Mating Intelligence 1
Running head: MATING INTELLIGENCE
Mating Intelligence Conceptualized as Adaptive Cross-Sex Mind-Reading Errors
Glenn Geher
State University of New York at New Paltz
Please contact the first author at geherg@newpaltz.edu
with queries regarding this work.

Mating Intelligence 2
Abstract
A major element of Mating Intelligence (Geher & Miller, 2007) pertains to the ability to accurately read the mating-relevant judgments of potential mates. In this research, 481 young male and female heterosexual adults judged which personal ads (written by opposite-sex individuals) were most desirable as short and longterm mates. All participants then engaged in a cross-sex mind-reading task by guessing which ads were most strongly endorsed by opposite-sex individuals.
Males were more accurate than females across both short and long-term judgments. A content analysis was conducted to delve into the qualitative nature of errors made. Male errors in guessing short-term desires of females tended to result from overestimating the degree to which females focused on sexual qualities in short-term mates. Female errors in guessing both short and long-term desires of males consistently showed this same tendency: overestimating the degree to which males focused on sexual qualities. Data revealed a strong, positive correlation between this overestimate sexual interest bias for males making shortterm judgments about females’ desires and males’ scores on an index of general intelligence, partially supporting a model of MI as corresponding to adaptively erroneous cross-sex mind-reading.

Mating Intelligence 3
Mating Intelligence Conceptualized as Adaptive Cross-Sex Mind-Reading Errors
Given the importance of mating psychology in the fundamental evolutionary goal of reproduction, it is reasonable to consider the role of mating as relevant across psychological domains (Miller, 2000). One major psychological area that has not seriously been considered in the light of mating psychology is intelligence. A recent content analysis of scientific journals dedicated to either intelligence or human mating revealed that nearly no intelligence researchers have addressed how intelligence relates to mating (in the journal Intelligence ) and, similarly, nearly no publications in journals dealing with intimate relationships (e.g., the Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships ) have addressed the interface between mating and intelligence
(see Geher, Miller, & Murphy, 2007). The mating intelligence construct we are developing (Geher & Miller, 2007) works to synthesize scholarship in these disparate areas. Generally, we conceive of mating intelligence as the set of cognitive abilities designed for mating-relevant purposes.
In the model of mating intelligence presented elsewhere (see Geher,
Camargo, & O’Rourke, 2007), we conceive of mating intelligence as being comprised of two important classes of cognitive abilities: (a) courtship-display mechanisms : those mechanisms that function as fitness indicators in the domain of courtship (such as musical abilities, which make one attractive to potential mates) and (b) mating mechanisms : those mechanisms that are directly relevant to the mating domain (such as the ability to know if a mate is cheating in a relationship). Courtship-display mechanisms (such as displays of artistic

Mating Intelligence 4 creativity) are relevant to mating as they are effective in attracting mates (e.g.,
Haselton & Miller, 2006), but these mechanisms are not conceptualized as pertaining to mating directly. Mating mechanisms, on the other hand, are psychological mechanisms that deal directly with mating-relevant content.
Following on the heels of Miller’s (2000) treatise on the higher order cognitive processes as having been shaped by sexual selection forces, a new wave of research has demonstrated the predictive validity of the courtshipdisplay component of this model of mating intelligence. Consistent with the idea of creative intelligence as having a courtship function, for instance, Haselton and
Miller (2006) found women are particularly attracted to relatively creative men at or near the peak of their ovulation cycle. In a separate line of research supporting the courtship-display domain of our model of mating intelligence, Bressler,
Martin, and Balshine (2006) found that heterosexual women value the ability of a potential mate to produce humor – lending support to the idea that the kind of creative intelligence needed for humor production serves a pivotal role in the domain of mating. In fact, a great deal of research is coming forward that supports this courtship-display function of human creative intelligence (Geher &
Miller, 2007).
The mating mechanisms that underlie mating intelligence, on the other hand, are conceptualized as cognitive abilities that do, in fact, bear directly on mating issues. As presented elsewhere (Geher, Miller, & Murphy, 2007), these mechanisms include such abilities as accurately detecting one’s own value in a local mating market, being able to determine if a mate is engaged in infidelity,

Mating Intelligence 5 being able to separate accurate from deceptive courtship signals, etc. Once we start thinking about psychological mechanisms related to mating in terms of individual differences – by using an abilities focus – many novel questions regarding human mating suddenly become apparent (see Buss, 2007). The research summarized here focuses on a particular set of mating-relevant cognitive abilities that we conceptualize as fitting in this mating mechanisms of mating intelligence. In particular, this work addresses the ability to know the desires of potential mates; a crucial element of our psychology.
Emotional Intelligence as a Model for Studying Mating Intelligence
While research on emotional intelligence has been fraught with controversy since its inception in 1990 (Salovey & Mayer), the ability-based model for studying emotional intelligence has strongly demonstrated the emotional intelligence construct to be valid and useful in predicting behavioral outcomes (see Brackett & Mayer, 2003).
This ability-based method may serve as the basis for assessing mating intelligence. Essentially, the ability-based indices of emotional intelligence (e.g., the Emotional Accuracy Research Scale; Mayer & Geher, 1996) present items to a large group of participants, asking them to make quantifiable judgments regarding emotional stimuli (for instance, participants may read an emotionally laden vignette and then report, on a Likert scale, how happy the author of the vignette was at the time of writing. Emotional intelligence scores are then computed for each participant by increasing his or her score as a function of how much his or her judgments tended to match the group norm. In using a weighting

