How women choose mates: the effects of age and attractiveness of males as rated by women

An evolutionary perspective of mate selection suggests that men and women should select mates differently. Mate selection is based on choosing partners that will help an individual have reproductive success. This means that women should tend to place importance on traits that signify status and resourcefulness, traits which indicate the man is a good provider; whereas men should place more value on youthful features and health which may signify fertility. In this study young and elderly women aged 18-54 and 59-86 rated four photo's that ranged in age and attractiveness: (a) an attractive young man, (b) an unattractive young man, (c) an elderly attractive man and (d) and elderly unattractive man. Subjects rated the photo on 38 personality traits and 6 traits described as resourceful by Buss (1989) on a 7 point Likert scale. Results were analyzed for an effect of an attractiveness bias and resourcefulness. The results indicate that the attractive male photographs were deemed as more socially desirable than the unattractive male photographs as higher in resourcefulness than the elderly male photographs. Also the attractive male photographs were rated as higher in resourcefulness than the unattractive male photographs.