Overview of Mate
Selection Theories
Evolutionary Psychology
• Natural selection
• origins of human characteristics can be traced
back to our ancestors
• mate-selection preferences that were most likely
to ensure that children born would survive into
adulthood would be passed on to the next
generation
• women seek to marry up (financial resources of
man very important for women)
• want to find mates that will be successful
providers for the family
• Men are attracted to the physical aspects of a
woman
• women are attracted to good providers, men
attracted to women who appear to be fertile
Main Theorists
David Buss
• potential partners enables people to select
the person with whom they can raise the
most successful children
Social Homogamy
(Sociology)
• individuals are attracted to people from a similar
social background
• and who is similar in age, race, ethnic
background, religion, appearance etc
Theorists
David Buss - correlations were found for
physical characteristics - people find other
people with similar appearance as
themselves attractive
Theoretical Perspective
• Functionalism
Ideal-Mate Theory
(Psychology and Sociology)
• attraction is based on a person’s unconscious
image of the ideal mate formed by pleasant and
negative experiences
• the relationship is based on romantic love and
‘love at first sight’ and leads to companionate
marriage
Theorist
• Nadeau - the ideal mate image sets the
standards that influence a person’s judgment of
potential mates without the person being aware
of them
Theoretical Perspective
• Symbolic Interactionist
Social Exchange
(Psychology and Sociology)
• individuals must compete with others to
win the hand of the man or woman they
love
• attraction is based more on reality than
fantasy
• almost everyone finds a mate in his or her
society because individuals are attracted to
different people
Theorists
• Small - people will assess the resources that he
or she has to offer and look for the best possible
mate who will be attracted by these resources
Developmental Perspective
(Psychology)
• Individuals must understand who they are and
what their roles are before being able to relate to
someone else
• individuals cannot foster intimate relationships
until they have made the transition to adulthood
• the challenge of intimate relationships is gaining
intimacy without losing self
Theorists
• Erikson - women usually define themselves
through connections with others while men
retain more independence and delay forming
committed relationships
• Levinson - men prefer to retain more
interdependence in relationships and also might
delay commitment until their life structures are
established
Conflict/ Feminist Theory
• explains why in most cultures and societies men
are older than women upon marriage
• the age difference between men and women is
needed so men can maintain a dominant status
in a patriarchal marriage
Theorists
• Fisher - 1992
• Burggraf - 1997
Theoretical Perspective
• social exchange perspective - this ensures that
men have greater resources, and that women will
need men’s resources to improve their lifestyles
Arranged Marriages
• person is influenced very consciously by
parents, friends, culture, religion etc
• Social Exchange theory - the relative social
values of the boy and girl are negotiated by
the family
• in past years, the dowry was negotiated by
the family
Free-Choice Marriages
• person influenced very unconsciously by
parents, friends, culture, religion etc