Women Need More Expensive Gifts to Feel Loved, Especially If Bank Accounts Are Not Shared

The current study investigated (1) whether women tend to require a higher gift value than men to feel loved by their partner, and (2) whether participants tend to require a higher gift value to feel loved by their partner when bank accounts are not shared than when they are shared, via an online scenario experiment with Japanese participants. Both points were supported, but the relationship between sex and condition was more complex. Women’s expected gift value differed depending on whether bank accounts were shared, whereas men’s did not. The current study incorporated considerations of women's high selectivity in mate selection, the commitment skepticism bias, and costly commitment signals.