Mating Intelligence 6 algorithm, participants’ scores increase more for choosing items that were endorsed by a relatively large sub-sample of the group. For instance, if 15% of the group thought the author of vignette was not angry , 20% of the group thought the author was somewhat angry , and 65% of the group thought the author was very angry , a participant’s score would increase by .65 if he or she chose very angry , but only by .20 and .15 if he or she chose somewhat angry or not angry , respectively.
While this weighted-consensus scoring method has demonstrated its merits in tapping abilities that straddle the interface of cognitions and emotions, it is not without its criticisms. An important criticism of this method pertains to the fact that high scorers are essentially stereotypical thinkers (see O’Sullivan &
Ekman, 2004). In other words, someone who scores high on emotional intelligence using this method may simply be someone who sees the (emotional) world as everyone else does.
While emotional intelligence researchers have developed strong empirical and theoretical arguments against this criticism (see Mayer et al., 2000), adapting this methodology to the issue of assessing cross-sex mind-reading abilities actually circumvents this issue.
In the current work, the weighted consensus scoring method was employed to examine heterosexual adults’ abilities to guess the desires of opposite-sex individuals. In short, participants read personal ads that were written by members of their own sex – and then they guessed which ad (within clusters of three) was most strongly endorsed by members of the opposite-sex.

Mating Intelligence 7
This methodology allowed for the use of the weighted consensus scoring method
– by increasing participants’ scores in light of how well their guesses matched the actual choices of opposite-sex individuals – but it has the benefit of clearly tapping an actual social-intellectual skill with a correct answer. Put another way, in an emotional intelligence test, a high scorer is someone who sees emotions as others do (regardless of the correctness of their judgments). With the mating intelligence test developed for the current research, high scorers were conceptualized as those who correctly guessed the norms representing the reported desires of real opposite-sex individuals. Thus, insofar as this methodology allows for both the psychometric benefits of weighted consensus scoring (see Mayer & Geher, 1996) and the capacity to operationalize answers as correct or not, this technique represents something of an improvement over ability-based emotional intelligence measures.
The mating intelligence measures incorporated in the current research, thus, were partly based on the measurement paradigm for the ability-based emotional intelligence measures. Importantly, of course, the measures used in this research were designed to tap mating-relevant (as opposed to emotionrelevant) cognitive skills.
Based on previous work on human mating behaviors conducted by evolutionary psychologists (e.g., Buss, 2003), separate measures of mating intelligence were designed to tap the ability to know the short-term versus the long-term desires of potential mates. Further, given that heterosexual desires were examined in this research, separate tests were made for males and

Mating Intelligence 8 females. As such, four indices of mating intelligence were created in this work
(males’ abilities to know the short-term desires of females, males’ abilities to know the longterm desires of females, females’ abilities to know the short-term desires of males, females’ abilities to know the long-term desires of males).
Accurate versus Adaptively Biased as “Intelligent”
In studying abilities tied to knowing the desires of opposite-sex individuals, there is a question regarding how to operationally define someone as scoring as high versus low. On first glance, it makes sense to consider a high scorer as one who is relatively accurate – one whose guesses regarding the desires of the opposite-sex tend to match their reported desires. The mating intelligence measures implemented in this research were designed with this criterion in mind.
However, a growing body of literature in evolutionary social psychology suggests that judgments fraught with bias may actually be relatively adaptive and, perhaps, intelligent compared with judgments that are accurate but evolutionarily high in risk. For instance, consider research that has documented sex-specific errors in cross-sex mind-reading (see Haselton & Nettle, 2006). In such research, males have been found to consistently overestimate sexual interest on the part of females while females have been found to underestimate males’ desire for commitment to long-term relationships (i.e., females demonstrate commitmentskepticism ; Haselton & Buss, 2000).
Findings documenting these systematic errors have been framed in terms of Error Management Theory (Haselton & Buss, 2000), an evolutionarily informed theory of cognitive biases which suggests that erroneous judgments that are

Mating Intelligence 9 more likely to ultimately lead to successful reproduction should be more typical of human psychology compared with accurate judgments. For instance, it may benefit males to overestimate female sexual desire in that this bias may en courage a sort of naïve optimism which may increase males’ ability to acquire short-term sexual partners. Similarly, it may benefit females to be skeptical of males’ levels of commitment; females who have an extremely conservative and skeptical screen when judging potential mates may benefit from being more likely to acquire partners who are, indeed, genuinely willing to commit.
These ideas regarding adaptive cross-sex mind-reading errors are important to consider in the development of an understanding of mating intelligence. Essentially, the error-management perspective suggests that adaptive (and, perhaps, intelligent) mating decisions may often actually be inaccurate ! In measuring mating intelligence, we may actually consider high scores as less accurate, but as adaptively biased and, thus, relatively intelligent.
At the very least, this adaptive-bias perspective suggests that criteria by which cross-sex mind-reading judgments are evaluated need to be examined in terms of both accuracy and a proclivity toward increasing genetic fitness.
To address this adaptive-bias perspective, two sets of mating intelligence scores were computed for participants. Half the scores represented the ability to accurately know the desires of the opposite sex, while the other half represented the proclivity toward adaptive bias. For males, this bias reflected a tendency to think that females were more interested in no-strings-attached sexual relationships than was actually the case. For females, this bias reflected

