Attractiveness and Mate Choice in the Real World
Attractiveness is possibly the single-most-studied area of human mating from an evolutionary perspective. A topic that fascinates people of all persuasions, attractiveness has held center stage in much of evolutionary psychology in the past two decades. Researchers on this topic represent some of the top behavioral scientists the world over—including such academic pugilists as David Buss, Helen Fisher, Gordon Gallup, Steven Gangestad, Karl Grammer, Martie Haselton, and Devendra Singh. Consequently, many questions on this topic have been illuminated by research and have become common knowledge.
It makes good sense that attractiveness has been so well studied. Attractiveness has been shown to be related to all kinds of important outcomes, including income,1 rising to leadership positions,2 general perceptions of one’s character,3 and hiring,4 to name just a few.
In one classic study, Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid5 manipulated the situation so that a group of males, based on a coin flip, thought they were talking to either a very attractive or a less attractive female by phone (attractiveness was manipulated by providing the males with different photographs of their ostensible conversation partners). Independent judges listened to tapes of either the male or the female half of the conversation and then rated the participants on a variety of dimensions related to sociability. The males who thought they were speaking to a physically attractive female were rated more positively by these independent judges. Not so surprising. But the females in the attractive photograph condition were also rated as having more positive and sociable personalities compared with their counterparts in the not-so-attractive-photograph condition. The actual women in these different conditions did not differ from one another and were, like the men, randomly assigned to experimental conditions. Looks matter. And apparently, looks create self-fulfilling prophecies.6
Imagine going through life and having everyone you meet treat you as very likely to have a positive personality and great social skills.7 This might affect who you are. Looks matter, attractiveness matters, and we can demonstrate the differences in how people of various levels of attractiveness are treated by society.
The evolutionary perspective on attractiveness has, thus far, focused largely on determinants of physical attractiveness. This work often has a specific focus on either (1) features that are attractive in females or (2) features that are attractive in males. This work is also often divided into (a) features attractive in short-term mates and (b) features attractive in long-term mates—sometimes these coincide within the sexes; sometimes they do not.
In the first part of this chapter, we’ll review some of the traditional research from evolutionary psychology on cultural universals of physical attractiveness. We fully acknowledge that preferences vary quite a bit from one culture to another, from one person to another, and even from one moment to another.8 Even so, such variability isn’t infinite and is usually explained from an evolutionary perspective.
From a societal standpoint, this is not a frivolous question. Several major industries depend crucially on understanding attractiveness. The entire cosmetics industry, which grosses over $15 billion per year in North America alone,9 hinges on this question. Pornography and prostitution bear on this question. Madison Avenue—in its efforts to advertise everything from beer to computers to cellular phones to pillows—eyes this question.
In brief, attractive features of female faces and bodies tend to be features that are typical of women who are of reproductive age. Features shared by females between their late teens and their late 40s tend to be features that are attractive. The evolutionary reasoning here is clear and statistically oriented. Evolution is a gambler, or, more accurately, evolution creates gamblers who make good bets. Because there is no socially acceptable, nonmedical means of gauging when a woman is fertile (a slightly separate issue from when she is currently ovulating), natural selection has shaped males to gamble. On average, under ancestral conditions, women between the ages corresponding to post-pubertal to pre-menopausal were more likely to be able to bear offspring compared with other women. Beyond about the age of 30, the probability of conception decreases, and the probability of birth complications increases.10 Attraction to a woman whose features signal that she is likely in the fertile time of life has clear adaptive value.
All things considered, imagine two stone-age male hominids—Buffy and Sly. Buffy is, for some reason, attracted to the relatively young women in the clan (except for those who are close genetic relatives—we have adaptations that reduce such attraction).11 Buffy likes long blonde hair. He likes smooth skin. He likes large, round, symmetrical breasts of the nondrooping variety.
