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Sex differences in human mate preferences vary across sex ratios

Walter KV 1 , Conroy-Beam D 1 , Buss DM 2 , Asao K 3 , Sorokowska A 4 , Sorokowski P 4 Show all authors , Aavik T 5 , Akello G 6 , Alhabahba MM 7 , Alm C 8 , Amjad N 9 , Anjum A 10 , Atama CS 11 , Duyar DA 12 , Ayebare R 13 , Batres C 14 , Bendixen M 15 , Bensafia A 16 , Bizumic B 17 , Boussena M 18 , Butovskaya M 19 , Can S 20 , Cantarero K 21 , Carrier A 22 , Cetinkaya H 23 , Croy I 24 , Cueto RM 25 , Czub M 3 , Dronova D 19 , Dural S 20 , Duyar I 12 , Ertugrul B 12 , Espinosa A 25 , Estevan I 26 , Esteves CS 27 , Fang L 28 , Frackowiak T 4 , Garduño JC 29 , González KU 30 , Guemaz F 31 , Gyuris P 32 , Halamová M 33 , Herak I 34 , Horvat M 35 , Hromatko I 36 , Hui CM 29 , Jaafar JL 37 , Jiang F 38 , Kafetsios K 39 , Kavčič T 40 , Ottesen Kennair LE 15 , Kervyn N 34 , Khanh Ha TT 41 , Khilji IA 42 , Köbis NC 43 , Lan HM 41 , Láng A 32 , Lennard GR 17 , León E 25 , Lindholm T 8 , Linh TT 41 , Lopez G 44 , Luot NV 41 , Mailhos A 26 , Manesi Z 45 , Martinez R 46 , McKerchar SL 17 , Meskó N 32 , Misra G 47 , Monaghan C 17 , Mora EC 48 , Moya-Garófano A 42 , Musil B 35 , Natividade JC 49 , Niemczyk A 4 , Nizharadze G 50 , Oberzaucher E 51 , Oleszkiewicz A 4 , Omar-Fauzee MS 52 , Onyishi IE 53 , Özener B 12 , Pagani AF 44 , Pakalniskiene V 54 , Parise M 44 , Pazhoohi F 55 , Pisanski A 48 , Pisanski K 3 , Ponciano E 56 , Popa C 57 , Prokop P 58 , Rizwan M 59 , Sainz M 60 , Salkičević S 36 , Sargautyte R 54 , Sarmány-Schuller I 61 , Schmehl S 51 , Sharad S 62 , Siddiqui RS 63 , Simonetti F 64 , Stoyanova SY 65 , Tadinac M 36 , Correa Varella MA 66 , Vauclair CM 67 , Vega LD 31 , Widarini DA 68 , Yoo G 69 , Zaťková MM 31 , Zupančič M 70

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
  • 2 Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
  • 3 Department of Psychology, Westminster College, Salt Lake City, UT 84105, USA
  • 4 Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw 50137, Poland
  • 5 Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu 50090, Estonia
  • 6 Department of Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Gulu University, Gulu 166, Uganda
  • 7 English Language Department, Middle East University, Amman 11181, Jordan
  • 8 Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm 10691, Sweden
  • 9 Department of Applied Psychology, NUR International University, Lahore, Pakistan
  • 10 Institute of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590, Pakistan
  • 11 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and
  • 12 Deparment of Anthropology, Istanbul University, Istanbul 34452, Turkey
  • 13 North Star Alliance, Kampala, Uganda
  • 14 Department of Psychology, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster 17603, USA
  • 15 Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 7491 Trondheim, Norway
  • 16 Laboratory Education-Formation-Travail (EFORT), Department of Sociology, and
  • 17 Research School of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra 2601, Australia
  • 18 Laboratory EFORT, Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Algiers 2, Algiers 16000, Algeria
  • 19 Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991, Russia
  • 20 Department of Psychology, Izmir University of Economics, Izmir 35300, Turkey
  • 21 Social Behavior Research Center, Faculty in Wroclaw, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Wroclaw 53238, Poland
  • 22 Psychology Faculty (Center for the Study of Social Behavior), and
  • 23 Department of Psychology, Ankara University, Ankara 6560, Turkey
  • 24 Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden 1069, Germany
  • 25 Grupo de Psicología Política y Social (GPPS), Departamento de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima 15088, Perú
  • 26 Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de la República, Motevideo 11200, Uruguay
  • 27 Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics, Católica Lisbon Research Unit in Business and Economics, Portugal
  • 28 Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
  • 29 Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores, Unidad Morelia UNAM, Morelia 58190, Mexico
  • 30 Psychology Department, Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, San José 11501, Costa Rica
  • 31 Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Sétif2, Sétif 16000, Algeria
  • 32 Institute of Psychology, University of Pécs, Pécs 7624, Hungary
  • 33 Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Care, Department of Psychological Sciences, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Nitra 94974, Slovakia
  • 34 Louvain Research Institute in Management and Organisations (LOURiM), Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve 1348, Belgium
  • 35 Faculty of Arts, Department of Psychology, University of Maribor, Maribor 2000, Slovenia
  • 36 Department of Psychology, Faculty for Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia
  • 37 Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia
  • 38 Organization and Human Resource Management, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 102202, People's Republic of China
  • 39 School of Fine Arts, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece and Katedra Psychologie, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic
  • 40 Faculty of Health Sciences, and
  • 41 Department of Psychology, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam
  • 42 Department of Psychology, Islamabad Model College for Boys, F-10/4, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
  • 43 Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making, Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081, The Netherlands
  • 44 Department of Psychology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan 20123, Italy
  • 45 Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1081, The Netherlands
  • 46 Department of Social Psychology, University of Granada, Grenada 18010, Spain
  • 47 Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, Delhi 110021, India
  • 48 Department of Animal and Human Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Havana, Havana, Cuba
  • 49 Department of Psychology, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 22451-000, Brazil
  • 50 Department of Social Sciences, Free University of Tbilisi, Tbilisi 2, Georgia
  • 51 Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Vienna 1090, Austria
  • 52 School of Education, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok 6010, Malaysia
  • 53 Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka 410002, Nigeria
  • 54 Institute of Psychology, Vilnius University, Vilnius 1513, Lithuania
  • 55 Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada V6T 1Z4
  • 56 Institute of Psychology, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-901, Brazil
  • 57 Department of Psychology-Institute of Philosophy and Psychology "C. Rădulescu Motru" of Romanian Academy, UNATC Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania
  • 58 Department of Environmental Ecology and Landscape Management, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava 84215, Slovakia
  • 59 Department of Psychology, University of Haripur, 22620, Pakistan
  • 60 Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
  • 61 Center for Social and Psychological Sciences, Institute of Experimental Psychology SAS, Bratislava, 84104, Slovakia
  • 62 Department of Applied Psychology, Vivekananda College, University of Delhi, Delhi 110095, India
  • 63 Department of Management Sciences, DHA Suffa University, Karachi 75500, Pakistan
  • 64 School of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile
  • 65 Department of Psychology, South-West University 'Neofit Rilski', Blagoevgrad 2700, Bulgaria
  • 66 Department of Experimental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-030, Brazil
  • 67 Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa 1649-026, Portugal
  • 68 Fakultas Ilmu Komunikasi, Universitas Prof. Dr Moestopo (Beragama), Jakarta 10270, Indonesia
  • 69 Department of Child and Family Studies, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 024-47, Republic of Korea
  • 70 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana 1000, Slovenia
Proc Biol Sci, 2021 Jul 28;288(1955):20211115.
PMID: 34284630 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1115

Abstract

A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio's relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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