Women's Long-Term Mating Strategies PDF

106 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG as Nigeria and Zambia. Other participants came from nations that are more monogamous (the mating of one man with one woman), such as Spain and Canada. The countries included those in which living together is as common as marriage, such as Sweden and Finland, as wel...

106 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG as Nigeria and Zambia. Other participants came from nations that are more monogamous (the mating of one man with one woman), such as Spain and Canada. The countries included those in which living together is as common as marriage, such as Sweden and Finland, as well as countries in which living together without marriage is frowned on, such as Bulgaria and Greece. The study sampled a total of 10,047 individuals in 37 cultures, as shown in Figure 4.1 (Buss, 1989a). Male and female participants rated the importance of 18 characteristics in a potential mate or marriage partner, on a scale from unimportant to indispensable. Women across all continents, all political systems (including socialism and communism), all racial groups, all religious groups, and all systems of mating (from intense polygyny to presumptive monogamy), placed more value than men on good fnancial prospects. Overall, women valued fnancial resources roughly twice as much as did men (see Figure 4.2). There are some cultural variations. Women from Nigeria, Zambia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Taiwan, Colombia, and Venezuela valued good fnancial prospects a bit higher than women from South Africa (Zulus), the Netherlands, and Finland. In Japan, for example, women valued good fnancial prospect roughly 150 percent more than men, whereas women from the Netherlands deem it only 36 percent more important than their male counterparts, less than women from any other country. Nonetheless, the sex diference remained invariant: Women worldwide desired fnancial resources in a marriage partner more than men. Figure 4.1 Locations of 37 Cultures Studied in an International Mate Selection Project Source: Buss, D. M. (1994a). The strategies of human mating. American Scientist, 82, 238–249. Reprinted with permission. Figure 4.2 Preference for Good Financial Prospect in a Marriage Partner N = sample size. p values less than .05 indicate that sex diference is signifcant. Source: Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232. Copyright © 1993 by the American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission. 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES Thirty-seven cultures, distributed as shown, were examined by the author in his international study of male and female mating preferences. The author and his colleagues surveyed the mating desires of 10,047 people on six continents and fve islands. The results provide the largest database of human mating preferences ever accumulated. Participants in cultures rated this variable, in the context of 17 other variables, on how desirable it would be in a potential long-term mate or marriage partner using a four-point rating scale, ranging from 0 (irrelevant or unimportant) to 3 (indispensable). These fndings provided the frst extensive cross-cultural evidence supporting the evolutionary basis for the psychology of human mating. Since that study, fndings from other cultures continue to support the hypothesis that women have evolved preferences for men with resources. One massive study of 21,245 Germans ranging in age from 18 to 65 found that the largest sex diference centered on women’s greater preference for “wealthy and generous” (Schwarz & Hassebrauck, 2013). A study of the Himba, a small group of seminomadic pastoralists living in northwest Namibia, found that women prioritize long-term mates who are wealthy, respectful, hardworking, and generous—key cues to the ability and willingness of a man to acquire and share resources (Scelza & Prall, 2018). A study of Chinese, European, and American individuals found that a potential mate’s salary had four times the impact on women’s judgments of men’s attractiveness compared to men’s judgments of women’s attractiveness (Wang et al., 2018). Another study found that women experienced relationship regret over getting involved with a man who was “stingy” and passing up on an opportunity to get involved with a man who was “wealthy” (Coats, Harrington, Beaubouef, & Locke, 2011). A study of mate selection in the country of Jordan found that women more than men valued economic ability, as well as qualities linked to economic ability such as status, ambition, and education (Khallad, 2005). Using a diferent method—analysis of folktales in 48 cultural areas including bands, tribes, preindustrial states, Pacifc islands, and all the major continents—Jonathan Gottschall and colleagues found the same sex diference (Gottschall et al., 2003). Substantially more female than male characters in the folktales from each culture placed a primary emphasis on wealth or status in their expressed mate preferences. Gottschall found similar results in a historical analysis of European literature (Gottschall, Martin, Quish, & Rea, 2004). A study of 500 Muslims living in the United States found that women sought fnancially secure, emotionally sensitive, and sincere partners, the latter being a signal of willingness to commit to a long-term relationship (Badahdah & Tiemann, 2005). Finally, an in-depth study of the Hadza of Tanzania, a hunter-gatherer society, found that women place a great importance on a man’s foraging abilities—primarily his ability to hunt and provide meat (Marlowe, 2004). This fundamental sex diference also appears prominently in modern forms of mating, such as speed dating and mail-order brides. In a study of speed dating, in which individuals engage in 4-minute conversations to determine whether they are interested in meeting the other person again, women chose men who indicated that they had grown up in afuent neighborhoods (Fisman, Iyengar, Kamenica, & Simonson, 2006). Another study of a community sample of 382 speed daters, ranging in age from 18 to 54, found that women’s choices, more than men’s choices, were infuenced by a potential date’s income and education (Asendorpf, Penke, & Back, 2011). A study of the mate preferences of mail-order brides from Colombia, the Philippines, and Russia found that these women sought husbands who had status and ambition—two key correlates of resource acquisition (Minervini & McAndrew, 2006). As the authors conclude, “women willing to become MOBs [mail-order brides] do not appear to have a diferent agenda than other mate-seeking women; they simply have discovered a novel way to expand their pool of prospective husbands” (2006, p. 17). A study of personal advertisements in Sweden, a culture that has a high level of economic equality between the sexes, found that women sought resources 107 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 108 three times as often as did men (Gustavsson & Johnsson, 2008). A study of 2,956 Israelis who subscribed to a computer dating service found that women, far more than men, sought mates who owned their own cars, had good economic standing, and placed a high level of importance on their careers (Bokek-Cohen, Peres, & Kanazawa, 2007). Women also place tremendous value on intelligence in a long-term mate (Buss et al., 1990; Prokosch, Coss, Scheib, & Blozis, 2009), a quality highly predictive of income and occupational status (Buss, 