Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

336 CHAPTER 8 Motivation and EmotionCULTURE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOREvolution and Mate PreferencesDid the cartoon make you laugh—or at BIZARROleast smile? If it did, it’s because you recognizeda cultural pattern—the beliefthat men seek a beautiful, youthful partner,while women are more likely tovalue financial security and wealth. Cartoonsand jokes aside, is there any meritto this observation? Do men and womendiffer in what they look for in a mate?To investigate mate preferences, psychologistDavid Buss (1994, 2009) coordinateda large-scale survey of more than10,000 people in 37 different cultures.Across all cultures, Buss found, menwere more likely than women to valueyouth and physical attractiveness in a potentialmate. In contrast, women weremore likely than men to value financialsecurity, access to material resources,high status and education, and good financialprospects. Buss, an evolutionarypsychologist, interprets these gender differencesas reflecting the different “mating strategies” of menand women.According to evolutionary psychology, mating behavior isadaptive to the degree that it furthers the reproductive successof transmitting one’s genes to the next generation and beyond.And when it comes to reproductive success, Buss (1995a, 2009)contends that men and women face very different “adaptiveproblems” in selecting a mate.According to Buss (1995b, 1996), the adaptive problem formen is to identify and mate with women who are fertile andlikely to be successful at bearing their children. Thus, men aremore likely to place a high value on youth, because it is associatedwith fertility and because younger women have a greaternumber of childbearing years ahead of them than older women.And, men value physical attractiveness because it signals thatthe woman is probably physically healthy and has high-qualitygenes.Buss sees the adaptive problem for women as very different.Women also seek “good” genes, and thus they value men whoare healthy and attractive. But they have a more pressing need:making sure that the children they do bear survive to carry theirgenes into future generations. Pregnancy, lactation, and caringfor infants, says Buss, leave women unable to acquire the resourcesneeded to protect and feed themselves and their children.Thus, women look for a mate who will be a “goodprovider.” They seek men who possess the resources that thewomen and their offspring will need to survive.In most cultures, Buss (1995a) points out, men of high statusand wealth are more able to marry younger and moreattractive women than poor, low-status men are. In otherwords, older successful men, whetherthey are tribal chiefs, corporate CEOs, oraging rock superstars, have the greatestaccess to young, attractive women—theso-called “trophy wife.” On the flip side,physically attractive women can, and oftendo, marry men with more resourcesand higher status than do unattractivewomen.Not surprisingly, this evolutionary explanationof sex differences is controversial.Some psychologists argue that it isoverly deterministic and does not sufficientlyacknowledge the role of culture,gender-role socialization, and other socialfactors (Eagly & Wood, 2006; Gangestad& others, 2006; Schmitt, 2006).Other psychologists interpret Buss’sdata in a different way. Tim Kasser andYadika Sharma (1999) analyzed the matepreference data in terms of women’s reproductivefreedom and educational opportunityin each culture. They found that women who live incultures that are low in both female reproductive freedom andeducational equality between the sexes placed a higher value ona prospective mate’s resources.According to Kasser and Sharma (1999), “When a female isprovided with opportunities to fend for herself, she can becomeless concerned with finding a mate who will provide resourcesfor her, but when she has few opportunities to educate herselfor control her own fertility, she will be more concerned withfinding a mate who can provide her with the resources neededto support her and her children.”For his part, Buss (1996, 2007a, 2007b) is careful to point outthat this theory does not claim that personal preferences have noeffect on mate preferences. In fact, his extensive survey alsofound that men and women in all 37 cultures agreed that themost important factor in choosing a mate was mutual attractionand love. And, here’s a finding that will probably be reassuringto those singles who have neither fabulous wealth nor heartstoppingbeauty: Both sexes rated kindness, intelligence, emotionalstability, health, and a pleasing personality as more importantthan a prospective mate’s financial resources or good looks.Finally, Buss and other evolutionary psychologists reject theidea that people, cultures, or societies are powerless to overcometendencies that evolved over hundreds of thousands ofyears. Buss also flatly states that explaining some of the reasonsthat might underlie sexual inequality does not mean that sexualinequality is natural, correct, or justified. Rather, evolutionarypsychologists believe that we must understand the conditionsthat foster sexual inequality in order to overcome or changethose conditions (Smuts, 1996).BIZARRO © by Dan Piraro. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate.