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Does Early Psychosocial Stress Affect Mate Choice?

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Abstract

Early psychosocial stress (e.g., parental divorce, abuse) is conjectured to place individuals on a developmental trajectory leading to earlier initiation of sexual activity, earlier reproduction, and having more sex partners than those with less early psychosocial stress. But does it also affect an individual’s mate choice? The present study examined whether early psychosocial stress affects preferences and dislikes for opposite-sex faces varying in masculinity/femininity, a putative indicator of mate quality, in premenopausal women (58 with a natural cycle, 53 pill-users) and 196 men. No significant three-way interactions were found when women selected the most or least preferred face with participant group (natural cycle, pill), conception risk (low, high), and early psychosocial stress (low, high) as between-subjects factors. Early psychosocial stress did not affect men’s face preferences when selecting the most preferred face. However, men with high early psychosocial stress disliked masculine faces significantly more so than men with low early psychosocial stress. Overall it was concluded that early psychosocial stress does not affect mate choice with the exception that men with high early psychosocial stress were more likely to dislike masculine female faces. It was suggested that men with high early psychosocial stress may dislike masculine female faces because they have nothing to gain from associating with women with such faces.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the University Whitfeld Fellowship (The University of Western Australia) awarded to the first author.

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  1. School of Anatomy and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Mail Bag Delivery Point M309, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Nicole Koehler & James S. Chisholm

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  1. Nicole Koehler
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  2. James S. Chisholm
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Correspondence to Nicole Koehler.

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Koehler, N., Chisholm, J.S. Does Early Psychosocial Stress Affect Mate Choice?. Hum Nat 20, 52–66 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-009-9057-5

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