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What is the significance of women's evolved mate preference for cues to athletic ability?
What is the main focus of parental investment theory in relation to sexual selection?
How does the text describe the impact of a mate who provides abundant resources and protects the family?
In which country did women value good financial prospects the least compared to men?
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Which country had women valuing good financial prospects roughly 150 percent more than men?
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What is the overall trend in the preference for financial resources in a marriage partner between men and women worldwide?
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What is the theoretical background for the evolution of mate preferences?
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What predicts that the sex investing more in offspring will be more selective about mating?
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What makes women more selective about their mates according to the text?
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What do women across different cultures and political systems value more than men?
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What is the minimum acceptable percentile for a husband's earning capacity among US college women?
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What do men invest in their wives and children with, unlike in other primates?
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What does the theory of parental investment predict about mate selection?
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What type of men did ancestral women evolve a preference for?
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What do wise women seek in their prospective mates to avoid potential abandonment?
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What is the main focus of the international study of male and female mating preferences mentioned in the text?
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What was the largest sex difference found in the study of 21,245 Germans mentioned in the text?
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What cues do the Himba women prioritize in their long-term mates, as mentioned in the text?
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In which society do women place great importance on a man's foraging abilities, primarily hunting and providing meat?
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What did speed dating studies reveal about women's mate selection?
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What did the analysis of folktales from 48 cultural areas reveal about female characters' mate preferences?
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In how many cultures did women value social status in a prospective mate more than men?
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What is the average age preference of women for men as potential partners?
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What is the main reason for women preferring somewhat older men as potential partners?
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What is the primary reason for women's preference for somewhat older men according to the text?
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What is rated as between important and indispensable by women in the overwhelming majority of cultures?
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What characteristic is rated significantly more important by women in 23 cultures compared to men?
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What is the primary reason for women valuing dependability and emotional stability in a partner according to the text?
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What is the second- and third-most-highly-valued characteristics among the 18 characteristics rated in the worldwide study on mate selection?
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What is the primary reason for women across different cultures valuing ambition and industriousness more than men according to the text?
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What do women prefer in men as a signal of their ability to protect a woman and her children?
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What is the primary reason for women valuing dependability and emotional stability in a partner according to the text?
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What do women place a premium on in order to reap the benefits that a mate can provide to them consistently over time?
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What was the average attractiveness rating for the man interacting with the child positively as a marriage partner?
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What was the effect on men's judgments of women's attractiveness when shown comparable photographs of women ignoring or interacting positively with a baby?
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What did psychologist Peggy La Cerra construct slide images of to test the hypothesis that women have an evolved preference for men who are willing to invest in children?
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What physical characteristics do women prefer in potential marriage partners?
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What cues to protection do women find attractive in men?
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What is the observed trend in the desirability of tall men as dates and mates?
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What is the primary adaptive problem for women in mate selection according to the text?
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What is the key cue to commitment in mate selection according to the text?
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What predicts subjective commitment more than reports of sexual desire in mate selection according to the text?
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What is the primary reason for women valuing masculine-looking faces in men?
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What is the significance of facial and bodily symmetry in mate selection?
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Why do women prefer men with more symmetrical faces?
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In the study mentioned, what was the effect of a man vacuuming on his attractiveness as a marriage partner?
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What were the results of the study conducted using women as models and men as raters?
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What do the findings of the study suggest about women's preference for men who show a willingness to invest in children?
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In the study of personal ads in various countries, what did women higher in mate value tend to do?
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What did the U.S. study on interviewers evaluating women for attractiveness find attractive women expressing a desire for in potential mates?
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In the Croatian study, what did women high on self-perceived physical attractiveness prefer in a potential mate compared to their less-attractive peers?
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What is the key factor that women value in a long-term mate, signaling the possession of abundant resources and good character?
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What is the term used to describe the tendency for people to mate with those who are similar, which is strongest for intelligence, religiosity, and political orientation?
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What is the crucial factor in mate selection, as reproducing with genetic relatives can lead to health and intelligence issues in offspring?
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What is the primary reason for women valuing resources in men, as evidenced by their mate preferences?
