Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory

Abstract

The evolutionary function of love is to create a strong bond between the partners with reproduction in view. In order to achieve this goal, humans use various sexual/reproductive strategies, which have evolved due to specific reproductive benefits. The use of particular strategies depends on many factors but one of the most important is early childhood experiences, on which life history theory (LHT) focuses. John Lee (1973) identified 6 basic love styles: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, agape, and mania. Our goal was to check whether love styles may be treated as sexual/reproductive strategies in the context of LHT - slow or fast strategy. In our study (N = 177) we found that people who prefer the slow reproductive strategy are inclined to show passionate, pragmatic and friendly love, and those who prefer the fast strategy, treated love as a game. A low level of environmental stress in childhood results in preferring eros, storge and agape love styles, belonging to the slow strategy, and a high one results in preferring ludus, which belongs to the fast strategy. People representing eros, storge or pragma styles have restricted sociosexual orientation so they prefer long-term relationships, whereas those with the ludus style are people with unrestricted orientation, preferring short-term relationships. Besides, storge, agape and pragma seem to determine preferring qualities connected with parental effort in one’s partner, mania - with mating effort, and eros - with both kinds of effort. No correlation was found between the love style and the number of children.

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* Police Academy in Szczytno, Faculty of Administration, Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego 111, 12-100 Szczytno, Poland
** Department of Psychology, University of Rzeszow, Ks. Jałowego 24, 35-010 Rzeszów, Poland
Corresponding author: Andrzej Łukasik
Magdalena Marzec*
Andrzej Łukasik**
Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory
Abstract: The evolutionary function of love is to create a strong bond between the partners with reproduction in view.
In order to achieve this goal, humans use various sexual/reproductive strategies, which have evolved due to specific
reproductive benefits. The use of particular strategies depends on many factors but one of the most important is early
childhood experiences, on which life history theory (LHT) focuses. John Lee (1973) identified 6 basic love styles: eros,
ludus, storge, pragma, agape, and mania. Our goal was to check whether love styles may be treated as sexual/reproductive
strategies in the context of LHT – slow or fast strategy. In our study (N = 177) we found that people who prefer the slow
reproductive strategy are inclined to show passionate, pragmatic and friendly love, and those who prefer the fast strategy,
treated love as a game. A low level of environmental stress in childhood results in preferring eros, storge and agape love
styles, belonging to the slow strategy, and a high one results in preferring ludus, which belongs to the fast strategy. People
representing eros, storge or pragma styles have restricted sociosexual orientation so they prefer long-term relationships,
whereas those with the ludus style are people with unrestricted orientation, preferring short-term relationships. Besides,
storge, agape and pragma seem to determine preferring qualities connected with parental effort in one’s partner, mania –
with mating effort, and eros – with both kinds of effort. No correlation was found between the love style and the number
of children.
Key words: love styles, life history theory, sexual strategies, sociosexual orintation
Polish Psychological Bulletin
2017, vol. 48(2) 237–249
DOI - 10.1515/ppb-2017-0027
Introduction
Romantic love is an emotional and motivational
state without which the evolution of our species would
be hard to imagine. Helen Fisher (2007) even claims
that romantic love is a drive. The evolutionary function
of love is to create a strong bond between the partners
with reproduction in view. Romantic love is defined as
the constellation of behaviors, cognitions, and emotions
associated with a desire to enter or maintain a close
relationship with a specific other person” (Aron & Aron,
1991). In order to achieve this goal, humans use various
strategies called sexual strategies, which have evolved due
to specific reproductive benefits. Gangestad and Simpson
(2000, p. 575) defined sexual strategies as “integrated
sets of adaptations that organize and guide an individual’s
reproductive effort. They influence how individuals
select mates, how much mating effort they expend, how
much parental effort they expend, and so on”. This notion
was introduced by Buss and Schmitt (1993) and is used
on the ground of evolutionary psychology. In biology,
however, the term of reproductive strategy is rather used.
Kappeler (2012) defined reproductive strategies as a “set of
behavioral, morphological, and physiological adaptations
that facilitate access to potential mates, improve the
chances of mating and fertilization, and enhance infant
survival”. As the two notions are defined in a similar way,
our article uses them interchangeably.
The use of particular strategies depends on many
factors but one of the most important is early childhood
experiences, on which the life history theory (LHT) focuses
(see e.g. Belsky, 2010; Chisholm, Quinlivan, Petersen, &
Coall, 2005; Vigil, Geary, & Byrd-Craven, 2005). Early
childhood experiences include both the specific features
of family environment, e.g. violence (Vigil et al., 2005),
the absence of the father, or the kind of attachments
(Belsky, 2010), and the external one, e.g. mortality in the
local population (Chisholm, 1993; Griskevicius, Delton,
Robertson, & Tybur, 2011). Such experiences are signals
which direct a person’s later sexual strategies.
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Romantic love is not a homogenous emotion: different
love styles exist. John Lee (1973) identified 6 basic love
styles: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, agape, and mania.
Our goal is to check whether love styles may be treated
as sexual strategies, that is, they serve the same purposes
as sexual strategies, organizing the reproductive effort of
an individual. This approach is not new (cf. Hendrick &
Hendrick, 1991; 1995), but as far as we know, there are no
studies applying Lee’s classification of love styles in the
context of life history theory.
Life history theory
According to biological life history theory (McArthur
& Wilson, 1967; Pianka, 1970; Stearns, 1992; Wilson,
1975), both species and individuals choose the reproductive
strategy on the basis of the environment in which they
develop. The r-selected strategy means preferring quantity
to quality of the offspring and lower parental investment,
because parents’ resources (with the assumption that they
do not undergo any significant changes) are limited and
must be divided into a higher number of children. The
K-selected strategy means preferring quality to quantity,
because a lower number of children results in assigning
them greater portions of parents’ investment. The r strategy
is also called fast life history, and K – slow life history
(e.g. Del Giudice, 2014; Figueredo, Cabeza de Baca, &
Woodley, 2013; Gladden, Sisco, & Figueredo, 2008).
