LA TIMES — Sept 18 — A landmark study by psychologist David Buss in the ’80s, involved 37 cultures and 10,047 individuals. It found marked similarities across cultures; females prefer men with resources and status, even when they have considerable resources of their own. Overall, women valued financial resources in a mate twice as much as men did. Women, it seems, aren’t quite as monogamous as their partners might wish. They, too, sometimes pursue short-term mating strategies. Professor Randy Thornhill discovered that women, in an unconscious bid for better genes, will have affairs with men who are more attractive (though perhaps less likely to commit) than their long-term mates.
3 thoughts on “Does Evolution Explain the Dating Game?”
Hurrydate: Mate preferences in action by Dr. Robert Kurzban.
Could be download from http://www.weeden.info/papers/hurrydate.pdf
The paper says:
“Our main findings are that
(1) HurryDate interactions are driven primarily by generally agreed-upon mate values and less by niche-based or assortative patterns,
(2) the agreed-upon mate values for both men and women derive almost exclusively from physically observable attributes like attractiveness, BodyMassIndex, height, and age and are not substantially related to harder-to-observe attributes such as education, religion, sociosexuality, having children, or desiring future children,
and
(3) small positive assortative trends arise in the areas of race and height.
Our results provide rare behavioral evidence regarding people’s preferences in dating partners.”
……………
“Indeed, similarity on certain dimensions predicts the length of the relationship (e.g., Keller et al., 1996).”
……………….
“HurryDate events provide strong evidence of the importance of generally agreed-upon mate values as opposed to mate values driven by assortative or other attribute-matching trends, and these generally agreed-upon mate values derive almost exclusively from observable attributes, such as physical attractiveness, BodyMassIndex,
height, age, and race. HurryDate participants are given three minutes in which to make their judgments, but they mostly could be made in THREE seconds .”
……………..
“Taken together, these results suggest a continued emphasis not on assortment, but rather on building a more cohesive picture of the attributes of individuals that make them more desirable in the mating market (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999a) and how these feature sets may change in different
mating contexts. If the market account of mating is correct, then good predictions should be possible on the basis of attributes relevant to mate value.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
Interesting to see:
If its conclusion only shows
“people’s INFATUATION and FANTASY”!
i.e. The conclusion of this paper can not be applied to any serious dating method.
Why U.S. divorce rate is over 47%?
Something wrong is happening!!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina. ardenghifer@gmail.com
Nice findings! This study is closer to science than the stuff about personality matching, etc…
Can’t talk about human behaviour with just conditioning (cultural) effects—the evolutionary forces remain at play, and personally I believe dominate how we do everything, mate selection included.
Liked the line “Falling in love is when both parties feel they are getting a good deal”. Very nicely put.
John G.
Founder http://www.dating-profile.com
Co Founder http://www.matrimonialprofile.com (India)
Hurrydate: Mate preferences in action by Dr. Robert Kurzban.
Could be download from
http://www.weeden.info/papers/hurrydate.pdf
The paper says:
“Our main findings are that
(1) HurryDate interactions are driven primarily by generally agreed-upon mate values and less by niche-based or assortative patterns,
(2) the agreed-upon mate values for both men and women derive almost exclusively from physically observable attributes like attractiveness, BodyMassIndex, height, and age and are not substantially related to harder-to-observe attributes such as education, religion, sociosexuality, having children, or desiring future children,
and
(3) small positive assortative trends arise in the areas of race and height.
Our results provide rare behavioral evidence regarding people’s preferences in dating partners.”
……………
“Indeed, similarity on certain dimensions predicts the length of the relationship (e.g., Keller et al., 1996).”
……………….
“HurryDate events provide strong evidence of the importance of generally agreed-upon mate values as opposed to mate values driven by assortative or other attribute-matching trends, and these generally agreed-upon mate values derive almost exclusively from observable attributes, such as physical attractiveness, BodyMassIndex,
height, age, and race. HurryDate participants are given three minutes in which to make their judgments, but they mostly could be made in THREE seconds .”
……………..
“Taken together, these results suggest a continued emphasis not on assortment, but rather on building a more cohesive picture of the attributes of individuals that make them more desirable in the mating market (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999a) and how these feature sets may change in different
mating contexts. If the market account of mating is correct, then good predictions should be possible on the basis of attributes relevant to mate value.”
.
.
.
.
.
.
Interesting to see:
If its conclusion only shows
“people’s INFATUATION and FANTASY”!
i.e. The conclusion of this paper can not be applied to any serious dating method.
Why U.S. divorce rate is over 47%?
Something wrong is happening!!!!
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
Very interesting post. For the most part i agree with the findings
Nice findings! This study is closer to science than the stuff about personality matching, etc…
Can’t talk about human behaviour with just conditioning (cultural) effects—the evolutionary forces remain at play, and personally I believe dominate how we do everything, mate selection included.
Liked the line “Falling in love is when both parties feel they are getting a good deal”. Very nicely put.
John G.
Founder http://www.dating-profile.com
Co Founder http://www.matrimonialprofile.com (India)