Contributed by: Editor on Thursday, October 22 2009 @ 02:12 pm
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If you pick up a copy of this month's "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin" you will find an article by MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Joshua M. Ackerman and Douglas T. Kenrick of Arizona State University, which reviews a series of studies they did about cooperation and romance. What they found is people will be more successful at dating and relationships if they ask for help from friends. This help does vary between the sexes though. For instance, men tended to help each other to gain access to desirable women (think of the term wingmen). On the other hand, women help each other by evaluating potential matches and by creating barriers between undesirable men.
Surprisingly, this type of relationship behaviour in humans is also found in other animals. Male wild turkeys will cooperate with each other to court a female. Higher primates and lions also exhibit similar behavior.