Plenty of fish in the sea - do people get pickier when they have lots of options?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-07-21 09:01

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Are prospective dates pickier when they know there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea?’ An international study has found that men and women tend to have more demanding preferences for partners where there are lots of options. The team surveyed people from 45 countries, having them rank their ideal preferences for partners on kindness, intelligence, health, physical attractiveness, and financial prospects. They found that men and women had higher preferences for attractiveness or financial prospects when the opposite sex was more abundant, and lower preferences when there were fewer options.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Picky daters - Sex Differences in Human Mate Preferences Vary Across Sex Ratios

Using a 45-country sample, we provide evidence that men and women express more demanding mate preferences in countries where they are the scarcer sex. Prior research found that men, more than women, prefer attractive romantic partners, and women, more than men, prefer romantic partners with resources. Yet, the size of these sex differences varies across cultures. We asked whether this could be explained by sex ratio. We find that men and women tend to report higher preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex is abundant, compared to where the opposite sex is scarce. These results suggest that preferences are flexible in response to mating market demand.

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Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California, USA

Funder: This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1845586. The work of T.T.K.H. was supported by grant no. 501.01-2016.02 from the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED). A.O. was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant no. 626/STYP/12/2017). A.S. and P.S. were supported by National Science Center—Poland (grant no. 2014/13/B/HS6/02644). Marina Butovskaya and D.D. were supported by State assignment project No. 01201370995 of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia. P.G., A.L. and N.M. were supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund—(OTKA; grant no. K125437). F.J. was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant no. 71971225). G.A. was supported by UKRI/GCRF Gender, Justice, Security Grant (grant no. AH/S004025/1).

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