Humans typically apply the K-selected strategy, but there
is some variety among individuals regarding the preference
of one strategy or the other (Rushton, 1985). The selection
of a particular strategy depends on ecological factors in
which the organism grows: the fast strategy develops in
an unstable and unpredictable (e.g. fluctuation in food
availability, high mortality rates), stressful environment,
and the slow strategy, in stable and predictable one. The
more recent version of LHT describes the allocation of
bioenergetic and material resources (e.g. calories and
nutrients) among divergent components of fitness. LHT
assumes that reproductive strategies of individuals able
to reproduce, involve the allocation of these resources
of the organism to somatic effort aimed at survival (e.g.
sustaining maintenance of one’s body and brain functions,
in humans also acquiring knowledge, education or skills)
or reproductive effort devoted to the production and
support offspring as vehicles for the individual’s genes
to the next generetions (Figueredo, Vásquez, Brumbach,
Sefcek, Kirsner, & Jacobs, 2005; Figueredo et al., 2006;
Griskevicius et al., 2011). Reproductive effort includes
mating effort – attracting and keeping a partner (e.g.
intrasexual competition, and in the case of humans, e.g.
tactics of keeping the partner in the relationship or jealousy)
and parental effort, when resources are used to increase
the offspring’s chance of survival (e.g. the quality of
parental care, attachment style in human families). High
mating effort represents fast life history, manifested in the
tendency towards increased reproduction, early puberty
and a shorter life span, whereas high somatic effort and
parental effort represent slow life history, connected with
slower ontogenetic development and a longer life span
(Figueredo et al., 2013). The “slow” strategy is connected
with high parental expenditure and preference for long-term
relationships, whereas the “fast” one, with low parental
expenditure and preference for short-term relationships
(see Gladden et al., 2008). People with the slow strategy
demonstrate restricted sociosexual orientation, and those
with the fast one, unrestricted orientation (Dunkel, Mathes,
& Decker, 2010; Peterson, Geher & Kaufman, 2011). ALHB
(Arizona Life History Battery) and its shorter version –
Mini-K (Figuerdo et al., 2006; Figueredo, 2007; Figueredo
et al., 2013) are used to investigate sexual strategies in the
context of LHT.
It is believed that in the period from birth to the age
of 5–7, family environment provides the child with various
hints which allow them to “choose” their own reproductive
strategy (Belsky, Steinberg, & Draper, 1991, p. 650).
Draper and Harpending (1982) made the hypothesis that
the absence of the father in early childhood results in earlier
puberty in girls, since it is a hint that one should not expect
paternal investment in the future. The hypothesis was the
basis for the formation of BSD concept (Belsky, Steinberg,
Draper), which emphasizes that in early childhood family
stressors such as e.g. the absence of biological father, the
lack of marital harmony or work difficulties lead to the
development of insecure attachment, early puberty (early
menstruation), promiscuous sexual behaviors and unstable,
short relationships, whereas the presence of the father has
the opposite consequences (Belsky, 2010; Belsky et al.).
This correlation has been proved (Ellis & Garber, 2000;
see also the meta-analysis by Webster, Graber, Gesselman,
Crosier, & Schember, 2014).
The current research.
Love styles as reproductive strategies
John Lee (1973) identified three basic love styles:
eros, ludus, and storge. Eros is passionate love with a strong
sexual component connected with the partners’ physical
attractiveness and the demand for exclusive devotion.
Ludus, in turn, is treating love as a game played with
different partners, oriented at receiving pleasure through
sex, the style in which the partner’s growing involvement
in the relationship is perceived as a threat. Finally, storge
is love based on friendship, without greater emotional
raptures, peaceful and quiet, in which sex plays little or
no role. The combination of these three basic love styles
results in identification of secondary love styles: pragma
(storge + ludus), agape (eros + storge), and mania (eros +
ludus). The pragmatic style is characterized by calculation:
the selection of a partner depends on meeting particular,
sometimes predetermined, qualities (e.g. good origin, salary,
professional perspectives etc.). In other words, the potential
partner is “measured” with regard to the desired attributes.
Agape, in turn, is an altruistic style, characterized by
disinterestedness and sacrifice for the other person without
expecting any rewards. The manic style is manifested by
jealousy, obsessive thinking about the partner, possessiveness
and lack of trust in their faithfulness.
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 239
The typology of love styles by Lee became the
starting point for constructing the Love Attitudes Scale
(LAS, Hendrick & Hendrick 1986; see also: Hendrick &
Hendrick, 2007) describing 6 love styles. Later, a short
form of LAS (LAS – SF; Hendrick, Hendrick, & Dicke,
1998) comprising 24 items was created. Both tools were
used in the research. Frey and Hojjat (1998), referring to
the typology of sexual scripts activated in sexual situations
(Mosher, 1988) found that love styles are connected
with the scripts: the ludic style proved to be negatively
correlated with partner engagement, in which intimacy
and carnal closeness is the most important, and all the
other love styles are correlated positively with this script.
Different studies show (see Hendrick & Hendrick, 2007)
that the ludic style is positively correlated with sexual
permissiveness, and passionate love with satisfaction
with relationship (just like the friendly one) and with
sexual responsibility. The other study (Fricker & Moore,
2002) also indicated, that eros correlates positively with
satisfaction with the relationship, whereas ludus and mania
correlate negatively with it. Eros and agape correlate
positively with all three components of love identified
by Sternberg (1986): passion, intimacy and commitment
(Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989). Eros and agape are also the
only love styles negatively correlated with the occurrence
of conflicts in relationships (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1989),
which is significant for the duration of the relationship.
Moreover consistent results were obtained indicating
gender differences: Women are more storge and pragmatic
(Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986, 1995; Mandal, 2012;
Tsirigotis, Gruszczyński, & Tsirigotis-Wołoszczak, 2010),
men are ludus (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986, 1995; Jonason
& Kavanagh; 2010; Tsirigotis i in., 2010). For other
styles, the overall picture emerging from the research is
inconsistent. In one of them (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986)
men and women did not differ in terms of agape, but in
other, men were more agape than women (Hendrick et al.,
1998; also see Jonason & Kavanagh. 2010), It was similar
in relation to other styles.
