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29 - Human Mate Selection

A Multidimensional Approach

from Part VII - Sexual Selection and Human Sex Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2020

By
Daniel Conroy-Beam  and
David M. Buss
Edited by
Lance Workman ,
Will Reader  and
Jerome H. Barkow
Lance Workman
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Will Reader
Affiliation:
Sheffield Hallam University
Jerome H. Barkow
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
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Summary

Ask a few people to describe their ideal partner and you will get the same response every time: a thoughtful pause followed by a deluge. Our partners must be kind, intelligent, and physically attractive. They should be in good health, good with people, good parents, and good providers. Some of our ideals are very specific: straight hair, freckled, with a gap between their front teeth. Others are more abstract: loyal, creative, passionate, and driven. Many ideals are almost contradictory: spontaneous but reliable; flexible but strong-willed; youthful but responsible. Humans seem picky when it comes to mate choice

And this pickiness makes great sense from an evolutionary perspective. For humans, a mate represents a potential reproductive partner, a parenting partner, a cooperation partner, and more. Throughout human evolutionary history, who an individual selected as their mate would have had profound impacts on their reproductive success.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior , pp. 353 - 365
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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