“We need to reconcile the profound love that humans seek with the conflict that permeates our most cherished relationships. We need to square our dreams with reality. To understand these baffling contradictions, we must gaze back into our evolutionary past—a past that has grooved and scored our minds as much as our bodies, a past in which our strategies for mating have been as critical as our strategies for survival.”
David Buss, The Evolution of Desire
The mating goal of many is to settle down into a long-term fulfilling relationship. Pervasive conflict prevents many from achieving this goal. In this video, we explore how evolutionary psychology can help us understand the roots of relationship conflict, reduce it, and thus achieve sustainable romantic harmony. In his book The Evolution of Desire, David Buss writes:
“Although conflict between the sexes is pervasive, it is not inevitable. There are conditions that minimize conflict and produce harmony between the sexes. Knowledge of our evolved sexual strategies gives us tremendous power to better our own lives by choosing actions and circumstances that activate some strategies and deactivate others. Indeed, understanding sexual strategies, including the cues that trigger them, is one step toward reducing conflict between men and women. “
David Buss, The Evolution of Desire