Sly, for reasons unbeknownst to himself (and Darwin), is really into the older women in the clan (and there are only a few left!). To him, gray hair is a real turn-on. He likes the skin wrinkly. Thin lips are just plain hot. And he is sexually excited by an older woman’s waist-to-hip ratio, which is hard (even for Sly himself) to objectively distinguish from the waist-to-hip ratio of the older men in his clan.
Buffy and Sly are sharks with the ladies. Both are real lookers with smooth moves who often end up with the women they seek.
Question: Who’s more likely to leave genes into future generations? Buffy, obviously. Given his preferences, Buffy is more likely to mate with women who are fertile and more likely to pass on his genes to offspring. And, further, he is more likely to pass on genes predisposing his offspring to find youthful features in females as attractive. Sly may well get a lot of action, but given his preferred type, he’s not too likely to pass on his genes—and the genes coding for an attraction to relatively elderly features are likely to go the way of the dodo bird.
This reasoning bears strongly on features of female faces and bodies that are generally perceived as attractive (although there are certainly individual and cultural differences), including the following:
• Relatively large eyes12
• Smooth skin13
• Lustrous, nongray hair14
• Full lips15
• A curvy figure (approaching a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio)16
• A symmetrical face and body17
Although these features vary across cultures considerably, attraction is still universally predictable from an evolutionary perspective.18 Research on women at Miss Universe contests (along with other convergent research) has demonstrated that many of the qualities rated as attractive (such as a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7) are considered attractive across all corners of the globe.19
Indeed, evolutionary psychology theories of beauty have overturned much conventional wisdom among social scientists and have suggested that, although there are definitely cultural influences, physical attractiveness is not arbitrarily socially constructed.20 Even so, this doesn’t mean that such evolved preferences can’t be dangerous to women. Feminists and evolutionary psychologists agree that they can be.21 In this modern environment, it appears as though men’s evolved preferences for female beauty have facilitated a destructive run-away female-female competition that causes women to unhealthily attempt to attain a standard of beauty that men don’t even find attractive.22
Importantly, another thing that seems to make women look, sound, smell, and behave in an attractive manner is simply being at or near the time of peak ovulation.23 As described in detail in the next chapter on mating strategies, a great deal of variability in mating processes is tied to a woman’s ovulatory cycle—a point that seems to result from the fact that women can only be impregnated within a small window of time each month. Evolutionary forces have shaped women to display subtle cues of their ovulatory status.
One of the great insights of modern mating research is that people seem to have different psychologies when it comes to thinking about short-term versus long-term mates.24 What makes a woman attractive as a short-term mate is often quite different from the characteristics that make her attractive as a long-term mate.
For a male seeking a short-term mate, any woman who signals accessibility tends to be relatively attractive. Along with this accessibility component, females who are successful in short-term mating often show the hallmarks of physical attractiveness—but in a crowded bar on a Saturday night, the evidence does suggest that standards go down, particularly toward closing time.25
That said, a body of current research suggests that what may appear to be a short-term mating strategy may not always be the case. Females who engage in short-term hook-up behaviors quite frequently report that they were hoping for the hook-up to turn into something a bit more long-term.26 As such, although female attempts to appear attractive in short-term contexts can be documented, such attempts may sometimes be part of a larger female strategy designed for long-term mating. This finding points to the fact that the split between a short-term and long-term mating strategy isn’t always so clear-cut. After all, we are dealing with humans with complex emotions!
Some of the same features that are attractive in females during short-term mating contexts are repulsive in long-term contexts. Being conspicuously sexually accessible often leads to derogative comments such as being called a slut—a signal within a social community that a particular female is more appropriate as a short-term partner than a long-term mate. In coming across as attractive in a long-term mating context, many of the qualities that matter are charactero-logical. Kind, easygoing, altruistic, intelligent, humorous, conscientious—these are all features that are attractive in females in long-term mating contexts.