1994b). Even in more traditional societies, such as the Kipsigis of Kenya, women (as well as the women’s parents when choosing for them) preferentially select men who have resources such as large plots of land (Borgerhof Mulder, 1990). Finally, a study of the reproductive outcomes of women living in preindustrial Finland in the 18th and 19th centuries found that women married to wealthier men had higher survival rates and a larger number of children who survived to adulthood than women married to poorer men (Pettay, Helle, Jokela, & Lummaa, 2007). A historical study of Norwegians found similar efects (Skjærvø, Bongard, Viken, Stokke, & Røskaft, 2011). The enormous body of empirical evidence across diferent methods, time periods, and cultures supports the hypothesis that women have evolved a powerful preference for long-term mates with the ability to provide resources. Today’s women are the descendants of a long line of women who had these mate preferences—preferences that helped them to solve the adaptive problems of survival and reproduction. Preference for High Social Status Traditional hunter-gatherer societies, one rough guide to what ancestral conditions were probably like, suggest that ancestral men had clearly defned status hierarchies. Resources in most status hierarchies fow freely to those at the top and trickle slowly to those at the bottom (Betzig, 1986; Brown & Chia-Yun, n.d.). Cross-culturally, groups such as the Melanesians, the early Egyptians, the Sumerians, the Japanese, and the Indonesians include people described as “head men” and “big men” who wield great power and enjoy the resource privileges of prestige. Among various south Asian languages, for example, the term “big man” is found in Sanskrit, Hindi, and several Dravidian languages. In Hindi, for example, bara asami means great man or someone high in rank (Platts, 1960). In North America, “big man” and similar terms are found among groups such as the Wappo, Dakota, Miwok, Natick, Choctaw, Kiowa, and Osage. In Mexico and South America, “big man” and closely related terms are found among the Cayapa, Chatino, Mazahua, Mixe, Mixteco, Quiche, Terraba, Tzeltal, Totonaca, Tarahumara, Quechua, and Hahuatl. In language, therefore, many cultures have found it important to invent words or phrases to describe men who are high in status. Women desire men who command a high position because social status is a universal cue to the control of resources. Along with status come better food, more abundant territory, and superior health care. Greater social status bestows on children social opportunities missed by the children of lower-ranking males. For male children worldwide, access to more and better-quality mates typically accompanies families of higher social status. In one study of 186 societies ranging from the Mbuti Pygmies of Africa to the Aleut of Alaska, high-status men invariably had greater wealth and more wives and provided better nourishment for their children (Betzig, 1986). One study examined short-term and long-term mating to discover which characteristics people especially valued in potential spouses, as contrasted with potential sex partners (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Several hundred individuals evaluated 67 characteristics for their desirability or undesirability in the short or long term, rating them on a scale ranging from −3 (extremely undesirable) to +3 (extremely desirable). Women judged the likelihood of success in a profession and the possession of a promising career to be highly desirable in a spouse, giving average ratings 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES 109 Figure 4.3 Preference for Social Status in a Marriage Partner N = sample size. p values less than .05 indicate that sex diference is signifcant. NS indicates that sex diference is not signifcant. Source: Buss, D. M., Abbott, M., Angleitner, A., Asherian, A., Biaggio, A. et al. (1990). International preferences in selecting mates: A study of 37 cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 21, 5–47. Participants in 37 cultures rated this variable, in the context of 18 other variables, on how desirable it would be in a potential long-term mate or marriage partner using a four-point rating scale, ranging from 0 (irrelevant or unimportant) to 3 (indispensable). of +2.60 and +2.70, respectively. Importantly, these cues to future status are seen by women as more desirable in spouses than in casual sex partners. U.S. women also place great value on education and professional degrees in mates—characteristics that are strongly linked with social status. The importance that women grant to social status in mates is not limited to the United States or even to capitalist countries. In the vast majority of the 37 cultures considered in the international study on choosing a mate, women valued social status in a prospective mate more than men in both communist and socialist countries, among Africans and Asians, among Catholics and Jews, in the southern tropics and the northern climes (Buss, 1989a). In Taiwan, for example, women valued status 63 percent more than men; in West Germany, women valued it 38 percent more; and in Brazil, women valued it 40 percent more (see Figure 4.3). Another study conducted in Iran found that a preference for a combined “status-resources” factor showed the largest gender diference of all in long-term mate preferences (Atari, 2017). Women appear to have solved the adaptive problem of acquiring resources in part by preferring men who are high in status. Indeed, when forced to trade of among diferent mate characteristics, women prioritize social status, viewing it as a “necessity” rather than a “luxury” (Li, 2007). Women evaluate men who possess high-status items such as luxury high-prestige cars and luxury apartments as especially attractive potential partners (Dunn & Hill, 2014; Dunn & Searle, 2010). Preference for Somewhat Older Men The age of a man also provides an important clue to his access to resources. Just as young male baboons must mature before they are able to enter the upper ranks in the baboon social hierarchy, human adolescents rarely command the respect, status, or position of more mature men. Older men have had more time to build important alliances, cultivate skills, and learn more about the environment—all benefcial attributes. The age–resources link reaches extremes among the Tiwi, an aboriginal tribe located on two islands of the coast of northern Australia (Hart & Pilling, 1960). The Tiwi are a gerontocracy in which the very old men wield most of the power and prestige; they control the mating system through complex social alliances. Even in U.S. culture, status and wealth tend to accumulate with increasing age. ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 110 In all 37 cultures included in the international study on mate selection, women preferred older men (see Figure 4.4). Averaged over all cultures, women prefer men who are roughly 3.5 years older. Another study of 22,400 individuals in 14 diferent cultures and two diferent religious groups (Muslims and Christians) found similar results (Dunn, Brinton, & Clark, 2010). The preferred age diference ranges from French Canadian women, who seek husbands just a shade under 2 years older, to Iranian women, who seek husbands more than 5 years older. Why do women prefer somewhat older men, but not much older men? The answer seems to lie partially in problems that develop in much older men—they are more likely to be infertile, women who get pregnant with them are more likely to experience pregnancy problems, and children of much older men are at increased risk of genetic abnormalities (Spinelli, Hattori, & Sousa, 2010). Much older men also are less likely to live a long time—they have a shorter shelf-life ahead of them—so have fewer years of investment from which a woman might beneft. To understand why women value somewhat older mates, we must consider the things that change with age. One of the most consistent changes is access to resources. In contemporary Western societies, income generally increases with age (Jencks, 1979). These status trends are not limited to the Western world. Among the Tiwi, a polygynous people, men are typically at least 30 before they have enough social status to acquire a frst wife (Hart & Pilling, 1960). Rarely does a Tiwi man under the age of 40 attain enough status to acquire more than one wife. Older age, resources, and status are coupled across cultures. In traditional societies, part of this linkage may be related to physical strength and hunting prowess. Physical strength increases in men as they get older, peaking in the late 20s and early 30s. In traditional hunter-gatherer societies such as the Tsimane Amerindians of the Bolivian Amazon and the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic, hunting skill peaks even later—roughly the mid- to late 30s (Collings, 2009; Gurven, Kaplan, & Gutierrex, 2006). A study of a small-scale Amazonian society in Ecuador found that a man’s hunting ability was the strongest predictor of women’s judgments of a man’s attractiveness, closely followed by a man’s status and reputation as a good warrior (Escasa, Gray, & Patton, 2010). So women’s preference for somewhat older men may stem from our hunter-gatherer ancestors, for whom the resources derived from hunting were critical to survival. Importantly, older men will have had more time to build important social alliances and acquire status—qualities directly benefcial to a woman and her children that can aid in their survival and their future mating opportunities. Preference for Ambition and Industriousness How do people get ahead in everyday life? Among all the tactics, sheer hard work proves to be one of the best predictors of past and anticipated income and promotions. Those who work hard achieve higher levels of education and status, higher annual salaries, and more promotions than their more laid-back peers. Industrious and ambitious men secure a higher occupational status than lazy, unmotivated men (Jencks, 1979; Kyl-Heku & Buss, 1996; Lund, Tamnes, Moestue, Buss, & Vollrath, 2007; Willerman, 1979). In the overwhelming majority of cultures, women value ambition and industriousness more than men do, typically rating them as between important and indispensable. In Taiwan, for example, women rate ambition and industriousness as 26 percent more important than men do, women 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES 111 Figure 4.4 Age Diferences Preferred between Self and Spouse N = sample size. Source: Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232. Copyright © 1993 by the American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission. Participants recorded their preferred age diference, if any, between self and potential spouse. The scale shown is in years, with positive values signifying preference for older spouses and negative values signifying preference for younger spouses. from Bulgaria rate it as 29 percent more important, and women from Brazil rate it as 30 percent more important. This cross-cultural and cross-historical evidence supports the key evolutionary psychological prediction that women have evolved a preference for men possessing signs of the ability to acquire resources and are less attracted to men lacking the ambition that often leads to status and resources. Preference for Dependability and Stability Among the 18 characteristics rated in the worldwide study on mate selection, the second- and third-most-highly-valued characteristics are a dependable character and emotional stability or maturity. In 21 of 37 cultures, men and women had the same preference for dependability in a partner (Buss et al., 1990). Of the remaining 16 cultures, women in 15 valued dependability more than men. Averaged across all 37 cultures, women rated dependable character a 2.69, where a 3 signifes indispensable; men rate it nearly as important, with an average of 2.50. In the case of emotional stability or maturity, the sexes difer more. Women in 23 cultures value this quality signifcantly more than men do; in the remaining 14 cultures, men and women value emotional stability equally. Averaging across all cultures, women give this quality a 2.68, whereas men give it a 2.47. These characteristics may possess great value to women worldwide for two reasons. First, they are reliable signals that resources will be provided consistently over time. Second, men who lack dependability and emotional stability provide erratically and infict heavy emotional and other costs on their mates (Buss, 1991). They tend to be self-centered and monopolize shared resources. They are frequently possessive, monopolizing much of the time of their wives. They show higher-than-average sexual jealousy, becoming enraged when their wives merely talk with someone else. They tend to be dependent, insisting that their mates provide for all of their 112 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG needs. They tend to be verbally and physically abusive. They have more afairs than average, suggesting further diversion of time and resources (Buss & Shackelford, 1997a). All these costs reveal that undependable and emotionally unstable men will absorb their partners’ time and resources, divert their own time and resources elsewhere, and fail to channel resources consistently over time. Dependability and stability are personal qualities that signal increased likelihood that a woman’s own resources will not be drained by the man. Unpredictability interferes with solutions to critical adaptive problems. The erratic supply of resources can wreak havoc with accomplishing the goals required for survival and reproduction. Meat that is suddenly not available because an unpredictable, changeable, or variable mate decided at the last minute to take a nap rather than go on the hunt is sustenance counted on but not delivered. Resources that are supplied predictably can be more efciently allocated to Women prefer men who are relatively tall, athletic, muscular, and the many adaptive hurdles that must display a V-shaped torso, with shoulders broader than hips—signals that be overcome in everyday life. Women indicate a man’s ability to protect a woman and her children. place a premium on dependability and emotional stability to reap the benefts that a mate can provide to them consistently over time. Preference for Athletic Prowess, Formidability, and Height The importance of physical characteristics in the female choice of a mate is notable throughout the animal world. Male gladiator frogs are responsible for creating nests and defending the eggs. In the majority of courtships, a stationary male gladiator frog is deliberately bumped by a female who is considering him. She strikes him with great force, sometimes enough to rock him back or even scare him away. If the male moves too much or bolts from the nest, the female hastily leaves to fnd an alternative mate. Bumping helps a female frog assess how successful the male will be at defending her clutch. The bump test reveals the male’s physical ability to protect. Women sometimes face physical domination by larger, stronger males, which can lead to injury and sexual domination. These conditions undoubtedly occurred with some regularity during ancestral conditions. Studies of many non-human primate groups reveal that male physical and sexual domination of females has been a recurrent part of our primate heritage. Primatologist Barbara Smuts lived among the baboons residing in the savanna plains of Africa and studied their mating patterns (Smuts, 1985). She found that females frequently formed enduring “special friendships” with males who ofered physical protection to them and their infants. In return, these females sometimes granted their “friends” preferential mating access during times of estrus. 