To sum up, the eros love style not only has a strong
sexual component connected with the partners’ physical
attractiveness, but is also a predictor of the durability of
relationship. Agape is similar in this last respect. Ludus
seems to be the style which has negative influence on
durablility of relationship. Women and men prefer different
love styles: in the former case, it is storge, pragma, in
the latter – ludus. In other words, women prefer friendly
and pragmatic love, and men rather treat it as a form of
entertainment. It is possible to make a hypothesis that
women prefer love styles which are related to the slow
strategy, and men, related to the fast strategy.
Hypotheses
We made the following hypotheses:
1. People representing the slow reproductive strategy
prefer love styles such as eros, agape, storge and
pragma, and people with fast reproductive strategy –
ludus and mania.
2. People brought up in family environment with a low
level of stress will prefer love styles belonging to the
slow strategy, and those brought up in high-stress
environment, love styles belonging to the fast strategy.
3. Women prefer love styles which are related to the slow
strategy, and men, to the fast one.
4. The combination of love styles with life history leads
to particular reproductive consequences: eros, agape,
storge and pragma mean low SOI-R scores (orientation
at long-term relationships), whereas ludus, and mania
– otherwise (orientation at short-term relationships).
5. Eros is characterized by bioenergetic mating effort +
parental effort; agape, storge and pragma – parental
effort, whereas ludus and mania – mating effort.
6. People preferring love styles connected with the fast
strategy have more children than people who prefer
love styles connected with the slow strategy.
Method
Participants
187 persons participated in the study, but finally
177 persons (90 women and 87 men) were considered:
Mage = 27.89 years, SD = 7.04. The scores of 5 people were
removed due to significant defects in the completion of the
applicable instruments. The results of 4 other people were
removed after applying the Grubbs test and the scatterplot
analysis, due to the fact that they differed substantially
from the typical values in the sample (outliers) in age,
length of relationship and number of children. Before
regression analyses, an analysis of standard residuals was
carried out on the data to identify any outliers, which also
indicated that one participant needed to be removed. The
participants were undergraduate and postgraduate students
of various courses of University of Rzeszów, University
of Technology and Economics in Warsaw (UTH) in
Warsaw and University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn.
The study was conducted in groups. All the participants
gave their consent to participation in the study and could
discontinue it at any moment. The study was approved by
UTH Research Ethics Committee.
Procedure
The participants were given a written instruction in
which it was described that the aim of the study was to
find out how different factors influence the development
of love in relationships between people. The participants
were requested to provide answers referring to their
present relationship. If they were not in a relationship
at the moment, they were requested to refer to the latest
relationship. Then the participants received a few
questionnaires to fill in. We requested to do it honestly and
pointed out that the research was anonymous.
They were also asked to provide the following
information: age, sex, education (secondary: 81 people,
higher: 87 people, 9 people did not provide the information),
duration of relationship in months (M = 63.24, SD = 64.68),
and number of children (M = 0.37, SD = 0.79). Then
the participants filled in a set of instruments in the order
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Magdalena Marzec, Andrzej Łukasik
240
provided below. So as to ensure a higher level of anonymity,
the sets were in envelopes; the participants placed the
completed questionnaires in the envelopes and sealed them.
After the study, the researchers answered any questions the
participants had and ensured them that the results of the
study would be announced on UTH’s website after being
processed. Statistical analyses were carried out with the use
of SPSS 21.
Materials
Mini K (Figuerdo et al., 2006)
The instrument was translated into Polish by a Polish
translator. Mini-K is a short form of ALHB (Arizona Life
History Battery; Figueredo, 2007) comprising 20 items,
used to measure the K factor connected with life history.
Mini-K includes items referring to such notions as insight,
planning and cognitive control, relations between parents,
attachment style and relations with the community, etc.
Mini-K does not directly diagnose the respondent’s
ecological environment but it allows to draw general and
indirect conclusions about it. When doing the questionnaire,
the respondent underlines to what extent s/he agrees with
statements on a scale from -3 to + 3 (-3 = strongly disagree,
+3 = strongly agree). The score of each participant is the
total scores of his/her responses. Higher scores indicate the
slow strategy, and lower scores, the fast one. The reliability
index α of Mini-K is approx. 0.7 (Figueredo et al., 2006).
In our research α = .73.
Family Environment Stability Index (FESI)
This is an original retrospective instrument used to
measure the degree of environmental stress occurring before
the age 7, focused on the family environment. This age limit
was adopted due to the importance of that period for the
development of reproductive strategies (see the section on
LHT). The aim of the construction and application of this
instrument was to diagnose the environment more directly
than it is possible using Mini-K (correlation between FESI
and Mini-K: rs = .338, p < .001). The authors referred to
the results of studies on LH proving that unfavourable
family environment determines fast reproductive strategy
and favourable environment, the slow one. FESI includes
11 questions concerning issues like parents’ health, their
alcohol consumption, emotional relations within the family
and the family’s financial standing, etc. (see Appendix).
Questions 1 and 2 were answered by circling the right
response. These questions were assigned weights (in
brackets), which are added to the scores of the other items.
Questions from 3 to 11 were answered by giving rates on
the scale from 1 to 7, e.g. “When I was under 7 years old,
the relations between my parents were: very warm (7),
very cold (1)”. Calculating the scores for items 3 and 4,
the values should be reversed: 1 – 7, 2 – 6, 3 – 5 etc. The
environmental stress index is the total score of the answers:
the higher score, the lower level of environmental stress in
childhood. In our research α = .70.
Love Attitudes Scale – Short Form (LAS-SF)
(Hendrick et al., 1998)
LAS-SF was translated into Polish by a Polish
translator. It includes 24 questions arranged in 6 subscales
referring to 6 love styles identified by John Lee. Reliability
coefficients for subscales given by the authors of LAS-SF
(study III) were between .69 (mania) and .85 (agape).
The participant should respond to the items in each scale
by choosing one of the five answers; the extreme values
are: A – strongly agree (value 1), F – strongly disagree
(value 5). The scores for each subscale are achieved by
calculating the means. The lower score in the subscale,
the higher preference for the corresponding love style.
