Mate Preference Trends
Mate preferences studies show big changes in preferences since the 1930s. Men measure women more by their esthetics and income while women care less about whether a guy is nice.
This Valentine’s Day, researchers at the University of Iowa have some new answers to the perennial question of what men and women want in a partner.
Men are increasingly interested in an educated woman who is a good financial prospect and less interested in chastity. Women are increasingly interested in a man who wants a family and less picky about whether he’s always Mr. Nice Guy.
That’s according to a study by University of Iowa sociologists Christine Whelan and Christie Boxer. They analyzed results of a 2008 survey of more than 1,100 undergraduates at the UI, the University of Washington, the University of Virginia and Penn State University, comparing the results to past mate-preference studies.
Since the 1930s, researchers have been asking college students to rank a list of 18 characteristics they’d prefer in a mate from “irrelevant” (0) to “essential” (3), allowing for a comparison of mate preferences dating back three generations. And my, how times have changed: Today’s young adults rank love and attraction as most important; a few generations ago it didn’t even make the top three.
While the researchers do not capture this in their survey, men are most interested in young and fertile women.
Note that love is not an attribute of the woman who a guy loves. Rather, love is a feeling within the guy’s brain. By contrast, brains, beauty, money, and income are all attributes of the woman who the guy loves. These attributes play a big role in making that love feeling happen in the first place.
In the 1930s male respondents were seeking a dependable, kind lady who had skills in the kitchen. Chastity was more important than intelligence.
Now, guys look for love, brains and beauty – and a sizable salary certainly sweetens the deal. Men ranked “good financial prospect” No. 12 in 2008, a significant climb from No. 17 in 1939 and No. 18 in 1967.
“These results are consistent with the rise in educational and career opportunities for women, and men’s increasing desire to share the financial burdens with a future spouse,” Whelan said.
Chastity – which men ranked at No. 10 in 1939 – fell to dead last in 2008.
Chastity was only No. 10 in 1939. I would have expected higher.
The emotional stability that women want is linked to the ambition that they also desire. Gotta be stable to follow through and achieve one’s ambitions. Pleasing disposition? Nice guys finish last.
“When we administered the survey, several female students snickered at the idea that we even included the chastity item,” Whelan said. “This is consistent with the widespread hook-up culture on college campuses.”
For women of the 1930s, emotional stability, dependable character and ambition ranked as the top three characteristics they wanted in a man. Attraction and love didn’t come in until No. 5. Today, women, like men, put love at the top of the list, with dependability and emotional stability rounding out the top three characteristics in Mr. Right.
Women rate desire for home and children much higher in importance than men do. In 2008, women rated desire for home and children fourth men ranked it ninth.
Women ranked “pleasing disposition” as significantly less important in 2008 than they have ever before. Pleasing disposition – presumably interpreted to mean being a nice guy – fell from a steady ranking of No. 4 throughout the second half of the 20th Century to a significantly lower rank of No. 7 in 2008.
Strip away tradition. Strip away religious beliefs. What happens? Men and women are looking at each other in ways that seem even more influenced by their evolutionary heritage. The mating market looks like it is becoming more competitive.
Update: See the comments where Jason Malloy thoughtfully takes issue with my analysis. However, Razib’s analysis is closer to my own.
If we take these data at face value I think that in some ways evolutionary psychology is becoming more, not less, salient in terms of our life choices. In many “traditional” societies mate choice is highly constrained by the preferences & interests of individuals who are not the principals. Though this is certainly operative in many hunter-gatherer societies (e.g., the bizarre incest taboos among some Australian Aboriginals), I suspect that freedom of choice is more constricted among sedentary agricultural populations because it is in this group that institutionally derived norms loom the largest. As humans subsisted on the Malthusian margins in such relatively complex societies there was little “wiggle” room for lifestyle experimentation. Interesting many Blank Slate theorists who advocate lifestyle experimentation presume that an ideological revolution was necessary for an exploration of the behavior space, but perhaps deviation was always latent which cultural norms strongly constrained.
But Razib makes his point in a much more learned fashion.
Here’s the link to the article above:
FuturePundit: Mate Preference Trends
Of course, the old truism still holds:
“Looks fade. Passion cools. But cooking lasts!”