HurryDate: Mate preferences in action

Kurzban, Robert; Weeden, Jason

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.012

Cited by 300 publications

(280 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Finally, one fundamental problem with all factorial survey studies is their hypothetical nature, although a recent study of an actual romantic partner search process (Kurzban & Weeden, 2005) shows that "superficial" (i.e., observable) aspects of the potential partners were considered the most important in romantic partner selection: for men, it was attractiveness and the Body Mass Index (BMI) of the female and for females it was a number of male characteristics focusing on general male attractiveness such as attractive face, body, height, and BMI (Kurzban & Weeden, 2005, page 234). Nonetheless, the internally consistent findings presented here still need to be corroborated by a similarly focused study of actual, as opposed to hypothetical, romantic partners.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Risk and Attractiveness of Romantic Partners When Confronted with Contradictory Cues

et al. 2006

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Research shows that people engage in "risky" sex with "safe" partners and in "safer" sex with "riskier" partners. How is the determination of "risky" or "safe" status made? Factorial survey methodology was used to randomly construct descriptions of romantic partners based on attractive and/or risky characteristics. Respondents evaluated 20 descriptions for attractiveness, health risk, likelihood of going on a date, likelihood of unprotected sex, and likelihood of STD/HIV infection. Respondents were most attracted to and perceived the least risk from attractive descriptions and were least attracted to and perceived the most risk from the risky descriptions. The differences between the "conflicting information" descriptions are attributable to a primacy effect: descriptions that began with attractiveness information but end with risk information were evaluated more positively than those that began with risk and ended with attractive information.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Risk and Attractiveness of Romantic Partners When Confronted with Contradictory Cues

et al. 2006

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“…In the real world situations of mate advertising (in lonely hearts ads) and actual mate choice, height also appears to matter (Pawlowski & Koziel 2002). Similarly, weight is a factor in both stated preferences and observed choices (Silventoinen et al 2003;Kurzban & Weeden 2005). Despite these relationships having been demonstrated almost entirely in post-industrial societies, they have been used to bolster stories about the evolution of sexual dimorphism (Nettle 2002) and to explain intrasexual competition (Buunk et al 2008) and female character perception (Chu & Geary 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How universal are human mate choices? Size does not matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate

Sear

Marlowe

2009

Biol. Lett.

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It has been argued that size matters on the human mate market: both stated preferences and mate choices have been found to be non-random with respect to height and weight. But how universal are these patterns? Most of the literature on human mating patterns is based on post-industrial societies. Much less is known about mating behaviour in more traditional societies. Here we investigate mate choice by analysing whether there is any evidence for non-random mating with respect to size and strength in a forager community, the Hadza of Tanzania. We test whether couples assort for height, weight, body mass index (BMI), per cent fat and grip strength. We test whether there is a male-taller norm. Finally, we test for an association between anthropometric variables and number of marriages. Our results show no evidence for assortative mating for height, weight, BMI or per cent fat; no evidence for a male-taller norm and no evidence that number of marriages is associated with our size variables. Hadza couples may assort positively for grip strength, but grip strength does not affect the number of marriages. Overall we conclude that, in contrast to post-industrial societies, mating appears to be random with respect to size in the Hadza.

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“…As well as running a two-hour speed-dating event, they collected pre-event stated mate preferences to compare with the preferences that emerged for each potential match following actual speed-dates. A second strand of speed-dating research has investigated partner preference data collected before, during and after real (rather than student-generated) speed-dating events (e.g., Belot & Francesconi, 2006;Houser, Horan & Furler, 2008;Kurzban & Weeden 2005;Todd et al, 2007;Wilson, Cousins & Fink, 2006). Such studies collect numerous measures from participants to assess what factors determine speeddating 'success' and future dating decisions.…”

Section: Speed-dating As An Empirical Topicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Have You Been Married, or …?”: Eliciting and Accounting for Relationship Histories in Speed-Dating Interaction

Stokoe

2010

Research on Language & Social Interaction

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Studies of personal relationships have often been conducted in the laboratory, on the self-report questionnaire or in the interview. In contrast, this paper studies relationships via a corpus of thirty British 'speed-dating' encounters between 30-45 year old heterosexual couples, in which talk about previous relationships was pervasively relevant. The analysis examines how talk about prior relationships, and current relationship status, was occasioned and accounted for. The first section shows that, in the overall structure of the date, talk about relationship histories was located after talk about other matters (e.g., occupation, place of residence). Second, relationship history questions contained design features for managing the delicacy of answering them (e.g., trail-off 'or' turn endings), as well as paired categorial items (e.g., a question about 'children' was answered in terms of one's 'marital' status and vice versa). In the final section, the analysis shows that and how participants treat some relationship histories as more accountable than others (e.g., being 'never married'). The analysis revealed a more general set of accountabilities: of being 'single', of being previously unsuccessful in relationships, of being unable to meet people in 'natural' settings, and, therefore, for attending speed-dating events. Overall, the paper demonstrates the importance of examining the richly detailed brief encounters of social life, in order to better understand people's understandings of, troubles with, and goals for their personal relationships.

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HurryDate: Mate preferences in action

Cited by 300 publications

References 33 publications

Evaluating the Risk and Attractiveness of Romantic Partners When Confronted with Contradictory Cues

Evaluating the Risk and Attractiveness of Romantic Partners When Confronted with Contradictory Cues

How universal are human mate choices? Size does not matter when Hadza foragers are choosing a mate

“Have You Been Married, or …?”: Eliciting and Accounting for Relationship Histories in Speed-Dating Interaction

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