However, for the purposes of this research, the answers
were re-coded, and thus higher scores correspond to higher
intensity of a given love style. In our study, Cronbach’s α
for the whole scale was .79, and in the subscales, from .40
(ludus) to .88 (agape); the mean for all the scales is .70.
We found that question 5: “I believe that what my partner
doesn’t know about me won’t hurt him/her” affected the
value of Cronbach’s α for ludus, making it low. Probably
this sentence has different connotations in Polish than
in English1. Once it was removed, α for the whole scale
increased up to .70. In further analyses the authors used the
scores for the scale with question 5 removed.
Sociosexuality Orientation Inventory – Revised (SOI-R)
(Penke & Asendorpf, 2008)
The instrument was translated into Polish by a Polish
translator. SOI-R is used to measure orientation at short-term
or long-term relationships. Apart from the general score (coded
here as SOI-R-Global), SOI-R makes it possible to measure
one’s scores in three subscales: sociosexual behavior (SOI-
R-BF), sociosexual attitude (SOI-R-AF), and sociosexual
desire (SOI-R-DF). The domain of sexual behavior refers
to actual behavior connected with taking uncommitted sex,
attitude is the evaluative aspect of tendency to uncommitted
sex, moral feelings connected with it and the assessment of
emotional closeness in such situations, and the desire domain
means the degree of sexual drive, arousal. High scores indicate
unrestricted orientation, and low – restricted orientation. The
psychometric values of SOI-R are even better than those
of SOI (e.g. higher reliability Cronbach’s α indices). In our
study, Cronbach’s α was .88 for the whole questionnaire and
regarding subscales: .83 for sociosexual behavior, .77 for
sociosexual attitude and .89 for sociosexual desire.
Partner’s Qualities (PF)
These are two scales used to measure the partner’s
physical attractiveness (PA) and their predispositions as a
parent (PP) (see Appendix). We assumed that the degree of
preference for a given quality in the participant’s partner
reflects the orientation of their reproductive effort. Mating
effort is the rate given to the statement: “what I value in my
partner is that s/he is physically attractive”, and parental
effort is the rate given to the statement: “what I value in
1 Pozycja 5 w języku polskim brzmiało następująco (Item 5 in Polish was): “Uważam, że to, czego mój partner\partnerka nie wie o mnie, nie może go\
jej zranić”.
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 241
my partner is that s/he is (or will be) a good parent”. The
participant marks the importance of each of these qualities
on a scale from 1 (completely unimportant) to 7 (very
important). The higher rating, the greater importance of the
quality (higher effort oriented at this).
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the variables
in the studied sample.
Table 1. Variables – descriptive statistics
Variables M SD Skewness Kurtosis
Age 27.89 7.04 1.114 .341
Duration of
relationship
(in months)
63.24 64.86 1.764 2.921
Number of
children 0.37 0.79 2.609 8.202
PA 4.82 1.57 -.576 -.195
PP 5.77 1.5 -1.484 1.864
FESI 69.58 8.9 -.781 .239
Mini-K 28.81 11.97 -.311 -.259
SOI-R- BF 7.75 5.17 1.606 2.214
SOI-R-AF 12.15 7.16 -.382 -.824
SOI-R-DF 10.84 6.58 .687 -.654
SOI-R-Global 30.73 15.84 .632 -.442
Eros 16.37 2.91 -.709 -.036
Ludus 6.71 3.23 .183 -.593
Storge 12.88 4.51 .183 -.593
Pragma 10.02 3.67 .280 -.474
Mania 12.23 3.68 -.226 -.628
Agape 14.17 4.25 -.609 -.637
Notes. FESI = Family Environment Stability Index;
Mini-K = the K factor connected with life history indicating the
type of reproductive strategy; PA = evaluation of partner’s physi-
cal attractiveness, PP = evaluation of; partner’s parental quali-
ties, SOI-R-BF = sociosexual behavior, SOI-R-AF = sociosexual
attitude, SOI-R-DF = sociosexual desire, SOI-R-Global = global
score for SOI-R; Love styles: Eros, Ludus, Storge, Pragma,
Mania, Agape.
Results
The aim of our analyses was to find the answer to the
question whether love styles may be treated as reproductive
strategies determined by life history. Skewness and kurtosis
test (Table 1) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov’s one have shown
departure from the normal distribution for most variables.
In particular, a strongly positively skewed distribution was
reported with respect to the variables of age, duration of
the relationship, number of children, and SOI-R-BF, which
indicates that the sample were mainly young people with
short relationships having few children and a low level of
personal experience connected with taking uncommitted
sex. Given the departure from the normal distribution, non-
parametric U tests of Mann-Whitney and Spearman’s rs as
well as regression analysis with bootsrapping were used in
the calculations.
Hypothesis 1
First we checked whether there is a correlation
between strategies resulting from life history and love
styles. The indicator of life history strategies was the
score achieved in Mini-K (higher scores indicate the
slow strategy, and lower scores, the fast one). Women
had significantly higher scores in Mini-K than men did:
mean rank, respectively 100.96, 76.63, U = 2839, p < .002.
The results of Spearman’s rs correlations between Mini-K
and love styles are presented in table 2. Mini-K correlates
positively with eros, storge, pragma and negatively with
ludus. These correlations are weak or average. So the
results show that people with higher Mini-K scores,
preferring slow reproductive strategy, have the tendency
to passionate, friendly and pragmatic love, and people
with low scores (fast strategy) are inclined to treat love as
a game. Thus, hypothesis 1 was confirmed with reference to
most of the love styles, except for agape and mania.
Table 2. Spearman’s rs correlations between FESI,
Mini-K and love styles
Variables Eros Ludus Storge Pragma Mania Agape
FESI .155*-.191** .159*.035 .001 .137*
Mini-K .362** -.185** .316** .198** -.067 .103
Notes. FESI = Family Environment Stability Index; Mini-K = the
K factor connected with life history indicating the type of
reproductive strategy.
