The Science of Love

rather challenging option is the ability to produce large-brained offspring who are then capable, as adults, of fine-tuning their behaviour more effectively to the particular circumstances in which they later find themselves.

One of the benefits of this

potential rivals rather than causing you to be so besotted with the object of your love that you just forget to be interested in anyone else.

In other words, being romantically involved actually seems to turn you off from po‍

When people are in love, they spend much less time looking at attractive members of the opposite sex,

The third hypothesis – checking for members of the opposite sex who might offer opportunities of new romantic relationships – won hands down.

of being attracted to someone else, whereas the second does not.

In effect, the first implies a psychological mechanism that actively inhibits your likelihood

(the deflection hypothesis) or to you just becoming so wrapped up in your new love that you don’t have time to attend to anyone else (the attention hypothesis)

My interest will lie in trying to bridge the gap between these more obviously biological bases of our behaviour and the psychological, social, historical and evolutionary contexts that help to mould that behaviour.