Wahring, Simpson, and Van Lange’s model in “Romantic Relationships Matter More to Men than to Women,” represents a promising start to synthesizing both biological and cultural evolutionary processes to explain the greater importance of relationships to men than women. While this model is laudable in scope, it could be strengthened by including Error Management Theory (Haselton et al., Reference Haselton, Nettle, Andrews and Buss2015). This theory outlines the sex-specific cognitive biases that differential reproductive costs, already outlined by the target authors in relation to Trivers’ (Reference Trivers and Campbell1972) Parental Investment Theory, could lead to.

Wahring et al. outline that, as men face fewer reproductive costs than women, they will seek more short-term relationships (sect. 2.4, para. 4). This desire for sexual relationships could also be driven by sexual overperception bias (Haselton & Buss, Reference Haselton and Buss2000). According to Error Management Theory, approaching an uninterested woman and wasting time is less costly for a man than missing sexual interest, as the latter implies missing an opportunity to pass on his genes. Haselton and Buss (Reference Haselton and Buss2000), therefore, predict that men have evolved a sexual overperception bias to intuit that women are sexually interested whenever uncertain about female desire. Seeing heightened initial sexual interest can lead men to form romantic attachments, too. Men typically say “I love you” first in relationships (Wahring et al., sect. 3.1, para. 3). This may be due to reciprocation; we like those who we are sure like us back (Birnbaum et al., Reference Birnbaum, Iluz, Plotkin, Tibi, Hematian, Mizrahi and Reis2020). When men overperceive sexual interest in women, they may also presume romantic interest due to stereotypes around female sexuality (Allen, Reference Allen2003). Perhaps, men form romantic attachments as they “reciprocate” based on their overperception. Sexual overperception may also explain why men are more likely than women to initiate romantic relationships from existing cross-sex friendships (sect. 4.2, para. 2.). Men frequently express regret over the “one that got away” on social media (Webster et al., Reference Webster, Smith, Orozco, Jonason, Gesselman and Greenspan2021); which suggests that missing a potential relationship is more costly to men than maintaining a friendship that could have been more.

Error Management Theorists predict a converse cognitive bias in women. When deciding whether to enter a relationship, it is theoretically less costly for a woman to miss out on a committed man than it is for her to have a child with a man who would abandon her after conception. Of course, women can raise children without male support, but this could incur reputational costs in countries with two-parent family norms (Stavrova & Fetchenhauer, Reference Stavrova and Fetchenhauer2014). Haselton and Buss (Reference Haselton and Buss2000) therefore predict that women have evolved to under-infer male commitment, known as commitment-skepticism bias. This could, perhaps, explain why women are more likely than men to terminate relationships over commitment issues in Wahring et al.’s model (sect. 3.6, para. 4). Brown and Olkhov (Reference Brown and Olkhov2015) show that men and women agree on the amount of commitment signaled by dating behaviors, such as handholding; but women desire more of these behaviors than men do to feel secure. If women feel that men are not signaling commitment as often as they need, they may end the relationship. Commitment-skepticism may also somewhat explain why men say “I love you” first – perhaps women wait to hear this as a signal of commitment before saying it.

Sexual overperception has been supported by surveys of naturally occurring events where women report more instances that their friendliness was mistaken for flirtatiousness by men than vice-versa (Haselton, Reference Haselton2003); in men’s reactions to fictional cases of dating behaviors (Bendixen et al., Reference Bendixen, Kennair, Biegler and Haselton2019; Ruckel, Reference Ruckel2022) and in studies mimicking speed-dating (Henningsen & Henningsen, Reference Henningsen and Henningsen2010; Perilloux et al., Reference Perilloux, Easton and Buss2012; Samara et al., Reference Samara, Roth and Kret2021). Commitment-skepticism is studied less often but has been documented in American (Haselton & Buss, Reference Haselton and Buss2000) and German samples (Cyrus et al., Reference Cyrus, Schwarz and Hassebrauck2011). However, some researchers question why men should have a fixed bias to overperceive sexual interest. In McKay and Efferson’s (Reference McKay and Efferson2010) model, men over-approach uninterested women without deviating from Bayesian reasoning. That is, a man may be perfectly aware that a woman is unlikely to be interested, but as he knows he will never succeed in securing a mating opportunity unless he tries, he approaches anyway. This challenges the predictions of Error Management Theory; perhaps, men and women behave in ways that appear consistent with this theory, but this behavior is not necessarily driven by evolved biases. Social norms could also affect dating behaviors (Goh et al., Reference Goh, Stoeckli and Schoebi2018), especially due to the disparate way men and women are socialized regarding sexual and romantic relationships (Allen, Reference Allen2003).

Indeed, this concept hints at the most glaring methodological issue with Error Management Theory and the romantic relationship research reviewed by Wahring et al.; societal norms around dating are clearly important, and yet most research only utilizes Western samples. For example, gifting expensive jewelry is an uncommon gesture of romantic interest in France and Chile, and so men from these countries struggle to judge the sexual intent implied by this behavior (Perilloux et al., Reference Perilloux, Muñoz-Reyes, Turiegano, Kurzban and Pita2015). While overperception has been documented in other cultures (Bendixen, Reference Bendixen2014; Hiraishi et al., Reference Hiraishi, Murasaki, Okuda and Yamate2016); these studies have employed university students, who are likely more Western and Democratic than their nonstudent counterparts (Henrich et al., Reference Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan2010). I, therefore, echo Wahring et al.’s call to include non-WEIRD perspectives in relationship research and support their claim that cultural evolution is likely just as influential in shaping dating behaviors as biological. Supporting the importance of culture, Brandner et al. (Reference Brandner, Pohlman and Brase2021) find that men are unlikely to overperceive women since the changing awareness of consent post #MeToo.

In sum, incorporating Error Management Theory into Wahring et al.’s model could elaborate their explanation of the biological evolutionary influences driving the importance of relationships to men. Sexual overperception may in part explain why men are likely to form relationships; while commitment-skepticism may in part explain why women are likely to terminate relationships. Finally, I agree with Wahring et al.’s claim that cultural evolutionary processes are influential, and we must move beyond WEIRD perspectives to understand whether the increased importance of relationships to men is a universal phenomenon, or a product of Western dating norms.