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Using revealed mate preferences to evaluate market force and differential preference explanations for mate selection
Dustin Wood1, Claudia Chloe Brumbaugh
1Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA. dwood@wfu.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|May 28, 2009
Summary
Revealed preferences, inferred from attraction patterns, reveal significant consensus in mate selection judgments. These findings link observed preferences to self-reports and personality traits, highlighting both individual differences and shared attraction criteria.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Evolutionary Psychology
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Understanding mate preferences is crucial for evolutionary and social psychology.
- Traditional methods often rely on self-reported data, which may be subject to biases.
- Revealed preferences offer a novel approach to inferring actual attraction patterns.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the nature of mate preferences using revealed preferences.
- To establish methods for estimating and validating revealed preference measures.
- To explore consensus in attractiveness judgments and their relation to self-reported preferences and personality.
Main Methods:
- Estimating revealed preferences by analyzing individuals' differential attraction to multiple targets (98 photographs).
- Assessing the reliability of revealed preference estimates.
- Correlating revealed preference data with self-reported mate preferences and personality traits in over 4,000 participants.
Main Results:
- Substantial consensus observed in attractiveness judgments across genders, with men showing higher consensus.
- Revealed preference estimates demonstrated significant relationships with self-rated preferences.
- Preferences derived from behavior were also associated with dispositional characteristics like personality and age.
Conclusions:
- Revealed preferences provide a reliable method for studying mate selection.
- Consensual judgments play a significant role in mate selection, alongside individual differences.
- This approach offers deeper insights into the complex dynamics of attraction and partner choice.
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