Experimental examination of women's selection criteria for sperm donors versus life partners

Abstract

To evaluate factors shaping mate‐selection decisions, 2 age groups of women were randomly assigned to hypothetical scenarios wherein they sought a sperm donor or life partner. Respondents were asked to (a) construct an ideal man and (b) rate and rank the importance of traits associated with good genes, parenting ability, partner potential, and economic resources. Women seeking donors valued good genes more and partner potential less than women seeking partners. Younger women sought greater degree of physical resemblance to donors than to partners. Older women showed greater desire to be similar to partners than donors on sociocultural characteristics. The findings suggest women adjust their selection criteria as a function of context and that mate preferences may change as women mature.

Human mating strategies: from past causes to present consequences

“…Furthermore, the shift of female mate preferences toward cues linked to underlying genetic quality of partners (‘good genes’) when pursuing an uncommitted or short‐term mating strategy (whose extreme consequences could be observed when seeking a sperm donor) can be exemplified by the case of attractiveness and symmetry (which is deemed to reflect developmental stability, that is the ability to withstand environmental events and genetic stressors which can determine asymmetry in faces and bodies), and thus phenotypic quality and health . Indeed, more symmetric and attractive men have more extra‐pair partners and are chosen as extra‐pair partners more often than less symmetric, more unattractive men …”

A good story: Men's storytelling ability affects their attractiveness and perceived status

“…In contrast, women who are seeking long‐term partners may look for “good dads,” who are willing and able to invest in offspring. These women look for indicators of character or the ability to gain resources (Buunk, Dijkstra, Fetchenhauer, & Kenrick, ; Scheib, ; Zeifman & Ma, )…”

Complimenting speech acts: a cross-linguistic approach based on english, french, croatian, hungarian, german, italian and spanish

“…Older women showed a greater desire to have a child who is more similar to partner, than donor…" (Zeifman & Ma, 2013, p. 311) showing this way preference for sociocultural characteristics. The findings suggest that women adjust their selection criteria as a function of context and that mate preferences may change as women mature (Zeifman & Ma, 2013). And finally, women's results for compliments on skills (p-value = 1.5 E-73) are higher than those for appearance or character traits, but almost double the scores for compliments on skills obtained from men.…”