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Sociology

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Human mate selection

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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

Mate Selection, Margaret J. Cason, Norman P. Li Jan 2010

Mate Selection, Margaret J. Cason, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"—so wrote Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice. From classic literature to contemporary screenplays, from the latest celebrity news to office gossip, it is nearly impossible to escape the pervasive topic of romantic relationships. Indeed, the pursuit of mates consumes a significant portion of our time and energy, and for good reason—mates give us companionship, pleasure, comfort, security, and even health benefits. As we discuss in this article, there are two major theoretical perspectives for understanding mate selection. …


Mate Preference Necessities In Long- And Short-Term Mating: People Prioritize In Themselves What Their Mates Prioritize In Them, Norman P. Li Jan 2007

Mate Preference Necessities In Long- And Short-Term Mating: People Prioritize In Themselves What Their Mates Prioritize In Them, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

People were given highly constrained low budgets of mate dollars to allocate across various characteristics pertaining to their ideal partners and to their ideal selves for long- and short-term mating. First, results replicated findings from LI et al. (2002) and LI and KENRICK (2006). For ideal long-term mates, men prioritized physical attractiveness and women prioritized social status. For ideal short-term mates, both sexes prioritized physical attractiveness. Second, people's design of their ideal selves mirrored what the opposite sex ideally desired in their mates. For a long-term mating context, men prioritized social status in themselves and women prioritized physical attractiveness in …


The Darwin Is In The Details, Douglas T. Kenrick, Norman P. Li Sep 2000

The Darwin Is In The Details, Douglas T. Kenrick, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Comments on the article by A. H. Eagly and W. Wood which examined the origins of sex differences in human behavior. Eagly and Wood argued that social structural theory can explain the origin of psychological sex differences. The present authors suggest that evolutionary models of sex differences are based on a much broader foundation that Eagly and Wood imply. They note that Eagly and Wood misconstrued previous age preference findings as supporting the "common knowledge" that men prefer younger women. Eagly and Wood also showed that as societies approach gender equality in resource access, some sex differences in mate preferences …