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Publication Detailed Description
The function of love: A signaling-to-alternatives account of the commitment device hypothesis
Journal Title
Evolution and Human Behavior
Year (definitive publication)
2025
Language
English
Country
United States of America
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Abstract
Love is commonly hypothesized to function as an evolved commitment device, disincentivizing the pursuit of romantic alternatives and signaling this motivational shift to a partner. Here, we test this possibility against a novel signaling-to-alternatives account, in which love instead operates by dissuading alternatives from pursuing oneself. Overall, we find stronger support for the latter account. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that partner quality relative to alternatives positively predicts feelings of love, and love fails to mitigate the negative effects of desirable alternatives on relationship satisfaction—contradicting the classic commitment device account. In Study 3, using a longitudinal design, we replicate these effects and find that changes in partner quality relative to alternatives predict changes in love over time. In Study 4, we replicate the relationship between love and relative partner quality across 44 countries. In Study 5, we find a nearly one-to-one correspondence between the extent to which partner-directed actions are diagnostic of love and reductions in romantic alternatives' attraction to the actor. These results suggest that love may not act as a commitment device in the classic sense by disincentivizing the pursuit of alternatives but by disincentivizing alternatives from pursuing oneself.
Acknowledgements
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Keywords
Romantic love,Commitment device,Quality of alternatives,Evolutionary psychology,Close relationships,Signaling theory
Fields of Science and Technology Classification
- Earth and related Environmental Sciences - Natural Sciences
- Biological Sciences - Natural Sciences
- Health Sciences - Medical and Health Sciences
- Psychology - Social Sciences
- Other Humanities - Humanities
Funding Records
| Funding Reference | Funding Entity |
|---|---|
| P5–0062 | Slovenian Research Agency |
| AH/S004025/1 | UKRI/GCRF Gender, Justice, Security |
| 71971225 | National Nature Science Foundation of China |
| K125437 | Hungarian Scientific Research Fund |
| 1845586 | National Science Foundation |
| 01201370995 | Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia |
| 2014/13/B/HS6/02644 | National Science Center - Poland |
| 626/STYP/12/2017 | Ministry of Science and Higher Education |
| 501.01-2016.02 | Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development |
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