Although males are generally more likely than females to focus on looks in the process of searching for a mate,27 the physical attractiveness of a male does matter. Women tend to focus on whether a male is a capable of providing resources for offspring, is sending honest signals of interest and commitment, is a genuinely kind person, and is someone who’s near the top of the social totem pole in his local world.28
Beyond this, though, a male’s physical attractiveness is certainly noted and plays a factor in mating. In particular, there is mounting evidence that women focus more on a male’s physical attractiveness if she is (1) near ovulation,29 (2) engaging in an extra-pair copulation (i.e., is cheating),30 (3) engaging in a decidedly short-term mating strategy,31 or (4) looking for a sperm donor.32 These four contexts share a common feature—they all may be associated with a high probability of conception. If a woman is seeking a male primarily for his genes (as opposed to his parental ways or his ability to acquire resources), all the research suggests that the physical attractiveness of the potential mate matters more. Some researchers talk about this in terms of being attracted to a cad compared with a dad.33 If you’re likely to get pregnant, go for the “good genes”—this seems to be the evolutionarily shaped rule. Of course, displays of humor, intelligence, and creativity are also displays of good genes (see Chapter 2), but good genes appear to be most readily observable in physical features.34
Specific qualities of men that are generally considered physically attractive (again, individual and cultural differences exist) include the following:
• Symmetrical face35
• Masculine face with square jaw line (reflecting high testosterone levels)36
• Tall height (which correlates with strength, likeliness to hold a leadership position, and intelligence)37
• Muscular build38
• High shoulders-to-hips ratio, approaching a V-shaped upper body39
• Relatively deep voice40
As with women, there seem to be somewhat different features of males that are attractive in short-term versus long-term contexts. As mentioned earlier in this section, male features that are attractive in short-term contexts tend to correspond strongly to physical qualities. Men who are successful in short-term mating are often tall, masculine, muscular, facially attractive, and socially dominant.41 According to Gangestad and Simpson’s42 theory of strategic pluralism in human mating, males who do not have this constellation of features are not likely to be successful in short-term mating and would probably be best off using alternative tactics in trying to secure a partner (we would suggest developing other good genes indicators such as humor, intelligence, and creativity).
There seem to be a host of qualities that make a man attractive as a long-term mate. Several of these pertain to signals of kindness, warmth, and loving.43 Further, a reputation as a genuine altruist is attractive44—and being someone who is seen as likely to attend to children and who has dad features (as opposed to cad features) makes a man attractive as a long-term mate.
There is also plenty of evidence suggesting that for a male to be attractive as a long-term mate, he should show signs of the ability to secure resources. Qualities such as ambitiousness, intelligence, and resourcefulness are all rated as important in male attractiveness as a long-term partner.45 Similarly, being considered at or near the top of a social hierarchy is considered attractive (in fact, evidence suggests such power is, as Kissinger famously said, such an aphrodisiac that it’s attractive in both short-term and long-term contexts46).
Finally, the bulk of the evidence suggests that men who look like dads (as opposed to cads) are preferred at certain times during the menstrual cycle, particularly when risk for conception is high.47 In one study, Japanese participants were asked to select the face they considered most “physically attractive” out of a series of faces that included five Caucasian and five Japanese men.48 Each face had a different degree of femininity. Participants preferred faces that were less feminized in the high-conception-risk phase than in the low-conception-risk phase of their menstrual cycle. No effect of ethnicity (Caucasian or Japanese) was found, although there was an overall preference for faces that were more masculine.
In another study,49 British participants were asked to choose the most attractive face for a “long-term relationship” or a “short-term relationship.” When it came to a short-term relationship, the preferred face shape was less feminine during the high-conception-risk phase, whereas preferences remained constant when women judged attractiveness for a long-term relationship. All of these findings make sense from an evolutionary perspective because there are reproductive costs and benefits associated with mating with different kinds of people. As the researchers noted, such ovulatory effects may allow women to have their cake and eat it too: causing them to seek a primary partner whose low masculine facial features indicate cooperation and parental care while occasionally mating with a more masculine-looking male when conception is most likely.
