Evolutionary Heterosexual Mating Strategies: Long-term v. Short-term

Evolutionary Heterosexual Mating Strategies: Long-term v. Short-term
By: Morgan Henry

Nowhere do people have an equal desire for all members of the opposite sex.
Evolutionarily speaking, it would be in one’s best interest to be selective when choosing a mate.
Imagine living as our ancestors did long ago: hunting meat for their kin, gathering nuts, berries, and herbs, and having to stay warm by a fire. If we selected a mate who was lazy, did not provide resources, had affairs, lacked hunting skills, or abused us, our reproduction would be at risk. On the flip side, a mate who provided abundant resources, protected us and our children, and devoted time, energy, and effort to our family would be a great asset. Therefore those who are selective when choosing a mate have a greater chance for survival (Buss 2008). This sounds very simple, but it is not. The preferences men and women have for the opposite sex are multidimensional, and therefore it is unlikely that someone will fulfill each of their preferences.
Also, a person’s qualities are not static because we change over time. Meaning, those seeking a mate must also gauge the future potential of a partner as well. For example, a man who might lack resources now, as a medical student, might have excellent future promise (Buss 2008). Both women and men have developed different preferences or strategies for selecting a mate of the opposite sex and those strategies depend on wether they are pursuing a long or short-term relationship. Women’s Long-Term Mating Strategies
Women tend to have a greater parental investment, thus theoretically should be more selective when choosing a mate (Thriver 1972). Consequences are much greater for a women than a man

when it comes to sex; men can commit as little as a few minutes while women risk becoming pregnant . The table below describes how present day preferences have evolved due to adaptive problems. Selecting a long-term mate involves a number of preferences--each corresponding to a
Adaptive Problems in Long-Term Mating and Hypothesized Solutions
Adaptive Problem

Evolved Mate Preference

Selecting a mate who is able to invest Good financial prospects
Social Status
Older Age
Ambition/industriousness
Size, strength, athletic ability

Selecting a mate who is wiling to invest Dependability and stability
Love and commitment cues
Positive interactions with children

Selecting a mate who is able to physically protect her and children

Size (height)
Strength
Bravery
Athletic Ability

Selecting a mate who will show good parenting skills

Size (height)
Strength
Bravery
Athletic Ability

Selecting a mate who is compatible

Similar values
Similar ages
Similar personalities

Selecting a mate who is healthy

Physical attractiveness
Symmetry
Healthy
Masculinity

resource. Just as a man’s qualities are not static, neither are a women’s preferences. They can change based on: her personal access to resources, temporal context, menstrual cycle, personal mate value, and the resource demands of the city to which they live
(Buss 2008).
Women tend to have a preference for economic resources, high social status, older men, men

with ambition and industriousness, and men with dependability and stability. Women prefer a man with economic resources because women can garner far more resources for their children through a single spouse than through several temporary sex partners. Women desire men who command a high position because social status is a universal cue to the control of resources. The age of a man also provides an important clue to his access to resources. However women tend to be attracted to males only a few years older rather than substantially older. Perhaps because those much older have a greater risk of dying and may not be around to continue providing. Also potential incompatibility created by a large age difference may lead to strife and divorce.

Industrious and ambitious men secure higher occupational status than lazy, unmotivated men.
Dependability and stability are reliable signals that resources will be provided consistently over time and men who lack dependability and emotional stability provide erratically and inflict heavy emotional and other cost on their mates. Women also prefer men with athletic prowess, good health and physical appearance, love and commitment, willingness to invest in children, similarity, and humor. A man’s size, strength, physical prowess, and athletic ability are cues that the man can offer physical protection. When it comes to good health and physical appearance, an unhealthy mate would have a higher risk of becoming debilitated, thus failing to deliver benefits such as food, protection, health care, and investment in childrearing. Also facial symmetric individuals score higher on tests of physiological, psychological, and emotional health. Love is a worldwide phenomenon, and because a primary function of acts of love is to signal commitment, women are predicted to place a premium on love in the process of choosing a long-term mate. A man’s interest in, and willingness to invest in, children are critical to a women’s selection of a long-term mate. The preference for similarity translates into actual mating decisions, a phenomenon known as homogamy. People who are similar in their values, political orientations, world views, intellectual level, and to a lesser extent their personality characteristics date and get married more often than those who are dissimilar. Humor has two facets, humor production
(making witty remarks and telling jokes) and humor appreciation (laughing when someone else produces humor). In long-term mating, women tend to prefer men who produce humor whereas men prefer women who are receptive to their humor (Buss 2008).
Many of these preferences seem very obvious. Of course women would prefer a good looking man over a not-so-good looking man. And what women or wouldn’t prefer a man with a