Mating Intelligence 10 commitment skepticism by tapping the tendency to think males were exclusively interested in sexual qualities in potential partners (i.e., the tendency to think that all men are pigs – the complement of commitment skepticism, in effect).
Goals of the Current Study
The goals of this study fall into two broad classes. First, the methodology allowed for an assessment of sex differences in cross-sex mind-reading abilities.
Thus, separate from questions regarding individual differences in these abilities, this research was able to address questions associated with phenomenological patterns across the sexes. A second set of goals focused on mating intelligence as an individual-differences construct (more of a traditional intelligence sort of construct).
Sex-Differentiated Patterns in Cross-Sex Mind-Reading.
In terms of sexdifferentiated patterns, the goals were as follows:
(a) To assess overall accuracy of judgments across both type of judgment
(long and short-term) and across the sexes and
(b) To discover evidence of sex-specific adaptive biases consistent with
Error Management Theory. Findings should reveal a tendency for males to overestimate females’ interest in sexual features of potential mates and, similarly the nature of sex-specific errors in judgments that may reveal evidence for overestimating sexual interest on the part of potential mates (suggesting a she wants me bias). Further, data were predicted to show the complement of commitment skepticism in females, by showing that females overestimate males’

Mating Intelligence 11 interest in sexualized qualities in potential mates (suggesting a men are all pigs bias).
Measuring Individual Differences in Mating Intelligence. Using a measurement scheme roughly based on the ability-based measures that exist to tap emotional intelligence (see Mayer et al., 2000), individual-difference measures were designed to tap mating intelligence for the participants in this study. The goals regarding these measures were as follows:
(a) To develop reliable and valid measures of the ability to guess the longterm desires of potential mates (for each sex)
(b) To develop reliable and valid measures of the ability to guess the short-term desires of potential mates (for each sex)
(c) To develop individual-differences indices of adaptive bias for each sex and
(d) to examine the convergent validity of the different mating intelligence indices by addressing their inter-correlations with an index of general intelligence. As has been documented in research on emotional intelligence, for a set of abilities to be reasonably framed as an intelligence, the facets should be somewhat positively correlated with general intelligence (see Mayer et al., 1999).
Method
Participants
481 young heterosexual adults (329 females and 152 males) participated in this research. For females, the mean age was 22.17 ( SD = 4.48). For males,

Mating Intelligence 12 the mean age was 24.58 ( SD = 7.65). Participants were predominantly college students at SUNY New Paltz who volunteered to participate after receiving an email invitation asking them to be part of this research. Some received partial credit for their psychology classes. The web-based nature of the data collection allowed for the subject pool to go beyond the confines of New Paltz students.
Additional participants were friends of New Paltz students who were invited by email to participate.
Measures
The measures used in this study included an index of general intelligence and two kinds of mating intelligence tests (for each sex). The Army Alpha
Intelligence Test (Modified Vocabulary Subscale; Yerkes, 1921) was used as an index of general intelligence. This 30-item test has been found to be extremely gloaded, correlating positively with measures of general intelligence, such as the
Weschler-Bellvue test, and has been modified to serve as a proxy for general intelligence (see Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 1999).
For each sex, a measure of long-term mating intelligence was implemented. For this measure, participants were first presented with 10 items that included clusters of three real personal ads written by members of the opposite sex (See Tables 1 and 3). Within each cluster, they were asked to choose which ad represented the person they would most want for a long-term mate. Next, participants made cross-sex mind-reading judgments; they were presented with the long-term items that were initially given to members of the opposite sex for judgment. Participants were asked to guess which ad within

Mating Intelligence 13 each cluster was most commonly chosen by members of the opposite sex as most desirable for a long-term mate. These personal ads were collected by a team of research assistants from online dating-service sites and were modified so that demographic information such as data regarding ethnicity and religion were deleted.
Each participant also completed a sex-appropriate short-term mating intelligence test. The algorithm described in the prior section regarding the measurement of long-term mating intelligence was used to assess short-term mating intelligence with the exception that these items revolved around participants being asked to make short-term ratings (See Tables 2 and 4).
Additionally, different personal ads were used in the short-term measures than in the long-term measures.
Procedure
A web-based survey was created for the purposes of data collection
(using Flashlight survey software). After participants read a document providing informed-consent information, they completed the vocabulary test and the different elements of the mating intelligence measures. For the intelligence test, participants were presented with 30 words. They were asked to choose the best synonym (of four options) for each item. For instance, participants were presented with the word plenary and were instructed to choose the best synonym
(of complete, candid, culpable, and cloying (the correct answer is complete )).
The mating intelligence indices (long and short-term) each included two phases. In the first phase of the long-term mating intelligence task, participants

Mating Intelligence 14 read 10 clusters of three randomly chosen ads written by members of the opposite-sex; their task was to indicate which ad most represented the person they would want for a marriage partner. In phase two, participants viewed the ads that were presented by members of the opposite-sex initially
– here, their goal was to guess which ad (within each cluster) was most highly endorsed by the members of the opposite-sex in the sample.
This same algorithm was applied to address short-term mating intelligence. Participants first were presented with 10 clusters of ads and they were then asked to report which ad they would most prefer as a short-term, sexual partner within each cluster. They were then presented with the ads that were initially presented to members of the opposite-sex with the charge of guessing which ads were most strongly endorsed by those opposite-sex participants as most desirable for a short-term, sexual encounter.
Coding for Sexual Content
To address the questions associated with the adaptive bias hypotheses suggested by Error Management Theory, the content of all ads were coded in terms of whether they had sexual content. Having such information would allow us to see if participants were biased toward thinking that members of the opposite sex were focused on sexual qualities in potential mates.
Two trained judges independently coded all 120 ads for presence of sexual content. Their total level of agreement was 99.96%. The few disagreements were worked out by a third judge. Of the 120 total ads (across the four sets of judgments), 22 were coded as having sexual content present.

