Good genes, good providers, and good fathers: Economic development involved in how women select a mate

Hui Jing LU, Xiao Qin ZHU, Lei CHANG

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

56 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Men’s mate values are defined based on three broad categories—good genes, good providers, both of which are selected early across the animal kingdom, and good fathers that represent the last pedigree of primate evolution and may have contributed to the human development of modernity and gender equality. Women select long-term mates based on these 3 mate values, and women’s mate preference over them depends on the prevailing ecological conditions. Based on 4 samples comprising a total of 1,257 Chinese women, we found that women in general and those with high socioeconomic status in particular (Study 1), as well as women in cities compared with rural women (Study 2), preferred good-father over good-provider and good-genes attributes in long-term relationships. Similar results were obtained in an experimental study (n = 123) where, under good economic compared to poor economic and control conditions, women prioritized good-father over good-provider and good-genes attributes. These findings indicate that in modern-day economies, in which a woman spends the same amount of time and energy on education and employment and acquires approximately the same amount of resources and same extent of safety and disease protection as men, her mate preference is likely to center on good-father attributes, as her reproductive success depends on a helper at the nest increasingly more than other mate contributions. Copyright © 2015 APA.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)215-228
JournalEvolutionary Behavioral Sciences
Volume9
Issue number4
Early online dateApr 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Citation

Lu, H. J., Zhu, X. Q., & Chang, L. (2015). Good genes, good providers, and good fathers: Economic development involved in how women select a mate. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 9(4), 215-228.

Keywords

  • Good fathers
  • Good providers
  • Good genes
  • Female mate preference
  • Mate value
  • Life history

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Good genes, good providers, and good fathers: Economic development involved in how women select a mate'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.