Impact of market value on human mate choice decisions

Abstract

Mate choice strategies are a process of negotiation in which individuals make bids that are constrained by their status in the market place. Humans provide an unusual perspective on this because we can measure their explicitly expressed preferences before they are forced to make any choices. We use advertisements placed in newspaper personal columns to examine, ¢rst, the extent to which evolutionary considerations a¡ect the level of competition (or market value) during the reproductively active period of people's lives and, second, the extent to which market value in£uences individual's willingness to make strong demands of prospective mates. We show that female market value is determined principally by women's fecundity (and, to a lesser extent, reproductive value), while male market value is determined by men's earning potential and the risk of future pairbond termination (the conjoint probability that the male will either die or divorce his partner during the next 20 years). We then show that these selection preferences strongly in£uence the levels of demands that men and women make of prospective partners (although older males tend to overestimate their market value).

Women gaze behaviour in assessing female bodies: the effects of clothing, body size, own body composition and body satisfaction

“…Indeed, recent eye-tracking studies have observed that in the tasks of free-viewing, body attractiveness and body fat judgement, both male and female viewers demonstrated similar gaze distribution with more gaze allocated at the waist-hip and chest areas (Cornelissen, Hancock, Kiviniemi, George, & Tovée, 2009;Hall, Hogue, & Guo, 2011). These observations of both genders using the same visual features to assess female body could be accounted for by mate selection theory, which postulates women judge their own attractiveness relative to other women in order to assess their own likelihood for successful mate selection (Buss, 2003) or monitor potential competitors as attractive women have high 'market value' (Hughes, Harrison, & Gallup, 2004;Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999) and pose a greater threat to partner sexual fidelity (O'Connor & Feinberg, 2012). Indeed, when using image manipulation to create the ideal partner, women demonstrated an accurate idea of what heterosexual men find attractive (Crossley, Cornelissen, & Tovée, 2012).…”

“…The human body is one of the most common visual stimuli in our social surrounding, and viewing other people often involves conscious or unconscious judgement of their body attractiveness (Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999). The subsequent question of what drives female body attractiveness judgement or female body perception from women's perspective attracts research interest across a range of disciplines and has wide applications in social (e.g., social behaviour), forensic (e.g., sexual preference) and clinical (e.g., eating disorder) psychology.…”

Diferenças de gênero no desenvolvimento sexual: integração dos paradigmas biológico, psicanalítico e evolucionista

“…Homens de boa genética (simétricos) e com recursos poderiam selecionar mais tranqüilamente suas parceiras comparados aos que oferecem menos atributos. Também o número de indivíduos de cada sexo poderia afetar o valor reprodutivo; como por exemplo, em uma localidade com poucos homens, onde as mulheres, por mais alto valor reprodutivo que possam ter, têm de disputar a companhia de alguns poucos machos existentes 8,10 .…”

Evidências de Validade da Versão Brasileira da Escala Amor do Marriage and Relationships Questionnaire (MARQ)

“…A compreensão deles envolve desde investigações sobre os processos de escolha (Botwin, Buss, & Shackelford, 1997;Broemer & Diehl, 2003;Buss, 2006;Buston & Emlen, 2003;Campbell, Simpson, Kashy, & Fletcher, 2001;Castro, Hattori, & Lopes, 2012;Castro & Lopes, 2011;Hattori, Castro, & Lopes, 2013;Noë & Hammerstein, 1994;Pawlowsky & Dunbar, 1999;Schmitt, Shackelford, Duntley, & Tooke, 2001) até estudos sobre a manutenção e satisfação nos relacionamentos (Banfield & McCabe, 2001;Buckle, Gallup, & Rodd, 1996;Buss & Schmitt, 1993;Buss & Schackelford, 1997;Contreras, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 1996;Gottman & Krokoff, 1989;Hendrick, Hendrick, & Adler, 1988;Lucas et al, 2008;Murray, Holmes, Dolderman, & Griffin, 1999;Shackelford, Goetz, & Buss, 2005). Dentro desse último enfoque, um dos aspectos investigados diz respeito ao sentimento estabelecido entre os indivíduos que compõe o relacionamento: o amor romântico.…”