** p ≤ .007 (one-tailed), * p < .04 (one-tailed)
Hypothesis 2
Then we checked whether the level of environmental
stress in childhood has an influence on love style
preference. In this study environmental stress in childhood
was measured using the Family Environment Stability
Index (FESI). FESI includes questions concerning
issues like parents’ health, their alcohol consumption,
emotional relations within the family and the family’s
financial standing, etc.: the higher score, the lower level
of environmental stress in childhood. FESI correlates
positively but weakly with eros, storge, agape and
negatively with ludus, (tab. 2). So the family environment
with a low stress level promotes passionate, friendly and
self-sacrificing love, and is negatively correlated with
love treated as a game. Thus, hypothesis 2 had a partial
confirmation: a low level of environmental stress in
childhood results in preferring eros, storge and agape love
styles, belonging to the slow strategy, and a high one results
in preferring ludus, which belongs to the fast strategy.
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In order to measure the influence of the predictor
(Mini-K) on dependent variables (love styles), we carried
out a series of linear regression analyses and performed
bootstrapping to assume that our model works
in samples other than the one from which we collected
data. The results of regression analyses are presented in
table 3. The regression analyses showed that the highest
percentage of variance explained with the influence of
Mini-K was obtained for eros (14.7%), storge (10.17%)
and ludus (4.44%). Multiple regression analysis involving
the introduction of an additional predictor FESI (as the
indicator of environmental stress in childchood) into the
model did not give any statistically significant results,
which suggests that the main determinant of love styles
was the Mini-K score indicating the type of reproductive
strategy (slow vs. fast).
Table 3. The results of linear regression analysis
with Mini-K as a predictor and love styles
as dependent variables
Variables BSE BβSignificance t
Eros .95a.017 .389 p < .001
Ludus -.060b.20 -.221 p = .003
Storge .126c.027 .325 p < .001
Pragma .056d.023 .184 p = .014
Notes. Only the scores which proved to be significant are presented.
Mini-K = the K factor connected with life history indicating the
type of reproductive strategy.
a R2 = .151, R2 adjusted = .147, F(1, 175) = 31.243, p < .001
b R2 = .049, R2 adjusted = .044, F(1, 175) = 9.005, p = .003
c R2 = .112, R2 adjusted = .107, F(1, 175) = 22.09, p < .001
d R2 = .034, R2 adjusted = .028, F(1, 175) = 6.142, p = .014
Bootsrapping procedure with 1,000 bootstrap
iterations showed that the value of B for Mini-K (BCa
95%) were in the following range: for eros CL [.67, .120],
p < .001, ludus CL [-.098, -.023], p < .001, storge CL [.077,
.175], p < .001, pragma CL [.009, .102], p = .015. Because
zero does not fall within the boundaries of any of our
bootstrap confidence intervals, we can conclude Mini-K is
a genuine predictor of love styles.
Hypothesis 3
It was assumed that women prefer love styles which
are related to the slow strategy, and men, related to the
fast strategy. This hypothesis was not confirmed. Only
one difference occurred between the sexes as regards love
styles: Men have a stronger preference for the agape style
than women do: mean rank, respectively 103.15, 75.32,
U = 2684, p < .001.
Hypothesis 4
Then we checked whether love styles were correlated
with the kind of sociosexual orientation (preference of
long-term vs. short-term relationships) evaluated with
SOI-R. In our sample men had higher scores than women
concerning: sociosexual behavior: mean rank 110.64,
68.08, respectively, U = 2032, p < 0.001, sociosexual
attitude: 112.45, 66.63, U = 1874.5, p < 0.001, sociosexual
desire: 113.93, 64.9. U = 1746, p < .001, and global SOI-R
score: 117.18, 61.76, U = 1463, p < .001. Table 4 presents
the results of rs Spearman’s correlations between these
variables. Negative correlations of eros, storge and the
general score with the subscales of SOI-R (sociosexual
behavior, sociosexual attitude and sociosexual desire) were
found, the same was true for pragma with sociosexual
attitude and the general score. Positive correlations were
also found between ludus and all the subscales and the
general SOI-R score. Regarding the other love styles,
a positive – but weak – correlation was only found between
mania and sociosexual desire behavior. Generally, then,
the results indicate that eros and storge are connected
with restricted sociosexual orientation and ludus with
unrestricted orientation. The former case means preference
for long-term relationships, and the latter, for short-term
relationships. Thus, hypothesis 4 was mainly confirmed for
eros, storge and ludus, and to a limited degree for mania
and pragma.
Table 4. Spearman’s rs correlations between love styles
and sociosexual orientation
Love
style SOI-R-BF SOI-R-AF SOI-R-DF SOI-R-
Global
Eros -.192** -.299** -.382** -.354**
Ludus .379** .332** .367** .412**
Storge -.241** -.268** -.279** -.313**
Pragma -.054 -.151*-.092 -.136*
Mania -.077 -.070 .185** .029
Agape -.075 -.061 -.091 -.075
Notes. SOI-R-BF = sociosexual behavior, SOI-R-AF = sociosexu-
al attitude, SOI-R-DF = sociosexual desire, SOI-R-Global = glob-
al score for SOI-R
* The correlation is significant at the level of < .04 (one-tailed).
** The correlation is significant at the level of < .007 (one-
tailed).
The additional analysis of correlations between love
styles and SOI-R-Global (assessing global orientation at
short-term or long-term relationships) with consideration
of sex was also carried out (tab. 5).
Correlation analysis showed that women’s passionate,
friendly, pragmatic, full of sacrifices love was negatively
correlated with preference for short-term relationships, and
love treated as fun – positively. In men also passionate,
friendly and full of sacrifices love was negatively correlated
with preference for short-term relationships, and ludic –
positively. So hypothesis 4 received a stronger confirmation
after the consideration of the variable of sex.
We also carried out an analysis with the use of lin-
ear regression to estimate the influence of love styles on
SOI-R-Global score variance and performed bootstrap-
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 243
ping with 1,000 bootstrap iterations to assume that our
model works in samples other than the one from which
we collected data. An analysis of standard residuals was
carried out, which showed that the data contained no out-
liers. The regression proved, however, that a much better
solution is to consider Mini-K in the model apart from love
styles, because both predictors together explain a greater
percentage of dependent variable variance (tab. 6).
