Women’s Short-Term Mating Psychology

Although most heterosexual women want as good a mate as possible, they cannot all marry the best available man (especially in legally imposed monogamous cultures). Women may, however, gain brief sexual access to especially high-quality men by engaging in casual sex with them. In doing so, women may reap the adaptive benefit of acquiring “good genes” from these high-quality men. That is, she may obtain genes that underlie the men’s ability to achieve high status, good health, and enhanced reproductive success, with such genes being especially fruitful for the women’s own sons. Indeed, Sexual Strategies Theory (Buss & Schmitt, 1993) hypothesized that because gaining access to good genes is a key benefit women obtain from short-term mating, women will possess evolved desires for cues to good genes in potential short- term mates such as symmetry, masculinity, and overall physical attractiveness.

Self-Reported Mate Preference Surveys

One piece of evidence in support of the Sexual Strategies Theory perspective on women’s short- term mating psychology comes from surveys that ask women how important physical cues to good genes are when they are choosing a short-term mate compared to a long-term mate. When asked, women tend to particularly prefer physical attractiveness in short-term mates compared to long-term mates (Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Buunk et al., 2002; Gangestad & Simpson, 1990, 2000; Kenrick et al., 1990, 1993; Regan & Berscheid, 1997, 1998a, 1998b; Regan et al., 2000, 2001; Scheib, 2001). Regan et al. (2001) found that women rated physical attractiveness 7.80 on importance in short-term mate choice, but only 6.32 in long-term mating (on a 9-point scale). Castro and Lopes (2011) found that women pre- fer a “pretty face” 3.42 in short-term mates, but only 2.17 in long-term mates (on a 5-point scale), and women prefer a “beautiful body” 3.08 in short-term mates, but only 1.83 in long-term mates. When asked about the minimum level of physi- cal attractiveness needed for engaging in casual sex with a man, the average women wanted the man to be at least in the 69th percentile, whereas they required a man of the 62nd percentile for a man as long-term mate (Kenrick et al., 1993). Regan (1998a) found similar results, with women wantingmentobeatleast71stpercentileofattrac- tiveness as a short-term mate, whereas they required a man of 60th percentile of attractiveness as long-term mate. Regan (1998b) also found that women,butnotmen,are unwilling tocompromise on attractiveness in their ideal short-term mate. When asked to make economic decisions (such as spending “dollars” from a limited budget), women behaviorally spend 51 % of their budget on physical attractiveness in designing an ideal short-term mate (but only 21 % of their budget in long-term mating; Li, 2007). In another cross-cultural study, American women spent 46 % of their budget on physical attractiveness in short-term mating, but only 23 % of their budget on physical attractiveness in long-term mating (Li, Valentine, & Patel, 2011), and the differences were more intense at 43 % versus 15 % in Singapore. When asked to rate physical attractiveness among a list of traits, women’s mean rating of physical attractiveness placed it as the eighth most important trait in short-term mating, but only 15th in long-term mating (Stewart, Stinnett, & Rosenfeld, 2000). Women emphasize specific physical attributes much more in short-term mating than long-term mating, such as facial symmetry, facial mascu- linity, large muscles, and other testosterone- related cues (Johnston, 2006; Mueller & Mazur, 1998; Roney et al., 2006; Waynforth, Delwadia, & Camm, 2005). Women also report physical attractiveness-related motives for short-term mating 24 % of the time (in men it is only 10 %; Regan & Dreyer, 1999)

Actual Mate Choice and Reactions to Experimental Manipulations

Women tend to more often choose and more strongly react to physical attractiveness in their actual behavior within short-term mating contexts (Wiederman & Dubois, 1998). For instance, women tend to have affairs with espe- cially symmetrical men (Gangestad et al., 2005) and women have more frequent and consistent copulatory orgasms with physically attractive men (Puts, Welling, Burriss, & Dawood, 2012; Shackelford et al., 2000; Thornhill, Gangestad, & Comer, 1995). Women are judged more likely to consent to short-termmating with amale stranger if he is high in physical attractiveness (7 %), compared to only moderate physical attractive- ness (3 %) or low physical attractiveness (2 %; Schu¨tzwohl et al., 2009). When approached by actual strangers in real-life situations, women tend to say “yes” to a real stranger’s query “will you go to bed with me?” if the man is high in physical attractiveness (3 %) versus only average in physical attractiveness (0 %; Gue ´guen, 2011). In a Danish study, whether women said yes to an actual stranger’s asking forsex was influenced by the physical attractiveness of experimental confederates(Danishmenwerenotsoinfluenced; Hald & Høgh-Olesen, 2010). Men’s physical attractiveness matters to women in their real-life casual sex experiences involving short-term mating.

