match.edu

This morning in morning meeting, Tim Koscik and Amy Belfi presented work on an investigation into mate selection. The prevailing theory behind the investigation is one of evolutionary background. Based on males and females sexual limitations/resources, to increase or maximize their reproductive sucess, they should look for, emphasize or maximize certain characteristics. To maximize the number of offspring, males and females adopt different strategies. For males, they should maximize the number of women that they sleep with and those women should be young and healthy, as it assumed that they are more fertile and able to have children. For women, as the investment in having a child is much greater, it is necessary to be able to take care of and raise the child(ren) after they are born. In this case, women should focus on the resources that the male partner has, so that they are able to raise the child.

Today, this evolutionarily based theory is investigated in psychology and other disciplines. Males have been found to emphasize attractiveness, high WTH (waist to hip ratio) and low BMI while women have focused on resources (money, education, profession. While these findings vary between studies and also the goal of the relationships that the participants were questioned on, they are fairly general findings.

The goal of the research as I understand it is to investigate whether normal and brain damaged people follow this evolutionarily based urge for mate selection. The researchers are controlling the "attractiveness" and "resources" of the stimuli and asking participants to choose between to maniquines with dating profiles in three different relationship types.

In the study, the paradigm is set up similar to a dating website. The participants fill out questionaires which develop a "dating profile" for them. There are measurements taken of the participants shoulder, chest, waist, hip and ring to index finger ratio. The participants are then asked to choose between two profiles which vary in four variables. They are asked to choose between them based for a 1. sexual relationship 2. long-term relationship 3. having kids.

After choosing between the many different matches of profiles, they are asked to fill-out quetionaires about their dating history and preferences and a hormone survey.

The hypothesis is that the brain damaged patients (VMPC and amygdala) will not follow this evolutionary basis while the Superior temporal sulcus patients (body perception problems) will judge the body attractiveness differently than the other subjects.

It is an interesting study, however, I think that there are a lot of things that are not being controlled for that are going to influence the study. People take mate selection very seriously, even in a laboratory setting. I think that people will make inferences from the infomation that is presented to them and make their decisions based on information which is not presented directly in the experiment. I also wonder how much a person's preference will change between the relationship types. It will be interesting to see.