Evolutionary Perspective On Relationships

The evolutionary perspective on relationships, while one of the most thought provoking and interesting, is also one of the more criticized perspectives in the field of relationship psychology. The father of evolutionary psychology, Charles Darwin, foresaw the importance of the evolutionary perspective but could have not predicted all of the faultfinding that would also be attached to this theory. In relation to relationships, the evolutionary theory revolves around the ability of men and women to seek out partners in which to sexually reproduce with. For example, the recurrent problem of men identifying sexually accessible women was more acute for men oriented towards short term mating strategies than those for long term mating (Perilloux et
A comprehensive definition of the perspective can be summarized as one of Darwin’s points in his findings; organisms whose genetic traits provide an advantage in access to resources will survive longer and be more successful in mating. As a result, their genes will increase in the population relative to less-adaptive competitors (Kenrick & Trost 2004) – a la survival of the fittest. By making the statement that these evolutionary perspectives hold weight still today in 2015, over a million years after our first primitive ancestors came to be, this has become a polarizing topic amongst relationship psychologists. While it is simple to stay somewhere in the middle on controversial theories, I tend to favor this idea and believe it to be valid based on some of the empirical findings related to this topic and my own thoughts on how we behave in relationships. Specifically, two of the myriad sub-topics of the evolutionary perspective that make me believe in evolutionary theory are mate selection and jealousy &
Essentially, Buss and his colleagues found that men have a higher sense of jealous rage when sexual infidelity is committed and women are more distraught in partners who commit emotional infidelity when both types of unfaithfulness were presented. From a broader perspective, men find it easier to have sex without emotional attachment than women do. These findings serve as evidence for an evolutionary theory, stating over time women who had more casual sex would risk pregnancy without the accompanying aid, protection, and support from an invested men. Contrarily, ancestral men would have benefitted more in reproductive currency by having a short-term mating strategy without emotional involvement(Buss et al 1999). This idea is particularly relevant to college students today, where “hook up culture” is prevalent. It offers an explanation for an otherwise unexplainable phenomenon as why men want to have sex often, whereas women feel deep emotional betrayal by men who “love them and leave them”. While the evolutionary perspective is broad and can be criticized when trying to apply its groundings to all of the limitless aspects of relationship dynamics, I find the empirical evidence specifically on mate selection and