Abstract
Assortative mating must be important for maintaining morality in a population, as moral principles are shared by most people in a group. Breeding by a pair with similar morals results in genetic and cultural transmission of these morals to the next generation, which maintains the moral norms of the group. In this study, we investigated absolute and relative mate preferences in relation to particular moral foundations, as represented by five general moral values. In both sexes, correlations between ratings for self and an ideal romantic partner on these factors were rather high (.67 ≤ r ≤ .84). Differences between self-ratings and ratings for the ideal romantic partner did not deviate significantly from zero for any of these factors.
Highlights
Moral principles should be shared by most people in a group
One reason for this could be that people with similar morals tend to gather together and their values are transmitted from generation to generation
No significant sex differences were observed in the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ)-IDEAL or MFQ-SELF scores, with the exception of the Harm score for the MFQ-SELF (Tables 1 and 2)
Summary
Moral principles should be shared by most people in a group. there are some universal aspects, moral judgments differ among groups (e.g., Haidt et al, 1993). People tend to prefer contact with those who are similar to them in cultural, behavioral, or genetic aspects over contact with dissimilar people (McElreath et al, 2003; McPherson et al, 2001). Such homophily could contribute to the foundation and maintenance of morality. If people who share the same moral sense gather by assortative mating, a specific moral sense would tend to be reinforced and maintained in the group through construction of a social niche
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