Mating Intelligence 15
Results
The results are presented to parallel the goals of the study stated at the outset. First, results speaking to sex differences in cross-sex mind-reading are presented. Next, results bearing on questions regarding the mating intelligence indices as individual-differences measures are addressed.
Operationalizing Discord in Cross-Sex Mind-Reading
For each of the four kinds of judgments, there were 10 items. Thus, there were 40 items in total. To examine the degree to which participants’ guesses of the desires of the opposite-sex matched the reported desires of the opposite-sex, each item was subjected to a chi-square goodness-of-fit test. In each case, the analysis addressed whether the guesses of one sex were significantly discordant from the actual reported desires of the opposite sex. For instance, consider the example delineated in Table 1, which presents a male long-term mating intelligence item. It includes three ads written by men. Women were asked to choose which man they would prefer for a long-term relationship with. Then, in the cross-sex mind-reading task, men were asked to make their best guess as to whom women chose. Women’s actual choices served as the expected frequencies, while men’s guesses as to women’s choices represented the observed frequencies. Note that due to the issue of unequal Ns across the sexes, the expected frequencies were adjusted so as to be on the same scale as the observed frequencies.
For this particular male longterm item, option #2 (“I am a very passionate person and a suck er for romance …”) was the most popular choice

Mating Intelligence 16 among the 329 women in the sample, 146 reported liking this male the most for a long-term relationship. Correcting for unequal Ns across the sexes, that number coverts to 67.63. In other words, if the N for females in the study were equal to the N for males included in this analysis (125), 67.63 of the females would have chosen option #2. Of the 125 males in this analysis, 66 thought that women would choose option #2 (leading to an expected/observed discrepancy of 1.63).
In light of this analytical paradigm, a significant chi-square would mean that there was significant discord between the actual reported desires of one sex and the guesses of those desires by the other sex. For the specific example given here, the chi square was not significant (

2 (2) = .22, ns
). Thus, males’ guesses did not differ significantly from females’ reported desires in this case.
In all, 40 such analyses were conducted. Examples of each class of judgment are presented in Tables 1-4 (representing male long-term, male shortterm, female long-term, and female short-term items, respectively). Given the large number of analyses conducted here, a conservative alpha of .01 was used to determine statistical significance.
Male Long-Term Judgments. Each of ten items representing male longterm judgments were analyzed using the chi square goodness-of-fit test described in the prior section. To provide a general comment on the abilities of males in the sample to accurately guess the options within each item that females endorsed as most attractive for long-term mating, an average of the 10 chi square tests was calculated. Overall, male judgments of females’ long-term desires were not significantly discordant from females’ actual reported desires

Mating Intelligence 17
( mean

2 (2) = 6.09, ns ). See Table 1 for an example item and for information used in the analysis.
Male Short-Term Judgments.
The same analytical algorithm described for male long-term judgments was used for male short-term judgments. On average, males’ judgments were significantly discordant from females’ reported desires ( mean

2 (2) = 13.54, p < .01). See Table 2 for an example item.
Female Long-Term Judgments. To examine overall concordance in female judgments, the same procedures were implemented. For female longterm judgments, results suggested that female judgments of males’ long-term desires were significantly discordant from males’ stated desires ( mean

2 (2) =
35.81, p < .01) . See Table 3 for an example item.
Female Short-Term Judgments.
Finally, this same kind of chi square test was used to examine concordance rates for female’s guessing the short-term desires of males. Results revealed that these judgments were significantly discordant from males’ reported short-term desires ( mean

2 (2) = 62.67, p < .01).
See Table 4 for an example item.
Operationalizing Adaptive Bias
Recall that judges coded all ads for the presence of sexual content. This content analysis was conducted for the purposes of operationalizing sex-specific adaptive biases as possible causes of errors in cross-sex mind-reading. For the three kinds of judgments that demonstrated significant discord in cross-sex mindreading judgments (males making short-term judgments of females, females making long-term judgments of males, and females making short-term judgments

Mating Intelligence 18 of males), a system was developed to see if errors could be accounted for by the tendency to overestimate interest in sexual advertising on the part of the opposite-sex. If male errors in judging short-term desires of females result from the tendency to overestimate females’ interest in highly sexualized advertisements, such a pattern would reflect the tendency of males to overestimate sexual interest in females. Similarly, if female errors in cross-sex mind-reading result from the tendency to overestimate males’ interest in sexually laden advertisements, such a trend could be attributed to a tendency to conceptualize males as less interested in long-term, committed relationships and as more interested in no-strings-attached, short-term, sexual relationships than is actually the case. These predicted patterns, for both sexes, would map onto the error management biases documented by Haselton and Buss (2000).
Given that only 22 of the 120 ads were coded as having sexual content present, only a subset of the items from the different subscales were used for these analyses. Results were as follows:
Male Short-Term Judgments. In five items included in the male shortterm stimuli, at least one ad was judged by the independent judges as having sexual content present. In each such case (5 of 5; 100% of cases), males tended to overestimate the degree to which females would endorse the sexually oriented ad as a desirable short-term mate (see Table 2 for an example).
Female Long-Term Judgments. In five items included in the female longterm stimuli, at least one ad was judged by the independent judges as having sexual content present. In each such case (5 of 5; 100% of cases), females