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES One beneft to women of long-term mating is the physical protection a man can ofer. A man’s size, strength, physical prowess, and athletic ability are cues that signal solutions to the problem of protection. Evidence shows that women’s preferences in a mate embody these cues. Women judge short men to be undesirable for either a short-term or a long-term mate (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). In contrast, women fnd it very desirable for a potential marriage partner to be tall, physically strong, and athletic. A study of women from Britain and Sri Lanka found strong preferences for male physiques that were muscular and lean (Dixon, Halliwell, East, Wignarajah, & Anderson, 2003). Women also prefer and fnd attractive men with a “V-shaped” torso—broad shoulders relative to hips (Hughes & Gallup, 2003). Another good index of physical formidability is handgrip strength (Gallup & Fink, 2018), which may be why men sometimes show of in mate-attraction tactics by volunteering to open the lids on jars that are especially difcult to open (Buss, 1988a). Women who are especially fearful of crime show even stronger preferences for long-term mates who are physically formidable (Snyder et al., 2011). Moreover, women exposed in an experiment to images of men fghting with each other or images of weapons increased their preferences for masculine-looking male faces—likely a cue to protection (Little, DeBruine, & Jones, 2013). Tall men are consistently seen as more desirable as dates and mates than are short or average men (Courtiol, Ramond, Godelle, & Ferdy, 2010; Ellis, 1992). Two studies of personal ads revealed that, among women who mentioned height, 80 percent wanted a man to be 6 feet or taller (Cameron, Oskamp, & Sparks, 1978). Personals ads placed by taller men received more responses from women than those placed by shorter men (Lynn & Shurgot, 1984). Indeed, a study of the “hits” received by 1,168 personal advertisements in Poland found that a man’s height was one of the four strongest predictors of the number of women who responded to the male ads (the others being education level, age, and resources) (Pawlowski & Koziel, 2002). Tall men are perceived as more dominant, are more likely to date, and are more likely to have attractive partners than shorter men (see Brewer & Riley, 2009, for a review). Women solve the problem of protection from other aggressive men at least in part by preferring a mate who has the size, strength, and physical prowess to protect them. These physical qualities also contribute to solutions to other adaptive problems such as resource acquisitions and genes for good health, since tallness is also linked with status, income, symmetrical features, and good health (Brewer & Riley, 2009). Among the Mehinaku tribe of the Brazilian Amazon, anthropologist Thomas Gregor (1985) noted the importance of men’s wrestling skills as an arena in which these diferences become acute: A heavily muscled, imposingly built man is likely to accumulate many girlfriends, while a small man, deprecatingly referred to as a peristsi, fares badly. The mere fact of height creates a measurable advantage. . . . A powerful wrestler, say the villagers, is frightening . . . he commands fear and respect. To the women, he is “beautiful” (awitsiri), in demand as a paramour [lover] and husband. (p. 35) Preference for Good Health: Symmetry and Masculinity Mating with someone who is unhealthy would have posed a number of adaptive risks for our ancestors. First, an unhealthy mate would have a higher risk of becoming debilitated, thus failing to deliver whatever adaptive benefts might otherwise be provided such as food, protection, health care, and investment in childrearing. Second, an unhealthy mate would be at greater risk of dying prematurely, thereby cutting of the fow of resources and forcing the search for a new mate. Third, an unhealthy mate might transfer communicable diseases. Fourth, an unhealthy mate might infect the children of the union, imperiling their chances of surviving and reproducing. And 113 114 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG ffh, if health is partly heritable, a person who chooses an unhealthy mate would risk passing on genes for poor health to children. For all these reasons, women and men both place a premium on the health of a potential mate. In the study of 37 cultures, on a scale ranging from 0 (irrelevant) to +3 (indispensable), women and men both judged “good health” to be highly important. Averaged across the cultures, women gave it a +2.28 and men gave it a +2.31 (Buss et al., 1990). An important physical marker of good health is the degree to which the face and body are symmetrical (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997; Grammer & Thornhill, 1994; Shackelford & Larsen, 1997; Thornhill & Møeller, 1997). Environmental events and genetic mutations produce deviations from bilateral symmetry, creating lopsided faces and bodies. Some individuals are able to withstand such events and stresses better than others—that is, they show developmental stability. The presence of facial and bodily symmetry is an important health cue, refecting an individual’s ability to withstand environmental and genetic stressors. Therefore, women are hypothesized to have evolved a preference for men who show physical evidence of symmetry. Such symmetry would not only increase the odds of the mate being around to invest and less likely to pass on diseases to her children, it may have genetic benefts as well. By selecting a man with symmetrical features, a woman may be selecting a superior complement of genes to be transmitted to her children. Some evidence supports the hypothesis that symmetry is indeed a health cue and that women especially value this quality in mates (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1997; Thornhill & Møeller, 1997). First, facially symmetric individuals score higher on tests of physiological, psychological, and emotional health (Shackelford & Larsen, 1997). Second, there is positive relationship between facial symmetry and judgments of physical attractiveness in both sexes. Third, women judge facially symmetrical men, compared with their more lopsided counterparts, to be more sexually attractive. Facial symmetry is linked to judgments of health (Jones et al., 2001). Men with more symmetrical faces experienced fewer respiratory illnesses, suggesting better disease resistance (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2006). Some researchers, however, question the quality of the studies and conclude that the evidence on the association