week 7- long term mate preferences in men Flashcards
Recall from Trivers’ theory of parental
investment, that when one sex makes more of an investment in the children…… (two things will happen)
- that sex will be choosier regarding mates, and;
- the other sex will compete more for mates
explain the difference in men and women’s obligatory investment in making children
Women- eggs (never replaced, costly to make, 9 month pregnancy)
Men- sperm (several million easily and quickly replaced)
what could be an outcome of the vast difference in men and women’s obligatory investments?
pursuing short term mating
how could the outcomes differ when men vs. women only pursue short term mating
Men:
-they could have many many children in a year, children are less likely to survive because lack of long term parental investment, but a man could still invest so little and still have many surviving children, resulting in his genes still being represented in the population (just as much as men who pursue long term mating) and no loss of reproductive potential (sperm come back!!)
Women:
-they could only have one child in a year, child less likely to survive due to lack of long term parental investment, but since she only could have one child, that may result in her genes being less represented in the population (compared to women who pursue long term mating) and a significant loss in her reproductive potential (pregnancy is hard and eggs don’t come back)
what are 2 potential consequences for men who choose a short term mating strategy
- acquires a bad rep which reduces future mates
- damaging consequences if he lied about his willingness to invest
is there evolutionary logic in men choosing a short term mating strategy?
yeah, more kids to infect the population
is material resources a preference for men in women? why
no, because historically women werent given shit and men had to provide
what did a study show about men who prefer younger partners? what is the implication of this
they had more children
-from an evolutionary standpoint, the more children you have the better, so this preference is adaptive
women prefer ________ partners, men prefer _________ partners (age)
older
younger
what is one criticism of the hypothesis that states that men prefer younger women to exert control and assert dominance over them?
doesn’t account for the fact that younger men prefer older women (study asked 18 year olds what age they prefer, they said 23)
what is one trait that men place greater emphasis on than women? is this cross cultural and across ages?
physical appearance
yes
what overall physical quality do men prefer in women?
youthfulness (ex. clear smooth skin, length and quality of hair)
what are some specific facial features that men rate as most attractive in women
wider lips, bigger eyes, thin and narrow faces, cheekbone prominence, small noses
(facial femininity)
why do men find facial femininity attractive
facial femininity is correlated with estrogen levels, levels of estrogen are predictive of conception success
explain the results of the cross cultural study on men’s preferences on women’s body shape
there was a small variation between countries, but large variation within the countries (between urban and rural places)
in countries where food is scarce/unpredictable, what body type is seen as most attractive? why
heavier body weights because they signal wealth, health, and adequate nutrition
what type of waist to hip ratio is most attractive to males? why?
a low waist to hip ratio, because Lower WHR is predictive of higher levels of ovarian hormones which are predictors of success in becoming pregnant
Is the preference for low WHR actually caused by learning from modern media? use two studies to explain
not really?
Blind study- blind men rated the same whr as sighted men did, they rated the female less attractive but still attractive
Japan study- researchers examined whr in ancient figurines, most figurines had a low whr
Do men’s stated preferences affect their behaviour? use Pawlowski and Koziel’s study to explain
they examined ads for men placed by women and their responses from men. women got more hits when they had lower weight, height, education, were younger but NOT self described attractive
what two qualities got women more hits on dating ads found by Baize and Schroeder
younger age, more words implying sexual attractiveness
evidence suggests that heterosexual
men and women mostly look for the ___________ things in a partner. such as what?
same
dependability, emotional stability, maturity, kindness, intelligence, good health
what is the female fertility hypothesis
explains why men could be gay (evolutionarily)
-says that yeah maybe the mom who had him might have genes that make it more likely for her sons to be gay, BUT she also has genes that make female offspring more fertile, the benefits of having more children in the population because of this fertility outweighs the costs of gay sons (inclusive fitness)
