Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love

The days leading up Valentine's Day might be a good opportunity to talk about one of the only "psychological love theories" I've heard of: Sternberg's Triangular theory of Love. This summary is a good overview, I think (note: looks like the links in that citation aren't working).

I enjoyed asking my students to read the abstract of the Psychological review article and using that as a basis for a discussion about the theory and how well it "fits" their experiences AND what they learned in the social psychology chapter about attraction AND other sources of information.

Maybe students could make Valentines for the different kinds of love? Could be entertaining (and potentially dangerous ... :)


image credit: http://nathensmiraculousescape.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/sternbergs-love-typology/

posted by Rob McEntarffer

3 comments:

Julia Tsygan said...

You might also enjoy Sternberg's less well-known Love Story theory of relationship satisfaction. Here is a short summary in psych today, but I read about it in a 90s textbook on human sexuality. My students enjoy very much quizzing themselves on their own love stories.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200007/whats-your-love-story

Unknown said...

Thanks for the resource Julia! That one is new to me!

Unknown said...

(Kelsey Halfen posted this on the AP Listerve)

"I do a lesson on Sternberg's theory with video clips where we discuss which of the types of love each clip illustrates. First I go over the theory then show the clips.

The clips are on my blog: http://mypsychstuff.blogspot.com/search/label/love
I just use keepvid.com to download the videos onto a flash drive then show them in class. The kids really enjoy it and get into some heated discussions about what kind of love the characters have.

There is also a really interesting video about love on the Yale Open Course Psychology website (session #9)
http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/class-sessions
I like it because it also shows them what a college class at Yale is like."