Personal Summary A Psychological Scientific framework to view TRP. The Mating Intelligence Model brings various components which make up the mating process of human beings, along with the strategies and traits one sees in the world. These include creative and scientific traits which have proliferated in society, which can be seen as fitness indicators. The chapter provides many key terms which can be used to bring a cleaner focus on elements within TRP community.

Mating intelligence is different in that it focuses on the richer, more abstract, and more intellectual nature of human psychology in the domain of mating. Clearly, there are low-level, physiological, and emotional aspects of human mating that seem like important products of our evolutionary heritage. Mating intelligence suggests that there are also high-level, cognitive aspects of human psychology that also primarily reflect mating-relevant adaptations resulting from our evolutionary heritage.

Take Away As with any science, one needs a framework in which to work and collect data. TRP is trying to approximate reality, and I believe Mating Intelligence can be a model which helps us employ a greater approximation of reality within its framework.

The following key terms and high yield quotes are taken from the summary of Mating Intelligence by Glenn Geher and Scott Barry Kaufman. Here is the link to the PDF which can be found in Chapter 30 of The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. ISBN 978 0 521 51806 2.

I would like to see the community read through the chapter, and bring out any quotes which can be added to the greater TRP knowledge base. However, I would like to see a discussion on how Mating Intelligence would be appropriated by TRP, and how to further develop this framework.

Key Terms

  • Mating Intelligence(MI) - Cognitive abilities that bear on mating-relevant outcomes – the mind’s reproductive system

  • Cognitive Mating Mechanisms(CMM) - High level cognitive abilities that bear directly on mating-relevant issues

  • Fitness Indicator(FI) - Sexually selected traits (as opposed to traits operating under the forces of natural selection) display high variance because there is competition for individuals to mate with those who exhibit traits that are metabolically expensive, hard to maintain, not easily counterfeited, and highly sensitive to genetic mutations. Such traits that display these properties are the most reliable indicators of genetic fitness.

  • K-selected Mating - Defined as “expecting” a long life within a stable environment (e.g., elephants)

  • High-k - Individuals who are raised in relatively resource-rich and stable backgrounds, more likely to delay gratification and take long-term approaches to solving problems (mating and otherwise)

  • Low-k - Individuals raised in harsh and relatively resource-poor and unstable backgrounds and/or high in mortality, being more likely to seek instant gratification and to take short-term approaches to solving problems

  • R-selected Mating - Defined as “expecting” an unpredictable life, within an unstable environment (e.g., rabbits)

  • Reproductive Success(RS) - Ultimately bearing on the number of viable descendants that reach future generations(criticism being that due to birth control, one has to use other approximations besides number of offspring. e.g., sex, number of sexual partners)

  • Costly Signals - Evolve as hard-to-fake, honest advertisements of heritable qualities(e.g., peacock plummage, education, musical talent, muscle mass, material wealth)

  • G-Loaded Traits - Behaviors that show a strong influence of general intelligence (height, health, longevity, bodily symmetry, and even sperm quality)

  • Mutation Phobia - Fear of heritable mutations. People are repulsed by features of potential mates that have a strong latent correlation with high mutation load.

Highlighted Quote from Text

A second study explored mating intelligence in the context of hookups, generally defined as short-term sexual relationships with no explicit long-term relationship attached (Garcia & Reiber, 2008). In addition to measuring mating intelligence, this study asked participants if they had ever engaged in Type-I hookups (with strangers), Type-II hookups (with acquaintances), and Type-III hookups (with individuals they defined as friends). Again, the MI scale demonstrated sensitivity to important sex-differentiated features of relationships. For males, higher mating intelligence corresponded to having engaged in each kind of hookup, whereas for females, high mating intelligence corresponded to having engaged in hookups with acquaintances (Type-II), but not either of the other kinds. These findings make sense from an evolutionary perspective, as it may be particularly costly for a female to engage in sex with a stranger, about whom she has little information. Such relationships, started with minimal baseline information, could put a female at high risk for such adverse outcomes as violence, desertion, or disease. On the other hand, prior research has demonstrated that it is not adaptive for females to have sexual relations with close opposite-sex friends; and, in fact, females typically do not report having opposite-sex friends for sexual reasons (Bleske-Recheck & Buss, 2001). Relations with individuals defined as acquaintances may well strike a balance.

Post Script I would like the community to help with correction of terminology and precision, and if you find any other key terms or quotes which we can add to the glossary in this post.