Definition
Mate retention behaviors performed by allies (solicited or unsolicited) that function to reduce the risk of partner infidelity.
Introduction
A long-term partner’s sexual or emotional infidelity inflicts costs on both men and women, such as increasing the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and inducing psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety. In fact, partner infidelity is the leading cause of relationship dissolution.
Men and women also incur sex-specific costs from partner infidelity, stemming from asymmetries in reproductive biology. Due to internal fertilization and gestation occurring in women, ancestral men were uncertain that they were genetically related to their romantic partner’s offspring. Thus, men are at risk of investing resources into genetically unrelated offspring. In contrast, ancestral women had maternity certainty. However, when they were rearing children (e.g., nursing), women relied heavily on male-provisioned resources. A...
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Barbaro, N. (2016). Coalitional Mate Retention. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_140-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_140-1
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