Mating Intelligence 19 tended to overestimate the degree to which males would endorse the sexually oriented ad as a desirable long-term mate (see Table 3 for an example).
Female Short-Term Judgments. In four items included in the female short-term stimuli, at least one ad was judged by the independent judges as having sexual content present. In 3 of 4 such cases (75%), females tended to overestimate the degree to which males would endorse the sexually oriented ad as a desirable short-term mate (see Table 4 for an example).
Individual Differences in Mating Intelligence
In terms of individual differences among participants, mating intelligence was operationally defined in two general ways. Specifically, indices reflecting accuracy in cross-sex mind-reading and indices reflecting proclivity toward adaptive bias were computed. For each participant, four such scores were created. These scores reflect accuracy at knowing the long-term desires of the opposite-sex, accuracy at knowing the short-term desires of the opposite-sex, proclivity toward overestimating a focus on sexual qualities in making long-term judgments about the opposite sex, and a proclivity toward overestimating a focus on sexual qualities in making short-term judgments about the opposite sex.
The accuracy indices were computed in a way modeled after the weighted-consensus method for operationalizing emotional intelligence (e.g.,
Mayer et al., 1999). For each participant, a long-term mating intelligence score was computed by summing the weights (representing the proportion of oppositesex individuals who actually endorsed a particular item as most attractive) associated with that participants’ guesses regarding the long-term choices of the

Mating Intelligence 20 opposite-sex across all ten items. Participants who scored relatively high on this scale tended to guess that the opposite-sex participants endorsed items that actually were endorsed by many such opposite-sex participants. This same algorithm was used to compute indices of accuracy regarding short-term desires of the opposite-sex.
The initial 10-item scales designed to tap accuracy failed to demonstrate acceptable levels of internal reliability (with Cronbach alpha coefficients ranging from .02 - .31). Thus, items that did not serve to increase alpha from each of these four scales (male long-term, male short-term, female long-term, and female short-term) were deleted. To keep the structure of the accuracy-based scales consistent with one another, five items were deleted from each (leaving each of the four accuracy scales with five items). Even after this attempt to improve internal reliability, alpha coefficients were relatively low. Specifically, alphas for the female long-term, female short-term, male long-term, and male short-term accuracy indices were .21, .24, .40, and .36 respectively. Accordingly, statistics based on these variables need to be interpreted with some caution.
As a first step in addressing the relationship between accuracy and adaptive bias in cross-sex mind-reading and intelligence, zero-order correlations between each of these variables and the score on the intelligence measure were computed separately by sex. Additionally, for each sex a standard regression was computed to see if any of these mating intelligence variables was significantly predictive of general intelligence after controlling for scores on each of the other mating intelligence variables (See Tables 5 and 6).

Mating Intelligence 21
After controlling for all predictor variables, none of the mating intelligence variables was significantly predictive of general intelligence for females (See Table 5). For males, a different story unfolded. The regression results revealed that the set of mating intelligence predictor variables was significantly predictive of general intelligence ( R 2 = .09, F (4, 118) = 2.90, p < .05).
Further, of the four mating intelligence variables that were entered into the equation, only the tendency to overestimate females’ interest in relatively sexual advertisements was uniquely and significantly predictive of general intelligence scores ( r (127) = .30 ( p < .01),

= .29, sr 2 = .08). Thus, 8% of variability in general intelligence, among the males, was accounted for by how much these participants tended to overestimate sexual interest on the part of females when trying to judge their short-term desires.
Discussion
While the psychology of human mating has moved toward center stage in social psychology (see Buss, 2005), the search for human universals - which has guided this area - has led to the oversight of many important questions that need to be answered as psychologists work to create a complete portrait of human nature. The notion of mating intelligence, presented here and elsewhere (Geher
& Miller, 2007), serves as an evolutionarily informed construct that bridges traditional evolutionary psychology with psychological domains that have often been overlooked by evolutionists – such as the psychology of individual differences and the nature of human intelligence (see Miller, 2007). Thus, while the current work has a somewhat incipient quality, it has potential to serve as an

Mating Intelligence 22 important model for the expansion of Darwinian thinking across areas of psychology and for the uniting of heretofore distinct animals within the menagerie of psychology writ large.
Using the kind of mind-reading tasks that have proven useful in the study of emotional intelligence (e.g., Brackett & Salovey, 2004), the current work examined cross-sex mind reading abilities of a large sample of heterosexual adults in their attempts to guess the short and long-term desires of opposite-sex individuals. This general ability, to know the desires of potential mates, is posited to serve as a major mechanism of human mating intelligence (Geher, Camargo,
& O’Rourke, 2007). The research described here allowed for an assessment of sex-typical patterns in cross-sex mind-reading judgments as well as an assessment of the nature of individual differences in these abilities.
Differences in Cross-Sex Mating Judgments
The design of the current study allowed for a description of the degree to which four kinds of mating judgments of the desires of potential partners tended to be relatively concordant with criteria representing actual opposite-sex desires.
These judgments reflected males’ judgments of female long and short-term desires and females’ judgments of males’ long and short-term desires. As per the findings presented in Tables 1-4, male long-term judgments were the most concordant with the actual opposite-sex desires. This class of judgments was followed by male short-term judgments, female long-term judgments, and female short-term judgments (which were most discordant ), respectively. In analyzing general patterns associated with these four kinds of judgments, two interesting

