Long-term romantic relationships: Adaptationist approaches.

Psychology has a long history of interest in the study of romantic and sexual relationships. The introduction of evolutionary perspectives to this area has broadened and clarified our understanding of mating desires and behaviors. This article will review some of the contributions of evolutionarily informed research to our understanding of long-term committed relationships. In particular, it will concentrate on clarifications to our understanding of sexual strategies and resulting sex differences in long- and short-term mate preferences, the role of attachment in pair-bonding, individual differences in sexual strategies, and the influence of hormones on infidelity, as well as the roles of sexual jealousy and violence in mate retention