The evolution of human mating: Trade-offs and strategic pluralism

Abstract

Research on interpersonal relationships, especially romantic ones, has increased markedly in the last three decades (see Berscheid & Reis 1998) across a variety of fields, including social psychology, anthropology, ethology, sociology, developmental psychology, and personology (Berscheid 1994). Unfortunately, these diverse perspectives have not coalesced into larger, more integrative theories of how and why relationships function the way they do.Evolutionary principles can integrate the findings on interpersonal relationships, especially concerning mating and parental behavior. In the evolutionary approach one tries to understand human psychological design -the nature, organization, and operation of domain-specific psychological mechanisms -by identifying plausible constraints from selection pressures during evolutionary history (see Buss 1995). Human behavior is highly flexible and environmentally responsive but "[psychological] designs that produce 'plasticity' can be retained by selection only if they have features that guide behavior into the infinitesimally small regions of relatively successful performance

Body Odor Quality Predicts Behavioral Attractiveness in Humans

“…(1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely). The two contexts were used because they can shift responses in subtle but statistically detectable manner (Little, Jones, Penton-Voak, Burt, & Perrett, 2002;Roberts, Little et al, 2005) and give some insight into the selection pressure underlying the preference: those expressed more strongly in the long-term context indicate relatively higher attention to cues of paternal investment, while preferences more strongly expressed in the general attractiveness context may emphasize cues of good genes (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000).…”

Why is low waist-to-chest ratio attractive in males? The mediating roles of perceived dominance, fitness, and protection ability

“…In general, evolutionary theory predicts that individuals should prefer mates with traits that indicate health, developmental stability, and physical fitness (in both sexes), fertility in women, and formidability (e.g., strength, fighting ability) in men (Grammer, Fink, Møller & Thornhill, 2003;Roney, 2009;Sugiyama, 2005). In men, such traits may indicate physical ability to contribute high-quality parental investment, and/or possession of "good genes," either of which could make a man a more adaptive choice as a reproductive partner (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). A related reason why attractive men could make more promising mates is because they tend to attain high social status (Langlois et al, 2000;Lukaszewski, 2013), which could further enhance their access to resources and ability to provide parental investment.…”

“…From an evolutionary perspective, mate preferences are expected to vary according to whether a potential mate is being evaluated as a short-term or long-term relationship partner (Buss & Schmidt, 1993;Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). If low WCR indicated both good genes and ability to provide parental investment, then it should be attractive to women in both short-WAIST-TO-CHEST RATIO 4 term and long-term relationship contexts.…”

“…If low WCR indicated both good genes and ability to provide parental investment, then it should be attractive to women in both short-WAIST-TO-CHEST RATIO 4 term and long-term relationship contexts. This is true because women generally are expected to be more attracted to good genes traits in short-term partners, and to investment-related traits in long-term partners (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). However, the factors linking WCR to shortterm attractiveness may be different than those linking WCR to long-term attractiveness.…”

“…Approached primarily from an evolutionary perspective, fitness (e.g., Frederick & Haselton, 2007;Gangestad & Simpson, 2000) has been conceptualized in a variety of ways and supported as one potential mediator of the link from WCR to attractiveness. However, a second potential mediator stemming from this same perspective, the ability to protect oneself and one's family, has largely gone untested and is likely to be strongly related to WCR, as more muscular men are likely better able to fight off or intimidate a potential aggressor.…”