Sex differences in the design features of socially contingent mating adaptations

Abstract

Schmitt's study provides strong support for sexual strategies theory (Buss & Schmitt 1993) – that men and women both have evolved a complex menu of mating strategies, selectively deployed depending on personal, social, and ecological contexts. It also simultaneously refutes social structural theories founded on the core premise that women and men are sexually monomorphic in their psychology of human mating. Further progress depends on identifying evolved psychological design features sensitive to the costs and benefits of pursuing each strategy from the menu, which vary across mating milieus. These design features, like many well-documented mating adaptations, are likely to be highly sex-differentiated.