Mating Intelligence 23 stories emerged. First, the overall rates of concordance in cross-sex mindreading differed markedly across the sexes (males seem to do better than females). Second, the nature of sex-specific errors in this task were found to closely map onto the kinds of adaptive errors described in Haselton and Buss’
(2000) Error Management Theory.
Regarding concordance rates across these different classes of judgments, males were generally much more accurate in reading the desires of women than vice versa. These findings are interesting as females traditionally score higher than males on myriad areas of social functioning such as emotional intelligence
(Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 1999), social intelligence (Connellan, Baron-Cohen,
Wheelwright, Batkia, & Ahluwalia, 2000), interpersonal intelligence (Rammstedt
& Rammsayer, 2000), non-verbal reading ability (Nowicki & Duke, 1994), and communication-decoding ability (Noller, 1986)
– among others.
Several factors may account for the sex difference in overall concordance rates in the current study. Two such factors – based on prior work regarding the sex-differentiation of mating psychology
– are presented here. First, given the notoriously discriminating nature of females’ choices in mate selection (in humans as well as most other sexually reproducing species
– see Trivers, 1985), there may be particularly strong pressure on males to essentially get it right . That is, it should be particularly useful for males (more so than for females) to be accurate in their judgments of the desires of the opposite sex. This reasoning certainly is consistent with the pattern of findings obtained here.

Mating Intelligence 24
Second, many evolutionists who study human mating have focused on sex-differentiated asymmetries in costs associated with making poor choices in mate selection. Due to internal fertilization and relatively high costs associated with parenting that necessarily tax females more than males, female mating psychology should be particularly designed to reduce errors in choosing poorly in the mating domain. In short it may pay females to overestimate the degree to which “men are all pigs.” Males, compared with females, are more likely to demonstrate short-term strategism in mating. For instance, males are more likely to report wanting many sexual partners and are more likely to enter short-term relationships with partners that they judge as less desirable for long-term mating compared with females (Schmitt, 2005; Penke, Todd, Lenton, & Fasolo, in press). Given these features of male mating psychology, females may be more able to rely on a simple heuristic such as
“only cares about sex”’ compared with males in making opposite-sex judgments.
This tendency to overestimate males’ focus on sexuality may be the flip side of the commitment-skepticism bias documented by Haselton and Buss
(2000). This bias is exactly the kind of psychological proclivity that would reduce the likelihood of costly mate-choice errors for females. If females tend to employ this bias very strongly and consistently, it makes sense that their judgments of males’ desires would be discordant from males’ actual desires. This bias would lead to an erroneous overestimation.
In f act, when considering females’ patterns of errors in the current study, one might say that they demonstrated a “males are always pigs” bias.

Mating Intelligence 25
Regardless of whether they were making judgments of males’ long or short-term preferences, they showed a strong tendency to overestimate the degree to which males desired the relatively sexual and promiscuous option (see Tables 3 and 4).
Such a bias is consistent with the idea that women may be employing a simple heuristic suggesting that males “just want sex” – regardless of the temporal context. In other words, females tend to think that men only care about sex for both short-term casual partners and for long-term partners . While this bias may have accounted for the fact that females scored as less accurate than males overall, it may well be an adaptive strategy in the long run – women using such a decision-making rule may be more likely to actually end up with honest, committed, and long-term-seeking males (an outcome that would be very beneficial for women given the asymmetry in parental investment that typifies our species).
The forces posited in this analysis would be consistent with both the facts that (a) males’ concordance rates were higher than females’ rates and (b) males’ rates in making long-term judgments we re the most concordant of all. If males’ guesses match females desires partly because there is strong pressure on men to know females’ desires, it makes sense that this pressure would be particularly pronounced for their ability to know the long-term (more than the short-term) desires of females – given that the highly discriminating nature of female choice has been most documented in regard to their long-term desires.
These findings dovetail nicely with two other current studies on matingrelevant cross-sex mind-reading which also find, using varied methodological

Mating Intelligence 26 approaches, that males are generally more accurate at knowing the desires of the opposite sex than are females (DeBacker, Braeckman, & Farinpour, 2007;
Bromley & Camargo, in preparation).
Importantly, while male judgments were generally accurate compared with females, males tended to consistently err in making judgments of female’s shortterm desires (See Table 2). Specifically, males tended to overestimate the degree to which females were attracted to ads that were sexually charged. For instance, for one item, females tended to not choose an ad for a short-term partner in which the author of the ad reported being a “man in a uniform looking for some fun” (See Table 2). However, males tended to strongly endorse this option as the one that they believed women would most likely endorse. This pattern or error may bear on a tendency for males to overestimate the degree to which females are interested in no-strings-attached sexual relationships
(Haselton & Buss, 2000).
Accurate Judgments versus Adaptive Errors and Intelligence
A primary goal of the mating intelligence construct is to integrate mating psychology with work on individual differences in general and intelligence in particular. Given the ineradicable nature of the g-factor (here, g stands for general intelligence ) in research on intelligence since Spearman’s (1904) original empirical discovery of general intelligence, new constructs that are posited to represent a form of intelligence should demonstrate themselves as being at least somewhat g-loaded (positively correlated with indices of general intelligence)
(see Mayer et al., 1999). Thus, the current work examined the correlations

