The cultural evolution of love in literary history

Abstract

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Why and How Did Narrative Fictions Evolve? Fictions as Entertainment Technologies

“…Finally, behavioral sciences have shown that some cognitive preferences adaptively vary in response to changes in the local environment, especially changes in the level of resources ( Frankenhuis et al, 2016 ; Pepper and Nettle, 2017 ; Baumard, 2019 ; de Courson and Baumard, 2019 ; Mell et al, 2019 ; Boon-Falleur et al, 2020 ; De Courson and Nettle, 2021 ). For instance, higher levels of affluence, predictability and safeness makes people more future-oriented ( Mell et al, 2019 ; Boon-Falleur et al, 2020 ; Guillou et al, 2020 ), more optimist ( Nettle, 2012 ; Inglehart, 2020 ), more cooperative ( Baumard, 2019 ; Jacquet et al, 2019 ), more tolerant ( Inglehart, 2018 ), more romantic ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Martins and Baumard, 2021 ), and more explorative ( Eliassen et al, 2007 ; Maspons et al, 2019 ; Gopnik, 2020 ). Improvements of living standards in human history, and in a wide range of different cultures, have indeed re-shaped many preferences in directions that are very consistent with this evolutionary account.…”

“…Under the same rationale as we used for other sources of variability (that producers make fictions that please their audience at a given time, in a given location), we propose that adaptive phenotypic plasticity is a major causal explanation for the cultural evolution of fictions across time (in diachrony) and for the cultural distribution of fictions across countries or regions of the world (in synchrony). For instance, in more affluent societies, across both time and space, humans produced fictions with more romantic love stories ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Martins and Baumard, 2021 ), more cooperative relationships ( Martins and Baumard, 2020 ), and more imaginary worlds ( Dubourg et al, 2021a ). This is the case because such elements tap into preferences that are more evoked in affluent environments.…”

“…For instance, why would love stories such as Romeo and Juliet and fictions with imaginary worlds such as The Lord of the Rings be more successful at some times in history, and not at other times, and why in some regions of the world, and not others? In other articles, we reviewed evidence that (1) romantic love stories are attractive because they exploit the evolved emotional device designed to facilitate pair-bonding and parental investments ( Fletcher et al, 2015 ; Baumard et al, 2021 ) and (2) imaginary worlds tap into exploratory preferences which have evolved in humans to prompt them to explore their environments and find evolutionary-relevant resources, such as food and shelter ( Cohen et al, 2007 ; Dubourg and Baumard, 2021 ). We argued that both love-related preferences and exploratory preferences vary according to ecological conditions: in more affluent environments, people can afford to invest more in their family (both in their romantic relationships and in their children) and to be more explorative.…”

“…We argued that both love-related preferences and exploratory preferences vary according to ecological conditions: in more affluent environments, people can afford to invest more in their family (both in their romantic relationships and in their children) and to be more explorative. As a result, adaptive phenotypic plasticity adaptively promotes such preferences in such fine-tuned local ecologies ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Dubourg and Baumard, 2021 ). We therefore predicted and provided evidence for the fact that romantic love stories and imaginary worlds increase when living conditions improve with economic developments ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Dubourg et al, 2021d ; Martins and Baumard, 2021 ).…”

“…As a result, adaptive phenotypic plasticity adaptively promotes such preferences in such fine-tuned local ecologies ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Dubourg and Baumard, 2021 ). We therefore predicted and provided evidence for the fact that romantic love stories and imaginary worlds increase when living conditions improve with economic developments ( Baumard et al, 2021 ; Dubourg et al, 2021d ; Martins and Baumard, 2021 ).…”