between symmetry and health is not yet fully convincing (Rhodes, 2006). Another health cue might stem from masculine features. The average faces of adult men and women difer in several fundamental respects. Men tend to have longer and broader lower jaws, stronger brow ridges, and more pronounced cheekbones, primarily as a consequence of pubertal hormones such as testosterone. Victor Johnston and his colleagues developed a sophisticated experimental tool to vary these features, in the form of a 1,200-frame QuickTime movie (Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001). The computer program allows a person to search through hundreds of faces that vary in masculinity, femininity, and other features. Participants use a slider control and single-frame buttons to move back and forth through the 1,200-frame movie to locate the frame containing the desired target, such as “most attractive for a long-term mate.” Women overall preferred faces that were more masculine-looking than average. A metaanalysis of 10 studies confrmed that masculinity is attractive in male faces, although the efect size is modest (+.35) (Rhodes, 2006). Women also fnd vocal masculinity to be attractive (Feinberg, DeBruine, Jones, & Little, 2008). Why would women fnd masculine-looking males attractive? Johnston argues that masculine features are signals of good health. High levels of testosterone compromise the human immune system. According to Johnston’s argument, only males who are quite healthy can “aford” to produce high levels of testosterone during their development. Less healthy males must suppress testosterone production, lest they compromise their already weaker immune systems. As a result, healthy males end up producing more testosterone and developing more rugged masculine-looking faces. If Johnston’s argument is 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES 115 Most women fnd men with symmetrical faces, as exemplifed by the actor Denzel Washington (lef), to be more attractive than men with asymmetrical faces, as illustrated by the musician and actor Lyle Lovett (right). Symmetry is hypothesized to be a health cue that signals a relative absence of parasites, genetic resistance to parasites, or a relative lack of environmental insults during development. © AF archive/Alamy correct, women’s preference for masculine faces is a preference for a healthy male. Support for this hypothesis comes from the fnding that women living in low-health nations have especially strong preferences for facial masculinity (Pisanski & Feinberg, 2013). Moreover, women who are especially sensitive to becoming disgusted by cues to pathogen-causing diseases also show especially strong preferences for masculine male faces (DeBruine, Jones, Tybur, Lieberman, & Giskevicius, 2010). Johnston went through the 1,200-frame QuickTime movie a second time and asked the women to pick out the face they viewed as the “healthiest.” The faces women chose were indistinguishable from their judgments of “the most attractive face,” supporting the theory that masculine appearance might be valued by women because it signals health. Another study found that men with more masculine faces had fewer respiratory diseases, suggesting that it might be a signal of disease resistance (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2006). Other researchers present evidence that women’s attraction to masculine features refects dominance in same-sex competition rather than health (Boothroyd, Jones, Burt, & Perrett, 2007; see also Puts, Welling, Burris, & Dawood, 2012; Scott, Clark, Boothroyd, & Penton-Voak, 2013). Importantly, masculine features are also cues to physical formidability, which would help a woman solve the adaptive problem of protection. ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 116 Love and Commitment Women have long faced the adaptive problem of choosing men who not only have the necessary resources but also show a willingness to commit those resources to them and their children. Although resources can ofen be directly observed, commitment cannot. Instead, gauging commitment requires looking for cues that signal future channeling of resources. Love may be one of the key cues to commitment (Buss, 2018b). According to conventional wisdom in the social sciences, “love” is a relatively recent invention, introduced a few hundred years ago by romantic European poets (Jankowiak, 1995). Research suggests that this conventional wisdom is radically wrong. There is evidence that loving thoughts, emotions, and actions are experienced by people in cultures worldwide— from the Zulu in the southern tip of Africa to the Inuit in the cold northern ice caps of Alaska. In a survey of 168 diverse cultures around the world, anthropologists William Jankowiak and Edward Fischer examined four sources of evidence for the presence of love: the singing of love songs, elopement by lovers against the wishes of parents, cultural informants reporting personal anguish and longing for a loved one, and folklore depicting romantic entanglements. They found evidence for romantic love in 88.5 percent of the cultures (Jankowiak, 1995; Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992). Clearly love is not a phenomenon limited to the United States or to Western cultures. To identify precisely what love is and how it is linked to commitment, several studies examined acts of love (Buss, 1988a, 2018b; Wade, Auer, & Roth, 2009). Acts of commitment top women’s and men’s list as most central to love. These acts include giving up romantic relations with others, talking of commitment and marriage, and expressing a desire to have children with this person. When performed by a man, these acts of love signal the intention to commit resources to one woman and her future children. Reports of experiencing love powerfully predict feelings of subjective commitment—far more than reports of sexual desire (Gonzaga, Haselton, Smurda, Davies, & Poore, 2008). The hypothesis that the commitment of paternal care to children is one of the functions of love attains support from a comparative and phylogenetic analysis of diferent species that looked at the links between adult attachment and paternal care (Fraley et al., 2005). Species that exhibited adult attachment were more likely to be characterized by male parental investment in ofspring than species that did not. Thus, one function of the female preference for love in a mate is to ensure the commitment of his parental resources to the children they produce together. One component of commitment is fdelity, exemplifed by the act of remaining faithful to a partner when not physically together. Fidelity signals the exclusive commitment of sexual resources to a single partner. Another aspect of commitment is the channeling of resources to the loved one. Emotional support is another facet of commitment, revealed by being available in times of trouble and listening to the partner’s problems. Commitment entails a channeling of time, energy, and efort to the partner’s needs at the expense of fulflling one’s own personal goals. Acts of reproduction also represent a direct commitment to one’s partner’s reproduction. All these acts, which are viewed as central to love, signal the commitment of sexual, economic, emotional, and genetic resources to one person. Because love is a worldwide phenomenon, and because the primary function of acts of love is to signal commitment, women are predicted to place a premium on love in the process of choosing a long-term mate. The international study on choosing a mate confrmed the importance of love across cultures. Among 18 possible characteristics, mutual attraction or love proved to be the most highly valued in a potential mate by both sexes, rated 2.87 by women and 2.81 by men (Buss et al., 1990). Nearly all women and men, from the Zulu of South Africa to urban Brazilians, gave love the top rating, indicating that it is an indispensable part of long-term mating. Another study of love in 48 nations found high levels of love in all of them (Schmitt et al., 2009). 