Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

Sorokowski, Piotr; Sorokowska, Agnieszka; Butovskaya, Marina; Karwowski, Maciej; Groyecka, Agata; Wojciszke, Bogdan; Pawłowski, Bogusław

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01922

Cited by 44 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(84 reference statements)

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“…The outcomes of this study are consistent with the results found by Sorokowski et al [26], as we also found an unexpected negative correlation between the women’s intimacy scores and the number of children, although this correlation was not statistically significant. It is likely that women that need to look after more children have less time to spend with their partners, which explains this lower level of intimacy.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Significance of Affection Changes during Pregnancy: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

Fernández-Carrasco

González-Mey²,

Rodríguez-Díaz

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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The complex process of gestation involves significant biological, psychological, and social changes for both women and men looking toward the same direction. The aim of this study was to analyze changes occurring in affective health between the members of a couple during pregnancy. For this, a cross sectional descriptive study using Sternberg’s questionnaire based on his Triangular Theory of Love (intimacy, passion, and commitment) was implemented. A total of 180 couples participated in the study. Data were collected four times during pregnancy: at the beginning, during the first trimester, the second trimester, and during the third trimester. The level of intimacy was higher at the beginning of pregnancy (123.93 ± 9.67), the same as the level of passion (119 ± 9.83). The commitment score in women was, in general, higher than in men. The commitment score in men increased at the beginning of the third trimester (124.31 ± 7.72). Statistically significant differences between the sexes were found for the level of commitment at the beginning of the pregnancy (p = 0.001) and at the third trimester (p = 0.008), these scores being higher for women than for men. No significant differences between men and women were found for the remaining components of the triangle. During pregnancy, no significant changes were found regarding overall affection throughout the entire period.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Significance of Affection Changes during Pregnancy: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

Fernández-Carrasco

González-Mey²,

Rodríguez-Díaz

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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“…Our findings raise implications about romantic passion in the form of a kiss, within human pair-bonds. Although kissing, in contrast to romantic passion, is not a human universal 11 (see also 33 ) data from remote societies suggests that social complexity, indexed via stratification, predicts the likelihood of observing romantic kissing in that culture 11 (same dataset as used in 27 ). Social complexity and increased group competition for scarce resources was thought to be a key driver in the evolution of human social intelligence, selecting for those who could monitor relations between group members as groups increased in size 34 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

National income inequality predicts cultural variation in mouth to mouth kissing

Watkins

Leongoméz

Bovet

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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Romantic mouth-to-mouth kissing is culturally widespread, although not a human universal, and may play a functional role in assessing partner health and maintaining long-term pair bonds. Use and appreciation of kissing may therefore vary according to whether the environment places a premium on good health and partner investment. Here, we test for cultural variation (13 countries from six continents) in these behaviours/attitudes according to national health (historical pathogen prevalence) and both absolute (GDP) and relative wealth (GINI). Our data reveal that kissing is valued more in established relationships than it is valued during courtship. Also, consistent with the pair bonding hypothesis of the function of romantic kissing, relative poverty (income inequality) predicts frequency of kissing across romantic relationships. When aggregated, the predicted relationship between income inequality and kissing frequency ( r = 0.67, BCa 95% CI[0.32,0.89]) was over five times the size of the null correlations between income inequality and frequency of hugging/cuddling and sex. As social complexity requires monitoring resource competition among large groups and predicts kissing prevalence in remote societies, this gesture may be important in the maintenance of long-term pair bonds in specific environments.

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“…To summarize, the results of this research suggest that romantic love may be related to hormonal changes in women, which may not only facilitate pair bonding and commitment, as shown in previous research [5,6,7,8,9,10], but could also potentially increase a woman’s fecundity. As such, physiological changes that occur when falling in love may be adaptive and may potentially increase a couple’s probability of conceiving offspring [47]. This adaptive interpretation may, at least partially, explain why romantic love is observed ubiquitously across diverse human cultures [48,49,50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Romantic Love and Reproductive Hormones in Women

Sorokowski

Żelaźniewicz

Nowak

et al. 2019

IJERPH

Self Cite

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Increased reproductive success is among the most commonly proposed adaptive functions of romantic love. Here, we tested if hormonal changes associated with falling in love may co-vary with hormonal profiles that predict increased fecundity in women. We compared blood serum levels of estradiol (E2, E2/T), luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), prolactin (PRL), free testosterone (fT), and cortisol (CT), measured in the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle in single women (N = 69) and in women at the beginning of a romantic heterosexual relationship who reported being in love with their partner (N = 47). Participants were healthy, regularly cycling women aged 24 to 33 who did not use hormonal contraception. We found that women in love had higher levels of gonadotropins (FSH, LH) and lower testosterone levels compared to single women who were not in love. These groups of women did not, however, differ in terms of estradiol, prolactin, or cortisol levels.

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Love Influences Reproductive Success in Humans

Cited by 44 publications

References 56 publications

Significance of Affection Changes during Pregnancy: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

Significance of Affection Changes during Pregnancy: Intimacy, Passion, and Commitment

National income inequality predicts cultural variation in mouth to mouth kissing

Romantic Love and Reproductive Hormones in Women

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