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What do women find especially attractive in a potential mate, based on hypotheses ranging from signaling sexual maturity to dominance?
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In the Bakweri society of West Africa, despite having more potential mates to choose from, what do women still prefer in their mates?
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What do large-scale cross-cultural studies fail to support regarding mate preferences?
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What is a cue that influences women's judgment of a man's attractiveness as a mate?
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What is significantly linked to women's attraction to masculine traits in men?
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What did the speed-dating study in Germany find about women high on self-perceived physical attractiveness?
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Why may women's mate preferences not show a perfect correspondence with their actual mating behavior?
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Why must women's mate preferences have affected their actual mating decisions over the course of human evolutionary history?
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What do butch lesbians tend to have more of compared to their femme peers?
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In mate selection, what do lesbian and bisexual women prefer in terms of their partner's height?
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Compared to heterosexual women, how do lesbian women differ in their tolerance for age differences in a potential mate?
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What do men use to compete with other men in mate competition?
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What do men experience in response to mating rivals with higher status and greater financial resources?
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What cognitive adaptations in men are activated by exposure to attractive women?
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In the study of 40,000 online daters in Australia, what did women do in relation to potential mates with higher education levels?
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What was the trend observed in the demographic data from 27 countries regarding the age of grooms compared to brides?
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What did the study of the Kipsigis from Kenya reveal about men who owned more land?
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What is the primary purpose of seeking love as a solution to the commitment problem?
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What is the significance of women's preference for masculine features in men according to evolutionary perspectives?
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What is the primary explanation for the observed genetic influence on sexual orientation according to recent hypotheses?
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Study Notes
Evolutionary Psychology and Women's Mate Preferences
- Women have greater obligatory parental investment in humans.
- Both men and women invest heavily in children for long-term mating or marriage.
- The theory of parental investment predicts that both sexes should be choosy and discriminating in mate selection.
- Ancestral women evolved a preference for generosity in men as it aids survival and reproductive success.
- Men vary in a variety of ways that are significant in mate choice, such as physical prowess, ambition, kindness, and social skills.
- Women's preferences for mate qualities have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.
- Preferences for mate qualities are not static and change over time.
- Women must gauge the future potential of a prospective partner when selecting a mate.
- Evolution has favored women who prefer men possessing attributes that confer benefits and dislike men possessing attributes that impose costs.
- Women must deal with the problem of identifying and evaluating cues that signal whether a man possesses a particular quality.
- Women must integrate their knowledge about a prospective mate to make the final decision.
- Wise women seek mates in their own mate-value range to avoid potential abandonment by higher-mate-value partners.
Female Mate Preferences for Social Status and Age
- Women desire men with high social status due to its association with control of resources, better food, territory, and health care.
- High-status men across 186 societies had greater wealth, more wives, and provided better nourishment for their children.
- Women value characteristics indicating future social status, such as profession success and promising careers, in potential spouses.
- Women globally value education and professional degrees in mates, strongly linked with social status.
- In 37 cultures, women valued social status in a prospective mate more than men, including in communist and socialist countries, among Africans and Asians, and among various religious groups.
- Women prefer men who possess high-status items, such as luxury cars and apartments, as potential partners.
- In all 37 cultures, women preferred older men, with an average preference for men roughly 3.5 years older.
- Women prefer somewhat older men due to their access to resources and lesser likelihood of fertility and genetic issues compared to much older men.
- Access to resources increases with age in contemporary Western societies and among the Tiwi, a polygynous people.
- Women prioritize social status as a "necessity" rather than a "luxury" when evaluating potential mates.
- Young male baboons and human adolescents rarely command the respect, status, or position of more mature men, who have had more time to build important alliances and cultivate skills.
- The Tiwi, an aboriginal tribe, is a gerontocracy where very old men wield power and control the mating system through complex social alliances.
Women's Preferences for Male Physical Features
- In a study of 37 cultures, both men and women rated "good health" as highly important, with women averaging +2.28 and men +2.31 on a scale from 0 (irrelevant) to +3 (indispensable).
- The degree of facial and bodily symmetry is an important health cue, reflecting an individual's ability to withstand environmental and genetic stressors.
