Correlates of Passion, Intimacy, and Commitment in Couples

1
Correlates of Passion, Intimacy, and Commitment
in Couples Daily Experiences
ABSTRACT Because love is often viewed as
significant and centrally defining in close
relationships, researchers have worked towards
developing models that allow differentiation
among various experiences and types of love.
Sternbergs triangular theory of love highlights
passion, intimacy, and commitment as playing key
roles in the central experience of love, but
previous research of this theory has focused
mainly on relationship evaluation using these
three ingredients as global terms. This paper
aims to present two studies which explore whether
passion, intimacy, and commitment are better
distinguished when examined as context-specific
experiences, rather than as global constructs.
First, an experiential measure is developed, and
second, the experience sampling method is used to
examine the correlates of love in couples daily
experiences.
Sarah H. Krcmarik, B.A. Argosy
University/ChicagoMegan Pietrucha, M.A.
Argosy University/ChicagoElizabeth
Cotter, M.A. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
James M. Graham, Ph.D. Western Washington
UniversityAnne Wysoglad, M.A.
Argosy University/Chicago

• STUDY 2
• Goal To develop an adjective-rating measure of
  the components of the triangular theory of love
  (the Love Adjective Rating Scale, LARS) to be
  used in experience-sampling research.
• METHOD
• Participants. The sample consisted of 20 married
  or cohabiting couples
• 85 White (n34)
• 87.5 had college degrees or higher (n35)
• 65 of the couples were married (n13)
• Mean relationship age 5.4 years (S.D.9.1)
• Measures. The Experience Sampling Method
  (Csikszentmihalyi Larson, 1987) was used to
  collect repeated measures from participating
  couples over the course of a week via PalmPilot
  PDAs. Participants were signaled at quasi-random
  intervals and asked to complete a short
  questionnaire on the PDAs by positioning a slider
  between two anchors.

INTRODUCTION The experience of love is often seen
as centrally important to close relationships.
Because the concept of love can hold various
meanings across different types of relationships
(e.g., friends, children, romantic
relationships), researchers have worked at
developing models that allow differentiation
between varying experiences of love. Sternbergs
(1986) triangular theory of love suggests that
the experience of love consists of a mix of three
separate but related components passion,
intimacy, and commitment. Different combinations
of these factors results in diverse experiences
of love. Despite the theorys relative
simplicity, early research examining the
components of the triangular theory and love came
across problems relating to measurement issues.
Specifically, research suggested spuriously high
correlations between the three components of the
model (e.g., Acker Davis, 1992 Hendrick
Hendrick, 1989 Whitley, 1993). As a result, the
question of whether these factors actually
represent independent constructs has been called
into question (Hendrick Hendrick, 1989 2003).
While a new measure with a more reliable and
consistent factor structure has been developed
(Sternberg, 1997), correlations between factors
continue to be high (Lemieux Hale, 1999 2000).
This study explores whether passion, intimacy,
and commitment are better distinguished when
examined as context-specific experiences rather
than as global constructs.

• Each LARS subscale was subjected to a fully
  unconditional 3-level HLM model. The results,
  showing the partitioning of the variance is shown
  in Table 3. As seen here, passion varies within
  individuals to a large extent, while participants
  remained relatively stable in their feelings of
  commitment.

Table 3 Variance Components and Descriptive
Statistics of Experience-Level LARS
Scores. __________________________________________
________________________________

Variance Components ( Total) Reliability
_ Variable Mean S.D. Min Max
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 2
Level 3 Intimacy 79.96 17.87 16
100 200 (64) 47 (15) 66 (21)
.71 .65 Commitment 88.96 14.11
19 100 85 (43) 22 (11) 92 (46)
.73 .85 Passion 58.63
21.19 2 100 273 (60) 121 (27)
60 (13) .82 .43___

• To examine the role of affect, affect regressed
  on intimacy, commitment, and passion using
  3-level HLM. At level 2, gender was regressed on
  level 1 slopes and intercept. The results are
  shown in Table 4.
• As seen here, passion and intimacy, but not
  commitment, were related to level of affect.
• There were no gender differences.

