| Theory | Who? | Main Concepts | Relationships Related | Theoretical Perspective |
| Natural Selection | Evolutionary psychologists | -women prefer to mate with men who would be good fathers and who would stay around to be good providers
-men preferred to mate with women who could bear healthy babies who could feed their children | -could apply to any given relationship; especially for men and women who plan to have children in their futures | -purpose of marriage to bear as many children as possible; to maintain the population |
| Sexual Attraction | David Buss; American Psychologist | -people’s behaviour as they interact with potential partners is still patterned to enable them to select the person with whom they can raise the most successful children
-women attracted to men who have the qualities of successful providers -men attracted to physically appealing women | -any relationship (applies to all) | |
| Social homogamy | sociologists | -individuals are attracted to people from a similar social background | -couples who are interracial, but grew up in the same society | -even though couples may come from different ethnic backgrounds, they’re socialized in the same environment, giving them similar aspects in their social background |
| Ideal mate theory | psychologists | -attraction is based on an individual’s unconscious image of the ideal mate formed from his/her meanings of characteristics
-“love at first sight” | -couples from the same social networks | -supports social homogamy; ideal mate formed from pleasant or negative experiences with other individuals in childhood |
| Love Triangle | Robert Sternberg; American Psychologist | -romantic love has three faces;
-passion; a strong feeling of sexual desire for another -intimacy; each individual shares themselves with another and becomes willing to meet the other’s psychological needs -commitment; maintaining the relationship grows as the rewards of this relationship over others become evident; individuals accept roles | -romantic compassionate love in North American Couples
-couples who feel they’re falling “head over heels in love” | -falling “head over heels in love” from high levels of PEA (phenyl ethylamine) |
| Romantic Love | Helen Harris | -romantic love is a desperate need to connect and a hear of being alone
-described through seven attributes including emotional merger, desire for exclusivity, idealization of a love object, and reordering motivational properties. | -couples at the beginning stages of romantic love; stages right before marriage | -desire to be loved psychologically |
