Affective implications of the mating/parenting trade-off: Short-term mating motives and desirability as a short-term mate predict less intense tenderness responses to infants

Abstract

Drawing on life-history theory, it is predicted that individuals’ attitudinal orientation toward unrestricted short-term mating behavior, as well as their ability to engage in such behavior, are inversely related to nurturant emotional responses (tenderness) to infants. To test these hypotheses, participants (N=305) completed measures assessing individual differences in short-term mating orientation, self-perceived physical attractiveness, dispositional tendency to experience tenderness, and their affective responses to photographs of human infants. Results revealed that (when controlling for other relevant individual difference variables) men’s short-term mating orientation and self-perceived attractiveness were inversely associated with dispositional tenderness. Also, among men only, short-term mating orientation and self-perceived attractiveness predicted less intense tenderness responses to infants.