THE STRUCTURE OF THE COMPONENTS OF LOVE AMONG STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT LEVEL OF EMOTIONAL AWARENESS

Abstract

Despite belief that love is mysterious, magical and unique, many theories have been proposed to define, classify and explain it. Robert Sternberg 's triangular theory of love claims that love consists of three components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Intimacy is defined as feelings of being close to and bonded with a partner as a result of emotional investment in the relationship. Passion, as a motivational component, refers to the arousal experienced toward the partner, including sexual attraction. Commitment is based on cognitive decision to stay with the partner and to maintain that love. These three components can be combined in various ways, to form different kinds of love.
The study presented in this paper investigates the difference in structure of the three components of love between groups of students with high and law emotional awareness, with different gender and with short-term and long-term relationship. Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale and Emotional Awareness Questionnaire were distributed to 117 university students (53 male and 64 female), aged 19 to 26. The results showed that students with higher level of emotional awareness establish more stable love relationship, while ones with lower emotional awareness built their relationship mainly on the basis of passion. Regarding distribution of the tree components of love, no significant difference was found between male and female students. In accordance with expectation, the duration of the love relationship emerged as a differential factor, indicating domination of commitment and intimacy versus passion in couples with long-term relationship.