Examines how trade-offs impact romantic relationship initiation and maintenance, suggesting implications for understanding relationship dynamics.
Does romantic love always depend on trade-offs between significance quests, partner appreciation, and partner merit? The compensatory logic of the love formula may better apply to romantic relationship initiation than maintenance. Personal quests for significance are more tied to the success/failure of established than new relationships. This makes it harder to keep partner appreciation and merit mentally separate, limiting compensation.
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Murray et al. (2026) studied this question.
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