Mating Intelligence 27 between an index of intelligence and four mating-judgment-based indices: (a) accuracy in knowing long-term mating judgments of the opposite sex, (b) accuracy in knowing short-term mating judgments of the opposite sex, (c) proclivity toward overestimating desire for sexual qualities in potential long-term mates in judg ments of the opposite sex’s desires, and (d) proclivity toward overestimating desire for sexual qualities in potential short-term mates in judgments of the opposite sex’s desires. Importantly, the first two of these four indices reflect accuracy while the latter two reflect bias.
While the results from this work are interesting, the findings on this issue are a bit mixed. For males, the only one of these four variables that predicted intelligence in a regression model was bias in making short-term judgments. In other words, males who tended to think that females cared about sexual qualities in potential short-term mates more than females actually reported were generally smarter than other males in the sample. Is this bias (which is consistent with past work suggesting that males over-infer sexual intent on the part of females) intelligent? This finding is at least suggestive of this fact. Two possibilities may be at work here. First, this finding may result from the fact that intelligent males attract more sexual partners than less intelligent males (Haselton & Miller, 2006).
This fact may predispose intelligent males to think that females are focused on sexual qualities – for these males, this may be more of a reality than it is for less intelligent (and, potentially, less attractive males). Alternatively, given the potentially adaptive nature of overestimating sexual interest in partners (a feature of male psychology that may help them be persistent and successful in their

Mating Intelligence 28 courtship efforts), this bias may actually be an intelligent (if not accurate) mating strategy. Future research could elaborate on this finding to examine the relationship between intelligence, accuracy, and adaptive bias further.
None of the indices of accuracy or bias were significantly related to intelligence in the female sample. This finding, and the possibility that these kinds of judgments are unrelated to intelligence more generally, are suggestive of the notion that intelligence and mating-relevant decisions are empirically distinct, a point made by Kanazawa (2007) in commenting on mating intelligence. Future research needs to address whether cognitive abilities that bear on mating (i.e., mating psychology) are, in fact, g-loaded.
Limitations
As this research reflects an effort to join previously disparate areas of psychology (mating and intelligence), there are necessarily limitations and questions that remain unanswered. The use of personal ads in a format modeled after ability-based measures of emotional intelligence seemed a reasonable first step in tapping mating-relevant cross-sex mind-reading abilities as a kind of intelligence. However, as is the case of these kinds of measures in general, they are limited. Being able to guess which personal ad is most desirable to potential mates clearly has face validity – but it may be lacking in ecological validity. When we think of people we know who really are expert at reading potential mates, the tasks they succeed in are richer and more complex than the personal-ad task included here. First, they need to be able to capture the attention of potential mates for long enough so as to actually collect data , so to speak. Thus, the ability

Mating Intelligence 29 to attract mates and the ability to read mates are conflated in the real world.
Further, data that real mating wizards collect in their efforts to read potential mates cut across classes of stimuli – such data include a constellation of verbal, non-verbal, and pheromonal bits of information. The personal ads included here clearly are not as rich as the kind of data sets used in the real world.
As work on the development of ability-based measures of emotional intelligence evolved, tasks that increased in their ecological validity were added to the tests (Mayer et al., 2000). This trajectory would likely be useful for mating intelligence research as well.
Regarding the questions pertaining to individual differences included here, several additional limitations exist. First, the indices of mating intelligence here demonstrated relatively poor internal reliability. Future research on questions of individual differences in the ability to know the desires of potential mates would benefit from using more reliable measures. In the initial research on the abilitybased measures of emotional intelligence, reliabilities were similarly quite low
(Mayer & Geher, 1996). It turned out that an effort to make stimuli with items that were more clearly correct or incorrect (as per later measures of emotional intelligence (see Mayer et al, 1999)) had better internal reliability than the initial scales. In the current research, items were created by juxtaposing three randomly chosen personal ads. Perhaps internal reliability would increase if ads were, rather, selected in a manner designed to pit ads expected based on some a priori criteria to be high, medium, and low in their frequencies. Clearly, future work on the psychometrics of this construct needs to be conducted.

Mating Intelligence 30
Conclusion
While human mating and intelligence represent two major bodies of scholarship in the behavioral sciences, nearly no prior research has examined their interface. As a final example of this point, consider a recent examination of the SciSearch database which found more records that connect mating with cockroach and Norway than with intelligence (Geher, Miller, & Murphy, 2007).
The current research provides a first step in an effort to seriously understand the psychology of human mating vis a vis the nature of human intelligence. Clearly, future work examining the interface of human mating and intelligence needs to be conducted. Work in the domain of mating intelligence needs to consider the issues of accurate versus adaptively erroneous judgments in understanding the nature of this construct. Further, this work opens the door for an empirical understanding of individual differences in cognitive abilities tied to mating. Such work should shed light on our understanding of the evolution of intelligence and on the nature of intimate relationships.

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Mating Intelligence 31
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Mating Intelligence 35
Table 1: Male Long-Term Judgment Example
For each of the 10 clusters of personal ads, a Chi Square test for goodness-of-fit was computed to see if males’ guesses regarding what females wanted in longterm mates were significantly discordant from females’ actual reported desires.
Example
Item
A
I like weekend getaways, the beach, and the mountains. I'm not into the bar scene; I would much rather be cuddled up inside by the fire or at the beach relaxing with someone special.
I love to be outside doing anything: hiking, volleyball or just strolling around.
B
I am a very passionate person and a sucker for romance. I love the little things, when it comes to someone that I care for. I'm someone that friends can always depend on, and I enjoy being with family more that anything else.
Open-minded and easygoing, I love to put a smile on people’s faces.
C
I'm a sincere, energetic, and athletic individual who treats people the way I wish to be treated. I don't play games and my word is my bond. I have a dry sense of humor and love the outdoors, playing golf, skiing, hiking, going to the beach, and riding my bike.
34 66 25 Actual Male frequencies
(guessing female choices)
Expected frequencies
(Based on actual female choices)
Chi Square
( df = 2)
34.38
.22
67.63 23

