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Cost-inflicting behaviors include those behaviors that cause physical or psychological harm to an individual and/or reduce an individual’s access or perceived access to resources.
Costs of Intimate Relationship Development
Developing and maintaining an intimate relationship require the investment of resources, in terms of time, energy, finances, emotional commitment, and so on. If the benefits gained from being involved in an intimate relationship outweigh the costs of developing and maintaining that relationship, then the result is a net gain. If the costs outweigh the benefits, on the other hand, the result is a net loss.
Males and females tend to bring different investments into a relationship and so may incur different costs for committing to such a relationship (Miller 2011). Males, for instance, are more likely to make investments of material resources. In effect, males can buy their way into a long-term relationship by...
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References
Buss, D. M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12(01), 1–14.
Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). From vigilance to violence: Mate retention tactics in married couples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(2), 346.
Miller, G. (2011). The mating mind: How sexual choice shaped the evolution of human nature. New York: Anchor.
Miner, E. J., Shackelford, T. K., & Starratt, V. G. (2009). Mate value of romantic partners predicts men’s partner-directed verbal insults. Personality and Individual Differences, 46(2), 135–139.
Pillsworth, E. G., & Haselton, M. G. (2006). Male sexual attractiveness predicts differential ovulatory shifts in female extra-pair attraction and male mate retention. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27(4), 247–258.
Platek, S. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (2006). Female infidelity and paternal uncertainty: Evolutionary perspectives on male anti-cuckoldry tactics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shackelford, T. K., & Buss, D. M. (2000). Marital satisfaction and spousal cost-infliction. Personality and Individual Differences, 28(5), 917–928.
Starratt, V. G., Shackelford, T. K., Goetz, A. T., & McKibbin, W. F. (2007). Male mate retention behaviors vary with risk of partner infidelity and sperm competition. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 39(3), 523–527.
Trivers, R. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection, Biological laboratories (Vol. 136). Cambridge: Harvard University.
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Starratt, V.G. (2017). Cost Inflicting. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_145-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_145-1
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