INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES



MATE SELECTION

67


bearing and rearing of offspring-would have been achieved.
Ancestral pairings need not have been any more selective or
predictable from the individual characteristics of the male and
female involved than modern matings appear to be. But the
infatuation-induced ancestral pairings would have had to be
specific and singular, bonding a specific male to a specific fe-
male long enough for a more permanent relationship to de-
velop.

Imprinting evolved among precocial birds because it tied the
newly hatched but mobile ducklings by invisible bonds to their
mother who could thus lead them to food and to safety (Lorenz,
1952). Romantic infatuation, we suggest, like imprinting,
forms an initial bond almost adventitiously and then sustains it
long enough, in most instances, for an enduring bond to be
forged by the slower processes of learning and adaptation that
result in companionate love. Money and Ehrhardt (1972) speak
of imprinting in this same context. Fisher
(1992), in her study of
58 contemporary societies, finds a remarkably consistent ten-
dency for the first divorce, if divorce occurs at all, to happen
after a modal period of 4 years that, she believes, “reflects an
ancestral strategy to remain pair-bonded at least long enough
to raise a single infant through the period of lactation” (Fisher,
199
1, p. 120). Liebowitz (1983) believes that romantic infatua-
tion isassociated with increased specific neurotransmitter activ-
ity that creates the sensations of euphoria and optimism that
characterize this state and that this biochemical process is
self-
limited to 2 or 3 years, the same interval that Money (1980) and
Tennov (1979) report as being characteristic of romantic attach-
ment.

Ducklings are equipped with a species-specific “search
image” which, in the presence of two moving objects at the
critical time, causes them to imprint on the more
ducklike
(Gould, 1983, p. 266). But, the ducklings’ search image is only
schematic; any mother duck as well as many quite unsuitable
surrogates (not normally present in the wild) can serve as re-
leasers. The data reviewed herein suggest that the search image
for human mate selection is similarly schematic; nearly any
opposite-sexed individual of roughly siblinglike similarity
might serve as a releaser. What we do not understand is the
mechanism of human sexual imprinting or infatuation.

Do humans have critical periods for infatι⅛tion? (if we do,
they are plural). Monogamous nonhuman animals like geese,
wolves, or gibbons, pair up again when a mate dies. In our
species also, an existing relationship seems to inhibit infatua-
tion, and it may be that termination of a relationship initiates a
period of renewed responsiveness. Unlike ducklings, however,
even during a period of susceptibility, we do not imprint ro-
mantically on just any passing individual who falls within the
range of our search criteria. Adolescence is assuredly a critical
period, yet even adolescents do not become infatuated with
every potential releaser. Having been reared together seems to
inhibit romantic imprinting, but what affirmatively triggers the
response?

Usually (although, alas, not always) we do not become infa-
tuated with targets that are altogether beyond our grasp. Such
evidence as the SO correlation within couples for physical attrac-
tiveness suggests that we tend to focus our search on individuals
whom we perceive as in the same class of “mate-worthiness” as
ourselves and, thus, as potentially available. We suspect that
attraction is often transmuted into genuine infatuation when it
is reciprocated, that “I love you, too” or its equivalent is an
important trigger mechanism (cf. Victor Herbert’s lyric: “I
think I could love someone madly, if someone would only love
me!“). We shall not speculate further: it is an intriguing problem
for further research.

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