PSY 544 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Mate Choice, Zygomatic Bone, David Buss
(7) Long-Term Mate Preferences: Men
• Overview
• Applying general evolutionary theory and parental investment theory to long-term mate
preferences
• Heteroseual e’s preferee for outh
o Cross-cultural evidence and alternative hypotheses
• Heteroseual e’s preferee for good looks
o Cross-cultural and converging evidence
• Appearance preferences
o Facial symmetry and femininity, body shape (BMI and WHR), putting the preferences
in context
• Do these preferences affect behaviour?
• Male androphilia
• Short-term versus long-term mating
• Reall fro Triers’ theor of paretal iestet, that he oe se akes ore of a
investment in the children:
o that sex will be choosier regarding who they mates with, and;
o the other sex will compete more for mates.
• Gie oe’s greater oligator iestet egg + 9 oth gestatio tha e’s
(sperm), we would predict that men will be less choosy about, and more competitive over,
mates than women.
• Women have more obligatory investment where as men have less as they only have to put
their sperm in - we predict that men would be less choosier and more competitive over
mates than women
• But we also add that: in our species it's typical for men to make an investment in children
and often a heavy investment hence we should expect men and women both to be
selective in choosing a partner and both to compete amongst each other for choosing a
partner - but if we have to predict a difference we would expect women to be a little more
choosy and men being a little more competitive
• The diff between short and long term mating preference: for women we talked about in
context to a long term partner, we'll do the same for men but there is a lot of work on
short term mating preferences as well - but we'll look at just long term
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• Imagine a scenario: a man who only engages in short term mating, in other words doesn't
make a commitment to a long term partner, doesn't stay with anyone for long period of
time, all he is after is meeting with one woman and then moving on. Now imagine this
from an evo perspective: if this man is only interested in short term mating, is able to
attract short term sexual encounters with very women, he could potentially cause several
pregnancies - easily cause more than 1. now imagine a woman who does the same - for a
year only has short term sexual encounters, she can still only produce one pregnancy
though - so for that reason there are evolutionary reasons to believe that men and women
engage in short term mating differently and men may have a great inclination towards it
• Me’s log-term strategies
• However, although women have a greater obligatory investment in children than men,
both men and women typically do invest heavily in children, so we should expect both
men and women to be:
• Selective in choosing a long-term partner, and
• Competitive with one another over the partners who are willing to invest.
• Short-term versus long-term mating
• Imagine a heterosexual man who only engaged in short-term mating.
• If he managed to have short-term sexual encounters with many women in a year, he
could cause several pregnancies.
Now imagine a woman who did the same.
• If she managed to have short-term sexual encounters with many men in a year, she
could still only produce a single pregnancy.
There is some evidence that, although both men and women engage in short-term mating,
men have a greater inclination towards it.
Short-term versus long-term mating
However, a purely short-term mating strategy would have many potential costs for a
heterosexual man during evolutionary history, including:
• A purely sort term strategy has many potential costs during our evo history:
o Acquiring a reputation as an unreliable womanizer, which may reduce subsequent
interest from women. Someone who is only interested in short term mating and if
women are more inclined to be interested in long term mating that will then be seen
as an undesirable quality
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It's also possible that if women are predisposed to long term mating and seeking
commitment and the man just engages in short term mating and runs off he may
face injury from the woman herself or her relatives
• Violence at the hands of the women or their relatives.
It's also true that if he's interested in short term mating he has:
3. A lowered chance that any of the children he fathers would survive and reproduce,
due to his lack of parental investment.
So there are many potential costs for men for a purely short term relationship even
though from a purely evo perspective it seems like it would be a possible strategy
• Short-term versus long-term mating
• Correspondingly, there are several benefits to pursuing a more long-term mating strategy,
involving making commitments to mates:
• on the flip side there are many benefits of a long term mating strategy:
1. If commitment is something women desire, a greater range of partners would be
available to a heterosexual man willing to commit vs a man who is not
If a man is willing to make a mutual commitment to a woman eps if it involves
exclusive mating, it reduces his paternity uncertainty - whether you can tell that the
children you are raising are yours - you're reducing paternity uncertainty through
monogamy
• Mutual commitment reduces the extent of paternity uncertainty, especially if it
involves exclusive mating.
• Greater investment in the children increases their chances of survival and
reproduction.
• I a ultures, arriage atuall ireases a a’s status ad resoures, ad
potential allies from the woman's family
• “eletio pressures o e’s log-term mate choice
• Think about similarities: Heterosexual men desire many of the same qualities in a long-
term partner as do women.
• The qualities that come up again and again when people are asked what are the things
you're looking for in a long term partner, are things like:
• E.g., an intelligent, kind, dependable, person with similar attitudes, personality,
beliefs, etc.
• Nonetheless there are differences b/w men and women and it has to do with:
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Document Summary
Imagine a heterosexual man who only engaged in short-term mating. If he managed to have short-term sexual encounters with many women in a year, he could cause several pregnancies. Now imagine a woman who did the same. If she managed to have short-term sexual encounters with many men in a year, she could still only produce a single pregnancy. There is some evidence that, although both men and women engage in short-term mating, men have a greater inclination towards it. Someone who is only interested in short term mating and if women are more inclined to be interested in long term mating that will then be seen as an undesirable quality. It"s also true that if he"s interested in short term mating he has: a lowered chance that any of the children he fathers would survive and reproduce, due to his lack of parental investment. The data for men from the same study: we see a clear difference.
