Mate Value and Mating Economy

Men (mostly) sell.  Women (mostly) buy.  The difference between buyer and seller in the sexual marketplace is critical for understanding the differences between men and women — their motivation, behavior and experience of sexual scarcity or abundance.  In the human mating economy, the buyer (female chooser) significantly controls the marketplace.

The human mating economy is mostly driven by the intersection of men’s short-term mating strategy and woman’s long-term mating strategy (See Human Mating Strategies).  A man’s short-term mating strategy fuels desire for contact with women for any possible chance of a romantic or sexual encounter.   A women’s long-term strategy creates caution and selectivity in accepting male advances.  The reasons for this evolutionary adaptation are central tenets of mate selection science. (See What is Mate Selection Science?)

Supply and Demand in the Mating Economy

The “collision” of these two opposing mating strategies increases male intra-sexual (male-male) competition for women and increases women’s inter-sexual selection power.   Or, more simply said, roughly 80% of men compete for 20% or less of the same (highest mate value) women in the overall mating economy.  Interested men are in great supply in this market (as driven by biological-hormonal imperatives), and receptive women are scarce.   Supply and demand forces skew odds in favor of female choice and dramatically work against the odds of a man being chosen.  This difference is called “reproductive variance.”  Author and influential social psychologist, Roy Baumeister, cites DNA evidence from Jason Wilder and colleagues* that shows the human population is descended from twice as many women as men.  “In percentage terms, then, humanity’s ancestors were about 67% female and 33% male (Is There Anything Good About Men, Baumeister, p. 63).

Sexual Pursuit — Brain and Hormones

For all of human history, in nearly all places and within all cultures, men will (and must) pursue and initiate sexual contact with women.  The area in the brain related to sexual pursuit is called the medial preoptic area (MPOA), found in the hypothalamus.   According to the author and neuro-psychiatrist, Louann Brizendine, the MPOA is 2.5 times larger in the male.  Men also have 7-8 times more testosterone than the average woman.  This activates mating and sexual “circuits” of protection, hierarchy, and turf — all influences on male behavior in the mating economy.

Mate Value

Mate value (and assessed mate value trajectory of men) rules the marketplace.  Men with resources, status, and larger physical attributes (especially height) have greater mate value than men who do not.  Women’s mate value is primarily determined by the physical characteristics of beauty, wait-to-hip ratio, and other signals of fertility.  Mate value drives the initial mate selection process.  Mate value includes elements of character and other preferred traits as courtship continues into the period of relationship maintenance.   But human sexuality is primarily designed to choose and access sexual partners, not keep them over time.

“In or Out of Your League”

It is no accident that we commonly rate ourselves and others on a “1-10” point scale.  While there is a tendency for both sexes to over-rate vs. under-rate themselves, we generally know if our desired partner is “in or out of our league.”   If we are a “7”, we strive to bargain successfully for a “7-9.”   Men, especially, who know they are seen as a “5” or below, lust hopelessly after unattainable women who are a “9” or “10.”  This understandable tendency is biological, not rationally inspired.  There is painful despondency for both sexes related to the invisibility of low mate value.   Narratives in comedy, television, literature, and film often use mate value mismatches as fodder for entertainment.

Sex Ratio on Campus

Although the repeated and active pursuit of men for women dominates the heterosexual mating economy, it is also true that women “sell” their beauty and other assets in order to win the attention of men they want.  The particular mating market or “mating pool” can affect how the economy works.  For instance, the sex ratio on many college campuses now favors men; an excess of women has caused an increase in female intra-sexual competition and behaviors (direct and indirect) of female initiation.  It is also true that online dating has increased the importance of physical characteristics, especially facial symmetry, for the mate choice of both sexes.

Assortative Mating — Like Attracts Like

“Assortative mating” is a dominant force in the mating market.  This is the tendency to pursue and be attracted to someone who is similar in age, socio-economic status, educational attainment, geographic location, physical characteristics, and facial attractiveness.  Assortative mating demonstrates the power of “mate value” attributions about self and others.  These value assessments fuel strategic mating behavior toward the people we desire or at least determine who we actually end up with.

Trade-offs and Priorities in the Mating Economy

One’s mate value is always limited, so one cannot attract a committed partner who is at the maximum of every desired trait.

In long-term mating, both sexes are choosey (women more so), and this mutual mate choice means everyone faces trade-offs.  A woman’s long-term mating strategy often involves significant tension between her desire for a mate with resources and status, and her preference for loyalty, kindness, intelligence, and character traits for parenting.  (See Human Mating Strategies and Psychological Double Binds Imposed on Men for more on this “trade-off problem”).

Necessities and Luxuries in a Mate

Let’s step back a bit and look at the macro issue of mate selection trade-offs and priorities.

