Kruglanski and his colleagues propose a threefold model that includes partner merit (MR), appreciation (AP), and the quest for meaning (SQ) to determine the likelihood of an individual falling in love with a partner. While this theoretical proposition has the merit of offering a fresh perspective on love, it suffers from at least three significant issues that deserve careful reconsideration.

First, most of the preference criteria related to partner merit (e.g., power, beauty, wealth, etc.) and appreciation (e.g., affection, adoration, and understanding) are already encompassed within a broader evolutionary framework of pair-bonding (see Fletcher et al., Reference Fletcher, Simpson, Campbell and Overall2015). These established theories provide thorough explanations for the traits valued in potential mates, rendering the new model somewhat redundant in this respect. Indeed, the Ideal Standards Model proposed by Fletcher and colleagues (Reference Fletcher, Simpson, Thomas and Giles1999) already includes warmth, vitality, and status/resources – dimensions that correspond to the very constructs proposed by Kruglanski et al. Furthermore, decades of work in evolutionary psychology have demonstrated that mate preferences are relatively consistent across cultures and time (Buss, Reference Buss1989; Buss & Schmitt, Reference Buss and Schmitt1993), suggesting that the core attributes motivating romantic attraction are neither novel nor reducible to a new equation.

Second, evolutionary research (Gangestad & Simpson, Reference Gangestad and Simpson2000) has shown that partner preferences and romantic behaviors are highly flexible and sensitive to ecological and social contexts. By imposing a fixed multiplicative relationship between MR, AP, and SQ, the proposed formula offers a static view that fails to capture the strategic adjustments individuals make in response to varying environmental conditions – for instance, during times of resource scarcity or abundance. The theory of strategic pluralism (Gangestad & Simpson, Reference Gangestad and Simpson2000) argues that individuals vary their mating strategies based on life history, reproductive goals, and external pressures, often trading off between traits like physical attractiveness and stability. Li et al. (Reference Li, Bailey, Kenrick and Linsenmeier2002) further demonstrate that when individuals are constrained, women prioritize resources while men’s emphasis lie on physical attractiveness.

Finally, from an evolutionary perspective, reproductive needs – such as indicators of fertility, health, or resource-providing capacity – should take precedence over the aspiration to feel significant since they are likely to first appear developmentally (Kenrick et al., Reference Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg and Schaller2010). Kruglanski et al.’s emphasis on the quest for meaning (SQ) as the central driver of love appears to downplay these fundamental reproductive signals. For example, physical features such as facial symmetry or waist-to-hip ratio (Singh, Reference Singh1993; Rhodes, Reference Rhodes2006) serve as universal indicators of reproductive fitness. These signals are prioritized in initial attraction across cultures, suggesting that they form the biological bedrock of romantic interest – long before existential meaning enters the equation.

Furthermore, one might question whether it is reasonable to discuss romantic love by referencing solely negative evolutionary underpinnings. This criticism is particularly relevant to Hypothesis 8: “When a partner’s merit or appreciation declines, the actor’s love for the partner would correspondingly dwindle” (Kruglanski et al., section 1, p. 11). The authors argue that men’s feelings of love should wane more quickly than women’s due to their stronger preference for younger mates and a tendency to adopt more protective and retention strategies toward them. However, these criteria cannot be used to explain H8 without presupposing their cardinal importance within a more general evolutionary framework. From Hypothesis 1 onward, the authors note that data indicate the supremacy of attractiveness over personality or intelligence – differences that are already well explained by existing paradigms. Attractiveness/health is directly linked to ancestral genetic quality, while status/resources are direct predictors of future parental investment (Henshaw, Fromhage, & Jones, Reference Henshaw, Fromhage and Jones2022). Appreciation, as highlighted in Hypothesis 2, emphasizes qualities such as warmth, kindness, loyalty, and understanding, which indeed ensure reciprocal appreciation but primarily serve to form pair-bonding and secure parental investment (Miller, Reference Miller2007). These traits, while essential to relationship maintenance, are unlikely to act as initial triggers for romantic desire, which is often driven by more immediate evolutionary cues.

In summary, while Kruglanski et al.’s model introduces an innovative angle by centering the quest for meaning (SQ) as a key driver of love, they oversimplify mating criteria using a dual category of merits-appreciation. Evolutionary predictions would argue that different genetic quality and investment cues should be treated one by one as they served specific mating purposes. The formula of love model underfits key aspects, failing to explain the influence of ecological and social contexts and not taking into account developmental factors that have long shaped human mate selection. It also overlooks the essential distinction between short-term and long-term romantic strategies, as well as how individual differences in attachment style, personality, and cultural background might influence the weighting of MR, AP, and SQ (Reis & Aron, Reference Reis and Aron2008).

Additionally, the model does not differentiate between short-term and long-term mating strategies, an essential distinction in evolutionary psychology. Traits such as physical attractiveness and novelty are more influential in short-term contexts, while commitment, reliability, and mutual support weigh more heavily in long-term bonding (Buss & Schmitt, Reference Buss and Schmitt1993; Kenrick et al., Reference Kenrick, Griskevicius, Neuberg and Schaller2010). By collapsing all partner attributes into broad categories, the formula ignores this temporal dimension that guides romantic behaviors. The evolutionary literature emphasizes that these preferences are not only shaped by environmental contingencies but also influenced by hormonal cycles, age, and mating goals (Gildersleeve, Haselton, & Fales, Reference Gildersleeve, Haselton and Fales2014) – factors entirely absent from the model proposed by Kruglanski et al.

Lastly, while mathematical modeling can provide clarity and predictive power, it may also obscure complexity when applied to phenomena as rich and multifaceted as romantic love. The linear and multiplicative structure proposed by Kruglanski et al. underrepresents the affective, contextual, and evolutionary dimensions of human attachment. Love is not merely a product of three variables but a complex adaptive process shaped by ecology, developmental contingencies, and biological imperatives. A richer framework would need to integrate multiple levels of analysis, from proximate psychological mechanisms to ultimate evolutionary functions, in order to more accurately capture the richness of human romantic life.