Love or Be Loved: Commitment Signaling and Spontaneous Occurrence of Division of Labor

Objective A previous study (Iha, 2023) showed that division of labor occurs spontaneously when a man and a woman are simply paired. It also showed that when division of labor does occur, men undertake more costly tasks than women. However, it is still unclear whether men always undertake high-cost tasks and women always avoid such tasks. Therefore, it was examined when men and women do and do not undertake a high-cost task. Methods Using an online scenario experiment, 1247 participants from four countries were randomly assigned to one of two conditions (compete/choose) to determine whether participants differed in their likelihood of making a high-cost choice depending on the relationship with their imaginary opposite-sex partner. Results Overall, men were more likely than women to make a high-cost choice, and both men and women who participated in the compete condition (participant loved their imaginary opposite-sex partner) were more likely to make a high-cost choice than those who participated in the choose condition (participant was loved by their imaginary opposite-sex partner). In addition, all observed effects were consistent across the four countries. Conclusion The results of the current study support the mutual mate choice model in that women can be competitive to obtain a desirable mate, but also support the males-compete/females-choose model in that men overall have a greater tendency to compete for a potential mate.