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES 117 Researchers have made progress in identifying the underlying brain mechanisms involved in love (Bartels & Zeki, 2004; Fisher, Aron, & Brown, 2005). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology, researchers scanned the brains of individuals who were intensely in love while they thought about their loved one. The specifc areas of the brain that “lit up” (showed an increased blood fow, indicating changes in neural activity) centered on the caudate nucleus and the ventral tegmental areas. These areas contain cells that produce dopamine, which stimulates the reward centers of the brain, analogous to experiencing a “rush” of cocaine (Fisher, 2006). Thus, researchers are beginning to make progress in identifying the underlying brain circuits involved in the psychological state of love. Preference for Willingness to Invest in Children Another adaptive problem that women face when selecting a long-term mate is gauging men’s willingness to invest in children. This adaptive problem is important for two reasons: (1) Men sometimes seek sexual variety and so may channel their eforts toward other women (mating efort) rather than toward children (parental efort; see Chapter 6); and (2) men evaluate the likelihood that they are the actual genetic father of a child and tend to withhold investment from the child when they know or suspect that the child is not their own (La Cerra, 1994). To test the hypothesis that women have an evolved preference for men who are willing to invest in children, psychologist Peggy La Cerra constructed slide images of men in several diferent conditions: (1) a man standing alone; (2) a man interacting with an 18-month-old child, including smiling, making eye contact, and reaching for the child; (3) a man ignoring the child, who was crying; (4) a man and the child simply facing forward (neutral condition); and (5) a man vacuuming a living room rug. The same models were depicted in all conditions. After viewing these slide images, 240 women rated each image on how attractive they found the man in each slide as a date, as a sexual partner, as a marriage partner, as a friend, and as a neighbor. The rating scale ranged from −5 (very unattractive) to +5 (very attractive). First, women found the man interacting with the child positively to be more attractive as a marriage partner (average attractiveness rating, 2.75) than the same man either standing alone (2.0) or standing neutrally next to the child (2.0). Second, women found the man La Cerra (1994) found that women fnd the man interacting positively with the baby considerably more attractive, suggesting a mate preference for men who display a willingness to invest in children. Comparable photographs of women, shown either ignoring or interacting positively with a baby, produced no efect on men’s judgments of women’s attractiveness. iStock © jarenwicklund ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 118 who ignored the child in distress to be low in attractiveness as a marriage partner (1.25), indeed the lowest of all. Third, the efect of interacting positively with the child proved not to be a result of the man showing domestic proclivities in general. Women found the man vacuuming, for example, to be less attractive (1.3) than the man simply standing alone doing nothing (2.0). This study suggests that women prefer men who show a willingness to invest in children as marriage partners. Is this preference unique to women? To address this issue, la Cerra conducted another study, this time using women as models and men as raters. Women were posed in conditions parallel to those of the male models in the frst study. The results for men were strikingly diferent from those for women. Men found the woman standing alone to be just as attractive (average attractiveness rating, 2.70) as the woman interacting positively with the child (2.70). In fact, the varying contexts made little diference to men in their judgments of how attractive the woman was as a marriage partner. In short, women appear to have a specifc preference for and attraction to men who show a willingness to invest in children, but the reverse is not true. These fndings have been replicated by Gary Brase, who made several methodological improvements (Brase, 2006). An interesting study explored the importance of men’s interest in infants on women’s attraction to a man as a long-term mate (Roney, Hanson, Durante, & Maestripieri, 2006). The experimenters gave a sample of men the “interest in infants test,” which assesses the degree to which men prefer to look at infant faces—a measure that predicts men’s actual levels of interaction with infants. Next, these men’s faces were photographed. A sample of 29 women rated each photo on a set of variables that included “likes children.” Women also rated each man’s attractiveness as a short-term and long-term romantic partner. The results proved fascinating. First, women were able to accurately detect men’s interest in infants simply from looking at the photos of their faces. It is likely that women were picking up on the positivity and happiness in the facial expressions of men who had an interest in children. Second, men who women perceived as liking infants were judged to be very attractive as long-term mates; men’s perceived liking of infants, in contrast, did not boost their attractiveness in women’s eyes as a short-term mate. Taken together, these studies point to the importance of paternal qualities—a man’s interest in and willingness to invest in children—as critical to women’s selection of a longterm mate. Preference for Similarity Successful long-term mating requires sustained cooperative alliances over time. Similarity leads to emotional bonding, cooperation, communication, mating happiness, lower risk of breaking up, and possibly increased survival of children (Buss, 2003; Castro, Hattori, & Lopes, 2012). Women and men alike show strong preferences for mates who share their values, political orientations, worldviews, intellectual level, and, to a lesser extent, their personality characteristics. The preference for similarity translates into actual mating decisions, a phenomenon known as homogamy—people who are similar on these characteristics date (Wilson, Cousins, & Fink, 2006) and get married (Buss, 1985) more ofen than those who are dissimilar. Homogamy is strongest for intelligence, religiosity, and political orientation. It is positive but not strong for personality characteristics, including narcissism and manipulativeness (Kardum, Hudek-knezevic, Schmitt, & Covic, 2017). Homogamy for physical appearance might be due to “sexual imprinting” on the opposite-sex parent during childhood (Bereczkei, Gyuris, & Weisfeld, 2004). Interestingly, daughters who received more emotional support from their fathers were more likely to choose similar-looking mates (Nojo, Tamura, & Ihara, 2012; Watkins et al., 2011). Finally, there is strong homogamy for overall “mate value,” with the “10s” mating with other “10s” and the “6s” mating with other “6s” (Figueredo et al., 2015). 