ANOVA results indicate that all models are well-
matched. Bootsrapping procedure showed, however, that
zero does not fall within the boundaries of bootstrap confi-
dence intervals only for three models (tab. 6): Mini-K and
eros, Mini-K and storge, Mini-K and ludus, so we can con-
clude that Mini-K and these love styles are genuine predic-
tors of sociosexual orientation. The greatest percentage of
variance in SOI-R explained with the influence of love style
and Mini-K was obtained for ludus (33%), eros (22%) and
storge (21%). Generally (as β values indicate) in case of
all investigated love styles, a greater influence of Mini-K
than love styles was observed, which suggests that SOI –
Table 6. The results of multiple regression with Mini-K and love styles as predictors
and the general SOI-R Global score as the dependent variable
Model BSE BβtSig.
Bootsrap
Confidence Intervals 95% BCa
Lower Limit Upper Limit
Eros -1.082a.393 -.199 -2.755 p = .006 -1.934 -.211
Mini-K -.485 .095 -.367 -5.081 p < .001 -.686 -.283
Ludus 1.864b.310 .381 6.005 p < .001 1.254 2.430
Mini-K -.476 .084 -.360 -5.679 p < .001 -.652 -.303
Storge -.611c.249 -.177 -2.455 p = .015 -1.093 -.116
Mini-K -.511 .094 -.386 -5.446 p < .001 -.712 -.299
Pragma -.203d.298 -.047 -.682 p = .496 -.787 .348
Mini-K -.576 .091 -.436 -6.311 p < .001 -.757 -.405
Mania -.031e.293 -.007 -.104 p = 917 -.568 .440
Mini-K -.588 .090 -.455 -6.558 p < .001 -.755 -.422
Agape -.136f.255 -.036 -.532 p = .596 -.614 .350
Mini-K -.582 .091 -.440 -6.424 p <.001 -.754 -.407
Notes. Mini-K = the K factor connected with life history indicating the type of reproductive strategy.
a R2 = .231, R2 adjusted = .222, F(2, 174) = 26.109, p < .001
b R2 = .335, R2 adjusted = .327, F(2, 174) = 43.842, p < .001
c R2 = .224, R2 adjusted = .215, F(2, 174) = 25.136 , p < .001
d R2 = .199, R2 adjusted = .190, F(2, 174) = 21.671, p < .001
e R2 = .197, R2 adjusted = .188, F(2, 174) = 21.388, p < .001
f R2 = .199, R2 adjusted = .189, F(2, 174) = 21.558, p < .001
Love styles SOIR – R -Global Significance
Women
Eros -.408 p < .001
Ludus .305 p = .002
Storge -.243 p = .01
Pragma -.298 p = .002
Agape -.214 p = .021
Mania .92 p = .195
Love styles SOIR – R -Global Significance
Men
Eros -.410 p < .001
Ludus .471 p < .001
Storge -.434 p < .001
Pragma -.107 p = .162
Agape -.342 p = .001
Mania -.094 p = .194
Table 5. Spearmen’s rs correlation between love styles and sociosexual oreientation with consideration of sex
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244
R scores, meaning the choice of restricted vs. unrestricted
sociosexual orientation, mainly depend, not on the love
style but on the K factor: people with the slow reproduc-
tive strategy rather tend to have long-term relationships,
and people with the fast strategy, short-term relationships.
However, in case of three models, β values were statistical-
ly significant for both Mini-K and love styles: eros, storge
and ludus. Along with the bootstrapping results, it suggest
the existence of mediation between the type of reproductive
strategy as a predictor of the listed styles of love as a medi-
ator and sociosexual orientation as a dependent variable. It
was therefore decided to test the mediation hypothesis by
mediation analysis in three steps using regression accord-
ing to the approach proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986)
supplemented by Sobel test. The analysis results are shown
in figures 1–3.
Regression model turned out to be a good fit to the
data and pointed out that the slower reproductive strategy,
Figure 1. Mediation model for the influence of K- factor reproductive strategy (Mini-K result) on the sociosexual
orientation (SOI-R Global result) with eros love style mediator
Figure 2. Mediation model for the impact of K- factor reproductive strategies (Mini-K score) on sociosexual
orientation (SOI-R Global result) with the storge love style mediator
Figure 3. Mediation model for the impact of K- factor reproductive strategy (Mini-K score) sociosexual
orientation (SOI-R Global result) with the ludus love style mediator
Note: * p < .01
Note: * p < .05
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 245
the less focus on sociosexual non-restrictive orientation,
expressed in the short-term relationship preferences
(β = -.44, p < .001). The relationship between reproductive
strategy and eros love style mediator also proved to be
significant (β = .39, p < .001). This means that people
with slow reproductive strategy prefer the type of eros
love. Allowance for the simultaneous effect of a mediator
and reproductive strategy for the sociosexual orientation,
slightly decreased the influence of the independent variable
K – factor on the dependent variable of sociosexual
orientation (β = -.37, p < .001), confirming the existence
of mediation. It also showed a significant effect of the eros
love style mediator on the sociosexual orientation, though
it was not too strong (β = -.20, p = .006): those who prefer
the eros love type have less tendency to have short-term
relationships. The result indicating the eros love mediation
was confirmed by Sobel test (Z = 2.44, p = .012), but it
should be noted that the effect of the mediation (a × b) is
small (.08).
The same analysis was carried out in relation to the
storge love style (Figure 2). Directions of the described
dependencies proved to be the same as in the case of eros
love style mediator. The result indicating the storge type
of love mediation was confirmed by Sobel test (Z = 2.17,
p = .030), but the effect of mediation (a × b) is small (.06).
In the end the analysis of mediation in relation to the
ludus love style mediator was conducted (Figure 3).
