Ideal Romantic Partner Research Articles

Motives for joining the fandom of female members of Asian romantic fan-cultures in the modern media space

The article deals with fan culture and analysis of theoretical and empirical studies of the motives for joining it. The existing involvement in romantic fan culture has been confirmed [McLelland, Zhang, Zsila, Demetrovics, Prasannam, Wang, Vorontsov], including partial dissatisfaction of female fans with their role in society or family, in relationship with a romantic partner. Based on the data obtained during the first stage of the empirical study (512 female fans, average age - 27 years (Std. otl. = 2.8)), assumptions were made regarding the reasons and motives for the involvement of Russian women in Asian romantic fandom cultures: 1) high involvement is a kind of "withdrawal - distancing" coping or an ego-defense; 2) some female fans tend to become addicted of participation in the fandom; 3) it is possible that involvement in Asian romantic fan culture contributes to the transformation of gender identity and the requirements of an “ideal romantic partner”.

What is a mate preference? Probing the computational format of mate preferences using couple simulation

What is the computational format of mate preferences? Different researchers hold a range of assumptions: weights, thresholds, ranges, ideal templates, or combinations thereof. These varying assumptions have important implications for theory and methods in studying human mating; however, this inconsistency has scarcely been acknowledged or empirically addressed. Here, we use two samples of U.S. romantic dyads ( n s = 1052, 590), a newly developed mate preference questionnaire, and a new computational modeling technique, “couple simulation,” to empirically compare alternative models of the format of ideal romantic partner preferences. We find evidence that preferences are best understood as representing ideal trait values integrated into mate value evaluations using distance metrics.

AI and Posthuman Romance in Literature and Film

From Pygmalion’s Galatea in Greek mythology to Joi in Blade Runner 2049, literary and cinematic writers explored the possibility of men’s heteronormative romantic relationships with women created by art and technology. In recent decades, with artificial intelligence growing even more powerful, writers can even imagine digital, virtual, or robotic beings capable of becoming heterosexual men’s ideal romantic partners, who may even be capable of reproduction. This paper examines the representation of digital, virtual and robotic female companions depicted in literature and film: “Helen O’Loy” (1938), HER (2014), Ex-Machina (2015), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). While this history of creative imagination mirrors the male-dominant culture of Silicon Valley and even suggests an implicit desire to return to the old misogynistic gender politics, the reception of these works points to an interesting cultural, psychological, and literary insight into the changing paradigms or “algorithms” of romantic love and gender relations in our posthuman era. Sooner or later, “digisexuality” may become one of the widely recognized sexual identities.

Emophilia and other predictors of attraction to individuals with Dark Triad traits

The current research investigated the association between different relationship orientations (e.g., insecure attachment, sociosexuality, emophilia) and attraction to individuals high in different Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism). Although research has focused on general attraction to antisocial partners, less attention has been paid to traits that affect that attraction. One understudied construct in predicting relationship-relevant attraction is emophilia, which is the tendency to fall in love fast and often. Across two studies (N = 452), we found that emophilia had a strong and unique relationship with attraction to individuals high in dark personality traits. In Study 1, participants completed an assessment of the Dark Triad as they would want their “ideal romantic partner” to complete it. Participants in Study 2 rated the attractiveness of different dating profiles generated by people who varied in the Dark Triad. Participants in both studies filled out self-assessments of emophilia, sociosexuality, and attachment styles. Across both studies, people high in emophilia were the most attracted to any target, including targets high in the Dark Triad traits, even when controlling for other relationship-relevant traits. The findings have implications for relationship research, personality research, and potential risk factors for becoming involved with antisocial partners.

The Dark Triad of personality and ideal romantic partner preferences in Iran

In this study, we replicated and expanded on previous work on the associations between the Dark Triad and ideal romantic partner preferences using an underrepresented sample from Iran (N = 195). First, we explored the role of the Dark Triad traits in how individuals evaluate the moral values of their ideal romantic partner, as measured by a modified version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2011). The results indicated that individuals high in psychopathy and Machiavellianism preferred romantic partners who, similarly, had lower moral values. In contrast, narcissism emerged as a predictor of preference for higher moral values in an ideal romantic partner, but this effect disappeared after controlling for the variance related to the demographic and Big Five variables. Second, we replicated the previously examined relationships between the Dark Triad and ideal romantic partner characteristics measured by the Ideal Standards Model (Fletcher, Simpson, & Thomas, 2000). Narcissism predicted high standards for an ideal romantic partner on all dimensions (warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, status/resources), whereas Machiavellianism predicted preference for lower warmth/trustworthiness in ideal romantic partner. Overall, our findings both support and extend previous findings regarding assortative mating and mate preferences in the Dark Triad.