larger salary than another. These facts are not what interest me, the evolutionary perspective behind them however is very interesting to me. I would have never considered that these preferences could stem from our ancestors. Who as mentioned earlier needed to be very selective in mating to ensure survival. Nowadays, if you pick a bad mate, a few signatures on a divorce paper and it’s all over. You can move on to trying to find a new mate. Although these evolutionary perspectives are interesting, what they fail to consider is the vast population of working women. Women who are now able to provide for themselves. Now all they really need a man for is protection and reproduction, based on Buss’ evolutionary views.
Women’s preferences have an effect on men’s mating behaviors. Responses to personal ads are a perfect example. If women’s preferences affected their mating decisions, then they would bee predicted to respond more often to men who indicate they are financially well off.
Baize and Schroeder (1995) tested this prediction using a sample of 120 personal ads placed in two different news papers in the midwest and west coast. The authors mailed a questionnaire to those who posted the ads, asking for more information about personal status, response rate, and personality characteristics. Age was a significant predictor with women responding more often to older men than younger men. Income and education were also significant predictors with women responding more to men with ads indicating higher salaries and more years of education. In studies of tactics of attraction, men are more than women to display resources, talk about their professional successes, flash money, drive expensive cars, and brag about their accomplishments.
A study done by Roney (2003) hypothesized that the mere exposure to attractive women would activate cognitive adaptations in men designed to embody the qualities that women want in a mate. Specifically he predicted that men would increase the importance they place on their own

financial success, experience feeling more ambitious, and produce self-descriptions that correspond to what women want. The study disguised the purpose of the study by asking the men to rate the effectiveness of advertisements (one group saw young attractive models while the other saw older lesser attractive models). Following exposure the men were asked “with respect to your career you would like to have, how important are the following to you?.....” The men exposed to the young models rated having a large income much higher than those who were exposed to the older less attractive models. Similar results were seen when rated the importance of being “financially successful”. Finally those who saw the younger models were more likely to describe themselves as “ambitious.”
Men’s Long-Term Mating Strategies
Although it may seem like women are the only one’s who benefit from commitment and marriage, men do too. For instance many ancestral women required reliable signs of commitment before consenting to sex. Therefore no commitment meant no sex, and that meant no babies. No babies means that the males genes are not being passed on and evolutionarily speaking, he failed.
Also, those who are willing to commit have a wider range of women to choose from, because women typically desire commitment. Commitment increases the odds that the man is the father of the children a woman bears--through marriage a man gains repeated sexual access, but in a majority of cases exclusive access. In human ancestral environments it is likely that infants and young children more frequently died without prolonged investment from two parents or related kin, therefore commitment meant that a man’s children have an increased chance for survival.
Also, in many cultures, a man has not reach true manhood until he has married. Increased status, can bring a bounty of benefits including better resources for his children and additional mates.

Many of a man’s preferences for a woman stem from her fertility and reproductive value.
Males cannot discern a females reproductive status because ovulation is discrete--therefore it is difficult of males to detect when a woman is ovulating or determining which women are likely capable of conceiving children. Essentially it is a problem of determining a woman’s reproductive value or fertility. Reproductive value refers to the number of children a person of a given age and sex is likely to have in the future. For example, a woman who is 15 has a higher reproductive value than a woman who is 30 because on average the younger woman is likely to bear more children than an older woman. Of course women defy these averages all the time--the
15 yr. old may never have children. Reproductive value differs from fertility which is defined as actual reproductive performance, measured by the number of viable offspring produced. With that being said often time a woman’s physical appearance and health is the best indicator of reproductive value and fertility. Standards of attractiveness that have evolved as indicators of fertility or reproductive value include, full lips, clear skin, clear eyes, lustrous hair, long hair, muscle tone, sprightly gait, symmetry, facial femininity, feminine voice, and a low waist-to-hip ratio. However, standards for female bodily attractiveness vary from culture to culture, along such dimensions as a plump versus slim body build or light versus dark skin. Emphasis on body type, plump v. slim, are linked with social status. In cultures where food is scarce, plumpness signals wealth, health, and adequate nutrition among development. However in cultures where food is relatively abundant, the relationship between plumpness and status is reversed and the wealthy distinguish themselves as thin. The waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is an accurate indication of long-term health. The link between the WHR and both health and reproductive status makes it a reliable cue for ancestral men’s preferences in a mate. Women with a lost WHR are judged to be