Regression model turned out to be a good fit to the
data and pointed out that the slower reproductive strategy,
the less focus on sociosexual non-restrictive orientation
expressed in the short-term relationships preferences
(β = -.44, p < .001). The relationship between reproductive
strategy and the ludus love style mediator also proved to
be significant (β = -.22, p = .003). This means that people
with slower reproductive strategies are less likely to have
a tendency for the ludus type of love. Taking into account
the simultaneous effect of the mediator and reproductive
strategy on the sociosexual orientation decreased slightly
the impact of the K – factor variable, but the impact
was still significant (β = -.36, p <.001). It also showed
a significant effect of the ludus love style mediator on the
sociosexual orientation (β = .38, p <.001): people who
prefer ludus love type have a greater tendency to enter
into short-term relationships. The result indicating the
ludus type of love mediation was confirmed by Sobel test
(Z = 2.68, p = .007), but the effect of the mediation (a × b)
is small (.08).
Summing up, in all three cases, according to the
results of the classical analysis of variance (Tab. 6), the
strongest predictor of the sociosexual orientation was
the reproductive strategy tested by Mini-K: the slower
reproductive strategy, the less focus on entering into
short-term relationships. The introduction of mediators
in the form of love styles does not alter this relationship.
We are dealing with partial mediation, then. In case of
the mediators – eros and storge love styles – the slower
reproductive strategy, the greater preference for these styles
and lower non-restrictive sociosexual orientation. In case of
ludus love style mediator, the correlations are the opposite:
the slower reproductive strategy, the less preference for
this style of love and higher non-restrictive sociosexual
orientation. The mediation effects, however, are minor.
Hypothesis 5
Our aim was also to check whether love styles
correlate with a particular type of bioenergetic effort in
terms of LHT, i.e. mating or parental effort, operationalized
as the rate given to the statement describes the participant’s
partner physical attractiveness or predispositions as
a parent. In the studied sample men achieved higher scores
than women concerning the evaluation of partner’s physical
attractiveness: mean rank 104.30, 74.21, respectively,
U = 2593,5, p < .001 Spearman’s rs correlation results
between the love style and partner’s qualities being the
measure of bioenergetic effort are presented in table 7.
These correlations are weak or average. Eros, mania
correlate positively with partner’s physical attractiveness,
and eros, storge pragma and agape, with parental
investment. Thus, as it was assumed, love styles belonging
to the slow strategy are connected with preferring the
qualities of a “good parent” in one’s partner. Eros correlates
with physical attractiveness and parental investment,
just as we expected. As for mania, it belongs to the fast
strategy and correlates positively with preferring physical
attractiveness in the partner, as expected. As for the other
love styles, we were not able to confirm the hypothesis.
Another analysis was also carried out with consideration
of sex: in women, there was a positive correlation between
eros and parental investment (rs = .251, p = .009), as well
as pragma and parental investment (rs = .423, p < .001).
In men, pragma also correlated positively with parental
investment (rs = .298, p = .003, just like storge (rs = .273,
p = .005) and agape (rs = .262, p = .007); in the case of
eros there was a correlation with physical attractiveness
(rs = .260, p = .008), just like in case of mania (rs = .299,
p = .002) Generally, then, in our sample women and men
who expressed various styles of love preferred the qualities
of a good parent rather than physical attractiveness in their
partners.
Table 7. Spearman’s rs correlations between love styles
and bioenergetic effort connected with life history
Love style PA PP
Eros .145* .163*
Ludus .041 -.054
Storge -.027 .178*
Pragma .036 .362**
Mania .176* .032
Agape .092 .146*
Notes. PA = evaluation of partner’s physical attractiveness,
PP = evaluation of partner’s parental qualities.
** p ≤ .009 (one-tailed), * p < 0.03 (one-tailed)
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246
Hypothesis 6
No correlation was found between the love style and
the number of children. Because in the study population
the number of children was very low, an additional
analysis was carried out by isolating two groups in terms
of a variable number of children, “no children” and “one or
more children.” The results of the Mann-Whitney test, also
did not show the existence of any differences in love styles
between the two groups contrasted in such a way.
Discussion
The presented research allowed to confirm a part
of our hypotheses. So we do not have sufficient basis
for claiming that love styles are sexual strategies. Still,
on the basis of the obtained data we can create a kind of
global picture of correlations. People who prefer the slow
reproductive strategy are inclined to passionate, pragmatic
and friendly love, and those who prefer the fast strategy, to
love treated as a game. A low level of environmental stress
in childhood (assessed by the Family Environment Stability
Index) seems to shape the loves styles we associate with the
slow reproductive strategy, and a high one, the ludic love
style. What is important, people representing eros, storge
or pragma styles have restricted sociosexual orientation,
preferring long-term relationships, and those with the ludus
style are people with unrestricted orientation, preferring
short-term relationships. To be more precise: negative eros,
storge correlations with the subscales of SOI-R suggest
that these love styles are connected with less frequent
uncommitted sexual experiences, greater need for closeness
before sexual engagement as well as lower sexual arousal
and interest. The same is true for pragma: this style is
connected with greater need for closeness before sexual
engagement. Then, positive correlations between ludus and
all the subscales and the general SOI-R score suggest that
people who treat love as a form of game have more casual
sexual experiences, lower need of emotional involvement
before taking up sex and demonstrate higher sexual interest
and higher level of sexual arousal. Besides, storge, pragma
and agape seem to determine preferring qualities connected
with parental effort in one’s partner, mania – with mating
effort, and eros – with both kinds of effort. Therefore, the
discussed love styles may be treated as components of
reproductive strategies resulting from life history. However,
they are not very strong. This is indicated by the obtained
correlations (weak or average), multiple regression and
mediation analysis with regression results: love styles
do not individually determine reproductive strategies but
are rather an addition to various factors which shape the
strategies and which are measured with the K factor.
It was not clearly confirmed that mania belongs
to the fast strategy (except for certain isolated data, e.g.
positive correlation with the subscale of sociosexual
desire in SOI-R or preference for the partner’s physical
attractiveness). The essence of the problem seems to be that
this style is actually a mixed one: just like in the research
by the authors of LAS (Hendrick & Hendrick, 1986), in our
research mania correlated positively with pragma (rs = .186,
p = .007) and agape (rs = .213, p < .001). It seems, then,
that on the one hand mania has a strong sexual component
with concentration on partner’s physical features, which
is typical of the fast strategy, but on the other hand it has
some characteristics typical of the slow strategy: inclination
to pragmatism and devotion (in our study we indeed found
a correlation between pragma and agape (rs= .172, p = .011).