We should note that the good genes hypothesis is not the only possible explanation for these findings.50 Other researchers have suggested that these ovulation shifts occur because of women’s increased levels of self-perceived mate value when they are actually more reproductively valuable, which is at ovulation.51 Yet other researchers have found that hormonal changes in women’s estradiol concentrations across the menstrual cycle explain these effects.52 James Roney, Zachary Simmons, and Peter Gray argue that their findings suggest that women’s estradiol is particularly important in promoting attraction to androgen-dependent cues in men (a finding also seen among females in nonhuman species). Future research is needed to further elucidate the precise mechanisms by which these effects are found.
To this point, this chapter has focused mainly on mating psychology traditionally presented. One of the ways in which mating intelligence offers a fresh perspective pertains to the idea of behavioral patterns that are attractive and that play important functions in mating. Addressed in detail in our chapter on courtship displays (see Chapter 2), the notions of mental, dispositional, and behavioral courtship displays53 serve as a core concept that sets mating intelligence apart and that forges new ground in our understanding of human mating psychology from an evolutionary perspective.
Behavioral courtship displays can be so powerful that they can override cues of physical attractiveness, a point that is highlighted in a very intriguing study conducted by the evolutionary psychologists Kevin Kniffin and David Sloan Wilson.54 These researchers argue that from an evolutionary perspective, even though beauty is an assessment of fitness value, the fitness value of a potential social partner can be influenced by both physical and nonphysical traits. Each of us has met someone whose “objective” rating of physical attractiveness changed quite drastically after interacting with that person.
To empirically test this phenomenon, Kniffin and Wilson ran a set of studies to test the influence of personality and behavioral displays on perceptions of physical attractiveness. In their first study, they had participants rate the photographs of classmates in their high school yearbooks for physical attractiveness, familiarity, liking, and respect. The researchers then had strangers who had never met the people in the yearbook photos of the same sex and approximately the same age rate the same photographs for physical attractiveness. How much difference was there between the ratings of the strangers and the ratings of those who actually knew the people?
Even though nonphysical factors made the biggest difference for women rating men, nonphysical factors (particularly liking) significantly influenced men’s perceptions of the physical attractiveness of the women. There were also women in the sample who were heavily influenced by physical attractiveness.
To illustrate their effect, the researchers looked at the photograph of the male whom a particular female participant rated as least physically attractive. To both the researchers and the strangers who rated this man, he was about average in physical attractiveness, and certainly not ugly. When the researchers showed the photograph to the participant and asked her why she rated him so ugly, her faced turned to one of disgust as she explained how horrible a person he was. She was apparently physically disgusted by the image of this guy, even though his personality had nothing to do with his physical features. What is even more striking is that this woman’s perception of this man’s physical attractiveness remained this intense, even after 30 years since she had last interacted with him!
The researchers found the same effect in another study in which they asked members of a university rowing team who spent a year with each other to rate all the other team members in terms of talent, effort, respect, liking, and physical attractiveness. Strangers also rated the same people by looking at a team photograph. Just like their first study, perceptions of physical attractiveness were heavily influenced by nonphysical traits in both males and females, and ratings by the strangers and the team members were markedly different from each other. In one case, a male team member who was considered a slacker by the rest of the team was unanimously rated as physically ugly, whereas in another case a member of the team who was considered a hard worker was rated by everyone as physically attractive. Perhaps most telling was the fact that according to the strangers who knew nothing about these two individuals, there was no difference between both of them in terms of their levels of physical attractiveness.
