Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1):1-14 (1989)
Abstract |
Contemporary mate preferences can provide important clues to human reproductive history. Little is known about which characteristics people value in potential mates. Five predictions were made about sex differences in human mate preferences based on evolutionary conceptions of parental investment, sexual selection, human reproductive capacity, and sexual asymmetries regarding certainty of paternity versus maternity. The predictions centered on how each sex valued earning capacity, ambition— industriousness, youth, physical attractiveness, and chastity. Predictions were tested in data from 37 samples drawn from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands. For 27 countries, demographic data on actual age at marriage provided a validity check on questionnaire data. Females were found to value cues toresource acquisitionin potential mates more highly than males. Characteristics signalingreproductive capacitywere valued more by males than by females. These sex differences may reflect different evolutionary selection pressures on human males and females; they provide powerful cross-cultural evidence of current sex differences in reproductive strategies. Discussion focuses on proximate mechanisms underlying mate preferences, consequences for human intrasexual competition, and the limitations of this study.
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Keywords | assortative mating cultural differences evolution mate preferences reproductive strategy sex differences sexual selection sociobiology |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1017/s0140525x00023992 |
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References found in this work BETA
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis.Edward O. Wilson - 1975 - Journal of the History of Biology 33 (3):577-584.
The Elementary Structures of Kinship... Revised Edition Translated... By James Harle Bell, John Richard von Sturmer and Rodney Needham, Editor.Claude Lévi-Strauss - 1969 - Beacon Press.
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Citations of this work BETA
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