more attractive than women with a higher WHR. A relatively low WHR signals that the woman is young, healthy, and not pregnant. A WHR of .7 is seen as the most attractive. and is considered more attractive than .8, which is more attractive than a .9.
Men’s preferences have an effect on actual mating behavior. If men act on their preferences for women who are young and physically attractive, then they should respond more to women who display these qualities. Baize and Schroeder (1995) same experiment with the women’s personal Ads found that men tended to respond to women’s ads more than women responded to men’s ads, younger women received more responses from men, than older women did, and although mentioning physical attractiveness produced more responses from both sexes, it produced significantly more responses for women than for men. In sum, men’s responses to women’s personal ads provides a natural source of evidence suggesting that men act on their preferences. Age preferences and marital decisions show that preference once again translates to actual mating behavior. For example, American grooms exceed their brides in age by about 3 years in their first marriage, 5 years in the second, and 8 years at a third marriage. Men’s mate preferences also have effects on women’s competition tactics. Women’s use of deceptive appearance enhancement was judged to be significantly more effective in attracting males than men’s use of such tactics. For example women that dye their hair, use fake nails, wear padded clothing, and wear dark clothes to look thinner (Buss 2008).

Men’ Short-Term Mating Strategies
There are both benefits and costs of short-term mating for men. Evolutionarily speaking, sex with more partners results in more potential babies. Therefore they can produce more babies each year, compared to a woman who can only give birth once per year. A benefit then, however a cost in today’s society. Potential cost include risk of contracting an STD, developing a reputation as a “womanizer”, decreasing the chances of their children surviving because of lack of parental investment and protection, risk of suffering violence at the hands of jealous husbands or mates or fathers or brothers of women, and risking retaliatory affairs by their wives and the potential for a costly divorce (Buss and Schmitt 1993). According to Symons(1979), the primary reproductive benefit of casual sex to ancestral men would have been a direct increase in the number of offspring, so that men faced a key adaptive problem of gaining sexual access to a variety of women. As a solution this adaptive problem men have evolved a number of psychological mechanisms that have caused them to seek a variety of sexual partners. As with their desires, men’s inclination to let little time pass before seeking sexual intercourse offers a partial solution to the adaptive problem of gaining sexual access to a variety of partners (Symons
1979). Despite the obvious risks of short-term dating there are several examples of psychological evidence for short-term mating in men: the lowering of standards, minimizing commitment after sex, the closing phenomenon, differences in sexual fantasies, and sexual regret. Men tend to relax their standards across a range of attributes, which helps to solve the problem of gaining access to a variety of partners (Buss 2008). According to Haselton & Buss (2001), a possible adaptation in men to facilitate the success of a short-term mating strategy is an emotional shift right after intercourse. Men with more sex partners experienced a sharp decline in how sexually

attractive they found their partner immediately following intercourse, whereas neither women nor men with less sexual experience showed this decline. This work on the attraction-reduction effect supports the hypothesis that men have yet another psychological adaptation designed to promote the success of casual sexual strategy. The closing time phenomenon is described by
Gladue and Delaney (1990), as a bar’s closing time approaches both sexes, but especially men, find members of the opposite sex more attractive. The effect occurs even after controlling the number of alcoholic drinks consumed. Fantasies reveal the nature between desires that motivate our behavior. Research conducted in Japan, Great Britain, and the US show that men have roughly twice as many sexual fantasies as women (Ellis and Symons 1990; Wilson 1987). When asleep men are more likely to dream about sexual events during a single fantasy most men report they sometimes change sexual partners, whereas most women report they rarely change sexual partners 32% of men and only 8% of women report having imagined sexual encounters with more than 1,000 different partners in their lifetime. Men are 4x more likely to have fantasies about group sex. Women’s sexual fantasies often contain a familiar partner. Emotions and personality are crucial for women, 41% of the women and only 16% of the men report that they focus most heavily on the personal and emotional characteristics of the fantasized partner. Regret is feelings of sorrow about something in the past. It is hypothesized to function to improve decision making by motivating people to avoid poor mistakes (Poore et al. 2005). Sexual regret could operate over 2 classes--missed sexual opportunities (sexual omission) or sexual actions taken (sexual commission). Poore et al. (2005) reported that men regretted acts of sexual omission, failures to act on sexual opportunities significantly more than women. Women are more likely to have regretted sexual commission. Sexual regret, in short, has the hallmarks of an