The selection of “high quality” of one trait often requires trading off against another trait.  For long term mates, men prefer a partner who “rates” higher on attractiveness and vitality.  Women prefer status, resources, warmth, and trustworthiness over attractiveness.

To uncover priorities in mate preferences, it is helpful to apply a microeconomic framework where there is an emphasis on costs and benefits as well as a distinction between necessities and luxuries.  Necessities are goods or activities that receive initial priority but bring diminishing returns as more units are obtained.

For instance, though men desire more attractiveness in a female partner, additional attractiveness may be challenging to obtain (given mutual mate choice and one’s own limited mate value) and provide fewer additional benefits in terms of higher fertility.

Studies show that as greater attractiveness is obtained, its marginal value decreases and other traits are weighted relatively more as choices expand.*  As Norman Li (Singapore Management University, School of Social Sciences) explains, “trying to obtain an extremely attractive woman with little else to offer is less reproductively profitable than finding one who is moderately attractive and also has other positive traits such a kindness.  Nevertheless, looking first for kindness in a female partner makes less sense because a kind but infertile mate is less reproductively viable than a fertile but selfish mate” (Li, N.P. et al. 2002). *(A related phenomenon in happiness research and positive psychology is called “hedonic adaptation.”)

Women Prioritize Male Status

Women have evolved to prioritize male status before being concerned about other mate characteristics.   Men with moderate status can likely generate a sufficient and steady flow of resources; they are reproductively a much better bet than a destitute loser.  And, due to decreasing marginal values, a very high-status male may offer only a slight improvement over a mid-status male in terms of offspring survival.  Thus, it makes sense for women to first verify that a man has sufficient status/resources and then (and only then) seek positive levels of other characteristics.

Li’s research, using two types of studies (budget-allocation and mate-screening), found that men prioritized at least moderate physical attractiveness, and women prioritized at least moderate social status.  Once these priorities were met, other traits were highly valued and sought if given the opportunity to do so.

Mate Value Budget

Using a budget–allocation, and mating screening method, Li found that under constraints of low budget, men spent the highest proportion of their budget on physical attractiveness, and women spent the highest percentage of their budget on status and resource-related characteristics.  As budgets increased, spending on these traits decreased but increased on other traits, such as creativity and intelligence.  But, when choices were highly constrained, men prioritized some minimal level of physical attractiveness and women prioritized some minimum level of status.  Both sexes also prioritized kindness.

Kindness and It’s Meaning

Kindness may be indicative of one’s willingness to share and to look out for the interest of others.   A man’s actual resource flow to a woman and her offspring can be viewed as the product of his ability to procure the resources (status) and his willingness to share its benefit (kindness).  Kindness and generosity are synonymous with this view.  Similarly, a women’s practical reproductive value may depend not only on her underlying fertility but also on her willingness to share her reproductive resources (i.e. have sex).

As Li points out, “kindness may be equally valued by both sexes but mean quite different things to each sex.  Females may consider a man’s kindness to be his willingness to share attention and investment without demanding too much sex, whereas males may consider a female’s kindness to be her willingness to have sex without demanding too much attention or investment” (Li, 2008, p. 111).  While Li’s perspective on men in this instance is less than charming, even as it implies a deeper evolutionary truth, there is no denying a gender difference in the meaning and priority of kindness as a valued trait.

Mate Value and Reciprocal Interest

A person’s own mate value profoundly influences which potential mates are likely to reciprocate sexual interest.   Physically attractive women require higher levels of resources in a long-term mate and higher levels of physical attractiveness in a short-term mate before being concerned about other traits.  The best predictor of a husband’s social status is the wife’s physical attractiveness (Udry & Eckland, 1984).

There may be minimum levels of certain key traits necessary for mating to be reproductively worthwhile.  Accordingly, mate search and mate choice may work best when people consciously screen out all potential mates who do not meet certain minimum thresholds on key traits (female youthfulness/attractiveness and male social status) or who exceed one’s mating “budget” (whose mate value greatly exceed one’s own).  Yet, mate value is also relative to environmental variables such as the local sex ratio and the general “quality” of competitors in the local mating pool.

“Men and women looking for mates, much like consumers shopping for goods or foragers looking for food, implicitly follow economic principles of marginal value, prioritizing key traits in their search for mates before looking at other traits” (Li, 2008).

References

Li, N.P., (2008).  Intelligent Priorities: Adaptive Long- and Short-Term Mate Preferences.  In Mating Intelligence, (Eds.) Geher & Miller.

Li, N.P. et al, (2002). The necessities and luxuries of mate preferences: Testing the tradeoffs.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 947-955.

Udry, J.R. & Eckland, B.K. (1984).  The benefits of being attractive: Differential payoffs for men and women. Psychological Reports, 54, 47-56.

*Wilder, J.A. et al, (2004). Genetic evidence for unequal effective population sizes of human females and males. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 21, 2047-2057.