The Ideal Romantic Partner Morality

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.

Are You Seeing Him/Her? Mate Choice in Visually Impaired and Blind People

ABSTRACT We examined whether individuals who are VI (visually impaired; people with low vision or totally blind) choose their romantic partners differently than those who are sighted. The theoretical framework that informed our inquiry is Social Exchange Theory. Fifty-five participants who are VI and fifty-one participants who are sighted were administered mate preference and marital satisfaction questionnaires. Participants who are VI also answered open-ended questions regarding difficulties in finding a suitable mate. Participants who are VI did not significantly differ from participants who are sighted in their rated importance of traits of an ideal romantic partner, as well as their relationship satisfaction. No tradeoff of resources among participants who are VI and their partners was found, i.e. they did not “pay” for their disability by coupling with a partner who has a lower socio-economic status than theirs. Participants who were VI told about their main difficulties in finding a mate and offered proposals to mitigate these difficulties. We conclude by proposing ways to help individuals who are VI to establish intimate relationships.

Self-enhancement biases, self-esteem, and ideal mate preferences

People seek ideal romantic partners who are similar to themselves. In this research, we tested whether this preference reflects a self-enhancement bias. Study 1 (N=40) found that people who like themselves a lot (i.e., high self-esteem people) were more likely to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-evaluations than were people whose self-feelings are more ambivalent (i.e., low self-esteem people). Study 2 (N=141) extended these findings by showing that low self-esteem participants who had just been given positive feedback about themselves were just as apt as high self-esteem participants to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-descriptions. Taken together, these findings suggest that the more that people like themselves, the more they will desire an ideal romantic partner who is just like them.

Traditional and not so traditional metaphors of love in Spanish

Metaphors about love in online dating advertisements might seem to be an easy and inconsequential way to express people’s romantic expectations. Using Critical Metaphor Analysis methodology, this paper takes a closer look at a sample of love metaphors used by Spanish-speaking heterosexual ad posters, to show how they use the metaphors to create a discourse of traditional romance in a modern medium, the online dating world. These metaphors are powerful tools for conveying traditional ideologies about romance and relationships. Additionally, they provide ad posters with a useful rhetorical tool for portraying themselves as ideal romantic partners, ‘regular’ and/or ‘normal’ heterosexuals, who play according to the regulatory norms of their gender, allowing them to ‘sell’ themselves as better candidates for romance.

Gender Differences: What We Seek in Romantic and Sexual Partners

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences with regard to what we seek in romantic and sexual partners, as well as to examine differences between those currently in a relationship and those who are not. Participants were 87 undergraduate students (29 males, 58 females) recruited from a college in the northeast. Author-created surveys modeled along the lines on the research done by Buss & Barnes (1986) were constructed, which asked participants to rank the importance of characteristics, as well as rank the three most important and three least important characteristics with regards to what they seek in romantic and sexual partners. The results indicated that females place as much importance on physical attractiveness as an ideal characteristic in a sexual partner as males. Both males and females viewed loyalty as the most important characteristic in a romantic partner. Students who were in a relationship and those not in a relationship viewed loyalty as the most important characteristic in romantic partner, but viewed physical attractiveness as the most important characteristic in a sexual partner. Males also considered financial resources as a least important characteristic when thinking of an ideal romantic partner. Implications of this study are discussed.

Salivary cortisol and pathogen disgust predict men's preferences for feminine shape cues in women's faces

Recent studies suggest that individuals who are particularly concerned about infectious diseases show stronger preferences for exaggerated sex-typical characteristics in potential mates’ faces. However, these studies have generally investigated individual differences in women's mate preferences and relied on questionnaires to assess disease-related concerns. Here we show that men's scores on the pathogen disgust subscale of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale are positively correlated with their preferences for femininity in women's faces and that this relationship is independent of the possible effects of both sexual and moral disgust. We then show that men with higher trait (i.e., average) salivary cortisol, a biomarker for immunosuppression, have stronger preferences for femininity in women's faces. Finally, we show that pathogen disgust is correlated with partnered men's femininity ratings of both their actual and ideal romantic partner. Together, these findings suggest that disease-related factors are important for individual differences in men's mate preferences.