Mating Intelligence 36
Table 2: Male Short-Term Mating Judgment Example
For each of the 10 clusters of personal ads, a Chi Square test for goodness-of-fit was computed to see if males’ guesses regarding what females wanted in shortterm mates were significantly discordant from females’ actual reported desires.
A C
Item
I’m pretty busy working all week, but that doesn’t stop me from having fun, usually out and about a couple nights during the week and always doing something fun and exciting on the weekend.
B (judged as sexual)
I’ve been described as a very energetic individual. I like to think of myself as someone with a lot of positive energy. I’m new to the area, looking to meet new people. I’m a man in a uniform looking for some fun.
I’m spontaneous and I like to try new things. I enjoy diversity, cultures, art, science, nature, good food and intelligent conversation. I’m happy in the city or the country. I like to draw strange portraits. I believe there is an order to the chaos and vice versa.
Actual Male frequencies
(guessing female choices)
Expected frequencies
(Based on actual female choices)
Chi Square
( df = 2)
*p < .01
32
28.40
31.97*
61
35.84
31
59.77

Mating Intelligence 37
Table 3: Female Long-Term Mating Judgment Example
For each of the 10 clusters of personal ads, a Chi Square test for goodness-of-fit was computed to see if females’ guesses regarding what males wanted in longterm mates were significantly discordant from males’ actual reported desires.
5
Item
A (judged as sexual)
I'm a woman who can and wants to make my man the happiest one on this planet! I'm the one who will dance erotic dances (only for you), I'm the one
B
With an explorer's soul, I am a connoisseur of travel, literature, music and art. I
C
I think people have told me that I am bubbly. I love the quiet life. A relaxing evening to me would be who will cook sweet cake, and
I'm the one who will kiss you tender when we sleep. am active, curious, interesting, vibrant and intelligent. I am quick to smile and I enjoy a good laugh. I am warm and versatile, sitting on the porch listening to the crickets and frogs, and then going to watch a movie. I love children, animals, and books.
209 attractive, intuitive, a good listener, with a creative spark.
57 31 Actual female frequencies
(guessing male choices)
Expected frequencies
(Based on actual male choices)
Chi Square
( df = 2)
114.94
125.35*
117.02 64.75
*p < .01

Mating Intelligence 38
Table 4: Female Short-Term Mating Judgments
For each of the 10 clusters of personal ads, a Chi Square test for goodness-of-fit was computed to see if females’ guesses regarding what males wanted in shortterm mates were significantly discordant from males’ actual reported desires.
10 A C
Item Who said chivalry was dead? Open doors for me, and
I will be your mate. I will rub your back when you throw up and listen to you complain about your boss. I will make your favorite sandwich when you wake up hungry in the night.
B (judged as high in sexual content)
I am searching for a fling of epic proportions, someone to caress my face as we kiss and who will write me love notes and leave them under my door
—but will not get upset with me if I decide to kiss another man. Human beings are not meant to be paired for life, like lobsters.
I am the kind of girl who loves to sing.
I know all the words to Grease and I think that love can be a musical. I love to break out into song on a daily basis. I am looking for someone that can make my heart sing.
102 156 34 Actual female frequencies
(guessing male choices)
Expected frequencies
(Based on actual male choices)
Chi Square
( df = 2)
*p < .01
157.97
133.83*
71.25 62.78

Mating Intelligence 39
Table 5
Correlations between IQ and Indices of Accuracy and Adaptive Error in Mating
Judgments: Females
Accuracy in LongAccuracy in ShortProclivity to
Term Mating Term Mating Overestimate
Proclivity to
Overestimate
Judgments Judgments Sexual Qualities in Sexual Qualities in
Long-Term Mating Short-Term
Judgments Mating Judgments
.08 (N = 294) .11 (N = 291) -.11
1 (N = 300) .03
(N = 300)
1 not significantly predictive of IQ after controlling for other predictor variables in standard regression

Mating Intelligence 40
Table 6
Correlations between IQ and Indices of Accuracy and Adaptive Error in Mating
Judgments: Males
Accuracy in LongAccuracy in ShortProclivity to
Term Mating
Judgments
Term Mating
Judgments
Proclivity to
Overestimate Overestimate
Sexual Qualities in Sexual Qualities in
Long-Term Mating Short-Term
Judgments Mating Judgments
.02 (N = 124) .08 (N = 123) .05 (N = 127) .30* (N = 127)
*significantly predictive of IQ after controlling for other predictor variables in standard regression ( p < .01)

Mating Intelligence 41
Acknowledgements
Much of the work here was assisted by undergraduate and graduate students at SUNY
New Paltz who worked on the SUNY New Paltz Mating Intelligence Research Project at varying stages. These students include Eli Boyle, Mike Camargo, Michelle Coombs,
Elisabeth DeWispelaere, Jason Diffenderfer, Kelly Fairweather, Warren Greig, Krystle
Hearns, John Johnson, Jill Lavallee, Justin Lee, Heather Mangione, Nilerisha Mollette,
Jeremy Murphy, Regina Musicaro, Erin Stenglein, and Erica White. I additionally thank several others whose ideas have helped shape my thinking on the work presented here
– including David Buss, Kathleen Geher, Scott Barry Kaufman, Jack Mayer, Geoffrey
Miller, Kaja Perina, and David Sloan Wilson.