A third and final study was conducted at the beginning and end of an intensive 6-week summer archaeology course where the students worked with each other intimately on a dig site. The researchers asked these students to rate each other in terms of familiarity, intelligence, effort, liking, and physical attractiveness. By this point, you should be able to figure out what the researchers found. Nonphysical traits (particularly liking) predicted the ratings of physical attractiveness at the end of the course above and beyond the effects of the initial impressions of physical attractiveness. In one case, a woman who received a below-average rating of 3.25 by the other members of the class on the first day ended up with a mean rating of 7.0 by the last day of class. From the first day to the last day, she became more popular, was well liked, and was regarded as hardworking. The traits significantly boosted others’ perceptions of her physical attractiveness, even though she probably didn’t do one thing to alter her physical appearance throughout the course. Taken together, these results suggest that our initially “hardwired” gut reactions to appearance can be overwritten by mental and dispositional fitness indicators of the sort we’ve been describing thus far in this book. The researchers concluded with a beauty tip: “If you want to enhance your physical attractiveness, become a valuable social partner.” In other words, if you want to increase other’s perceptions of your mate value, a bit of mating intelligence couldn’t hurt!
In short, behaviors that display complexity, exceptional abilities, and valued personality traits (e.g., kindness) are attractive to both males and females—and there is even evidence that they are attractive in both long and short-term contexts.55 Art, poetry, musical ability, dance, storytelling, humor, kindness, and so on—these are all qualities of our species that exist universally across cultures (albeit in culturally specific incarnations)56 and that sometimes serve no direct survival function. As discussed in other sections of this book and elsewhere,57 these qualities likely evolved partly as courtship display signals in a species with complex brains that are controlled by a large share of the genome. It’s important, however, to distinguish cognitive displays from dispositional displays. Just as mental and dispositional courtship displays can override cues of physical attractiveness in perceptions of mate value, so can cognitive courtship displays override cues of disposition.
Consider the Woody Allen effect that we raised in Chapter 2. Woody Allen is hardly the best-looking guy out there. He’s neither particularly tall nor muscular. He’s not really a very positive person. He’s probably not screaming “kindness” to the ladies. And some might call him creepy, to boot. A quick look at his mating history tells a story of having at least some level of success. Guess what: it’s not the creepiness, neuroticism, and mediocre looks! Clearly, his abilities in the domain of writing, cinema, and humor are elite—and these mental abilities are attractive—even attractive enough to compensate for some pretty dramatic dispositional deficits!
Want to attract a mate? Want to rekindle a spark in a long-term pair-bond? Don’t worry so much about diets, or make-up, or steroids. Work on developing either creative behaviors—many classes of creative behaviors will do—or personality traits that are valued by your “type” (see Chapter 3). There is almost always room for improvement.
Attracting a mate or maintaining a relationship is always done in a broader social context. Looking good is not enough if all the others look great. Having a reputation as someone who’s pretty helpful falls short when most people in your community have reputations as saints who’d rip the shirts right off their backs for a stranger.
To succeed in the mating domain, you not only need to appear attractive to appropriate targets but also need to appear more attractive relative to the competition (see Chapter 2 for an example of the use of humor). And any steps that you can take to bring the competition down a notch would be beneficial.
Now this all sounds a bit Machiavellian—and, often, it is. One theory of human intelligence, in fact, suggests that the most interesting thing about human intelligence is its Machiavellian nature. This construct, named after Niccolo Machiavelli of Italy in the 16th century, focuses on the tendency to manipulate others in a social environment for one’s own gain, just as Machiavelli’s Prince did famously—so famously, in fact, that he now has a personality construct in modern psychology named after him.58
As we mention later in this book, Machiavellianism does seem to play an important role in human mating, especially in the courtship phase (see Chapters 7 and 8).59 The entire idea of getting a mate to select you partly by derogating the competition may be Machiavellian, but all the research suggests that it’s also quite human.
And as is true of many facets of human mating, rival derogation seems to be a bit sex differentiated. The nature of rival derogation within each sex makes sense when examined from an evolutionary perspective.