Pathogen disgust predicts women’s preferences for masculinity in men’s voices, faces, and bodies

Recent studies suggest that pathogen-related factors may contribute to systematic variation in women’s preferences for masculinity in men’s faces. However, there is very little evidence for similar correlations between pathogen-related factors and women’s preferences for masculinity in other domains (e.g., men’s voices or bodies). Consequently, we conducted a series of studies to examine whether pathogen disgust (assessed using Tybur et al’s Three Domains of Disgust Scale) predicts individual differences in women’s preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s voices, bodies, and faces. We also tested if pathogen disgust predicts individual differences in measures of women’s actual mate choices in the same way. We observed positive correlations between women’s pathogen disgust and their preferences for masculinity in men’s voices (Study 1) and faces and bodies (Study 2). We also observed positive correlations between women’s pathogen disgust and their masculinity ratings of both their current and ideal romantic partners (Study 3). Each of these correlations was independent of the possible effects of women’s sexual and moral disgust. Together, these findings suggest that individual differences in pathogen disgust predict individual differences in women’s masculinity preferences across multiple domains and may also predict individual differences in their actual mate choices.

Do Ideal Partner Preferences Predict Divorce? A Tale of Two Metrics

Though people report idiosyncratic desires for particular traits in an ideal romantic partner, few studies have examined whether these ideals predict important long-term relationship outcomes. The present 3.5-year longitudinal study of newlywed couples used survival analysis to investigate whether the match between participants’ ideal preferences and the traits they perceive in their partner predict the likelihood of divorce. Results depended entirely on whether the match was conceptualized as a match in level (e.g., high ideal preference for a trait with the presence of the trait in the partner) or in pattern (e.g., the within-person correlation of ideals with a partner’s traits across all traits). The match between the pattern of ideals and traits negatively predicted divorce with an effect size larger than most established divorce risk factors. However, the match in level was unrelated to divorce, suggesting that perspectives emphasizing ideals for the level of traits may encounter predictive validity problems.

The Masculinity of Mr. Right: Feminist Identity and Heterosexual Women’s Ideal Romantic Partners

Our study explored the relationship between feminist identity and women’s report of an ideal male partner’s conformity to masculine gender role norms. Heterosexual, mostly White, college women ( N = 183) completed measures assessing feminist beliefs and the masculinity characteristics of an ideal male partner. Results indicated that feminist identity significantly predicted participants' preferences for an ideal male partner’s conformity to masculine norms. Specifically, women who were more accepting of patriarchal culture, endorsing traditional gender roles and denying sexism, reported wanting an ideal male partner to conform to traditional masculine norms of emotional control, risk-taking, power over women, dominance, self-reliance, and disdain for homosexuals. In contrast, feminist-identified women reported wanting an ideal partner who did not conform to the traditional masculine norms of violence, power over women, playboy, and self-reliance. We discuss implications of these findings for women’s heterosexual relationships, including the possibility that feminist identity may serve as a protective factor against involvement in unsatisfying, or even violent, romantic heterosexual relationships.

Afinal, o que querem as mulheres?

No Brasil e no mundo, as mulheres avançaram consideravelmente em vários setores. Este avanço se deu sempre na busca pela igualdade. Entretanto, como sugerem as pesquisas, este avanço não se deu na medida desejada. Ainda que sejam tão empreendedoras quanto os homens (e em algumas modalidades até mais do que eles), possuam uma média de anos de estudo maior, trabalhem mais e estejam com autoestima elevada, as distâncias a serem vencidas ainda são consideráveis. Além disso, elas continuam almejando um ideal romântico de parceiro, casamento para toda a vida, filhos e família. Neste contexto, a pergunta título me parece deslocada, com as dificuldades encontrando-se justamente na resposta, já que os homens não legitimam estes "quereres", e nem se mostram preparados a ponto de escolherem uma parceira que lhes seja igual. Considerando a autonomia de nossos quereres, nascidos de dinâmicas internas ao gênero ao qual pertencemos e condicionados pela sociedade e pelas mudanças que nela ocorrem, talvez a indagação mais adequada seja: "Afinal o que nós, homens e mulheres, queremos hoje?".

The Compatibility of Ideal and Real Romantic Partner Characteristics, Attachment to Partner and Relationship Satisfaction Among Indian Women

This study examined the compatibility between the characteristics of ideal and real romantic partners, attachment to partner (defined by two categories—avoidance and anxiety) and relationship satisfaction of (N = 272) women involved in close heterosexual relationships. As hypothesized, higher compatibility of ideal and real romantic partner characteristics was related to lower levels of avoidance and anxiety and higher levels of relationship satisfaction. This study also revealed that the three-factor model for ideal partner (partner warmth-trustworthiness, vitality-attractiveness, and status-resources), designed by Fletcher, Simpson et al. (1999) was not fully suitable to Indian women; there were five major dimensions, which defined what women used as standards to evaluate ideal partners. The study showed that: older women more than younger ones desired external and family—related attributes of ideal partner. The results suggest that ideals may be very important for satisfying relationships and secure connection with the romantic partner. The cultural differences in evaluative dimensions for ideal partner needs further investigation.

