Evolutionary approach- relationships PSYA3

Physical attraction:

Cunningham found that men find women with features associated with youth attractive. For example women with small nose, big eyes etc... Men also find women with some features associated with maturity as attractive, such as women with prominent cheekbones and wide smiles.

Waynforth found that women prefer men with masculine features such as square jaw, symmetrical face and ridged eyebrows.

Singh found that across cultures, men prefer women with an hour glass figure. Gross found that women prefer men with wide shoulders and narrow hips.

Partner selection:

It seems that in all cultures, there are a number of partner selection. Bus did a cross cultural study which looked at partner preferences for males and females. 4601 men and 5446 women were used. It was found that men valued physical attraction and youth more than women did. Women valued financial stability more than men.

Differences in the reproductive behaviour

Clark and hatfield did a study which looked at the differences in male and female reproductive behaviour.Male and female students were used and the study took place at the uni campus. The participants approached strangers of the opposite sex and asked them to either go out with them that night, go back to their houses with them or to just have sex with them. It was found that 50% of both males and females agreed to go out that night. None of the females agreed to have sex. 75% men agreed to have sex, although only 69% of males agreed to go back to their houses with them. This shows that there are differences between males and females in their readiness to engage in sexual encounters.

Buss found that men become more distressed than women at the thought of their partner sleeping with someone else, whereas women become more distressed at the thought of their partner being in love with someone else.

Natural selection:

The pressures of the natural environment weed out those who cannot cope with…