In the world of male-male derogation, males hit one another where it counts. Physical stature matters in terms of physical attraction of women to men—so men will derogate other males physically, calling one another such endearing terms as wimp, geek, or fat ass (yes, we males use these terms!). Males will refer to other males as losers, painting a rival as someone who’s not near the top of the status totem pole, who’ll never get a good job, and who’s just, well, not a winner. Females are highly attracted to males who are altruistic and who show signals of kindness. To address this issue, males will refer to rivals as assholes, jerks, or even dickheads. Each of these words, in a single utterance, paints an individual as selfish and non-other oriented—not exactly what you might want in a husband.
In a series of studies on female-female intrasexual competition, Maryanne Fisher and her colleagues have shown that females are hardly the kinder sex when it comes to rival derogation. A host of research shows that female-female derogation may be subtler than male-male derogation, but it’s there. When shown photographs of other women and given a mating scenario to think about, women can be very explicit and critical of one another’s looks. In fact, while features of female attractiveness seem to have evolved as a result of males’ evolved desires, females appear to be exquisitely attuned to the constellation of characteristics that correspond to female attractiveness—and they use this information in partner derogation.60
In addition to putting down other women in terms of physical shortcomings, women are much more likely than men to comment on the sexual reputation of intrasexual rivals. Referring to rivals as sluts paints these rivals as no good for long-term mating—and in a species that is primarily about long-term mating, such a reputation can be extremely detrimental to social prospects.
But does this mean that derogating one’s rival is the only path to mating success? Not at all. In Chapter 8, we discuss more prestigious paths.
So how does attraction from an evolutionary perspective relate to mating intelligence? According to the research, this happens in at least two important ways.61
Remember that there are two important classes of ideas that constitute mating intelligence. First are courtship displays.62 To a large extent, behavioral displays of intelligence, creativity, and personality are products of our evolution—shaped as ornamental fitness displays for courtship. Second, mechanisms that underlie attraction in the domain of mating may be conceptualized under the mating mechanisms part of mating intelligence.
In attracting a potential mate or in retaining a mate and staying attractive within a mateship, creative and intelligent behavioral displays are crucial. Being a physical beauty with all fluff between the ears (come on, you know at least one!) may well allow someone to attract a certain number of mates, but it doesn’t bode well for attracting a long-term mate, nor for maintaining an exciting and interesting relationship as things progress. As Geoffrey Miller63 cleverly pointed out in The Mating Mind, TVs, radios, books, and (certainly) the Internet did not exist during 99% of human evolutionary history. If you wanted to be entertained in this scenario, you’d better find someone interesting. And because there are only 150 of us in this clan (in terms of Dunbar’s number, which is considered a reliable estimate of clan sizes in ancestral Homo sapiens), we might have a tough time finding Jerry Seinfeld!
Creative displays, including various art forms such as singing, storytelling, and dance, have ancestral roots.64 With the intense complexity of the human mind, entertainment became almost necessary at some point in evolution. And with the fitness-indictor capacity of these kinds of behavioral displays, these sorts of activities ultimately evolved to serve important functions in courtship. Long, shiny blonde hair may be attractive, but so is the ability to make a whole group laugh aloud with a story about something that would be otherwise mundane (“You wouldn’t believe what this lady did in front of me in line at the grocery store!”). From Jimi Hendrix to Einstein to Sarah Silverman to Helen Fisher (shh, don’t tell her!), people who engage in exceptionally high-quality displays of intelligence or artistic abilities are attractive as mates.
The mechanisms of romantic attraction in the mating world are important mechanisms of mating intelligence. Being attracted to potential mates who would be beneficial for long-term reproductive fitness is a component of mating intelligence. Some people are just consistently attracted to the wrong type. Being able to spot this kind of thing is a hallmark of mating intelligence. Someone high in mating intelligence should also be better than average at detecting deceptive courtship displays. Natural blonde hair and dyed blonde hair look pretty similar—someone high in mating intelligence should be able to pick out the fake blonde (along with the guy with the toupee and the woman with the breast enhancements). Being able to tease apart a false courtship display from a genuine courtship display is a central component of mating intelligence.
