Sternberg Attachment Model

Attachment Style and Relationships Paper
Janice Guevara
August 11, 2020
Psy 220

(Part 1) Three main components make up Sternberg’s model of love, passion, intimacy and commitment. From those three they are set up into different combinations to make seven sub-types of love. Passion can be described as the component that reflects romance, attraction and sexual needs in the relationship. Many can get confused on how passion works in a relationship. As we know, passion is powerful feeling, whether it is from love or hate. Someone can love someone but have no passion, as well be full of passion and deeply in love with that person. Intimacy is feelings of trust, the ability to share that you truly are with you partner, the feeling of closeness
you have with that person. This is when you explore what commonalities or interest you having with the other person. Commitment is making the decision to keep the relationship as a long-term relationship. When you combine some of these components, you make up different love relationships. For example if consummate love, has all three components passion, intimacy, and commitment. Consummate love is the model relationship, the relationship everyone wishes to have but not many do because of the challenges faced. Another sub-type of love is romantic love, which has the passion and the intimacy but lacks in commitment. This love can be described as the summer romance, the heat is there but once summer ends so does, the love there is no commitment to one another. Love at first sight! Nope sorry that was likely to be just infatuation. Infatuation has passion but has no commitment or intimacy. A love that common in most in marriages is companionate love. Companionate love is made up of commitment and intimacy while passion is no longer there. Maybe the couple use to have consummate love, the ideal love but the passion has faded with time and now they are only together because of the commitment they have to each other (use to being together).
(Part 2) The way a person is brought up really defines them as they grow up. Especially in relationship, how you were treated can determine how you treat others. As infants, we are in need of care, and our parents usually provide the necessities that are needed by us. Thus, how their parents treat them the infants learn the different attachment styles. The bonds that are created between us, as our caregivers and as the people who help us survive. There are three attachment styles, secure, avoidant, and anxious, we learn at an early stage in our life. When infants experience warm, responsive parents they show, secure attachment. Infants who experience cold rejecting parents show avoidant attachment. While those who experience inconsistent parenting show anxious attachment. As I stated before, the attachments learned in the infant stage of a person’s life define how they interact or who they turn out to be as adults.
For example, secure attachment, people with this kind of attachment find it easy to get comfortable and close with others. They don’t worry about being abandoned or being to close to a person as well as being too dependant. They are comfortable with who they are and are found to have an easier time to find love and develop an actual deep relationship. Relationships can last longer and are able to accept and support their significant other in spite their faults. The relationship is often characterized by happiness, trust and
friendship. Next we have avoidant attachment, which usually comes from a home in which the parents were cold, and rejecting. They might not have any support and left to fend for themselves, usually having to grow up sooner then most children. During their teenage years, they were probably loners not being able to trust or get to close with people. Thus, when it came time for a relationship, a person with avoidant attachment has a hard time getting close with their partner. He/she has a hard time trusting or depending on others, fearing that they will let them down or abandon them. Nervousness sets in with ask to be closer to a partner or open up with them as well it feels uncomfortable. They are more prone to leave the relationship than actually staying in one. They would rather dismiss their feelings, as not to get hurt. If in a relationship, a person with avoidant attachment style will usually have many high and lows emotionally. People with avoidant attachment will often get into brief sexual encounters without love, because they will not have to deal with the emotional part of the relationship. Finally, we have anxious attachment.
This is the person who is found to be clingy and often ask if others really like or love them. People with anxious attachment come from a home in which the parents were inconsistent with them. Parents at times were warm and sometimes not. The child would be more of an inconvenience to the parent’s schedule. They might have loved the child, but did not show it or did not know how to show it and if they did, it usually was not in the best way. This attachment in a person is usually the one that makes the relationship hard, as they often question the partners feeling towards them. They are often possessive of the other person as well as jealous. It is more of an obsession, they tend to break up with the person frequently and get back with them. The person can get very emotional and angry when talking about differences they
have. It is very important that as a parent we try to be supportive and show how much we love our child. As parents we usually do not want the same life for our children, we want them to have a better life more than what we had. Three components that can influence how a child’s attachment style will be are closeness, care, and commitment. Close physical contact with the child creates the bond. When the child and the parent are together, or separated feelings overcome both the parent and the child. Care, how parents are how support and comfort us. Then if the parent is consistent with being available, showing support and recurring, we will have commitment. Thus, when the child becomes an adult they will have the ability to go on their own with assurance in themselves. The pattern will follow with their children.

Reference

Bolt, M. (2004). Pursuing human strengths: A positive psychology guide. New York: Worth Publishers.