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES Additional Mate Preferences: Kindness, Humor, Incest Avoidance, and Voice Women’s desires are even more complex than the previous discussion indicates, and new discoveries are being made every year. Women greatly value the traits of kindness, altruism, and generosity in a long-term mate (Barclay, 2010; Phillips, Barnard, Ferguson, & Reader, 2008). The 37-culture study found “kind and understanding” was universally ranked as the most desirable quality in a long-term mate out of 13 ranked qualities (Buss et al., 1990). Barclay (2010) experimentally manipulated vignettes that difered only in the presence or absence of hints of altruistic tendencies (e.g., when the phrase “I enjoy helping people” was embedded within a longer description of the potential mate). Women strongly preferred men with altruistic tendencies as long-term mates. Kindness toward whom matters. Women fnd kindness to be especially desirable when the kind acts are directed toward themselves, their friends, and their family; they shif their preferences to lower levels of kindness when the kind acts are directed toward other targets such as other women (Lukaszewski & Roney, 2010). Kindness and altruistic proclivities signal the possession of abundant resources (Miller, 2007), the willingness to provide resources to a woman (Buss, 2016b), good character (Barclay, 2010), good parenting and partnering qualities (Buss & Shackelford, 2008; Tessman, 1995), and a cooperative and non–cost-inficting disposition (Buss, 2010). Women clearly prefer long-term mates who have a good sense of humor (Buss & Barnes, 1986; Miller, 2000). Humor has many facets, two of which are humor production (making witty remarks, telling jokes) and humor appreciation (laughing when someone else produces humor). In long-term mating, women prefer and fnd attractive men who produce humor, whereas men prefer women who are receptive to their humor (Bressler, Martin, & Balshine, 2006). Precisely why do women value humor in a mate? One theory proposes that humor is an indicator of “good genes” (a ftness indicator), signaling creativity and excellent functioning of complex cognitive skills that are not impaired by a high mutation load (Miller, 2000). Other research indicates that humor is used to indicate interest in initiating and maintaining social relationships (Li et al., 2009). Evolutionary psychologist Athena Aktipis speculates that humor indicates an ability to deal better with confict and to be able to resolve issues without escalating confict (personal communication, March 2018). If correct, a good sense of humor might render relationships especially resilient to the stresses and strains that all couples go through. Another set of preferences centers on what women avoid or fnd intolerable in a mate— what are informally called deal breakers. Incest avoidance is one of the most important. Reproducing with genetic relatives is known to create “inbreeding depression,” ofspring with more health problems and lower intelligence because of the expression of deleterious recessive genes. Humans have powerful incest-avoidance mechanisms, such as the emotion of disgust at the thought of passionately kissing or having sex with a sibling (Fessler & Navarrete, 2004; Lieberman et al., 2003). Growing up with a sibling is a key cue that activates the inbreeding-avoidance adaptation (Lieberman, 2009; Lieberman, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2007). Indeed, co-residence duration predicts sexual aversions to peers with whom one grows up (Lieberman & Lobel, 2012). These incest-avoidance mechanisms are stronger in women than in men, which is consistent with parental investment theory—given that women have greater obligatory parental investment in ofspring, the costs of making a poor mating decision are typically higher for women than for men. Indeed, the characteristic “is my sibling” is one of the most powerful “deal breakers” for women when considering a potential mate, right up there with “beats me up,” “will have sex with other people on a regular basis when he is with me,” and “is addicted to drugs” (Burkett & Cosmides, 2006). Other deal breakers include: is currently dating multiple partners, is untrustworthy, is already married or in a relationship, 119 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 120 has a drug or alcohol problem, has poor hygiene, and smells bad (Jonason, Garcia, Webster, Li, & Fisher, 2015). Several studies support the hypothesis that women fnd a deep voice especially attractive in a potential mate (Evans, Neave, & Wakelin, 2006; Feinberg, Jones, Little, Burt, & Perrett, 2005; Puts, 2005). Hypotheses for why a deep male voice is attractive are that it signals (1) sexual maturity, (2) larger body size or physical formidability, (3) good genetic quality, (4) dominance, or (5) all of the above. Men with attractive-sounding voices have sexual intercourse earlier and have a larger number of sex partners. These fndings, along with direct evidence that women prefer men with a low voice pitch mainly in casual sex partners, suggest that this preference is more central to short-term than to long-term mating (Puts, 2005; see Chapter 6). Context Efects on Women’s Mating Strategies From an evolutionary perspective, preferences are not predicted to operate blindly, oblivious to context or condition. Just as human desires for particular foods (e.g., ripe fruit) depend on context (e.g., whether one is hungry or full), women’s preferences in a mate also depend in part on relevant contexts. Several contexts have been explored: the magnitude of resources a woman already has prior to her search for a mate, the degree of economic inequality between the genders across cultures, other women’s apparent attraction to a man, the temporal context of mating (committed versus casual mating), and the woman’s mate value. Efects of Women’s Personal Resources on Mate Preferences An alternative explanation has been ofered for the preferences of women for men with resources—variously called the structural powerlessness, sex role socialization, or gender economic inequality hypothesis (Buss & Barnes, 1986; Eagly & Wood, 1999). According to this view, because women are typically excluded from power and access to resources, which are largely controlled by men, women seek mates who have power, status, and earning capacity. Women try to marry upward in socioeconomic status because this provides their primary channel for gaining access to resources. Men do not value economic resources in a mate as much as women do because they already have control over these resources and because women have fewer resources anyway. The society of Bakweri, from Cameroon in West Africa, provides one test case of this hypothesis by illustrating what happens when women have real power (Ardener, Ardener, & Warmington, 1960). Bakweri women hold greater personal and economic power because they have more resources and are in scarcer supply than men. Women secure resources not only through their own labors on plantations but also from casual sex, which is a lucrative source of income. There are roughly 236 men for every hundred women, an imbalance that results from the continual infux of men from other areas of the country to work on the plantations. Because of the extreme imbalance in numbers of