Further, processes involved in intrasexual competition are integral to mating intelligence. Realizing that one is being derogated by same-sex rivals is likely an important part of mating intelligence, and future research would definitely be helpful in documenting the nature of this process. Are some people better at detecting such derogation than others? What are some of the skills needed to make this realization without stepping into the world of paranoia? Similarly, tactics designed to diffuse attempts at reputation damage represent an important element of mating intelligence. And the ability to effectively derogate rivals without coming across as a gossipy jerk seems like it would require a good bit of intelligence as well!
Attraction and mate selection happen in broad social contexts that include (1) being attractive to potential mates, and (2) coming across as attractive relative to rivals in the same mating pool. A good bit of mating intelligence is needed to navigate the waters in the ocean of mate attraction.
So far, we’ve treated all of these various cues to attractiveness in isolation. Obviously, in the real world, all of these cues have to be integrated somehow to form an overall impression of the person in terms of how attractive he or she is.65 A lot of mate selection involves making inferences. A guy picks up your groceries, and you infer that he’s a nice guy. A woman tells a funny joke, and you infer that she’s generally funny. You don’t know for sure, but you are constantly on the lookout for cues that reveal underlying traits about that person.
This cue-based strategy has its roots in Egon Brunswik’s66 original lens model, in which perception first involves the weighting of each cue (e.g., the telling of a joke), depending on how strongly it is related with it’s distal variable (intelligence), and then all the cues are combined. Brunswick was interested in investigating visual perception, but we can apply Brunswik’s lens model to the mating domain and think of various categories of cues that influence mate choice. Geoffrey Miller and Peter Todd67 distinguish among the following cues: health/fertility, neurophysiological functioning, provisioning ability/resources, and capacity for cooperative relationship. All of these cues are aspects of mate quality and have to be integrated to form an assessment of overall attractiveness. How is this done?
The jury is still out on this one, but various ways of integrating cues can be modeled on computers, and these simulations have been helpful in comparing various theories. One possibility is that people integrate cues in a linear way, going from one cue to the next in forming their judgments. This doesn’t seem to be the way humans integrate cues, however, because many cues interact in a nonlinear fashion. For instance, those with lower levels of physical attractiveness may devote more of their energy to increasing their sense of humor. Another problem with linear models is that they assume that all the cues are available all at once when forming a judgment. This is not realistic. Some cues are more readily assessed (e.g., physical attractiveness), whereas others take more time (e.g., kindness).
Another possibility that overcomes some of these limitations is a sequential-aspiration model, in which cues are used to make inferences as soon as they become available. In this model, we start with the most easily assessable traits and keep modifying our perceptions as new cues become available. The late, great Herbert Simon won a Nobel Prize for his work on “satisficing” that highlighted the fact that people don’t tend to make “optimal” decisions, but instead make decisions that are “good enough.”68 This idea also seems to apply to the mating domain. Each piece of new information we learn about a potential mate helps guide our decision to continue chatting with (or dating) that person, and people differ from one another in terms of what level of each cue is good enough for them. A major variable that affects aspirational levels for each cue is the type of relationship sought. The more serious people are about a relationship, the higher they tend to raise the bar in terms of intelligence, kindness, earning capacity, and physical attractiveness.69
To more fully understand human mating intelligence, it is necessary to look both at stated preferences cross-culturally (which provide insight into universally evolved mating mechanisms) and real-life interactions (which put constraints on the possibilities attained in the mating marketplace) across a wide age range. Thankfully, there are a number of fascinating studies looking at mate selection in real-world contexts.
