What do we really desire in a date?
Posted by Patrick Woolmer on Wed 12th September 2007 at 02:21 AM, Filed in General Dating
Peter Todd, a cognitive scientist at Indiana University recently undertook some truly interesting research about what we truly look for in a date. The long and short of it is that we blokes all desire ‘beauty’, and women (the choosier ones) look for security and commitment.
A great example….
This is no different therefore to when we were beating the hell out of each other as cavemen for the most beautiful ape woman! In fact, all mammals seem to follow the same trait, yes even the Duck Billed Platypus!
“Evolutionary theories in psychology suggest that men and women should trade off different traits in each other, and when we look at the actual mate choices people make, this is what we find evidence for,” Todd said. “Ancestral individuals who made their mate choices in this way—women trading off their attractiveness for higher quality men and men looking for any attractive women who will accept them—would have had an evolutionary advantage in greater numbers of successful offspring.”
The study was undertaken through speed dating events across Germany where participants were asked what they were looking for and then analysed to discover what they actually went for!
More about the study
For Todd’s study, 46 adults in a speed-dating session were also asked to fill out a questionnaire beforehand assessing themselves and their ideal mate according to evolutionarily relevant traits, such as physical attractiveness, present and future financial status, health and parenting qualities.
Not surprisingly, Todd said, participants stated they wanted to find someone who was like themselves - a socially acceptable answer. But once the sessions began, the men sought the more attractive women and the women were drawn to material wealth and security, setting their standards according to how attractive they viewed themselves. Furthermore, while men on average wanted to see every second woman again, the women wanted to meet only a third of the men again.
While the study’s results came as no surprise to Todd, the research usefulness of the speed-dating forum did. Todd and his colleagues are conducting several other speed-dating studies that could confirm the results.
“Speed dating lets us look at a large number of mate choice decisions collected in a short amount of time,” Todd said. “It only captures the initial stage of the extended process involved in long-term mate choice. But that initial expression of interest is crucial for launching everything else.”
Reference: “Different cognitive processes underlie human mate choices and mate preferences,” to be published the week of Sept. 4-7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Coauthors are Lars Penke, Department of Psychology, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany; Barbara Fasolo, Operational Research Group, London School of Economics, London, U.K.; and Alison P. Lenton, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edenburgh, Scotland, U.K.
The study was supported by the Max Planck Society, Germany’s national science foundation.
(Via: Science Daily)
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