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Gender differences in mate selection criteria: Sociobiological or socioeconomic explanation?
Gender Differences in Mate Selection Criteria: Sociobiological or Socioeconomic Explanation? ’ Michael W. Wiederman Bowling
Green State
University,
and Elizabeth Rice Allgeier Bowling
Green,
Ohio
Past research has demonstrated clear gender differences in reported mate selection criteria. Compared to women, men place more importance on physical attractiveness and women place more importance than men do on the earning capacity of a potential mate. These gender differences have been explained using both sociobiological propositions and differences in the relative economic power of men and women. The present study tested the structural powerlessness hypothesis as an explanation for women’s greater emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse. Samples of college students (N = 997) and community members (N = 282) were asked to report expected personal income and to rate the importance of listed characteristics in a potential mate. Consistent with past research, men placed more emphasis on the item Good Looks, whereas women placed more importance on the item Good Financial Prospecf. Contrary to the structural powerless model, women’s expected income was positively related to ratings of the importance of a potential mate’s earning capacity in the college sample and was unrelated to women’s ratings of the item Good Financial Prospect in the community sample. Findings are discussed in terms of both evolutionary psychology and gender differences in access to financial resources. KEY
WORDS:
Socioeconomic
Gender
differences;
Mate selection; Evolutionary
psychology;
status.
R
esearch has consistently demonstrated that men and women differ in their ratings of particular criteria in the selection of a mate. Specifically, research employing various methodologies with a ,variety of samples have shown that men place significantly more importance on the physical attractiveness of a potential partner, whereas women place more emphasis on the ability of a mate to provide material support (e.g., Buss 1985; Buss and Barnes 1986; Coombs and Kenkel 1966; ’ Portions of these data were presented at the Annual Meeting of The Society for the Scientific Study of Sex in Minneapolis, Minnesota in November, 1990. Received April 22, 1991; revised September
10, 1991.
Address reprint requests and correspondence to Elizabeth Rice Allgeier, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. Ethology and Sociobiology 13: 115-124 (1992) 0 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc., 1992 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
0162-3095/92/$5.00
116
M. W. Wiederman
and E. R. Allgeier
Ford and Beach 1951, p. 86; Townsend and Levy 1990). Indeed, with regard to actual mate choice, it has been noted that successful career men are more likely to be married to physically attractive women (Elder 1969; Taylor and Glenn 1976; Udry and Eckland 1984). Different explanations of these robust gender differences in the mate selection process have been advanced by evolutionary psychological and economic inequality models. Those taking the perspective of evolutionary psychology have argued that gender differences in human mate selection criteria exist as a result of natural selection (Buss 1987, 1988; Daly and Wilson, 1983; Symons 1979). More generally, evolutionary psychology posits that complex human psychological mechanisms (adaptations) evolved in response to specific adaptive problems encountered during the Pleistocene (Buss 1991, pp. 461-463; Tooby and Cosmides 1989). Symons (1990) pointed out that there are several implicit assumptions in the evolutionary psychological view of any such adaptation: 1) During the evolutionary past heritable phenotypic variation existed with regard to a particular trait. 2) Differential reproduction occurred as a consequence of variation in the particular phenotypic trait. 3) Natural selection designed at least one psychological mechanism specifically for the particular trait. 4) Genes specifically for the particular trait were established in the species’ gene pool (pp. 428-429). With regard to mate selection, it is hypothesized that “the adult human male brain contains one or more adaptations designed to produce maximal sexual attraction, other things being equal, to certain physical correlates of human female nubility . . .” (Symons 1990, p. 429). These correlates are physical characteristics typical of women in the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) who were most fertile (Symons 1979, 1990). As female fertility is strongly age dependent in all cultures (Williams 1975), younger women in the EEA were more fertile than older women. Selection could not have designed a psychological mechanism to detect female age per se, but instead may have designed mechanisms sensitive to female physical characteristics that were reliably correlated with youth for a significant span of time (Buss 1989a; Symons 1990). These features associated with youth, and hence female reproductive capacity, include smooth skin, good muscle tone, lustrous hair, full lips, etc. (Symons 1979). Standards of sexual attraction and physical beauty are hypothesized to have evolved to correspond to these features (Buss 1989a). Compared to women, men’s fertility is less steeply age-graded from puberty on and, therefore, cannot be as accurately assessed by physical appearance. From this perspective, men would be expected to place more value on the physical attractiveness of a mate than would women. If physical attractiveness of a potential mate is less relevant to women than to men, what adaptations are hypothesized to have evolved with regard to female mate choice? In contrast to males, female reproductive success is not as closely linked to finding fertile mates, but rather to finding a mate who is both willing and able to provide resources related to parental in-
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vestment in offspring such as food, shelter, territory, and protection (Buss 1989a; Trivers 1972). It has been hypothesized that during the EEA those women who preferred resource-providing mates enjoyed immediate material advantage for both themselves and their offspring, enhanced reproductive advantage for offspring through increased social and economic status, and genetic reproductive advantage for both ths, woman and her offspring if the qualities that led to resource acquisition were at least partially heritable (Buss and Barnes 1986; Buss 1989a). It follows that psychological mechanisms related to detection of possession, or likely acquisition, of resources by potential mates may have been selected for in human females. From this perspective, women would be expected to place more value on the capacity for resource acquisition of a mate than men would. An alternative explanation for the robust gender differences demonstrated in research on self-reported mate selection criteria is the structural powerlessness hypothesis (Buss and Barnes 1986; Buss 1989b): “Males and females have identical [mate selection] preferences, but social structural arrangements produce gender differences” (Caporael 1989, p. 17). It has been hypothesized that men’s relative preference for physical attractiveness and women’s relative preference for economic resources in a mate may be byproducts of the culturally determined differential economic status of men versus women. If women are typically excluded from power, and are viewed as objects of exchange, then women may seek mates possessing characteristics associated with power and resource acquisition skills (e.g., earning capacity). Marriage is, therefore, a means by which women may improve their economic status (Caporael 1989). “Men, in contrast, [may] place a premium on the quality of the ‘exchange object’ itself, and so value physical beauty (e.g., enhanced value as a sex object). Physical attractiveness [then] becomes a central means for designating relative value among exchange commodities” (Buss and Barnes 1986, p. 569). In line with the structural powerlessness hypothesis outlined above, several testable predictions are apparent: 1) Between cultures, as sex differences in economic power diminish, the sex differences in mate selection criteria should diminish (Buss 1989b, p. 40). 