Strategies of Human Mating

By David M. Buss. 2006

292 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Modern humans have inherited the mating strategies that led to the success of their ancestors. These strategies include long-term mating, short-term mating, extra-pair mating, mate poaching, and mate guarding. This article presents empirical evidence supporting evolution-based hypotheses about the complexities of these mating strategies. Since men and women historically confronted different adaptive problems in the mating domain, the sexes differ profoundly in evolved strategic solutions. These differences include possessing different mate preferences, different desires for short-term mating, and differences in the triggers that evoke sexual jealousy. The study of human mating is one of the “success stories” of evolutionary psychology. Strategies of Human Mating No adaptive domain is more central to reproduction than mating. Those in our evolutionary past who failed to mate failed to become ancestors. Modern humans are all descendants of a long and unbroken line of ancestors who succeeded in the complex tasks involved required to mate successfully. As their descendants, modern humans have inherited the adaptations that led to the success of their ancestors. Successful mating requires solutions of a number of difficult adaptive problems. These including selecting a fertile mate, out-competing same-sex rivals in attracting a mate, fending off mate poachers (those who try to lure one’s mate away), preventing the mate from leaving, and engaging in all of the necessarily sexual and social behaviors required for successful conception to take place. As a consequence of the number and complexity of mating problems humans have recurrently faced over the long expanse of human evolutionary history, it is

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Citations in the corpus

Attachment and daily sexual goals: A study of dating couples (2008, background): “…engage in sex for physical gratification, whereas women report being more interested in the emotional and nurturing aspects of sex (see review by Impett & Peplau, 2006) consistent with both evolutionary (e.g., Buss, 2005) and social role (e.g., Eagly & Wood, 1999) perspectives on human sexuality.”
Perceived mate availability influences intrasexual competition, jealousy and mate-guarding behavior (2014, background): “In these circumstances, jealousy might then function as a signal of the need for compensatory mate retention behaviors (e.g., MANER et al. 2005) perhaps including direct and/or indirect aggression (ARNOCKY et al. 2012; BUSS 1988, 1994; DALY WILSON and WEGHORST 1982; SYMONS 1979).”
Monetary sacrifice among strangers is mediated by endogenous oxytocin release after physical contact (2008, background): “Costly punishment and other sacrificial behaviors can be signals of mate quality that may be maladaptive in anonymous settings (Buss, 2006; Hausken & Hirshleifer, 2004).”
Attachment dimensions and sexual motives (2004, background): “A recent study of mate-poaching (i.e., stealing someone else’s mate; Schmitt & Buss, 2001) showed attachment anxiety to be related to believing that one’s partner could easily be poached by someone else (Schachner & Shaver, 2002, Study 1).”
Adaptive Memory: Evolutionary Constraints on Remembering (2010, background): “Similarly, recognizing that males and females differ in their relative amounts of parental investment generates predictions about sex-based mating strategies and parental behavior that, in turn, can be confirmed or disconfirmed empirically (Buss, 2006).”