Sex, Caregiving, and Love in Romantic Relationships: Other Perspectives from Evolutionary Psychology

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Sex, Caregiving, and Love in Romantic
Relationships Other Perspectives from
Evolutionary Psychology

• Lee A. Kirkpatrick
• College of William Mary
• September, 2004

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Preface

• Outstanding problem in adult attachment theory
  Integrate attachment with mating and other
  systems within an evolutionary perspective
• From evolutionary perspective, must begin with
  mating/reproduction
• Potential role of attachment-like processes must
  be understood in terms of contribution to
  adaptive mating/reproductive strategies
• Cf. infancy, where survival is chief life task

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Outline

• I. Human Mating Strategies
• pluralistic and facultative
• II. Attachment
• control system vs. affectional bond
• III. Love and Caregiving
• commitment and altruism
• IV. Individual Differences in Adult Attachment
• sociosexuality and long-term/short-term mating
• V. Conclusions

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I. Human Mating Strategies Theory

• Human mating strategies as pluralistic
• long-term vs. short-term strategies in both sexes
  (Buss Schmitt, 1993)
• restricted vs. unrestricted sociosexuality in
  both sexes (Gangestad Simpson, 1990)
• Separate neurotransmitter systems enable
  simultaneous pursuit of multiple mating
  strategies (Fisher, 2002)
• Human mating strategies as facultative
• adaptive costs and benefits (Buss Schmitt,
  1993)
• ecological factors (Gangestad Simpson, 2000)

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I. Human Mating Strategies Evidence

• Cross-cultural evidence
• Prevalence of divorce, extra-marital affairs,
  prostitution, polygamy variation in
  sociosexuality
• Behavioral and self-report evidence
• Desire for multiple sex partners, content of
  sexual fantasies, willingness to engage in sex
  with strangers, etc. (esp. among men)
• Other adaptations
• Comparative testis size, sexual dimorphism in
  stature
• Mechanisms for sperm competition
• Sexual jealousy, other defenses against
  mate-poaching

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I. Human Mating Strategies Conclusion

• Humans are not designed to be exclusively (or
  even predominantly) monogamous
• However, no reason why adult-attachment
  researchers need to argue or assume so
• Existence of ST mating systems in no way renders
  LT mating less important or adaptive
• Indeed, existence and power of ST mating systems
  might be precisely why attachment-like mechanisms
  could play an important role in romantic love
• But, any attachment-like processes likely to be
  related only to long-term mating context

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II. Attachment System or Bond?

• In application of attachment theory to romantic
  love, which facet(s) of attachment are
  relevant?
• attachment as a control system
• attachment as an affectional bond
• Confusion generated by usage of same term for
  both
• seems to imply that they necessarily go together
• but, they are separable and functionally distinct

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II. Attachment as a System

• Behavior-regulation system in infancy
• Adaptive function protection
• Set point system activation vs. deactivation
  etc.
• Inputs to system
• external (caregivers location, danger)
• internal (health, injury, fatigue)
• Outputs from system
• Crying, calling, reaching, other attachment
  behaviors
• Distinct from complementary caregiving system
• Evolution of caregiving system almost surely
  predates evolution of attachment system

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II. Attachment as a System

• Not central to adult romantic relationships
• protection/survival only one of many adult life
  tasks mating/reproduction become paramount
• cannot assume reliable caregiving from spouse
  based on genetic relatedness, as in infancy
• spouse usually not solution to adult-sized
  dangers
• leads to expectation of sex differences
• adults posses diverse repertoire of strategies
  for coping with various threats and dangers
• System cannot be exapted for entirely different
  function without major reorganization/redesign

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II. Attachment as a Bond

• Children feel love for caregivers
• and other context-dependent emotions
• But also
• parents love their children
• adult romantic partners love each other
• close friends love each other as well
• Emotional bond as a distinct mechanism
• vs. attachment, caregiving, and mating systems
• shared neurophysiology (oxytocin, vassopressin)
• What is its adaptive function?
• why arent these simply cold cognitive systems?

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III. Love and Caregiving Commitment

• Robert Frank on love and social emotions
• love as a commitment device
• landlords-and-tenants analogy
• turn off mate-search mechanisms
• derogate alternatives enhance partner
• get on with mating and childrearing
• Love in other contexts
• children temptations to seek alternative
  caregivers
• mothers temptations to give up, redirect
  resources

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III. Love and Caregiving Altruism

• Tooby Cosmides the Bankers Paradox
• 3rd evolutionary path to altruism (vs. reciprocal
  altruism and kin selection)
• friendships as deep engagement relationships
• evolutionary logic invest in (be altruistic) to
  others to whom your own welfare is yoked
• Fisherian runaway process
• overrides short-term social-exchange
  considerations in favor of long-term (and
  difficult-to-calculate) benefits

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III. Love and Caregiving

• Two distinct love systems in adults?
• Love as Commitment Device (per Frank)
• passionate love, infatuation, limerance,
  attraction
• commit to a partner choice for long-term mating
• long enough for mating, caregiving thru infancy
• Deep Engagement (per Tooby Cosmides)
• companionate love, goal-corrected partnership
• same mechanism as in close friendships
• attachment part of adult romantic
  relationships?

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IV. Individual Differences

• Preceding arguments suggest limited role of
  attachment (system) in romantic relationships
• Might measured individual differences in adult
  attachment reflect mating strategies instead?
• I argued previously that avoidant-vs.-secure
  dimension might primarily reflect short- vs.
  long-term (unrestricted vs. restricted) mating
  orientation
• e.g., avoidants dont believe in love, dislike
  intimacy, have shorter relationships, etc.
• but, several empirical studies to date have shown
  only weak correlation between SOI and adult
  attachment

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IV. Individual Differences

• Jenee James M.A. thesis (WM, 2004)
• original SOI measures primarily attitudes toward
  short-term mating assumes long-term as opposite
• sociosexuality as a bipolar dimension not
  consistent with pluralistic mating theories
• developed new measure with two separate (and only
  moderately correlated) scales for LT and ST
  mating
• Results
• ST dimension, like SOI, only weakly correlated
  with adult attachment measures
• LT dimension correlates approx. r -.50 with
  avoidance (vs. security)

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V. Conclusions

• Role of attachment in adult romantic
  relationships may be highly circumscribed
• Among multiple mating systems, only some
  (long-term, restricted) involve attachment-like
  processes
• Among multiple facets of attachment, only some
  (attachment as affectional bond) may be relevant
• Among multiple affectional bonds, only one (akin
  to friendship, companionate love) may be relevant
• Individual differences in adult attachment may
  largely reflect variation in mating orientations/
  sociosexuality, not attachment per se

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V. Conclusions (cont.)

• Devils advocate role
• Deliberately staked out most extreme position
• Challenge researchers to question assumptions and
  consider alternative hypotheses
• In particular, design empirical research to rule
  out these alternatives in more rigorous tests of
  theory
• Seriously confronting these alternative
  hypotheses is crucial if adult-attachment theory
  is to retain the evolutionary foundation proposed
  by Bowlby from which the theory derives its power