A New Study Supports Evolutionary Psychology ’s Explanation For Why Men And Women Want Different Attributes In Partners

By Jesse Singal When it comes to the heated subject of differences between how men and women behave, debate in psychology has centered on mate preferences and general interests. The available research shows that when it comes to (heterosexual) mating preferences, men are relatively more interested in physical beauty, while women are relatively more interested in earning capacity. As for general interests, men are more interested in physical things, while women are more interested in people. Even the staunchest evolutionary psychologists would acknowledge these are partially overlapping bell curves: There are plenty of men who are fascinated by other people, and plenty of women looking for physical beauty in a partner above all else. Yet the findings have been met with fierce resistance in some quarters. One of the more sophisticated rejoinders is known as social roles theory: The differences do exist, but they’re entirely or largely the result of gender roles imposed by society on individuals. However, a new study released as a preprint at PsyArXiv and involving participants from 36 countries has failed to replicate a key finding that’s previously been cited in support of social roles theory. In its purest form social roles theory can be seen as sitting at the Nurture end of a Nature/Nurture spectrum, according to which sex differences in behaviour arise through cultural tradition. At the Nature end, on the other hand, are various evolutionary psychology accounts...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Dating evolutionary psych Sex Source Type: blogs