2) Within cultures, those women who have greater economic power should value earning power in potential mates less than those women who do not have such economic power (Buss and Barnes 1986, p. 569; Buss 1989b, p. 40). 3) Within cultures, men who possess less economic power should value earning power more in potential mates than those men who possess greater economic power (Buss 1989b, p. 40). 4) Within cultures, men who possess greater economic power should value physical attractiveness more in potential mates than those men who possess less economic power. In short, the structural powerlessness hypothesis implies that as economic differences between men and women diminish, men and women become more alike in their mate selection preferences. What do the existing data suggest regarding the evolutionary
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M. W. Wiederman
and E. R. Allgeier
psychological explanation versus the cultural structural powerlessness explanation? In the most ambitious cross-cultural project on self-reported mate selection preferences conducted thus far, Buss (1989a) surveyed more than 10,000 respondents from 37 samples around the world. The measure Buss (1989a) used was the list of 18 characteristics constructed by Hill (1945); it included the primary target items Good Looks and Good Financial Prospect. Respondents rated the importance of each of the characteristics in a potential mate. In support of Buss’s evolutionary psychological hypotheses, women placed more value on the financial prospects of potential partners than men did-significant differences occurred in 36 of the 37 samples. In 34 of the 37 samples, men rated good looks in a potential partner as more important in selecting a mate than women did. In the remaining three samples (India, Poland, and Sweden), the differences were not significant, but they were similar to the other 34 samples. Buss (1989a) declared that the findings of his study supported evolutionary psychological propositions regarding gender differences in mate selection mechanisms that have evolved through natural selection. The findings of Buss (1989a) were not accepted by all researchers as supportive of only evolutionary psychological propositions. Some critics held that the results could also be explained by some version of the cultural structural powerlessness hypothesis and that the findings of Buss (1989a) demonstrate the pervasiveness of male/female economic inequality (Caporael 1989; Glenn 1989; Wallen 1989). In response, Buss (1989b, p. 41) offered some evidence contrary to the structural powerlessness hypothesis. Data collected in the United States from a sample of 100 young married couples (100 men and 100 women) included self-reported personal income and ratings on the importance of potential income of an ideal mate. There was no association between the variables among the men surveyed, whereas women’s personal income correlated 0.31 (p < 0.001) with their rating of the importance of the potential income of an ideal mate. Those women in the sample who had the greatest access to financial resources actually placed more value on the financial potential of an ideal mate. Further evidence contradicting the structural powerlessness hypothesis was provided by Townsend (1989) who examined the relationship of women’s economic standing to mate selection. Using open-ended questions, Townsend investigated mate selection criteria among 20 male and 20 female medical students. When asked what characteristics are most important in choosing a partner for a serious relationship, 85% of the men listed physical attractiveness, whereas only 10% of the women did so. In contrast, 45% of the women listed earning capacity as an important characteristic, whereas none of the men did so. Despite the fact that each of the 20 female medical students in the sample expected their personal annual incomes as physicians to exceed $60,000, all of the women indicated a preference for a spouse whose income equaled or exceeded their own. In contrast, 60% of the male
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medical students reported a preference for a mate with lesser incomes than their own. In Townsend’s (1989) study, women’s personal access to financial resources did not seem to mediate the gender differences in mate selection criteria consistently demonstrated by other researchers. These women, despite the expectation of a substantial personal income after completion of their medical education, continued to place more emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse than their male classmates did. The women in Townsend’s sample, however, represented only one end of the personal income continuum, and thus the results cannot be generalized to women who expect to earn either a more modest living or no personal income at all. Is a woman’s rc! ,tive economic independence related to the value placed on the earning capacity of a potential husband, and if so, how? Is a man’s relative economic independence related to the value placed on the physical attractiveness and!or earning capacity of a potential wife, and if so, how? The present study was designed to investigate these issues more directly, using large samples of both college students and community members. In addition to accessability, the reason for choosing the first sample was that they are more representative of unmarried young people in this society in terms of expected personal income, than were Townsend’s medical studems It was hoped that by asking the students to estimate their personal annual income three to four years after graduating from college, the responses would serve as a rough measure of their degree of perceived economic independence after completing their formal education. We recognized that college students represent a restricted range in terms of age, expected personal income, and experience in financial self-support. Thus, a second sample of more mature adults from the greater community was also surveyed. In this sample respondents were asked to report their expected personal income for the following year. All respondents were given the list of characteristics in a potential mate generated by Hill (1945), and subsequently used by Buss (1989a), and were asked to rate the importance of each characteristic in a potential mate.
