Mate preferences in emerging adulthood and beyond: Age variations in mate preferences and beliefs about change in mate preferences

Abstract

Few studies have considered how mate preferences may differ for individuals at different ages of emerging adulthood and beyond or considered at the same time other individual difference variables beyond sex and age of participant. This survey study of mate preferences (N = 738) found that participants’ age (from 18 to 40) was associated with lower mate selectivity. This negative association between age and mate selectivity was greater for men than for women. Age continued to be associated with mate selectivity controlling for shyness and perception of available partners—and both of these variables were uniquely associated with mate selectivity (negatively and positively, respectively). This study also examined participants’ beliefs about how the importance of various traits in a partner had changed over time. Overall, the participants perceived no change or a slight increase in their preferences over time, although the perceived change depended on the particular trait domain, sex of the participant, and the other individual difference variables.

Keywords

Emerging adulthood gender differences mate preferences mate selection shyness

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allen

Bourhis

Emmers-Sommer

Sahlstein

. (1998). Reducing dating anxiety: A meta-analysis. Communication Reports, 11, 49–55.

Anderson

C. A.

Harvey

R. J.

(1988). Brief report: Discriminating between problems in living: An examination of measures of depression, loneliness, shyness, and social anxiety. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 6, 482–491.

Arnett

J. J.

(2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist, 55, 469–480.

Asendorpf

J. B.

Wilpers

(1998). Personality effects on social relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1531–1544.

Bleske-Rechek

Ryan

D. E.

(2015). Continuity and change in emerging adults’ mate preferences and mating orientations. Personality and Individual Differences, 72, 90–95.

Bleske-Rechek

VandenHeuvel

Vander Wyst

(2009). Age variation in mating strategies and mate preferences: Beliefs versus reality. Evolutionary Psychology, 7, 179–205.

Boxer

C. F.

Noonan

M. C.

Whelan

C. B.

(2015). Measuring mate preferences: A replication and extension. Journal of Family Issues, 36, 163–187.

Bredow

C. A.

(2015). Chasing prince charming: Partnering consequences of holding unrealistic standards for a spouse. Personal Relationships, 22, 476–501.

Bredow

C. A.

Huston

T. L.

Glenn

N. D.

(2011). Market value, quality of the pool of potential mates, and singles’ confidence about marrying. Personal Relationships, 18, 39–57.

10.

Brook

C. A.

Willoughby

(2017). Shyness and social anxiety assessed through self-report: What are we measuring? Journal of Personality Assessment, 1–10. Published Online in Advance. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223891.2017.1388808

11.

Brumbaugh

C. C.

Wood

(2013). Mate preferences across life and across the world. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4, 100–107.

12.

Buss

D. M.

(1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brian Sciences, 12, 1–14.

13.

Buss

D. M.

Schmitt

D. P.

(1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232.

14.

Buunk

B. P.

Dijkstra

Fetchenhauer

Kenrick

D. T.

(2002). Age and gender differences in mate selection criteria for various involvement levels. Personal Relationships, 9, 271–278.

15.

Carducci

B. J.

Zimbardo

(1995). Are you shy? Psychology Today, 64, 34–40.

16.

Cheek

J. M.

Buss

A. H.

(1981). Shyness and sociability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 330–339.

17.

Cobb

N. P.

Larson

J. H.

Watson

W. L.

(2003). Development of the attitudes about romance and mate selection scale. Family Relations, 52, 222–231.

18.

Fales

M. R.

Frederick

D. A.

Garcia

J. R.

Gildersleeve

K. A.

Haselton

M. G.

Fisher

H. E.

(2016). Mating markets and bargaining hands: Mate preferences for attractiveness and resources in two national US studies. Personality and Individual Differences, 88, 78–87.

19.

Hatfield

Sprecher

(1995). Men’s and women’s mate preferences in the United States, Russia, and Japan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 26, 728–750.

20.

Kerckhoff

A. C.

Davis

K. E.

(1962). Value consensus and need complementarity in mate selection. American Sociological Review, 27, 295–303.

21.

Leary

M. R.

(1983). Understanding social anxiety: Social, personality and clinical perspectives (Vol. 153). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

22.

Lewis

K. G.

Moon

(1997). Always single and single again women: A qualitative study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 23, 115–134.

23.

McCroskey

J. C.

(1984). The communication apprehension perspective. In Daly

J. A.

McCroskey

J. C.

(Eds.), Avoiding communication: Shyness, reticence, and communication apprehension (pp. 13–38). Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.

24.

McCroskey

J. C.

Richmond

V. P.

(1982). Communication apprehension and shyness: Conceptual and operational distinctions. Communication Studies, 33, 458–468.

25.

Regan

P. C.

(1998). What if you can’t get what you want? Willingness to compromise ideal mate selection standards as a function of sex, mate value, and relationship context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1288–1297.

26.

Rusbult

C. E.

Martz

J. M.

Agnew

C. R.

(1998). The investment model scale: Measuring commitment level, satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, and investment size. Personal Relationships, 5, 357–387.

27.

Schneier

F. R.

Heckelman

L. R.

Garfinkel

Campeas

Fallon

B. A.

Gitow

… Liebowitz

M. R.

(1994). Functional impairment in social phobia. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 55, 322–331.

28.

Schwarz

Hassebrauck

(2012). Sex and age differences in mate-selection preferences. Human Nature, 23, 447–466.

29.

Shackelford

T. K.

Schmitt

D. P.

Buss

D. M.

(2005). Universal dimensions of human mate preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 447–458.

30.

Sharp

E. A.

Ganong

. (2011). “I’m a loser, I’m not married, let’s just all look at me”: Ever-single women’s perceptions of their social environment. Journal of Family Issues, 32, 956–980.

31.

Spielmann

S. S.

MacDonald

Maxwell

J. A.

Joel

Peragine

Muise

Impett

(2013). Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105, 1049–1073.

32.

Sprecher

Regan

P. C.

(2002). Liking some things (in some people) more than others: Partner preferences in romantic relationships and friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 19, 463–481.

33.

Sprecher

Sullivan

Hatfield

(1994). Mate selection preferences: Gender differences examined in a national sample. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1074–1080.

34.

Wenzel

Emerson

(2009). Mate selection in socially anxious and nonanxious individuals. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 28, 341–363.

35.

Wood

Brumbaugh

C. C.

(2009). Using revealed mate preferences to evaluate market force and differential preference explanations for mate selection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 1226.

36.

Yang

M. L.

Chiou

W. B.

(2010). Looking online for the best romantic partner reduces decision quality: The moderating role of choice-making strategies. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13, 207–210.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.73 MB