the sexes, women have considerable latitude to exercise their choice in a mate. Women thus have more money than men and more potential mates to choose from. Yet Bakweri women persist in preferring mates with resources. Wives often complain about receiving insufcient support from their husbands. Lack of sufcient economic provisioning is the reason most frequently cited by women for divorce. Bakweri women change husbands if they fnd a man who can ofer them more resources and pay a larger bride-price. When women are in a position 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES to fulfll their evolved preference for a man with resources, they do so. Having personal control of economic resources apparently does not negate this mate preference. Professionally and economically successful women in the United States also value resources in men. One study identifed women who were fnancially successful, as measured by their salary and income, and contrasted their preferences in a mate with those of women with lower salaries and income (Buss, 1989a). The fnancially successful women were well educated, tended to hold professional degrees, and had high self-esteem. Successful women turned out to place an even greater value than less professionally successful women on mates who have professional degrees, high social status, and greater intelligence and who are tall, independent, and self-confdent. Women’s personal income was positively correlated with the income they wanted in an ideal mate (+.31), the desire for a mate who is a college graduate ( +.29), and the desire for a mate with a professional degree ( +.35). Contrary to the sex role hypothesis, these women expressed an even stronger preference for high-earning men than did women who are less fnancially successful. Professionally successful women, such as medical and law students, also place heavy importance on a mate’s earning capacity (Wiederman & Allgeier, 1992). Cross-cultural studies consistently fnd small but positive relationships between women’s personal access to economic resources and preferences for mates with resources. A study of 1,670 Spanish women seeking mates through personal advertisements found that women who have more resources and status were more likely to seek men with resources and status (GilBurmann, Pelaez, & Sanchez, 2002). A study of 288 Jordanians found that both women and men with high socioeconomic status place more, not less, value on the mate characteristics of having a college graduate degree and being ambitious-industrious (Khallad, 2005). A study of 127 individuals from Serbia concluded: “The high status of women correlated positively with their concern with a potential mate’s potential socio-economic status, contrary to the prediction of the socio-structural model” (Todosijevic, Ljubinkovic, & Arancic, 2003, p. 116). An internet study of 1,851 women, examining the efects of women’s actual income, found that “wealthier women prefer good fnancial prospects over physical attractiveness” (Moore, Cassidy, Smith, & Perrett, 2006, p. 201). Other large-scale cross-cultural studies continue to falsify or fail to support the structural powerlessness hypothesis, or social role theory as it is sometimes called (Lippa, 2009; Schmitt, 2012; Schmitt et al., 2009). The Mere Presence of Attractive Others: Mate Choice Copying Mate choices can be infuenced by the mating decisions of others. When a person’s attraction to or choice of a potential mate is infuenced by the preferences and mating decisions of others, this phenomenon is called mate choice copying. Mate copying has been documented earlier in a variety of species ranging from birds to fsh (Dugatkin, 2000; Hill & Ryan, 2006). Now it has been documented in humans. Two studies found that women judged a man to be more attractive when he was surrounded by women compared to when he was standing alone (Dunn & Doria, 2010; Hill & Buss, 2008a). Two other studies discovered a mate copying efect only when the man being evaluated was paired with a physically attractive woman (Little, Burriss, Jones, DeBruine, & Caldwell, 2008; Waynforth, 2007). Another study replicated the efect of a man being paired with an attractive woman using videotaped interactions in a speed-dating setting and found that the mate copying efect only occurred if the woman in the videotape showed interest in the man (Place, Todd, Penke, & Asendorpf, 2010). And another revealed that the efect is strongest when women believe that the man is actually partnered with the woman and infer that he possesses unobservable qualities that women prize in a potential mate (Hodehefer et al., 2016). Taken together, these studies reveal that women use social information, in this case a man being paired with an attractive and interested woman, as an important cue to his desirability as a mate. 121 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 122 Efects of Temporal Context on Women’s Mate Preferences A mating relationship can last for a lifetime, but ofen matings are of shorter duration. In Chapter 6, we will explore short-term mating in detail, but it is worthwhile to highlight now the fndings that show that women’s preferences shif as a function of temporal context. Buss and Schmitt (1993) asked women to rate 67 characteristics on their desirability in short-term and long-term mates. The rating scale ranged from −3 (extremely undesirable) to +3 (extremely desirable). Women found the following qualities to be more desirable in long-term marriage contexts than in short-term sexual contexts: “ambitious and career-oriented” (average rating, 2.45 in long term versus 1.04 in short term), “college graduate” (2.38 versus 1.05), “creative” (1.90 versus 1.29), “devoted to you” (2.80 versus 0.90), “fond of children” (2.93 versus 1.21), “kind” (2.88 versus 2.50), “understanding” (2.93 versus 2.10), “responsible” (2.75 versus 1.75), and “cooperative” (2.41 versus 1.47). These fndings suggest that temporal context matters a great deal for women, causing shifs in their preferences depending on whether a marriage partner or a casual sex partner is sought (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Li and Kenrick (2006) found that women valued warmth and trustworthiness highly in a long-term mate but considerably less so in a short-term mate. In short, women seek “good partner” and “good dad” qualities in a long-term mate. Efects of Women’s Mate Value on Mate Preferences A woman’s physical attractiveness and youth are two indicators of her mate value, or overall desirability to men (see Chapter 5). As a consequence, women who are young and more physically attractive have more numerous mating options and so can become choosier in their selections. But does a woman’s mate value infuence her mate preferences? To fnd out, evolutionary psychologist Anthony Little and his colleagues had 71 women rate themselves on their perceptions of their own physical attractiveness and subsequently showed them photos of men’s faces that varied along the masculinity– femininity dimension (Little, Penton-Voak, Burt, & Perrett, 2002). Women’s self-rated attractiveness was signifcantly linked to attraction to masculine faces: the two variables correlated at +.32. Women who view themselves as physically attractive also show a more pronounced preference for symmetrical male faces (Feinberg et al., 2006) and men who display vocal masculinity, marked by a low-pitched voice (Pisanski & Feinberg, 2013). Studies of personal ads in Canada, the United States, Croati