METHOD Subjects Participants in the college sample were 997 undergraduate students (360 males and 637 females). They were recruited from three different courses at a midsized midwestern university including introductory psychology (N = 657), human sexuality (N = 165), and human anatomy and physiology (N = 181). The median ages were 20 years for males, and 19 years for females. Approximately 75% of both men and women indicated that they
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M. W. Wiederman
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were currently dating, either casually or steadily, and approximately 15% indicated that they were not dating. Respondents in the community sample were 115 men and 167 women (total N = 282) surveyed in Bowling Green and Toledo, both in Ohio. Approximately 55% of the surveys were completed in grocery stores, 25% in a shopping mall, 15% at a city park, and 5% in a laundromat. The median ages were 32.5 years for men (mean = 36.6, SD = 14.2, range = 18-74 years) and 33 years for women (mean = 35.6, SD = 12.9, range = 18-78 years). The median expected personal income for the following year for men was $32,000 (mean = $36,653, SD = $29,983) and was $20,000 for women (mean = $22,935, SD = $15,685). Approximately 60% of both men and women indicated that they were currently married. The sample size varied slightly with each analysis due to missing data.
Measures The one-page questionnaire began with a brief introduction to the purposes for studying people’s attitudes towards marriage, a reminder to participants not to identify themselves, and the names of the researchers if respondents wanted to contact us. Requested information included amount of personal annual income the respondent expected to earn either three to four years after graduating from college (for the student sample) or for the next year (for the community sample). After three questions dealing with the role of love in marriage (Allgeier and Wiederman 1991), participants were presented with the Hill (1945) list of 18 characteristics, and asked to rate each one in terms of its importance in the selection of a marriage partner. Embedded in the list were the two target items relevant to the present study: Good Looks and Good Financial Prospect. Seven-point scales were provided to rate each characteristic from Extremely Unimportant (1) to Extremely Important (7).
Procedure For the college student sample, the one-page questionnaire was distributed to students at the start of class. The verbal introduction given to the respondents, beyond asking for their participation, was an explanation that the study was being conducted by a faculty member and graduate student from the psychology department, that responses were completely voluntary and anonymous, and that the researchers would return to their class to present the findings of the survey. Questionnaires were then handed out, and after several minutes, participants were asked to pass them face-down to the center aisles where they were collected. In the community sample, potential respondents were approached by one of the group of researchers who wore casual clothing, but not blue jeans, tee-shirts, etc. Each person involved in data collection wore a name tag that
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contained his or her first name and the name of the university with which he or she was affiliated. Upon approaching potential respondents, the researchers explained that they were working with a professor who was interested in studying love and marriage and that they would like the respondents to complete a very brief anonymous questionnaire. The one-page questionnaire was given to respondents on a clipboard. Upon completion, respondents were provided with a large manilla envelope which contained other completed questionnaires and they were instructed to place their questionnaire inside the envelope to protect their confidentiality. The respondents were then thanked for their time and participation.
RESULTS Consistent with past research, men placed more emphasis on Good Looks than did women, with item means of 5.41 (SD = I .IS> and 4.79 (SD = 1.18), respectively (r (985) = 8.03, p < 0.001). This gender difference was also demonstrated by the fact that 84.2% of the men, compared to 66.6% of the women, rated Good Looks above the midpoint on the importance scale. Women placed more value on Good Financial Prospect than did men, with item means of 4.92 (SD = 1.38) and 3.83 (SD = 1.55), respectively (t (993) = 11.52, p < 0.001). A greater percentage of the women (70.6%) rated Good Financial Prospect above the midpoint of the scale than men did (36.6%). There was a positive relationship between women’s expected personal income and the importance ascribed to the item Good Financial Prospect (r = 0.17, p < 0.01). That is, in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, women who expected to earn the most after college placed more importance on Good Financial Prospect than did women who expected to earn less. Also, in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, for men in the sample there were no relationships between expected personal income and the importance placed on good looks (r = - 0.04, n.s.) or good financial prospects (Y = - 0.03, n.s.> in the selection of a marriage partner. Consistent with the sample of college students, men in the community sample placed more emphasis on Good Looks than women did, with item means of 4.91 (SD = 1.44) and 3.99 (SD = 1.32), respectively (t (223) = 5.38, p < 0.001). This gender difference is also demonstrated in the fact that 71.2% of the men rated Good Looks above the midpoint on the importance scale, whereas only 38.5% of the women did so. None of the community women rated Good Looks a 7 in importance. Community women placed more value on Good Financial Prospect than men did, with item means of 4.65 (SD = 1.45) and 3.79 (SD = 1.70), respectively (t (202) = 4.27, p -C 0.001). A greater percentage of the women (60.5%) rated Good Financial Prospect above the midpoint of the scale than men did (35.5%). Unlike the college sample, however, there were no significant relationships between the amount of money women expected to earn next year and their ratings
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M. W. Wiederman
and E. R. Allgeier
of the items Good Financial Prospc>ct (r = 0.04, n.s.). Again, for men there were no significant relationships between expected personal income and the importance placed on good looks (r = - 0.09, n.s.) or good financial prospects (r = 0.04, n.s.) in the selection of a prospective spouse. In terms of a possible cohort effort for the items relevant to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, age of the respondent was unrelated to ratings of Good Finunciul Prospect by both men (Y = 0.22, n.s.1 and women (v = - 0.08. n.s.), and age was unrelated to ratings of Good Looks by men (r = - 0.04. n.s.).
