Modern media and culture have taught you a vast array of inaccurate ideas about dating and relationships. Scroll through Instagram and Tiktok, and you’ll inevitably see the influence of a buzzy new branch of science—evolutionary psychology—at play in videos, touting gender stereotypes and  spreading a deeply flawed story about romance and connection. Evolutionary psychology claims that our minds have been shaped by primal drives that pit the genders against each other, from the myth that men are wired to be promiscuous to the notion that wealth, status, and beauty are the ultimate aphrodisiacs. 

In Bonded by Evolution, UC Davis psychology professor Paul Eastwick reveals that these stories bear little resemblance to how pair-bonding really works. While beauty and charisma factor into first impressions, their influence fades fast—after a few months, we barely agree on who's “desirable.”  Drawing on pathbreaking research—including original experiments from his own lab—Eastwick explains that lasting attraction has, from ancestral times through the present, been built through gradual, often mundane moments that forge strong attachment bonds. Ultimately, he offers a liberating new paradigm for finding meaningful, exciting relationships, showing us:

• Why the traits we often look for in a partner—personality, lifestyle, values, and humor—are poor predictors of compatibility, and what behaviors and experiences we should focus on instead 
  
• Why someone's tendency to “date around” or their reputation as a player has little bearing on their long-term relationship potential
  
• Why the most secure relationships offer a "safe haven" and "secure base" for each partner, and how to cultivate them in new and existing relationships

By excavating the hidden history of human mating, Eastwick paints a radical new picture of the roots of enduring chemistry. Distilling evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology into accessible insights, Bonded by Evolution explains why we so often choose dating strategies that make us miserable and how to use a more  evolved approach.

Mr. Eastwick recently took the time to answer seven questions from Porchlight about Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, and some other books you may want to read along with it.

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Porchlight Book Company: Writing a book is no small undertaking. What compelled you to write this one?

Paul Eastwick: A few years ago, I realized that a substantial segment of the Internet—the manosphere—was claiming a scientific foundation for a set of regressive ideas about attraction and heterosexual relationships, including: there are winners and losers when it comes to attraction; men and women want fundamentally different things; some men are alphas and others are betas. But the research I had been conducting and publishing in scientific journals for nearly two decades had long overturned these outdated tropes. I realized that it was time for me to bring the modern science of attraction and relationships to a wider audience.

PBC: Writing (and reading) always prompts as many new questions as it offers answers to the ones you came to it with. What is one unanswered question you encountered as you wrote the book that you are most interested in answering now?

PE: Conversations with my editor led me to realize that researchers in my field have failed to ask—much less answer—some of the key questions about attraction and romance that really matter to people. We lack simple descriptive information like: How many chances should you give a potential partner before you bail? Are nice guys actually unsexy? Does a couple’s origin story have any implications for the future of their relationship? I commonly found that published scientific articles could not offer any answers, and so to address these questions in the book, I would conduct simple statistical analyses in datasets I had on hand.

PBC: If there is only one thing a reader takes away from reading this book, what would you hope it to be?

PE: I hope this book puts a dent in the depressing—and overstated—idea that romantic success is about getting the best possible deal given your own “value” on the mating market. This concept reinforces an economic model of human worth that misrepresents the science of why relationships matter to people, how they form, and why they last.

PBC: One of the great things about books is that they tend to lead readers to other books. What book[s] related to this topic would you recommend people read after (or perhaps even before) reading your book?

PE: Paige Harden’s The Genetic Lottery: I loved how she tackled a fraught scientific topic (human genetics) with an unapologetically progressive lens. It inspired me to do the same thing with the fraught topic of human mating.

Richard Prum’s The Evolution of Beauty: I found it thrilling to discover how much the field of psychology—my field—has been limited by an oversimplified understanding of the process of evolution.

PBC: What is your favorite book? 

PE: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. The “everything is connected” theme gets me every time.

PBC: What are you reading now?

PE: Jack Turban’s Free to Be: Understanding Kids & Gender Identity. I study gender and gender differences, and we’ll never fully understand this topic without incorporating the experiences of trans people and trans kids. This book makes the scientific consensus very accessible.

PBC: Do you have any future projects in the works that we can look forward to?

PE: As soon as I finished the first draft of Bonded by Evolution, I started the podcast Love Factually with my longtime colleague Eli Finkel. On the show, we use science to unpack rom-coms and romantic films—one movie per podcast episode—and the whole process has been a blast. Could we grow it into a book-sized project? I hope so!

About the Author

Paul Eastwick is a Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he serves as the head of the Social-Personality Psychology program and the director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. Thousands of undergraduate students have taken his course on attraction and close relationships, and he has published over one hundred scientific articles and chapters and won numerous early career awards. His research and writing has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, and Scientific American Mind. He hosts the popular podcast Love Factually with his longtime colleague, Eli Finkel, where they analyze rom-coms and romantic dramas from the perspective of relationship science. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and his PhD at Northwestern University.