Abstract
In mate choice, individuals consider a wide pool of potential partners. It has been found that people have certain preferences, but intraindividual stability of mate choice over time remains little explored. We tested individual consistency of mate choice with respect to a number of demographic, physical, and personality characteristics. Only mothers were recruited for this study, because we wanted to find out not only whether women choose long-term partners with certain characteristics but also whether the father of their child(ren) differs from their other long-term (ex-)partners. Women (N = 537) of 19–45 years of age indicated the demographic, physical (by using image stimuli), and personality characteristics of all of their long-term partners (partners per respondent: mean = 2.98, SD = 1.32). Then we compared the average difference between an individual’s long-term partners with the expected average difference using a permutation test. We also evaluated differences between partners who had children with the participants (fathers) and other long-term partners (non-fathers) using permutation tests and mixed-effect models. Our results revealed that women choose long-term partners consistently with respect to all types of characteristics. Although effect sizes for the individual characteristics were rather weak, maximal cumulative effect size for all characteristics together was high, which suggests that relatively low effect sizes were caused by high variability with low correlations between characteristics, and not by inconsistent mate choice. Furthermore, we found that despite some differences between partners, fathers of participants’ child(ren) do fit their ‘type’. These results suggest that mate choice may be guided by relatively stable but to some degree flexible preferences, which makes mate choice cognitively less demanding and less time-consuming. Further longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this conclusion.
Highlights
Human mate choices are influenced by various sociodemographic, physical, and psychological characteristics of a prospective partner
Mate choice consistency was higher than expected in all assessed qualities except for facial masculinity and beardedness
Difference between observed and expected consistency was statistically significant in most qualities, but effect sizes differed substantially
Summary
Human mate choices are influenced by various sociodemographic, physical, and psychological characteristics of a prospective partner. Majority of research on absolute partner preferences focuses on what is considered attractive across various individuals (see e.g., Buss, 1989; Regan et al, 2000) This line of research yielded evidence on high agreement with respect to attractiveness both within and across cultures (r > 0.90) (see a meta-analysis, Langlois et al, 2000). It seems that despite a strong general consensus in attractiveness assessments in general, there exists a substantial variability between individual preferences (Hönekopp, 2006) This interindividual variability may be due to relative partner preferences (e.g., based on own characteristics and experiences, Figueredo et al, 2006; see a review, Šterbová and Valentová, 2012). That an individual’s partner preferences change over time (Koscinski, 2010)
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