DISCUSSION A robust finding in past research on mate selection preference is that the earning capacity of a potential mate is more salient to women than it is to men, and that men place more value on physical attractiveness in a potential mate than women do. These gender differences were replicated in the present study, both in a large sample of college students and in a sample of men and women from the general community. Explanations for the gender difference in mate selection preferences have been provided by both evolutionary and socioeconomic perspectives. The present study sought to test predictions from the structural powerlessness explanation by correlating women’s expected personal income with the importance they ascribe to a potential mate’s earning capacity, and by correlating men’s expected personal income with the value they place on a potential mate’s earning capacity and physical attractiveness. The findings from our large college student sample were similar to those of Buss (1989a) and Townsend (1989) who essentially found a positive relationship between young women’s expected personal income and their ratings of the importance placed on the financial prospects of a potential mate. In the present sample of a thousand college students, there was a small but positive correlation between women’s expected personal income and the value placed on the earning capacity of a potential spouse. That is, in contrast to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, the more personal income the women in the sample expected to earn, the more likely they were to value good financial prospects in a mate. Also in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, men’s personal income was unrelated to their ratings of the importance of both earning capacity and good looks in a potential mate. We recognized that the college student sample represented a restricted range in terms of age. income. and relationship experience. For example, women’s expected annual income three to four years after college ranged from $10,000 to $150.000, with the median amount being $30,000. In the community sample, on the other hand, women’s expected personal income for the following year ranged from $0 to $75,000, with the median amount
Gender
Differences in Mate Selection
123
being $20,000, hence the importance of obtaining a community sample as well. Ratings of the item Good Financial Prospect by the community women were unrelated to the amount of money they personally expected to earn. Again, the results for women were in contradiction to the predictions implicit in the structural powerlessness hypothesis. Also in contradiction to the structural powerlessness explanation, community men’s personal income was unrelated to ratings of the importance of good financial prospects and good looks in a potential spouse. The present study is, of course, by no means definitive. Both the evolutionary and socioeconomic explanations of gender differences in mate selection preferences are dependent upon the notion of resource acquisition. In the present study the item Good Financial Prospects was used to refer to a potential mate’s earning capacity, and expected personal income was used as a rough indicator of personal economic independence. We recognize, however, that resources include more than just monetary sums. This is a relevant point for both the evolutionary and socioeconomic perspectives. For example, because money was not part of our environment of evolutionary adaptedness humans are unlikely to have any psychological mechanisms to deal with money per se. In the socioeconomic view, if women are primarily responsible for providing child care, their own earning ability may be hampered by their child-rearing responsibilities. So even if women can support themselves before having children, their earning power may be interrupted, at least temporarily, following the birth of a child, and a potential mate’s earning ability may be more important to women than to men as a result. Nonetheless, in the present study items dealing with the earning capacity of a potential spouse and the respondent’s expected personal income were used as crude indicators of a potential mate’s resource acquisition skills, and the respondent’s personal economic independence, respectively. In summary, the results of both past research on mate selection preferences and the present study do not support the structural powerlessness explanation for existing gender differences. That is, although women place more value on a potential mate’s earning capacity than men do, women do not appear to value a mate’s potential earning power based on an expected deficiency in their own ability to support themselves. Instead, there is modest support for the reverse: Women who anticipate higher incomes place more value on the earning power of a potential mate than do women who expect to earn less money. Also in contrast to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, men’s relatively greater emphasis on the physical attractiveness of a potential mate is not related to expected personal income, nor is expected personal income related to men’s ratings of the importance of a potential mate’s earning capacity. The evolutionary explanation of men’s and women’s differing preference for a physically attractive partner versus a good provider appears to be more viable than do hypotheses based on economic inequality between men and women.
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We wish to thank the following people for their assistance in collecting the data for the community sample: Michael Albert. Karen Aschemeier, Lori Cook, Wendy Gradwohl, Jennifer Hall, Reva Heron, Barbara Kopp, Romy Nocera, Ron Ross, and Kate Ruffing. We would also like to express appreciation to Donald Symans. Elizabeth Hill, John Townsend, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments regarding an earlier version of this article.
REFERENCES E.R. and Wiederman, M.W. Love and mate selection in the 1990s. Free Inquiry I I: 25-27. 1991. D.M. Human mate selection. American Scienfisr 73: 47-51, 1985. Sex differences in human mate selection criteria: An evolutionary perspective. In Sociobiology und Psychology: Ideas, Issuc.s, and Applications, C. Crawford, M. Smith, and D. Krebs (Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates, 1987. pp. 335-351. The evolution of human intrasexual competition: Tactics of mate attraction. Journal
Allgeier, Buss, -.
-_
of Personality p. ----.
-.
-,
and Social
Psychology
54: 616-628.
1988.
Sex
differences in human mate preference: Evolutionary hypothesis tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Bruin Sciences 12: I-14. 198%. Toward an evolutionary psychology of human mating. Behuriortrl and Bruin Sciences 12: 39-49, 1989b. Evolutionary personality psychology. Annual Review ofPsychology 42: 459-491, 1991. and M. Barnes. Preferences in human mate selection. Journul qfPrr.tonality und Social Psychology
50: 559-570,
1986.
Caporael,
L.R. Mechanisms matter: The difference between sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Behavioral and Bruin Sciences 12: 17-18, 1989. Coombs, R.H. and Kenkel, W.F. Sex differences in dating aspirations and satisfaction with computer-selected partners. Journal ofMarriuge and the Family 28: 62-66, 1966. Daly, M. and Wilson, M. Sex, Evolution, andBehavior(SecondEdi~ion). Boston: Willard Grant Press, 1983. Elder, G.H. Jr. Appearance and education in marriage mobility. American Sociologicul Review 34: 519-533,
1969.
