Ethics trumps resources in women's and men's evaluations of potential mates and competitors

Just as kindness is prioritized in mate selection, warmth and fairness are often favored in cooperative social interactions, sometimes over competence and wealth, suggesting that these traits may influence social status. We conducted three studies to examine how heterosexual men (N = 193) and women (N = 178) from the U.S. evaluate men's faces for mating- and status-relevant traits, both alone and in combination with vignettes describing their economic resources and ethical reputation. The vignettes presented all men as generally smart, nurturant, and healthy, but pitted economic resources against ethical reputation surrounding care and fairness. Study 1, pitting men's ethics against their resources, found that an ethical reputation enhanced ratings of long-term mating attractiveness, prestige, intelligence, and kindness, but short-term mating attractiveness and physical dominance ratings were unaffected. Study 2, pitting men's parent's ethics against parental resources, yielded results consistent with Study 1. Study 3, pitting men's ethical history related to their adolescence with their current resources, found similar results to studies 1 and 2 with one key difference: women lowered prestige ratings for men with an unethical past, and men lowered physical dominance ratings for these men. The discussion reassesses notions of status and resources, exploring their relative significance in mating evaluations.