Is love triarchic or monarchical-hierarchical? A proposal of a general factor of love and a scale to measure it

Abstract

One of the most widely used measures for evaluating love is the Triangular Love Scale (TLS) by Sternberg (1986) based on his Triarchic theory according to which, love is comprised of three reasonably independent components (intimacy, passion and commitment). However, different investigations contradict this idea. The purpose of the present investigation is to verify whether the structure of love is triarchic, with three independent factors, or monarchical-hierarchical, with a first level where the three components of love would be located, and a second higher level where they would be grouped together in a general factor of love. In order to do this, in addition to the use of the TLS scale, another equivalent called Quality Partner Relationship Scale (QPRS) was developed to test the stability of the results found, and to propose a measure of love based on the Sternberg components, but simpler and without problems of overlap between items. To test this question, we used a sample of 610 persons matched by sex, age and social class, all of whom were partnered at the time of the evaluation. Confirmatory Factor Analyses were used to test the research objective, something that had not been done so far, and it was found that the structure that best fitted the data was monarchical-hierarchical in the case of the TLS as well as in the one of the QPRS. We can then state that love is structured around a general factor in which the three components are grouped: intimacy, passion and commitment. It must also be said that the QPRS presented adequate psychometric properties, which is why we recommend its use.