Ford, C.S. and Beach. F.A. Patterns ofSexual Behavior, New York: Harper and Row, 1951. Glenn, N.D. Intersocietal variation in the mate preferences of males and females. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences
12: 21-23,
1989.
Hill, R. Campus values in mate selection. Journal of Home Economics 37: 554-558, 1945. Symons, D. Evolution of Human Sexuulity, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. -_ Adaptiveness and Adaptation. Ethology and Sociobiology I I: 427-444, 1990. Taylor, P.A. and Glenn, N.D. The utility of education and attractiveness for females’ status attainment through marriage. American Sociological Review, 41: 484-498, 1976. Tooby, J. and Cosmides. L. Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. part 1. Ethology und Sociobiology 10: 29-49, 1989. Townsend, J.M. Mate selection criteria: A pilot study. Ethology and Sociobiology IO: 241253, 1989. -, and Levy, G.D. Effects of potential partners’ physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status on sexuality and partner selection. Archives of Sexual Behavior 19: 149164, 1990. Trivers, R.L. Parental investment and sexual selection. In Sexual Selection and the Descenf of Man: 1871-1971, B. Campbell (Ed.). New York: Aldine, 1972, pp. 136-179. Udry, R.J. and Eckland, B.K. Benefits of being attractive: Differential payoffs for men and women. Psychological Reports 54: 47-56, 1984. Wallen, K. Mate selection: Economics and affection. Behavioral nnd Brain Sciences 12: 3738, 1989. Williams, G.C. Sex and Evolution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Green State
University,
and Elizabeth Rice Allgeier Bowling
Green,
Ohio
Past research has demonstrated clear gender differences in reported mate selection criteria. Compared to women, men place more importance on physical attractiveness and women place more importance than men do on the earning capacity of a potential mate. These gender differences have been explained using both sociobiological propositions and differences in the relative economic power of men and women. The present study tested the structural powerlessness hypothesis as an explanation for women’s greater emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse. Samples of college students (N = 997) and community members (N = 282) were asked to report expected personal income and to rate the importance of listed characteristics in a potential mate. Consistent with past research, men placed more emphasis on the item Good Looks, whereas women placed more importance on the item Good Financial Prospecf. Contrary to the structural powerless model, women’s expected income was positively related to ratings of the importance of a potential mate’s earning capacity in the college sample and was unrelated to women’s ratings of the item Good Financial Prospect in the community sample. Findings are discussed in terms of both evolutionary psychology and gender differences in access to financial resources. KEY
WORDS:
Socioeconomic
Gender
differences;
Mate selection; Evolutionary
psychology;
status.
R
esearch has consistently demonstrated that men and women differ in their ratings of particular criteria in the selection of a mate. Specifically, research employing various methodologies with a ,variety of samples have shown that men place significantly more importance on the physical attractiveness of a potential partner, whereas women place more emphasis on the ability of a mate to provide material support (e.g., Buss 1985; Buss and Barnes 1986; Coombs and Kenkel 1966; ’ Portions of these data were presented at the Annual Meeting of The Society for the Scientific Study of Sex in Minneapolis, Minnesota in November, 1990. Received April 22, 1991; revised September
10, 1991.
Address reprint requests and correspondence to Elizabeth Rice Allgeier, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403. Ethology and Sociobiology 13: 115-124 (1992) 0 Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc., 1992 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
0162-3095/92/$5.00
116
M. W. Wiederman
and E. R. Allgeier
Ford and Beach 1951, p. 86; Townsend and Levy 1990). Indeed, with regard to actual mate choice, it has been noted that successful career men are more likely to be married to physically attractive women (Elder 1969; Taylor and Glenn 1976; Udry and Eckland 1984). Different explanations of these robust gender differences in the mate selection process have been advanced by evolutionary psychological and economic inequality models. Those taking the perspective of evolutionary psychology have argued that gender differences in human mate selection criteria exist as a result of natural selection (Buss 1987, 1988; Daly and Wilson, 1983; Symons 1979). More generally, evolutionary psychology posits that complex human psychological mechanisms (adaptations) evolved in response to specific adaptive problems encountered during the Pleistocene (Buss 1991, pp. 461-463; Tooby and Cosmides 1989). Symons (1990) pointed out that there are several implicit assumptions in the evolutionary psychological view of any such adaptation: 1) During the evolutionary past heritable phenotypic variation existed with regard to a particular trait. 2) Differential reproduction occurred as a consequence of variation in the particular phenotypic trait. 3) Natural selection designed at least one psychological mechanism specifically for the particular trait. 4) Genes specifically for the particular trait were established in the species’ gene pool (pp. 428-429). With regard to mate selection, it is hypothesized that “the adult human male brain contains one or more adaptations designed to produce maximal sexual attraction, other things being equal, to certain physical correlates of human female nubility . . .” (Symons 1990, p. 429). These correlates are physical characteristics typical of women in the human environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA) who were most fertile (Symons 1979, 1990). As female fertility is strongly age dependent in all cultures (Williams 1975), younger women in the EEA were more fertile than older women. Selection could not have designed a psychological mechanism to detect female age per se, but instead may have designed mechanisms sensitive to female physical characteristics that were reliably correlated with youth for a significant span of time (Buss 1989a; Symons 1990). These features associated with youth, and hence female reproductive capacity, include smooth skin, good muscle tone, lustrous hair, full lips, etc. (Symons 1979). Standards of sexual attraction and physical beauty are hypothesized to have evolved to correspond to these features (Buss 1989a). Compared to women, men’s fertility is less steeply age-graded from puberty on and, therefore, cannot be as accurately assessed by physical appearance. From this perspective, men would be expected to place more value on the physical attractiveness of a mate than would women. If physical attractiveness of a potential mate is less relevant to women than to men, what adaptations are hypothesized to have evolved with regard to female mate choice? In contrast to males, female reproductive success is not as closely linked to finding fertile mates, but rather to finding a mate who is both willing and able to provide resources related to parental in-
