I found an interesting study on reported vs. actual mate prefences. TRP claims that women don't know what they want. This may or may not be true, but they are right about one thing. Women's reported preferences do not directly correlate with their actual mating behavior. The common idea, prevelant both in TRP and in mainstream opinion, is that women place more emphasis on wealth and men on physical attractiveness. This idea is supported by multiple surveys which simply asked men and women to state their sex prefences. It is not yet known however, how much of these preferences correspond to actual dating behavior. The study starts with the following hypothesis. (Truncated for brevity)

Sex differences in stated preferences:

Men will state that they prefer physical attractiveness in a romantic partner more than women do, and women will state that they prefer earning prospects in a romantic partner more than men do. These established sex differences will be evident in reports of both an ideal partner and an ideal speed-date

Sex and Individual differences in initiation:

Given H1, men (compared with women) will demonstrate greater interest in and pursuit of potential partners they find attractive, and women (compared with men) will demonstrate greater interest in and pursuit of potential partners they judge to have good earning prospects.

A participant who states a preference for physical attractiveness (or earning prospects) in a romantic partner will also demonstrate greater interest in and pursuit of potential partners he/she judges to be physically attractive (or to have good earn- ing prospects). In other words, stated preferences will correlate with in vivo preferences (those revealed within the actual dating context)

In other words, men will have a greater preference for physical attractiveness, both reported and actual. Women will have a greater preference for earning potential, both reported and actual.

The study recruited 163 college students. Participants were asked to fill out several surveys in order to determine their reported mate preferences and desire for a short term vs. long term relationship. Only physical attractiveness, earning potential, and "being personable" were measured since the purpose of this study was to finid sex differences in mate preference. Physical atractiveness and earning potential were the two charcteristics previously shown to have the largest sex difference in preference. "Personable" was a control. They also were asked to participate in a speed dating event, and the researches followed up afterwards in order to determine who the participants actually chose to date. The results were as follows.

Sex differences in reported mate prefences:

On the pre-event questionnaire, men (more than women) reported that the characteristic physically attractive was important in an ideal romantic partner and would matter in their decision to say yes to a speed-date. In addition, the same sex difference emerged 1 month later when participants again reported these ideal partner and speed-date stated preferences.

In addition, women (more than men) estimated on the pre-event questionnaire that the characteristic earning prospects was important in an ideal romantic partner and would matter in their decision to say yes to a speed-date. One month later, this sex difference was marginally significant for participants’ reports of an ideal partner but did not reach significance for the speed-date stated preferences. The sex differences for earning prospects were small to medium in size.

As expected, men and women did not differ in the importance they ascribed to personable characteristics, either in an ideal romantic partner or on a speed-date.

Sex differences in relationship initiation:

Sporadic sex differences emerged for physically attractive (see bolded Bs in Table 2); for example, men were more likely than women to initiate correspondence/ hanging out with matches they found physically attractive (.35 vs. .10), whereas women were more likely than men to enjoy corre- sponding/hanging out with matches they found physically attrac- tive (.22 vs. .11).

However, when calculating the overall association between physical attractiveness and relationship initiation, there were no significant sex differences.

Again, sporadic sex differences emerged for earning prospects (see bolded Bs in Table 2); surprisingly, at the event itself, men seemed especially interested (compared with women) in the speed-dating partners they felt had good earning prospects. A count of these sex differences across the 25 pairs of male/female regression Bs reveals five cases in which the B was significantly more positive for men and one case in which the B was significantly more positive for women.

As displayed at the bottom of Table 2, personable predicted relationship initiation moderately well: Correlations were .29 (men) and .32 (women) for reports of speed-dating partners/matches and .25 (men) and .27 (women) for reports of write-ins. As expected, there were no significant sex differences in these overall associations.

When calculating the overall association between physical attractiveness, earning prospects and relationship initiation, the sex differences were insignificant. There was a small association, but it was in the directed opposite from what was expected.

The researchers also took information from 2000 census data.

As shown in the fifth row of Table 3, women demonstrated neither greater nor lesser romantic initiation toward men who were from wealthy hometowns, and men appeared to dislike women from wealthy hometowns, although this correlation was small (r .08). As with the subjective earning-prospects judgments, the sex difference was nonsignificant (r .06, p .134).

Individual differences in initiation:

In summary, although participants’ stated preferences were consistent across four different assessments, and although participants’ in vivo pref- erences were consistent within a live dating context (i.e., the B correlations), participants’ stated preferences were unrelated to their in vivo preferences.

The paper also looked to see if there were sex differences in the correlations between stated preferences and actual preferences.

Furthermore, only 1 of these 13 sex-differentiated correlations was between a B and a stated preference (the correlations of interest), and this correlation remained nonsignificant for both men and women. Therefore, we find little evidence to suggest that the sexes differ in how well their stated preferences correlate with their in vivo preferences.

The author goes on to discuss possible reasons for this lack of correlation. One of the theories that gained moterate support was that attachment anxiety mitigates sex differences. If a woman or man is concerned about whether or not the other person will be romantically interested in them, they may not act on their stated preferences.
TLDR:

In summary, the study found sex differences in the stated preferences of physical attractiveness and earning potential as expected, but suprisingly there were no sex differences in these preferences shown in actual dating behavior. There were also no sex differences in the correlation between preference and actual dating behavior. On the surface, it would seem that neither women, nor men know what they want. Further research is needed to determine why this occurs, but one hypothesis is that people also consider the likelihood of the other person being romantically interested in them. If they are anxious about rejection, they will be less likely to act on their prefered preferences.

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