We did not manage to confirm the hypothesis that
people with love styles connected with the fast reproductive
strategy have more children than people representing love
styles connected with the slow reproductive strategy. In the
investigated sample, the mean age was 27.89 years old,
SD = 7.04, so the participants were young people, students
or graduates. Generally, in terms of life history theory, they
are people who prefer somatic effort to reproductive effort;
the mean number of children in the sample is only 0.4.
We did not manage to confirm the hypothesis
that women would prefer love styles connected with
the slow strategy and men, with the fast one. The only
difference concerned the agape style, for which men
had higher scores than women, which is in agreement
with other research results (Jonason & Kavanagh, 2010;
Sprecher et al., 1994). In this case we can speculate it is
a specific cultural pattern being the echo of courtly love
common in the Medieval Europe, in which a man makes
sacrifices for his chosen one (Oatley & Jenkins, 2003). It
can also be assumed that the tendency to show altruistic
love – greater in men than in women – is connected
with conditional (and slow) reproductive strategy, i.e.
it is a response to women’s expectations. As a result of
complex social and economic processes in Poland started
in the 80s. of the previous century, women have achieved
much greater social and economic independence and
forced men to meet certain expectations, e.g. to limit
their professional ambitions, greater commitment to the
education of children and housekeeping, so that a woman
could at the same time pursue her own educational plans
and career. A relationship model in which there is a right
to a parallel self-accomplishment of partners, as well as
sharing care is especially evident in young women with
tertiary education (Beisert, 2006). Another explanation,
however, is also possible, going beyond specific cultures:
generally, men’s love expressed through a willingness to
sacrifice and placing the partner’s good over their own may
be desired by women, because it is a very serious signal
of a psychological investment in a relationship. Agapic
love upgrades women building their sense of security and
giving them a kind of guarantee for a stable relationship.
Thus, men who are agapic are more likely to be chosen
as a partner. It is worth noting that manipulation of tactics
indicative of emotional involvement during mate poaching,
which means striving for a partner who is already in
a relationship, are judged to be more effective for men than
women (Schmitt & Buss, 2001), which may indicate that
men intentionally use preferences of women to men ready
to sacrifice, for their own reproductive purposes.
Data replicating the findings of other studies have
also been obtained. First, people with the slow strategy
demonstrated restricted sociosexual orientation, preferring
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 247
long-term relationships, and those with the fast strategy,
unrestricted orientation, preferring short-term relationships
(cf. Dunkel et al.; Peterson et al., 2011). Second, men
proved to be more sociosexually unrestricted than women
(cf. Penke & Asendorpf, 2008), demonstrated stronger
preference for the females’ physical characteristics
(cf. Sprecher et al., 1994), and achieved lower scores of the
K factor (cf. Figueredo et al., 2005).
Limitations and future directions
There are at least three limitations of our study. Two
of them refer to hypothesis 6, that people preferring love
styles connected with the fast strategy have more children
than people who prefer love styles connected with the
slow strategy. Firstly, the limiting factor is the age of
the respondents. Although the average age was approx.
28 years, and one would expect that the subjects being in
their reproductive years will have children, it turned out
that in the study group the average number of children was
only 0.4. Low fertility rates in the study group basically
made it impossible to verify hypothesis 6. Poland has
witnessed a systematic increase in the age of women giving
birth. According to the data from the Central Statistical
Office (2015), the median age of women giving birth to
a child in 2014 was 29.5 years. This means that in future
studies older people should be taken into account.
Secondly, as stated earlier, somatic effort prevailed in
the respondents, being expressed in acquiring education,
which inhibited decisions of having a first or second child.
Future research should therefore differentiate the group
tested in respect of education variable.
Thirdly, the study did not include the kind of
relationship (eg. marriage, informal relationship) and
only focused on the duration of the relationship. Type of
relationship can be an important variable influencing the
choice of love style. It has been shown for example (See.
Mandal, 2012) in groups of so-called traditional marriages
and partnerships, that there were differences in the intensity
and kind of tactics to influence the partner. Because such
tactics are associated with styles of love (Mandal, 2012),
we can therefore assume that the latter will also depend on
the kind of relation in the relationship.
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Appendix
Family Environment Stability Index
The questions below refer to issues connected with your family. We would like to know some things about your
family when you were a child under 7 years old. For questions 1 and 2, circle the appropriate letter. For the remaining
questions, rate the events they describe. Circle the appropriate number on the scale. Remember, the questions refer to the
period you were under 7 years old.
1. When I was under 7 years, old:
A – Both my parents were alive (10)
B – My father was dead (5.5)
C – My mother was dead (5.5)
D – Both my parents were dead (1)
2. When I was under 7 years, old:
A – My parents were married (10)
B – My father divorced my mother (1)
C – My mother divorced my father (1)
3. When I was under 7 years old, my mother consumed alcohol
7654321
Very often Very rarely
4. When I was under 7 years old, my father consumed alcohol
7654321
Very often Very rarely
5. When I was under 7 years old, my father’s health was
7654321
Very good Very poor
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Love Styles in the Context of Life History Theory 249
6. When I was under 7 years old, my mother’s health was
7654321
Very good Very poor
7. When I was under 7 years old, the relations between my parents were
7654321
Very warm Very cold
8. When I was under 7 years old, my mother’s emotional relationship with me was
7654321
Very warm Very cold
9. When I was under 7 years old, my father’s emotional relationship with me was
7654321
Very warm Very cold
10. When I was under 7 years old, my siblings’ emotional relationship with me was (if you had no siblings, underline 0)
76543210
Very warm Very cold
11. When I was under 7 years old, the economic situation in my family was
7654321
Very good Very poor
Partner’s Qualities (QF)
Below there are some statements about how important some qualities of your partner are for you. Mark your answers
on the scale from 1 (completely unimportant) to 7 (very important)
1. what I value in my partner is that s/he is physically attractive.
7654321
Very
important
Completely
unimportant
2. what I value in my partner is that s/he is (or will be) a good parent.
7654321
Very
important
Completely
unimportant
Unauthenticated
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