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vestment in offspring such as food, shelter, territory, and protection (Buss 1989a; Trivers 1972). It has been hypothesized that during the EEA those women who preferred resource-providing mates enjoyed immediate material advantage for both themselves and their offspring, enhanced reproductive advantage for offspring through increased social and economic status, and genetic reproductive advantage for both ths, woman and her offspring if the qualities that led to resource acquisition were at least partially heritable (Buss and Barnes 1986; Buss 1989a). It follows that psychological mechanisms related to detection of possession, or likely acquisition, of resources by potential mates may have been selected for in human females. From this perspective, women would be expected to place more value on the capacity for resource acquisition of a mate than men would. An alternative explanation for the robust gender differences demonstrated in research on self-reported mate selection criteria is the structural powerlessness hypothesis (Buss and Barnes 1986; Buss 1989b): “Males and females have identical [mate selection] preferences, but social structural arrangements produce gender differences” (Caporael 1989, p. 17). It has been hypothesized that men’s relative preference for physical attractiveness and women’s relative preference for economic resources in a mate may be byproducts of the culturally determined differential economic status of men versus women. If women are typically excluded from power, and are viewed as objects of exchange, then women may seek mates possessing characteristics associated with power and resource acquisition skills (e.g., earning capacity). Marriage is, therefore, a means by which women may improve their economic status (Caporael 1989). “Men, in contrast, [may] place a premium on the quality of the ‘exchange object’ itself, and so value physical beauty (e.g., enhanced value as a sex object). Physical attractiveness [then] becomes a central means for designating relative value among exchange commodities” (Buss and Barnes 1986, p. 569). In line with the structural powerlessness hypothesis outlined above, several testable predictions are apparent: 1) Between cultures, as sex differences in economic power diminish, the sex differences in mate selection criteria should diminish (Buss 1989b, p. 40). 2) Within cultures, those women who have greater economic power should value earning power in potential mates less than those women who do not have such economic power (Buss and Barnes 1986, p. 569; Buss 1989b, p. 40). 3) Within cultures, men who possess less economic power should value earning power more in potential mates than those men who possess greater economic power (Buss 1989b, p. 40). 4) Within cultures, men who possess greater economic power should value physical attractiveness more in potential mates than those men who possess less economic power. In short, the structural powerlessness hypothesis implies that as economic differences between men and women diminish, men and women become more alike in their mate selection preferences. What do the existing data suggest regarding the evolutionary
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psychological explanation versus the cultural structural powerlessness explanation? In the most ambitious cross-cultural project on self-reported mate selection preferences conducted thus far, Buss (1989a) surveyed more than 10,000 respondents from 37 samples around the world. The measure Buss (1989a) used was the list of 18 characteristics constructed by Hill (1945); it included the primary target items Good Looks and Good Financial Prospect. Respondents rated the importance of each of the characteristics in a potential mate. In support of Buss’s evolutionary psychological hypotheses, women placed more value on the financial prospects of potential partners than men did-significant differences occurred in 36 of the 37 samples. In 34 of the 37 samples, men rated good looks in a potential partner as more important in selecting a mate than women did. In the remaining three samples (India, Poland, and Sweden), the differences were not significant, but they were similar to the other 34 samples. Buss (1989a) declared that the findings of his study supported evolutionary psychological propositions regarding gender differences in mate selection mechanisms that have evolved through natural selection. The findings of Buss (1989a) were not accepted by all researchers as supportive of only evolutionary psychological propositions. Some critics held that the results could also be explained by some version of the cultural structural powerlessness hypothesis and that the findings of Buss (1989a) demonstrate the pervasiveness of male/female economic inequality (Caporael 1989; Glenn 1989; Wallen 1989). In response, Buss (1989b, p. 41) offered some evidence contrary to the structural powerlessness hypothesis. Data collected in the United States from a sample of 100 young married couples (100 men and 100 women) included self-reported personal income and ratings on the importance of potential income of an ideal mate. There was no association between the variables among the men surveyed, whereas women’s personal income correlated 0.31 (p < 0.001) with their rating of the importance of the potential income of an ideal mate. Those women in the sample who had the greatest access to financial resources actually placed more value on the financial potential of an ideal mate. Further evidence contradicting the structural powerlessness hypothesis was provided by Townsend (1989) who examined the relationship of women’s economic standing to mate selection. Using open-ended questions, Townsend investigated mate selection criteria among 20 male and 20 female medical students. When asked what characteristics are most important in choosing a partner for a serious relationship, 85% of the men listed physical attractiveness, whereas only 10% of the women did so. In contrast, 45% of the women listed earning capacity as an important characteristic, whereas none of the men did so. Despite the fact that each of the 20 female medical students in the sample expected their personal annual incomes as physicians to exceed $60,000, all of the women indicated a preference for a spouse whose income equaled or exceeded their own. In contrast, 60% of the male
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medical students reported a preference for a mate with lesser incomes than their own. In Townsend’s (1989) study, women’s personal access to financial resources did not seem to mediate the gender differences in mate selection criteria consistently demonstrated by other researchers. These women, despite the expectation of a substantial personal income after completion of their medical education, continued to place more emphasis on the earning capacity of a potential spouse than their male classmates did. The women in Townsend’s sample, however, represented only one end of the personal income continuum, and thus the results cannot be generalized to women who expect to earn either a more modest living or no personal income at all. Is a woman’s rc! ,tive economic independence related to the value placed on the earning capacity of a potential husband, and if so, how? Is a man’s relative economic independence related to the value placed on the physical attractiveness and!or earning capacity of a potential wife, and if so, how? The present study was designed to investigate these issues more directly, using large samples of both college students and community members. In addition to accessability, the reason for choosing the first sample was that they are more representative of unmarried young people in this society in terms of expected personal income, than were Townsend’s medical studems It was hoped that by asking the students to estimate their personal annual income three to four years after graduating from college, the responses would serve as a rough measure of their degree of perceived economic independence after completing their formal education. We recognized that college students represent a restricted range in terms of age, expected personal income, and experience in financial self-support. Thus, a second sample of more mature adults from the greater community was also surveyed. In this sample respondents were asked to report their expected personal income for the following year. All respondents were given the list of characteristics in a potential mate generated by Hill (1945), and subsequently used by Buss (1989a), and were asked to rate the importance of each characteristic in a potential mate.
