Commitment

Commitment is the tendency to interact with the same partner across repeated opportunities for interaction in the face of an alternative to that interaction.

Commitments are behaviorally demonstrated patterns of repeated interactions in which social actors show favoritism toward certain interaction partners. Commitment requires the presence of at least three social actors. An isolated dyad can repeatedly interact, but those repeated interactions do not constitute commitment. Commitment, as an action, entails choice wherein an actor (or set of actors) elects to continue a pattern of repeated interactions that favor one relation over other alternative relations.

Commitment, however, need not be equated with exclusivity. Within the context of intimate sexual relationships, the conventional definition of commitment entails fidelity and exclusive rights of sexual access, but this is an ...