lec 22 Notes on Female Long-Term Mating Preferences

Context of Female Long-Term Mating Preferences

• This lecture focuses on long-term mating preferences of females.

• Previous discussions include resource-related and physical preferences.

• Today’s focus: less-studied attributes like humor, voice characteristics, and musicality.

Humor in Attractiveness

• Role of Humor: Humor impacts attractiveness due to its nature as an honest signal.

• Quick Assessment: Certain traits and characteristics, such as cognitive and emotional well-being, are challenging to perceive and assess quickly; humor may act as a shortcut to gauge them.

• Cognitive Skills: Being funny suggests above-average intelligence and quick thinking, as humor often requires cognitive processing and information recall.

• Emotional Status: Humor is also mood-dependent—people who feel good tend to find or create humor easily.

Social Status Indication

• Attention and Social Dynamics: Humor requires an audience, implying social acceptance and status. If someone is funny and their peers laugh, it signals social approval and possibly social dominance.

• While research is limited, early findings indicate women value humor in potential mates, as backed by anecdotal evidence (e.g., phrases like "he made me laugh").

• A study highlights that women consider humor crucial when selecting a long-term partner, emphasizing its reported importance in various surveys.

Humor and Attractiveness Studies

• Research Findings: Humor increases attractiveness ratings, especially in males.

• Studies indicate a reciprocal relationship: attractive men are perceived as more humorous, and humorous men are rated as more attractive.

• Gender Differences: Women value a man’s ability to be funny (creating humor), while men find it attractive when a woman appreciates their humor (finding them funny).

Voice Characteristics

• Deeper Voices: Women typically rate men with deeper voices as more attractive.

• Connection to Biology: A deeper voice signals male sexual maturity and correlates with physical size, masculinity, and hormonal levels (often higher testosterone).

• Implications for Mating: Preferences for deep voices may reflect desires for genetic quality, social dominance, and potentially suggest fertility despite varying strength of these correlations.

Musicality as a Trait

• Importance of Music: Music plays a universal role in human interaction, with hypotheses suggesting its attractiveness stems from intersexual selection.

• Studies with Musical Instruments:

  • A “holding a guitar” study showed male attractiveness increased significantly (from 9% to 30%) when a man held a guitar while appr"oaching women.

  • Similar results found in “Facebook friend” request studies, indicating enhanced receptiveness associated with musicality. if profile pic had a guy with guitar.. 10% of cold invites were accepted and 30% when guitar was held in pic.

• Potential Signals:

  • Holding a guitar might indicate social status, wealth, impressiveness, and a demonstration of leisure time which could signal current or future resource availability.

  • Musical ability may correlate with cognition, social skills, and emotional intelligence—traits valued in a long-term mate.

Summary of Female Mating Preferences

• Able: Women prefer traits like resources, possession of resources, ambition, industriousness, social status, humor, and social skills due to their associations with successful reproduction and survivalof offspring. Additionally, traits such as kindness, intelligence, and reliability provide a sense of security and stability that women seek in long-term partners. ability to share.

• willing: Traits indicating willingness to share, stability, rependibility, humour, positive interactions w children.

• Long-Term Relationships: Mating preferences materialize in terms of qualities that support both survival and parenting effectiveness. marriage, compatibility, health, reliability, love, commitment.

• good parent- ing skills and a nurturing disposition are also essential attributes that women consider when evaluating potential long-term partners.

• physical protection for women and her children- athleticism, size, good health, good genes, health, symmetry, masculinity, voice, musicality

• Preferences are multi-dimensional, addressing various survival challenges and reproductive success.

Closing Thoughts

• Female mating preferences incorporate a variety of attributes which provide adaptive advantages across different contexts.

• Ongoing research is necessary to delve deeper into the implications of these preferences and their interaction with mating strategies.