METHOD Subjects Participants in the college sample were 997 undergraduate students (360 males and 637 females). They were recruited from three different courses at a midsized midwestern university including introductory psychology (N = 657), human sexuality (N = 165), and human anatomy and physiology (N = 181). The median ages were 20 years for males, and 19 years for females. Approximately 75% of both men and women indicated that they
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were currently dating, either casually or steadily, and approximately 15% indicated that they were not dating. Respondents in the community sample were 115 men and 167 women (total N = 282) surveyed in Bowling Green and Toledo, both in Ohio. Approximately 55% of the surveys were completed in grocery stores, 25% in a shopping mall, 15% at a city park, and 5% in a laundromat. The median ages were 32.5 years for men (mean = 36.6, SD = 14.2, range = 18-74 years) and 33 years for women (mean = 35.6, SD = 12.9, range = 18-78 years). The median expected personal income for the following year for men was $32,000 (mean = $36,653, SD = $29,983) and was $20,000 for women (mean = $22,935, SD = $15,685). Approximately 60% of both men and women indicated that they were currently married. The sample size varied slightly with each analysis due to missing data.
Measures The one-page questionnaire began with a brief introduction to the purposes for studying people’s attitudes towards marriage, a reminder to participants not to identify themselves, and the names of the researchers if respondents wanted to contact us. Requested information included amount of personal annual income the respondent expected to earn either three to four years after graduating from college (for the student sample) or for the next year (for the community sample). After three questions dealing with the role of love in marriage (Allgeier and Wiederman 1991), participants were presented with the Hill (1945) list of 18 characteristics, and asked to rate each one in terms of its importance in the selection of a marriage partner. Embedded in the list were the two target items relevant to the present study: Good Looks and Good Financial Prospect. Seven-point scales were provided to rate each characteristic from Extremely Unimportant (1) to Extremely Important (7).
Procedure For the college student sample, the one-page questionnaire was distributed to students at the start of class. The verbal introduction given to the respondents, beyond asking for their participation, was an explanation that the study was being conducted by a faculty member and graduate student from the psychology department, that responses were completely voluntary and anonymous, and that the researchers would return to their class to present the findings of the survey. Questionnaires were then handed out, and after several minutes, participants were asked to pass them face-down to the center aisles where they were collected. In the community sample, potential respondents were approached by one of the group of researchers who wore casual clothing, but not blue jeans, tee-shirts, etc. Each person involved in data collection wore a name tag that
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contained his or her first name and the name of the university with which he or she was affiliated. Upon approaching potential respondents, the researchers explained that they were working with a professor who was interested in studying love and marriage and that they would like the respondents to complete a very brief anonymous questionnaire. The one-page questionnaire was given to respondents on a clipboard. Upon completion, respondents were provided with a large manilla envelope which contained other completed questionnaires and they were instructed to place their questionnaire inside the envelope to protect their confidentiality. The respondents were then thanked for their time and participation.