Comparing Women’s Short-Term Preferences Across Ovulatory Cycles

If women are to maximally gain the “good genes” benefits of selective short-term mating, they would be most effective at choosing attrac- tive men for casual sex when the women are nearing ovulation (the time interval during which the odds of conceptive sex are maximized). Several studies have found, perhaps not coincidentally, that women’s preference for physical attractiveness in potential mates peaks around ovulation (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008). Interestingly, this is especially true if women are of low mate value (Millar, 2013) and if a woman’s husband is physically unattractive (hence, her adaptive need for “good genes” is intensified; Gangestad et al., 2010; Larson, Pillsworth, & Haselton, 2012; Pillsworth & Haselton, 2006).

Women around ovulation also prefer men whose faces and bodies are highly symmetrical (Gangestad & Thornhill, 1998; Johnston, Hagel, Franklin, Fink, & Grammer, 2001), a finding linked directly to shifts in women’s hormones (Garver-Apgar, Gangestad, & Thornhill, 2008). Women’s preferences for men who have facial or bodily masculinity (Anderson et al., 2010; DeBruine, Jones, Frederick, et al., 2010; Little, Jones, & Burriss, 2007), vocal masculinity (Feinberg et al., 2006; Puts, 2005), and social dominance (Gangestad, Simpson, Cousins, Garver-Apgar, & Christensen, 2004) all peak around ovulation (see DeBruine, Jones, Tybur,Lieberman, & Griskevicius, 2010), and again these shifts appear likely tied to hormonal variations (Puts, 2006). Many of these shifts are most pronounced within the context of women explicitly evaluating men as short-term mates (Lukaszewski & Roney, 2009). Women’s prefer- ence for tall men peaks around ovulation (Pawlowski & Jasienska, 2005), as does their preference for creatively intelligent men (Haselton & Miller, 2006). In one study, women preferred not only physically attractive men but just the sight or thought of a man with a highly attractive body aroused women and they were more willing to have sex with a physically attractive man (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Garver- Apgar, 2010).

Women’s manifest behaviors also shift around ovulation, at which time they tend to be more provocative (Haselton et al., 2007) and attractive (Oberzaucher et al., 2012), especially if sociosexually unrestricted and chronically interesting in short-term mating (Durante, Li, & Haselton, 2008). Women feel more attractive and are perceived as more attractive when approaching ovulation (Durante et al., 2008). Women want to go to dance clubs more when approaching ovulation (Haselton & Miller, 2006), speak at a higher frequency when approaching ovulation (Fischer et al., 2011), and have a warmer personality when approaching ovulation (Markey & Markey, 2011). Women nearing ovulation tend to over- perceive sexy men (i.e., cads) as being super dads (Durante, Griskevicius, Simpson, Cantu´, & Li, 2012), are more likely to interact extensively with masculine men (Flowe, Swords, & Rockey, 2012), and are more likely to say “yes” to a dance request at bar (59 %) compared to when women are in nonfertile stages of their ovulatory cycle (36 %; d ¼ 0.73, Gue´guen, 2009). Ovulating women’s pupils tend to dilate when viewing their favorite celebrity, whereas they do not if not ovulating, viewing another person’s favorite celebrity, or if women are on the pill (Laeng & Falkenberg, 2007).

Women approaching ovulation are better at identifying men’s (but not women’s) sexual orientation (Rule, Rosen, Slepian, & Ambady, 2011), exhibit higher out-group bias and preju- dice (McDonald et al., 2011), and are able to categorize men’sgender more quickly and access aspects of masculine semantics better (Macrae et al., 2002). Finally, women approaching ovula- tion are touched more in bars (Grammer, Renninger, & Fischer, 2004), dress more provocatively when going out (Haselton et al., 2007), receive better tips as exotic dancers ($335 versus $260; d ¼ 0.75, Miller et al., 2007), are more attractive to men generally (Roberts et al., 2004), and feel more desirable and want more sex (Ro¨der, Brewer, & Fink, 2009). The psychological shifts that seem to occur in women’s affect, cognition, and behavior suggest that their short-term mating psychology— designed to obtain good genes from symmetrical, masculine, and healthy men—is heightened when nearing ovulation.

Source: Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford, Todd K. Shackelford (eds.)-Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Sexual Psychology and Behavior