Recent research using large speed-dating samples has investigated the predictors of both mating (short-term encounters) and relating (long-term relationships). Jens Asendorpf, Lars Penke, and Mitja Back70 set up a speed-dating event in Germany in which they invited a total of 190 men and 192 women who were between the ages of 18 and 54 years. All of their participants were real singles whose sole motivation for participation in the study was to find a real-life romantic or sexual mate. Participants went on a series of 3-minute dates and indicated whom they would like to see again. They were followed up by the researchers 6 weeks and 1 year after the speed-dating session.
Consistent with parental investment theory, women, on average, tended to state interest in long-term mating more so than men. This was only relative, however: both men and women reported a desire for long-term mating, and most men in this dating context did choose a long-term mating orientation. This suggests that a speed-dating context is one that generally attracts people pursuing long-term mating tactics (or at least report that they do!).
Who was the most popular? Popularity was heavily influenced by easily perceivable physical attributes such as facial and vocal attractiveness, height, and weight. Sex differences were also evident, with men mainly basing their decisions on physical attractiveness and women using more criteria, including high levels of sociosexuality (willingness and desire to engage in short-term sexual encounters), low levels of shyness, and cues of current or future resource-providing potential, such as education, income, and openness to experience.
Interestingly, sociosexuality (the extent to which someone has a short-term mating orientation) was the most important predictor of popularity once physical attributes were already taken into account. Because most women expressed interest in long-term mating, it is surprising that they would be attracted to men with a short-term mating orientation. The researchers raised the possibility that a male’s sociosexuality may indicate his history of successful mating experiences or mating skills (i.e., high mating intelligence) and that this is attractive to women. It should also be noted that the relationship between shyness and popularity was negative: the more shy the man appeared, the less popular the man. The researchers suggested that this may be due to traditional male sex roles, which require men to be assertive and proactive in the mating domain, skills that may not come as easily to shy guys.
The researchers also found that the popularity of the speed-dater was positively related to the choosiness of that speed-dater—but this correlation only held for men. As the researchers noted, this finding is consistent with the idea that highly popular people are thought to be more careful in their choices, whereas unpopular people are thought to be less discriminating.71 Interestingly, they found an age effect: the older the woman, the less choosy she was; and the older the man, the more choosy he was. We’ll explore this in more detail in the next chapter. Surprisingly, the researchers found a rather weak effect of similarity—like didn’t tend to attract like, although this finding is probably due to the brief interactions these individuals engaged in. Most certainly, it takes longer than 3 minutes to form a deep connection.
When the researchers followed up, they found that the chance of having sex with a speed-dating partner was 6%, whereas the chance of ending up in a long-term relationship with a speed-dating partner was 4%. These numbers were influenced by the mating orientation of the other sex, however. The chances of a woman mating (i.e., having sex) increased if her partner had a short-term mating orientation, and the chances of a man mating increased if his partner had a long-term mating orientation. This finding was confirmed both 6 weeks and 1 year after the speed-dating event.
Are there practical implications of these findings? The researchers put their data in perspective. They figure that the chances of finding a sexual romantic partner will be lower than speed-dating if one visits a café for 2 hours actively in search of a partner and higher than speed-dating if one visits bars (or, we would add, nightclubs) with a certain reputation. The researchers converted their percentages into the time and money spent on multiple speed-dating events, assuming that all the events were independent in terms of outcome and that each event cost 30 Euros (roughly $40) and lasted 3 hours. With these assumptions in place, to have the same chances of finding a relationship partner without speed dating would require investing 75 hours and 750 Euros (roughly $1,000) on average. For busy people, speed dating may indeed be worth it.
As you can see, not all of the theories and findings we’ve presented are purely theoretical. Mating intelligence can be studied in the real world, and evolutionary theories can be tested. How people form judgments of others, who are the most attractive individuals, and the predictors of mating and relating are all important questions and can be treated scientifically and explored.
As we’ve repeatedly stressed, humans are an extremely flexible species, with many different mating strategies up our sleeves. In the next chapter, we will look at some of those strategies and the conditions that make those strategies more likely to be employed.