I really love looking into these theories, but sometimes I'm like, you're just never going to, it's never going to be the full picture. So why even try? But I guess they would say that trying is

what gets us as close as we can be. I also know that when I was in my previous relationships, this model did help me understand what was missing. So it does really help in those ways and it does give words to a feeling. But I want to know what you think. Drop a comment below. Tell me how you feel. Tell me whether you think this is a good theory, a bad theory. And also give me some suggestions for some other theories you think I should cover.

I really want to do an episode, another Psychology Byrd's bonus episode on personality tests, whether they're a myth or not. I really want to talk about narcissism, sociopathy, all of those things, concepts that I think are talked about a lot, but which, you know, we may not have the depth of knowledge on them that we should have. So I would love to hear your ideas. And I want to thank you for listening to this smaller episode. Tell me what you think. Tell me if you like it. Make sure to share it with a friend.

If you think they would enjoy it as well. And yeah, follow us along, wherever you are listening. So you get more content like this in your feed. give us a five-star review only if you feel called to do so. And I always forget to say this, but follow me on Instagram at That Psychology Podcast. If you want to see some behind-the-scenes stuff, some like simplified breakdowns of these topics. If you want to be able to chat more with me about these episodes, I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.

Stay safe. Be kind. Be gentle with yourself. We will talk very, very soon. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is all. an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness,

fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person.

Listen to 2%. That's TWO%. On the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all day the same prolific con artist.

They take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On the Look Back at a podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 is big to me. I'm Sam Jay And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it

with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host, Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing.

How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to, listen to learn the hard way on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed human.