Does the “fearfulness, withdrawal, and passive behavior” that Del Giudice notes (target article, sect. 6.3.2, para. 2) is associated with an ambivalent attachment style, really assist women in retaining their partner and in maximising paternal investment? Preoccupied attachment is characterised by intense desire for closeness, discomfort when not intimately involved with another, and nagging worry about rejection. It is a short step from here to the clinical condition of borderline personality disorder (BPD), with its pervasive relationship instability and frantic efforts to avoid separation or abandonment.

Initial idealisation of the target is coupled with demands for their exclusive attention, but at the first sign of real or imagined rejection, the emotion switches from infatuation to bitter devaluation.

Dependent and borderline personality traits characterise up to 50% of male perpetrators of partner violence, with these men's extreme dependency resulting in a violent response to the wife's perceived rejection or insubordination (Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart Reference Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart1994). Following the belated recognition of symmetry in partner violence, women's partner violence has also been related to attachment style. Women receiving mandated treatment for domestic violence show elevated rates of both anxious and avoidant attachment styles and evidence of borderline personality traits (Goldenson et al. Reference Goldenson, Geffner, Foster and Clipson2007). Perhaps because 75% of BPD sufferers are women, there has been a tendency to consider it as a predominantly internalising disorder by emphasising the diagnostic criteria of chronic feelings of emptiness, suicidal behaviour, and self-mutilation.But there are other externalizing diagnostic criteria, including affective instability, impulsivity, and “inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)” (American Psychiatric Association 2000, p. 710).

Self-harm is more strongly associated with an avoidant attachment style, while it is anxious attachment that is associated with reactive, other-directed intimate aggression (Critchfield et al. Reference Critchfield, Levy, Clarkin and Kernberg2008). College women with attachment styles characterised by high anxiety and low avoidance are more likely to report having used violence than women who are high in both styles (Orcutt et al. Reference Orcutt, Garcia and Pickett2005). These violent reactive outbursts, characteristic of BPD, have been linked to hyper-responsiveness of the amygdala and modulatory failure of the prefrontal cortex (Siever Reference Siever2008). In short, although Del Giudice suggests that “anxious behaviors (e.g., dependence, preoccupation with intimacy and partner availability) can help to maintain closeness with one's partner” (sect. 6.3.1, para. 4), there is evidence that insecurity of this kind can have exactly the opposite effect.

With regard to same-sex relationships, I agree with Del Giudice that the adaptive benefits of an anxious attachment style for women are unclear. That anxious traits are “not nearly as damaging for females as they are for males” (sect. 6.3.2, para. 2) is hardly a ringing endorsement of their functionality. Female friendships are characterised in the psychological literature as more exclusive, self-disclosing, supportive, and lacking the competitive edge of male groups (see Rose & Rudolph Reference Rose and Rudolph2006). However, this rosy view belies a more complex picture. A preoccupation with friendships and emotional intimacy fuels girls' need for social approval, increases possessive feelings and jealousy about best friends, and results in depression when friendships terminate (which they do with greater frequency among girls than among male friends). If these are the downsides of “normal” girls' friendships, they are surely multiplied for anxiously attached girls.

Low self-worth is associated with heightened “best friend” jealousy, loneliness, social rejection, and aggression (Parker et al. Reference Parker, Low, Walker and Gamm2005). Conflict between teenage girls is often driven by rivalry about attractiveness to the opposite sex and “ownership” of desirable boys (Campbell Reference Campbell1995). If anxious girls accord high strategic priority to securing male investment, this should increase their willingness to compete for it, drawing them into indirect or direct aggression against their peers.

Before considering a female's avoidant strategy, I need to pose a more wide-ranging question about life history strategies. What is their psychological status? Attachment security might shape later reproductive strategy in several ways. Early experience might affect personality traits, molding an individual's general level of anxiety or avoidance in response to others. These traits would alter interpersonal competence (the ability to form stable relationships). If early experiences build a “behavioral-motivational” system, they might act through preference, by causing the individual to value some relationship styles more than others, as exemplified by Del Giudice's statement “preoccupied individuals eagerly look for intimate relationships” (sect. 5.2, para. 4). More cognitively, early experiences may lead to different “decisions concerning reproductive strategy.” The implication here is that individuals weigh the costs and benefits of different strategies (with those weightings informed by early experience) to arrive at some personal utility function. In short, is the link between early experience and later strategy mediated by personality (avoidant women are unable to cope with long-term relationships), preference (avoidant women prefer short-term sexual encounters), or cognition (avoidant women decide that the net utility of pair-bonding is lower than that of single motherhood)?

Psychologically damaged individuals are certainly poor at maintaining stable relationships, but this is not equivalent to preferring short-term relationships or devaluing stable relationships. Among girl gang members, most of whom came from very disturbed families, I was surprised by the extent to which they idealised marriage and traditional family values (Campbell Reference Campbell1992). Their chaotic and marginal lifestyles, coupled with volatile emotions, often conspired to defeat long-term relationships; but there was little doubt that the girls very much aspired to them (LeBlanc Reference LeBlanc2004). As for an active preference for short-term encounters, recent data suggest that women find one-night stands very much less emotionally satisfying than do men (Campbell Reference Campbell2008b). Young single mothers rarely choose their situation: Local female-biased sex ratios (resulting from male death, imprisonment, and addiction) create a paucity of men who are able or willing to make paternal investment (Campbell Reference Campbell1995). “Avoidance” may be less of a female strategy than a default option forced by ecological circumstance.