The ideal romantic partner personality

Most contemporary social psychological studies on inter-personal attraction have independently explored the competing concepts of similarity and complementarity. Incorporating evolutionary principles associated with assortative mating, two studies were conducted that examined individual difference preferences using the five-factor model (FFM) of human personality as assessed by the NEO-FFI. The first study ( N = 104) examined the degree to which individuals showed an absolute or relative preference in an “ideal romantic partner” when compared to self-rated personality. The second study ( N = 161) extended this by incorporating personality ratings for self, “ideal” romantic partner, and “actual” romantic partner, and perceptions of mate value for each. Overall, findings supported both evolutionary and social psychological theories of inter-personal attraction and support both relative and absolute preferences in romantic partners. Individuals sought mates that were matches of themselves to some degree (a concept that we termed aspirational positive assortative mating) but also sought mates that were somewhat higher in Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Mate Value, but lower in Neuroticism than themselves.

Perceptions of self and of ideal mates: Similarities and differences across the sexes

For 19 mating-relevant traits, single males (N= 53) and single females (N= 86) rated (a) themselves relative to their same-sex peers, (b) their perceptions of the qualities desired by members of the opposite sex in an ideal partner, and (c) the qualities desired in their own ideal romantic partner. Several themes emerged from the data. First, males’ and females’ judgments of what members of the opposite-sex seek were generally accurate. Second, males and females both feel that they fall short of perceived opposite-sex expectations in a few areas. Third, both males and females desire an ideal partner better than themselves, but this is especially true for females. These findings are discussed in terms of evolutionary social psychological principles.

Ideal Standards, the Self, and Flexibility of Ideals in Close Relationships

Two studies tested how romantic ideal standards and their flexibility are associated with relationship quality. In Study 1, individuals rated themselves and their ideal romantic partners on three dimensions: warmth/trustworthiness, vitality/attractiveness, and status/resources. They then reported how flexible their ideals were on each dimension and how closely their current partner matched their ideal standards. Individuals who rated themselves higher on each dimension held higher ideal standards that were less flexible and perceived higher relationship quality the more their partners matched their ideals. This latter effect was moderated by the flexibility of ideals on two dimensions—warmth/trustworthiness and status/resources. In Study 2, members of dating couples reported their ideals, how closely their partners matched their ideals, and their flexibility. People were happier the more they matched their partners’ ideals. Partner discrepancy ratings once again mediated the link between self-perceptions and perceived relationship quality for the warmth/trustworthiness dimension.

Narcissism and romantic attraction.

A model of narcissism and romantic attraction predicts that narcissists will be attracted to admiring individuals and highly positive individuals and relatively less attracted to individuals who offer the potential for emotional intimacy. Five studies supported this model. Narcissists, compared with nonnarcissists, preferred more self-oriented (i.e., highly positive) and less other-oriented (i.e., caring) qualities in an ideal romantic partner (Study 1). Narcissists were also relatively more attracted to admiring and highly positive hypothetical targets and less attracted to caring targets (Studies 2 and 3). Indeed, narcissists displayed a preference for highly positive-noncaring targets compared with caring but not highly positive targets (Study 4). Finally, mediational analyses demonstrated that narcissists' romantic attraction is, in part, the result of a strategy for enhancing self-esteem (Study 5). From the perspective of the modern observer, the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus can be viewed as a tale of romantic attraction. The handsome youth Narcissus wanders the world refusing romantic offers from a variety of eligible others, none of whom he deems worthy of his love. Eventually, he finds himself in a dark wood staring into a pool of water. It is here that he discovers the face of the person he loves staring back at him. This person he so adores is himself. Narcissus's attraction freezes him on the spot; he dies, and eventually turns into a flower. The story of Narcissus yields interesting insights into the nature of narcissism and romantic attraction. The myth suggests that, in the domain of narcissism, romantic attraction is bound up with a focus on the self and a lack of attention to others. The former is evident in Narcissus's gaze at his own reflection, and the latter is evident in his refusal to form relationships with those who desire him. What drives this pattern of romantic attraction in narcissists? The myth of Narcissus suggests that self-love, which in modern psychological terms may be translated as self-enhancem ent (i.e., the desire to maintain or increase the positivity of the selfconcept), underlies narcissists' romantic attraction. The goal of the present research was to understand the relation between narcissism and romantic attraction. Arguably, this brief exposition of the myth of Narcissus reveals a theme central to the romantic life of narcissists, elements of which are an attention to the self, a relative lack of intimate contact with others, and a strategy for self-esteem regulation. I trace this theme through the