Do you think women are more invested in romance than men are? Rom-coms, TV commericals and women’s magazines may reinforce this stereotype, but psychological research is increasingly telling a different story: multiple studies have suggested that men may actually place greater importance on romantic relationships. Now researchers have identified a key behavioral factor that could explain this surprising difference.
Drawing on more than 50 studies of mixed-gender relationships, researchers at Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Minnesota and Vrije University Amsterdam proposed that men, compared with women, expect to gain more from being in a romantic relationship and are thus more motivated to find a partner. According to multiple anonymous surveys, men also tend to experience greater mental and physical health benefits from being in a relationship, are less likely to initiate breakups, and struggle more with the emotional toll of a breakup, the researchers wrote in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Elaine Hoan, who studies social psychology at the University of Toronto, says these observations align with a trend she has seen in her own research: “single men are typically less happy with their singlehood than single women, even across different Western and Eastern cultural contexts.”
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The authors of the new paper suggest that men’s greater reliance on romantic relationships stems from differences in emotional expression, which can often be traced back to childhood. One study in the analysis found that U.S. adults view three-year-old boys who are described as sensitive and emotional as less likable than boys with stereotypically masculine traits. Other studies showed that parents use more language related to emotions with daughters and reward them for expressing sadness and fear while punishing sons for the same behavior.
“From an early age, boys are discouraged from expressing vulnerability,” says Humboldt University social and developmental psychologist Iris Wahring, co-lead author of the new paper. And the social norm “continues into adulthood,” she explains. This cultural standard makes men less likely to seek emotional support from friends and family compared with women. As a result, men rely more heavily on their romantic partners to fulfill these needs. Women, in contrast, seek emotional support from a wider social network and thus tend to be less dependent on romantic partners.
Mariko Visserman, a psychologist at the University of Sussex in England, says the review “does a wonderful job in explaining how gendered norms and experiences early in life can set the stage for the differences between men and women’s relationship benefits and vulnerabilities later on.”
The key takeaway is “that we all need to feel embedded in a supportive network of relationships,” Visserman says. She adds that it’s wise to invest in relationships beyond romantic partnerships—both to have a support system when a romantic relationship goes through a rough patch or ends and to meet various emotional needs.
An important implication of these findings is the need to foster a culture in which men feel encouraged to build strong, emotionally supportive friendships outside of romance, Hoan says. She notes that “this means challenging traditional gender norms that stigmatize male vulnerability and promoting the value of more meaningful friendships for men.”