evolved feature in men designed to facilitate acting on future sexual opportunities and avoid entangling commitments. Along with psychological evidence, there is also behavioral evidence supporting that men across cultures actually pursue short-term mating more than women. Men in most cultures pursue extramarital sex more often than do their wives. The Kinsey study (Kinsey et. al. 1948), estimated that 50% of men had extramarital affairs where only about 26% of women had them. Kinsey (1948) summed it up saying “there seems to be no question but that the human male would be promiscuous in his choice of sexual partners throughout the whole of his life if there were no social restrictions...the human female is much less interested in a variety of partners.” Prostitution is another example, it is the relatively indiscriminate exchange of sexual services for economic profit. This is another reflection of men’s greater desire for casual sex.
Prostitution occurs in every society that has been studied thoroughly. Within the US estimates of the number of active prostitutes range from 100,000 to 500,000. In Germany, there are 50,000 legally registered prostitutes, and triple that number working illegally. In all cultures men are overwhelmingly the consumers (Kinsey 1948). Kinsey (1948) found that 69% of american men had solicited a prostitute and for 15% prostitution was a regular sexual outlet. The corresponding numbers for women were so low that they were not even reported as a percentage of the sexual outlet for women.
Women’s Short-Term Mating
If ancestral women never engaged in short-term mating, men could not have evolved a powerful desire for sexual variety. That desire, assuming mating was consensual rather than forced, required the existence of some willing women some of the time. And if ancestral women willingly and recurrently engaged in short-term mating, it would defy evolutionarily logic if

there were no benefits to women of doing so. As mentioned earlier women are less likely to take part in extramarital affairs and prostitution as a mean for sexual outlet. However, in todays industrial nations however birth control has giving women the option of choosing short-term relationships with less fear of pregnancy. However short-term mating does occur in women too and there are several hypotheses why. First, the resource hypothesis in which women could engage in short-term mating in exchange for meat, goods, or services (Buss 2008). In addition, ancestral women might have bee ale to obscure the actual paternity of her offspring through several short-term matings and thus elicit resources from 2 or more men (Hrdy 1981). This hypothesis also recognizes another possible resource as protection. Men typically provide protection to their mates and children. Because a primary mate cannot always be around to defend and protect a woman, she might gain added protection by consorting with another man.
Women may also be able in increase their social standing with peer or enter a higher social circle by temporary liaison with a high-status man (Buss 2008). Another hypothesis is the genetic benefit hypotheses, which is thought to enhance fertility. If a woman’s regular mate is infertile or impotent, a short-term mate might provide a fertility backup to aid in conception. A short term mate might also provide superior genes compared to a woman’s regular mate, especially if she has an affair with a high-status man. A short term mate will also be able to provide a woman with different genes compared with those of her regular mat, thus enhancing genetic diversity of her children (Buss 2008). The mate switching hypothesis is another potential strategy for short-term mating in women. Sometimes a woman’s husband stops bringing in resources, starts abusing her or the children, or otherwise declines in his value as a mate. Ancestral women might have

benefited from short-term mating to cope with this adaptive problem (Buss 2008). The mate
Manipulation hypotheses suggests, by manipulating her mate by having an affair, a woman might be able to gain revenge on her husband for his infidelity and possible deter him from future infidelities. A woman might also be able to increase the commitment of her regular mate if he saw that other men were seriously interested in her (Buss 2008). However just as with men, there are costs to women seeking shortterm mates. She too could gain a bad reputation, a lack of physical protection, pregnancy without benefit, and the risk of contracting an STD. Women risk impairing their desirability as a longterm mate if they develop reputations for promiscuousness because men prize fidelity in potential wives. Also, a woman who adopts an exclusively short-term sexual strategy is at a greater risk for physical and sexual abuse and is less likely to have another mate to protect her.
Obviously, woman in pursuit of casual sex risk getting pregnant and bearing children without the benefit of an investing man. And finally, the risk of contracting an STI increase greatly with an increased number of sexual partners.
Once again the risks and benefits for a short-term mate seem somewhat obvious in both the males and females. Personally, I feel the risks seem more modernized than the benefits. I’m not sure how many men really seek a short-term mate in order to have more babies each year.
Especially in today’s world where many women are in the work force and have the means to provide for themselves, few need a man to provide food and shelter for her. However I do think it is very interesting how one’s taste or preference for something in a mate has evolved based on basic needs.

Works cited

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Buss, D. M., & Schmit, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychology Review, 100, 204-232.
Ellis, B. J., & Symons, D. (1990). Sex differences in fantasy: An evolutionary psychological approach. Journal of Sex Research, 27, 527-556
Glaudue, B. A., & Delaney, J. J. (1990). Gender differences in perception of attractiveness of men and women in bars. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 378-391.
Haselton, M. G. & Buss, D. M. (2001). The affective shift hypothesis: The functions of emotional changes following sexual intercourse. Personal Relationships, 8, 357-369.
Hrdy (1981). The woman that never evolved. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., & Martin, C. E. (1948). Sexual behavior in the human male.
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Poore, J. C. Hselton, M. G., von Hipple, W., & Buss, D. M. (2005). Sexual regret. Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychologists.
New Orleans, January.
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Symons, D. (1992). The evolution of human sexuality. New York: Oxford.

Thrivers, R.L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the decent of man: 1871-1971 (pp. 136-179). Chicago: Aldine.