mating strategies

part of evolutionary explanations

male strategies

• courtship Rituals – Allows showing off genetic potential and resources.

• size – Bigger body sizes demonstrate physical strength and an ability to protect partner and offspring from threats.

• sperm Competition – Men have evolved to have bigger testicles and faster swimming sperm.

• mate Guarding – Keeping a close eye on partners to prevent unfaithfulness.

• sneak Copulation – Being unfaithful - can be beneficial to both parties?

female strategies

• handicap Hypothesis – Some women may pick men with handicaps as it shows an ability to thrive despite adversities. May explain why some women are attracted to men who take drugs and drink a lot.

• sexy sons Hypothesis – Females select males they deem physically attractive as they are likely to pass this onto their children, increasing the offspring’s chance of reproducing. 

• courtship – Dating is an important strategy for females to establish a man’s worth to produce offspring.

ao3 - supporting research - clarke and hatfield

• supports theory of evolutionary explanations for partner preferences

• Clark and Hatfield sent male and female psychology student across a university campus to approach other students and say: ‘I have been noticing you around campus. I find you to be very attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?’

• not a single female student agreed to the request, whereas 75% of males did, immediately

• this research suggests that females are choosier than males when it comes to selecting sexual partners and that the two genders have evolved different mating strategies

ao3 - external validity of these explanations could be considered low

• these explanations do not take into account same sex relationships or partnerships where children are not desired and thus, cannot be attributed to all individuals

• these explanations of partner preferences can only be used to explain the majority of heterosexual relationships

• given that these ideas can only be applied to a subset of the population, it could be argued that the usefulness of these theories is limited

ao3 - methodology employed in this field of research is flawed

• research into evolutionary explanations tend to use - self-report which are subject to misinterpretation and demand characteristics

• this could mean that much of the theory is based on faulty data collection. An example of this can be seen in Buss’s research where he asked his participants to fill in questionnaires about their partner preferences

• this suggests that the evolutionary theory of sexual selection and reproductive success may lack scientific rigor