- Women are hypothesized to have evolved a preference for men who show physical evidence of symmetry, as it may indicate a superior complement of genes and better disease resistance.
- Evidence supports the hypothesis that facial symmetry is a health cue and that women especially value this quality in mates, as symmetric individuals score higher on tests of physiological, psychological, and emotional health.
- Men with more symmetrical faces experience fewer respiratory illnesses, suggesting better disease resistance.
- Some researchers question the quality of the studies and conclude that the evidence on the association between symmetry and health is not fully convincing.
- Women overall preferred more masculine-looking faces in men, with a meta-analysis confirming that masculinity is attractive in male faces.
- Masculine features in males are signals of good health, as high levels of testosterone compromise the human immune system and only healthy males can afford to produce high levels of testosterone.
- Women's preference for masculine faces is stronger in low-health nations, and women sensitive to cues of pathogen-causing diseases also show strong preferences for masculine male faces.
- Masculine appearance might be valued by women because it signals health, as women's judgments of "the healthiest face" were indistinguishable from their judgments of "the most attractive face."
- Men with more masculine faces had fewer respiratory diseases, suggesting that masculine features may be a signal of disease resistance.
- Some researchers argue that women's attraction to masculine features reflects dominance in same-sex competition rather than health, as masculine features are also cues to physical formidability, which would help women in protection.
Mate Preferences in Women: Influences and Shifts
- Professionally successful women, such as medical and law students, prioritize their mate's earning capacity.
- Cross-cultural studies consistently show a positive relationship between women's access to economic resources and their preferences for mates with resources.
- Studies from Spain and Jordan reveal that women with more resources and status seek men with similar attributes.
- Large-scale cross-cultural studies have failed to support the structural powerlessness hypothesis regarding mate preferences.
- Mate choice copying, where a person's attraction to a potential mate is influenced by the preferences of others, has been documented in humans.
- Women judge a man to be more attractive when he is surrounded by women, indicating the influence of mate choice copying.
- Women use social information, such as a man being paired with an attractive and interested woman, as an important cue to his desirability as a mate.
- Women's mate preferences shift as a function of temporal context, with certain qualities being more desirable in long-term relationships than in short-term sexual contexts.
- Women seek "good partner" and "good dad" qualities in a long-term mate, while valuing warmth and trustworthiness highly in such a partner.
- A woman's physical attractiveness and youth are indicators of her mate value, influencing her mate preferences.
- Women who view themselves as physically attractive show a more pronounced preference for masculine traits in men.
- Women's self-rated attractiveness is significantly linked to their attraction to masculine traits in men, such as symmetrical faces and low-pitched voices.
Evolutionary Perspectives on Women's Mating Strategies
- Women face the challenge of commitment from men with rich resource potential and a penchant for casual sex.
- Seeking love is a solution to the commitment problem, as acts of love signal a man's commitment to a woman.
- Ancestral women selected men for strength, athleticism, and courage to ensure protection against incursion and secure well-being.
- Women's preference for masculine features in men is linked to health and physical formidability, ensuring long-term benefits.
- Women's mating preferences adapt across contexts, including personal access to resources and the presence of attractive rival women.
- Women with high incomes value a potential mate's income and education as much as or more than women with lower incomes.
- In long-term mating contexts, women value qualities signaling good provider and father potential, less important in short-term mating.
- Women are more likely to find men desirable if they are with other women, especially if the other women are physically attractive and interested in them.
- Evolutionary theories explain heterosexual women's mating strategies but not those of non-heterosexual women.
- 1-2% of women have exclusive lesbian orientation, 2-3% bisexual orientation, with 14-30% ever experiencing sexual attraction to other women.
- A recent hypothesis suggests genetic influence on sexual orientation, with direct reproductive success of non-heterosexual women four times lower than heterosexual women.
- Homosexuality and non-heterosexuality are multifaceted phenomena, with gender identity, sexual attraction, and sexual behavior as distinct facets.
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Test your knowledge of evolutionary psychology and women's mate preferences with this quiz. Explore the evolutionary factors that have shaped women's preferences in selecting mates and the strategies they use to make these crucial decisions.