RESULTS Consistent with past research, men placed more emphasis on Good Looks than did women, with item means of 5.41 (SD = I .IS> and 4.79 (SD = 1.18), respectively (r (985) = 8.03, p < 0.001). This gender difference was also demonstrated by the fact that 84.2% of the men, compared to 66.6% of the women, rated Good Looks above the midpoint on the importance scale. Women placed more value on Good Financial Prospect than did men, with item means of 4.92 (SD = 1.38) and 3.83 (SD = 1.55), respectively (t (993) = 11.52, p < 0.001). A greater percentage of the women (70.6%) rated Good Financial Prospect above the midpoint of the scale than men did (36.6%). There was a positive relationship between women’s expected personal income and the importance ascribed to the item Good Financial Prospect (r = 0.17, p < 0.01). That is, in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, women who expected to earn the most after college placed more importance on Good Financial Prospect than did women who expected to earn less. Also, in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, for men in the sample there were no relationships between expected personal income and the importance placed on good looks (r = - 0.04, n.s.) or good financial prospects (Y = - 0.03, n.s.> in the selection of a marriage partner. Consistent with the sample of college students, men in the community sample placed more emphasis on Good Looks than women did, with item means of 4.91 (SD = 1.44) and 3.99 (SD = 1.32), respectively (t (223) = 5.38, p < 0.001). This gender difference is also demonstrated in the fact that 71.2% of the men rated Good Looks above the midpoint on the importance scale, whereas only 38.5% of the women did so. None of the community women rated Good Looks a 7 in importance. Community women placed more value on Good Financial Prospect than men did, with item means of 4.65 (SD = 1.45) and 3.79 (SD = 1.70), respectively (t (202) = 4.27, p -C 0.001). A greater percentage of the women (60.5%) rated Good Financial Prospect above the midpoint of the scale than men did (35.5%). Unlike the college sample, however, there were no significant relationships between the amount of money women expected to earn next year and their ratings
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of the items Good Financial Prospc>ct (r = 0.04, n.s.). Again, for men there were no significant relationships between expected personal income and the importance placed on good looks (r = - 0.09, n.s.) or good financial prospects (r = 0.04, n.s.) in the selection of a prospective spouse. In terms of a possible cohort effort for the items relevant to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, age of the respondent was unrelated to ratings of Good Finunciul Prospect by both men (Y = 0.22, n.s.1 and women (v = - 0.08. n.s.), and age was unrelated to ratings of Good Looks by men (r = - 0.04. n.s.).
DISCUSSION A robust finding in past research on mate selection preference is that the earning capacity of a potential mate is more salient to women than it is to men, and that men place more value on physical attractiveness in a potential mate than women do. These gender differences were replicated in the present study, both in a large sample of college students and in a sample of men and women from the general community. Explanations for the gender difference in mate selection preferences have been provided by both evolutionary and socioeconomic perspectives. The present study sought to test predictions from the structural powerlessness explanation by correlating women’s expected personal income with the importance they ascribe to a potential mate’s earning capacity, and by correlating men’s expected personal income with the value they place on a potential mate’s earning capacity and physical attractiveness. The findings from our large college student sample were similar to those of Buss (1989a) and Townsend (1989) who essentially found a positive relationship between young women’s expected personal income and their ratings of the importance placed on the financial prospects of a potential mate. In the present sample of a thousand college students, there was a small but positive correlation between women’s expected personal income and the value placed on the earning capacity of a potential spouse. That is, in contrast to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, the more personal income the women in the sample expected to earn, the more likely they were to value good financial prospects in a mate. Also in contradiction to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, men’s personal income was unrelated to their ratings of the importance of both earning capacity and good looks in a potential mate. We recognized that the college student sample represented a restricted range in terms of age. income. and relationship experience. For example, women’s expected annual income three to four years after college ranged from $10,000 to $150.000, with the median amount being $30,000. In the community sample, on the other hand, women’s expected personal income for the following year ranged from $0 to $75,000, with the median amount
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being $20,000, hence the importance of obtaining a community sample as well. Ratings of the item Good Financial Prospect by the community women were unrelated to the amount of money they personally expected to earn. Again, the results for women were in contradiction to the predictions implicit in the structural powerlessness hypothesis. Also in contradiction to the structural powerlessness explanation, community men’s personal income was unrelated to ratings of the importance of good financial prospects and good looks in a potential spouse. The present study is, of course, by no means definitive. Both the evolutionary and socioeconomic explanations of gender differences in mate selection preferences are dependent upon the notion of resource acquisition. In the present study the item Good Financial Prospects was used to refer to a potential mate’s earning capacity, and expected personal income was used as a rough indicator of personal economic independence. We recognize, however, that resources include more than just monetary sums. This is a relevant point for both the evolutionary and socioeconomic perspectives. For example, because money was not part of our environment of evolutionary adaptedness humans are unlikely to have any psychological mechanisms to deal with money per se. In the socioeconomic view, if women are primarily responsible for providing child care, their own earning ability may be hampered by their child-rearing responsibilities. So even if women can support themselves before having children, their earning power may be interrupted, at least temporarily, following the birth of a child, and a potential mate’s earning ability may be more important to women than to men as a result. Nonetheless, in the present study items dealing with the earning capacity of a potential spouse and the respondent’s expected personal income were used as crude indicators of a potential mate’s resource acquisition skills, and the respondent’s personal economic independence, respectively. In summary, the results of both past research on mate selection preferences and the present study do not support the structural powerlessness explanation for existing gender differences. That is, although women place more value on a potential mate’s earning capacity than men do, women do not appear to value a mate’s potential earning power based on an expected deficiency in their own ability to support themselves. Instead, there is modest support for the reverse: Women who anticipate higher incomes place more value on the earning power of a potential mate than do women who expect to earn less money. Also in contrast to the structural powerlessness hypothesis, men’s relatively greater emphasis on the physical attractiveness of a potential mate is not related to expected personal income, nor is expected personal income related to men’s ratings of the importance of a potential mate’s earning capacity. The evolutionary explanation of men’s and women’s differing preference for a physically attractive partner versus a good provider appears to be more viable than do hypotheses based on economic inequality between men and women.
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We wish to thank the following people for their assistance in collecting the data for the community sample: Michael Albert. Karen Aschemeier, Lori Cook, Wendy Gradwohl, Jennifer Hall, Reva Heron, Barbara Kopp, Romy Nocera, Ron Ross, and Kate Ruffing. We would also like to express appreciation to Donald Symans. Elizabeth Hill, John Townsend, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments regarding an earlier version of this article.
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