Parent-Offspring Conflict over Mating: The Case of Beauty
By Menelaos Apostolou. 2008
103 citations recorded by the source corpus.
In pre-industrial societies parents exercise a strong influence over the mating decisions of their offspring. As modern pre-industrial societies approximate the way of life in ancestral human societies, human mating behavior should be seen as the outcome of a co-evolutionary process between parental and offspring's mating choice. Both parents and offspring have evolved mating preferences, which enable them to select those mates and in-laws who maximize their inclusive fitness. Following Trivers' (1974) theory of parent-offspring conflict, it is hypothesized that in-law and mating preferences substantially overlap, but also differ with respect to the beauty trait of a mating candidate. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of 292 parents. It is found that the two sets of preferences are strongly correlated, while beauty is preferred significantly more in a mating partner than in an in-law.
Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sociology and Political Science
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d7da2198778c47ef347e0e35f20917895a1d7e16
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In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
In Sociology and Political Science
Citations in the corpus
- Stacys, Beckys, and Chads: the construction of femininity and hegemonic masculinity within incel rhetoric (2020, background): “In a pre-industrial context, where parents would have substantial say, physical attractiveness would be less important to a good match than it is today (M. Apostolou, 2008, 2014; Perilloux et al., 2011).”
- Sexual selection under parental choice in agropastoral societies (2010, background): “Research has revealed disagreement over genetic quality, family background, religiousness and personality (Apostolou, 2007a, 2008b, 2008c; Buunk, Park, & Dubbs, 2008).”