Commitment, Love, and Mate Retention

Campbell, Lorne; Ellis, Bruce J.

doi:10.1002/9780470939376.ch14

Cited by 18 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Overall, it can be suggested that love, as a function of all the three described components, should increase reproductive success through natural and sexual selection. This hypothesis has been presented many times (e.g., Campell and Ellis, 2005 ; Buss, 2006 ; Pillsworth and Haselton, 2006 ), but it has never been empirically tested among humans.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

et al. 2017

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As love seems to be universal, researchers have attempted to find its biological basis. However, no studies till date have shown its direct association with reproductive success, which is broadly known to be a good measure of fitness. Here, we show links between love, as defined by the Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love, and reproductive success among the Hadza—traditional hunter-gatherer population. We found that commitment and reproductive success were positively and consistently related in both sexes, with number of children showing negative and positive associations with intimacy and passion, respectively, only among women. Our study may shed new light on the meaning of love in humans' evolutionary past, especially in traditional hunter-gatherer societies in which individuals, not their parents, were responsible for partner choice. We suggest that passion and commitment may be the key factors that increase fitness, and therefore, that selection promoted love in human evolution. However, further studies in this area are recommended.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

et al. 2017

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“…Effective mate retention, then, is important to avoid relationship dissolution given the various sources of relationship threat including partner abandonment, infidelity, and mate poaching (Campbell & Ellis, 2005). Reproductive success is potentially decreased as a consequence of relationship dissolution as partner abandonment can result in wasted investment in time and resources, and possible drop in mate value because of partner abandonment or older age (Daly & Wilson, 1983).…”

Section: Mate Retentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the ability of the benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate retention domains to predict initiator of relationship dissolution

DeLecce¹,

Weisfeld²

2021

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Research on mate retention often only aims to identify what constitutes mate retention tactics.In the current study, the effectiveness of mate retention tactics is explored by measuring relationship outcomes of tactics unlike previous research that measures effectiveness through perceptions of relationship satisfaction. Individuals who have experienced a nonmarital breakup reported on their own and their ex-partners' mate retention tactics before the breakup to see which ones predicted the outcome of relationship dissolution. Tests for moderation by participant gender and male mate value were also included. Results revealed that, in accord with the mate retention tactic categorization put forth by , tactics that are performed by participants' expartners that inflict costs increase the odds of dissolution. Moderation by gender was also observed such that women were more likely to dissolve relationships with men who engaged in frequent benefit-provisioning tactics. Discussion addresses both supporting and conflicting evidence for the effectiveness of the benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting categorization of mate retention.

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“…This is a picture that many evolutionary psychologists have argued for. It comes in a theoretical lexicon purged of uniquely human features, such as language and culture: “attraction,” “pair bonding,” “parental investment,” “attachment,” and “mate retention” (Buss 2006; Campbell and Ellis 2005; Young 2003). These expressions apply to human and nonhuman animals alike, so they’re amenable to the investigations of evolutionary psychology and neuroscience.…”

Section: Explanationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Love of Neuroscience: A Sociological Account

Abend

2018

Sociological Theory

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I make a contribution to the sociology of epistemologies by examining the neuroscience literature on love from 2000 to 2016. I find that researchers make consequential assumptions concerning the production or generation of love, its temporality, its individual character, and appropriate control conditions. Next, I consider how to account for these assumptions’ being common in the literature. More generally, I’m interested in the ways in which epistemic communities construe, conceive of, and publicly represent and work with their objects of inquiry—and what’s thereby assumed about them and about the world. I argue that these implicit or explicit assumptions are a distinct type of explanandum, whose distinctiveness sociology hasn’t adequately appreciated and taken advantage of. I think it should and I hope it will.

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Commitment, Love, and Mate Retention

Cited by 18 publications

References 66 publications

Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

Testing the ability of the benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate retention domains to predict initiator of relationship dissolution

The Love of Neuroscience: A Sociological Account

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