• LARS Participants were asked to rate how they
  felt about their relationship at the time of the
  signal (from not at all to very) and presented
  with each of the 12 LARS items. The internal
  consistency of these scores was acceptable
  (intimacy alpha .911, commitment alpha .923,
  passion alpha .923).
• Affect The affect subscale of Csikszentmihalyi
  and Larsons (1987) Experience Sampling Form was
  used as a measure of affect experienced by
  participants. Responses were scaled so that
  higher scores denoted higher levels of positive
  affect. The internal consistency of these scores
  was acceptable (alpha .890).

STUDY 1 Goal To develop an adjective-rating
measure of the components of the triangular
theory of love (the Love Adjective Rating Scale,
LARS) to be used in experience-sampling
research. METHOD

• Participants. The sample consisted of 93
  students of professional psychology graduate
  programs.
• 76 were currently involved in a close
• romantic relationship
• 24 were recently involved in a close
• romantic relationship
• Length of average relationship 3.3 years
• (S.D.3.9 years)
• 87 female
• 72 White The sample consisted of 93
• students of professional psychology
• graduate programs

Measures and Procedures. 10 adjectives each were
generated by the authors for passion, intimacy,
and commitment. Half of the adjectives for each
component of the triangle had a positive
relationship to the construct, while the other
half had a negative relationship to the
construct. Participants rated how well each of
the adjectives pertained to their relationship on
a scale of 1 (not at all) to 10 (extremely).
Participants also completed Sternbergs (1997)
Triangular Love Scale (TLS).
Participants completed a paper-and-pencil copy of
the Triangular Love Scale (Sternberg, 1997). The
Cronbachs alphas in the present study were .91,
.89, and .91 for the intimacy, commitment, and
passion subscale scores.

• CONCLUSION
• The further research of love as a construct that
  varies not only between individuals, but within
  individuals between situations, has promise.
• While passion has been previously found to be
  confounded with other aspects of love, passion is
  distinct when considered within individuals.
  Commitment and intimacy remain highly correlated
  and confounded when considered within
  individuals.
• Commitment and intimacy can be distinguished at
  the experience level by the involvement of
  affect intimacy has a strong affective
  component, while commitment does not.
• Previous problems in studying the triangular
  theory of love can be addressed by examining the
  constructs as situationally-variant. Future
  research examining passion as an experience-level
  variable is needed.

• RESULTS
• ESM data from a total of 464 conjoint experiences
  was obtained.
• LARS responses were subjected to principal axis
  factoring with an oblimin rotation.
• The results suggested three factors corresponding
  to Sternbergs components.
• As shown in Table 2, the correlations between
  LARS passion and the other LARS subscales were
  not as high as is typically seen in studies using
  the TLS.
• As shown in Table 2, the correlations between the
  LARS and TLS indicate acceptable convergent
  validity.

• RESULTS
• LARS responses were subjected to principal axis
  factoring with an oblimin rotation. The results
  suggested three factors corresponding to
  Sternbergs components.
• Items were selected for each subscale on the
  basis of their psychometric properties.
• The intimacy subscale consisted of the items
  close, distant, disconnected, and detached
  (Cronbachs alpha.919).
• The commitment subscale consisted of the items
  dedicated, stable, faithful, and committed
  (Cronbachs alpha.865).
• The passion subscale consisted of the items
  passionate, romantic, sensual, and aroused
  (Cronbachs alpha.894).
• Correlations between LARS subscales and TLS
  scores are shown in Table 1 and suggest
  acceptable convergent validity.

Table 2 Study 2 Correlations between
Experience-Level Love Adjective Rating Scale
(LARS) and Triangular Love Scale
(TLS) ____________________________________________
___________ Variable
1 2 3 4
5_ LARS 1) Intimacy
- 2) Commitment .71
- 3) Passion
.42 .26 - TLS 4)
Intimacy .53 .51
.24 - 5) Commitment
.51 .68 .27 .60
- 6) Passion .34
.45 .44 .70
.60 Note Correlations for assessing convergent
validity are shown in bold. Coefficients in
italics use LARS scores averaged by individual.

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