Ideal partner preferences among adolescents

By Pamela C. Regan, Anupama Joshi. 2003

89 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Most researchers interested in mate preference have focused on the desires of adult men and women. Few empirical investigations have been conducted on the preferences of adolescent boys and girls, despite the fact that this developmental period represents a time of awakening romantic and sexual interest. The authors asked 46 teenage boys and girls (average age = 15.09 years) to indicate their preferences for various characteristics in an ideal long-term romantic or short-term sexual partner (randomly assigned). Both sexes emphasized attributes related to physical appeal (e.g., attractive physical appearance, sexy appearance) and sexual drive (e.g., sexual passion, high sex drive, sexual responsiveness) when evaluating a casual sexual partner. Conversely, participants focused more upon intellect and other mentally appealing attributes (e.g., intelligence, humor) when considering a romantic partner. No sex differences were found, suggesting that teenage boys and girls share a similar conception of the "perfect" partner.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5ad424246b88002c8e002d53d6ac9a83b17f938

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In Clinical Psychology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Adolescent romantic relationships and experiences (2009, unknown): “Adolescent Romantic Relationships 25 appealing (Hansen, 1977; Regan & Joshi, 2003; Roscoe, Diane, & Brooks, 1987).”
When Does Race Matter? Race, Sex, and Dating at an Elite University (2010, background): “The implicit assumption is that individuals hold the same criteria for hookup partners as for dating or committed romantic partners, but other research has shown that individuals have different preferences for short- and longterm romantic/sexual partners (Regan & Joshi, 2003).”
Sex similarities and differences in preferences for short-term mates: what, whether, and why. (2006, background): “Adolescents (Regan & Joshi, 2003) as well as homosexual men and women (Regan, Medina, & Joshi, 2001) valued attractiveness more in short- than in long-term partners.”