Sternberg triangle

http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Sternberg's_Triangle

Love is a difficult thing to define.  However after looking at several articles on the Sternberg Triangle many people tend to agree with the triangle.  Sternberg even gathered evidence to support the triangle with a 84 person study conducted at Yale University.  The participants in the survey were either married or involved in a close relationship.  The participants answered, “demographic questions, participants answered questions of intimacy, passion, and commitment on a scale of 1-9, 1 being “not at all” and 9 being “extremely”. Half of the participants were to answer questions on the importance of six different types of love relationships. The other half of the participants were asked to evaluate the current relationship they have with each of the six relationship types. In the experiment, Sternberg used the questionnaire ratings as the dependent variable. The independent variables were intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment, versus the actions ratings, and the relationship ratings. Additionally, Sternberg used The Rubin Scale of love as an external validation.”  The Rubin Scale of love is a series of questions that are answered on a 9 point likert scale. "The study found that there was a high correlation between the ratings of feelings and actions in the Triangle Scale. The effects of the relationship, manifestation and components were all statistically significant. The mean for the ideal lover was the highest, and the mean for a lover was second highest (Sternberg, 1997).”  It is interesting to see that a simple survey with a Likert scale with the right participants can get results.

Joe