Adam’s presentation is his Oral Presentation milestone for his PhD thesis, Darwin’s Lovers: Evolutionary Perspectives on Romantic Love. Adam will discuss five articles he has prepared. The first article is a phylogenetic analysis of territoriality and social monogamy in non-human primates that demonstrates that territoriality prevents the evolution of social monogamy in these species. The second is a theory and hypothesis article arguing that romantic love evolved by co-opting mother-infant bonding. The third article is a validation of the Behavioral Activation Sensitivity to a Loved One (BAS-SLO) Scale which predicts the intensity of romantic love and demonstrates that evolution found new ways to use old mechanisms when it comes to romantic love. The fourth article is the first study to investigate sex differences in romantic love in a sample of people experiencing romantic love. The fifth article uses cluster analytic methods to demonstrate that variation exists in the expression of romantic love.

Adam is an interdisciplinary romantic love and human mating researcher who employs an ethological framework in his theory and analysis.