5 Courtship and Mate Selection
Student Resources: Guiding Questions, Chapter Outline, Website & Article Resources
Guiding Questions
After reading the chapter, the student should be able to answer the following questions:

Is courtship a stage in the family life cycle?

What factors (individual, couples, and contextual) affect whether two people are
drawn together into a union?

How do new cultural phenomena such as the internet and long distance dating
affect relationships?

How do some of the prominent models of mate selection (stage models,
interpersonal process models, ecological models, evolutionary models) suggest that
people select mates?

Is cohabitation on the rise, and are couples who cohabit prior to marriage different
from couples who do not?
Chapter Outline
1. Factors That Influence Courtship and Mate Selection
a. Individual Factors: Personal Attributes and Characteristics
i. Age
ii. Self Beliefs and Relationship Beliefs
iii. Past relationship Experiences
b. Individual Factors: Personal Mate Preferences
i. Chastity
ii. Physical Attractiveness
iii. Financial Resources, Cooking/Housekeeping, and Mutual Attraction/Love
iv. Limitations to Research on Mate Preferences
c. Couple Factors: Partner Compatibility
i. Assortive Matching for Sociocultural Variables: Age, Race, Education,
Socioeconomic Class, and Physical Attractiveness
ii. Assortive Matching for Psychosocial Variables: Role and Leisure
Preferences, Communication Values, and Psychological Qualities
iii. Does Similarity Really Breed Attraction?
d. Couple Factors: Partner Interaction
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i. Initiating and Experimenting Stages: Flirting, Dating, and Reducing
Uncertainty
ii. Intensifying and Integrating Stages: Expressing Commitment and Dealing
with conflict
iii. Bonding Stage: Decisions to Formalize the Union
e. Contextual Factors
i. Socio-cultural Networks
ii. Environmental Contexts: Proximity
iii. Environmental Contexts: Long-Distance Dating
iv. Environmental Contexts: Online Dating
2. Models of Mate Selection
a. Stage Models
i. Winch's Complementary Needs Model
ii. Murstein's Stimulus–Value–Role Model
b. Interpersonal Process Models
c. Ecological Models
d. Evolutionary Models
3. Cohabitation
d. Are People Who Cohabit Different?
e. Does Cohabitation Change People?
2. Conclusion
Website and Article Resources
TV Reality Show and Game Show Portrayals of Dating and Courtship
Since their inception, television, films, magazines, novels, pop music, and many other media
genres have portrayed courtship and mate selection processes. Sometimes these portrayals are
very realistic. However in many instances, they are trivialized, sexualized, oversimplified, and
stereotyped in order to offer audiences tantalizing, humorous, satirical, or short-term glimpses
of dating life. In the last half-century, TV game shows and reality shows have developed an
appetite for dating, courtship, and interpersonal attraction. Hetsroni (2000) observes that there
have been two types of courtship games on television. The first type involves shows such as the
1960s/1970s Newlywed Game, where husbands and wives were separately asked the same
questions about each other and their relationship. Couples who had the most answers in
common won a prize, under the assumption that they had a courtship process that helped
them get to know each other better than the other couples. The second type, of more recent
interest, involves a male or female who selects a mate among numerous candidates and rounds
of elimination. This second type of show was popularized by The Love Connection in the 1980s
and generated more interest in the 1990s and early 2000s, with MTV’s Singled Out and other
major network productions such as Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, Blind Date, The
© Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2011
Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and numerous other shows with related premises such as Change
of Heart or Temptation Island.
It’s obvious why the networks like such shows: they are typically inexpensive and good at least
for short-term ratings. Why do audiences like them so much? Such shows are a mix of sport,
fairytale, and comedy. Avins (2002), for example, argues that people are “voyeurs” who “find
sport in the brutality of modern courtship” (p. F1). Similarly, Farhi (2002) interviewed numerous
people who admitted that the shows were “cheap and tacky,” but that they were seduced by
the fairytale image of people trying to find the “perfect” match (p. C1). Further, people get a
chance to laugh at themselves and see some of the crazy things they may actually do in the
dating process. Is there any harm in these TV dating game shows? Hetsroni (2000) feels that
dating game participants place far more emphasis on physical characteristics and sex-related
qualities of potential mates rather than lifestyle, psychological, and communication qualities.
Perhaps participants can afford to look primarily at superficial qualities knowing that they may
not necessarily be with these partners for the long term. Besides, Roug and Lowry (2002) argue
that most audiences understand that TV dating game shows are just comedies and that most
people watch with the notion that they would never act like most of the contestants.
Ward (2002) presents an alternative perspective. At least with regard to TV (e.g., soap operas),
films, and music videos, Ward feels that media portrayals of courtship for the most part
negatively influence young people’s notions of what constitutes proper and common dating
behavior. Ward’s correlational and experimental data show that young adults who consume a
lot of television are more likely to endorse attitudes indicating that sexual relationships are
recreationally oriented, that pregnancy and STDs are not major risks in casual sex, that most of
their peers are “doing it,” and that sexual stereotypes (e.g., men are sex driven and women are
sex objects) hold true. As Ward says, we need more research to address whether endorsement
of such attitudes actually leads to risky behaviors. What do you think?
Avins, M. (2002, April 27). Charmed silly: What made ‘The Bachelor’ such a guilty pleasure? For
the series’ exhibitionist contestants and voyeuristic viewers, it was a match. The Los
Angeles Times, pp. F1.
Farhi, P. (2002, November 20). Popping the question: Why has ‘The Bachelor’ become
irresistible to women? Stay tuned. The Washington Post, pp. C1.
Hetsroni, A. (2000). Choosing a mate in television dating games: The influence of setting,
culture, and gender. Sex Roles, 42, 83106.
© Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2011
Roug, L., & Lowry, B. (2002, August 18). Dating fame games: A rash of new shows stresses the
comedy in courtship humiliation. Why do we watch this stuff? The Los Angeles Times,
pp. F10.
Ward, L.M. (2002). Does television exposure affect emerging adults’ attitudes and assumptions
about sexual relationships? Correlational and experimental confirmation. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence, 31, 115.
For further reading on reality dating show portrayals’ of dating and courtship see:
Ferris, A.L., Smith, S.W., Greenberg, B.S., & Smith, S.L. (2007). The content of reality dating shows and
viewer perceptions of dating. Journal of Communication, 57(3), 490510.
© Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2011