Context-specific mate choice criteria: Women's trade-offs in the contexts of long-term and extra-pair mateships

Women's mate choice criteria were examined experimentally in the contexts o f long-term and extra-pair mateship scenarios. In long-term mateships, wome n may benefit by pairing with males who provide material resources and assi stance in child rearing. In contrast, in extra-pair mateships, women may be nefit in other ways, with such benefits outweighing the potential costs imp osed by a primary mate who discovers the relationship. One benefit, or evol utionary function, of extra-pair mateships may be to replace a primary mate . in which case mate preferences should look similar across long-term and e xtra-pair contexts. However, another function of extra-pair mateships may b e to obtain high quality gametes (i.e,, "good genes"), in which case women should be differentially attracted to cues of heritable phenotypic quality. such as physical attractiveness. By using detailed verbal and pictorial de scriptions of men and requiring participants to trade off physical attracti veness for good character (Le., being a good cooperator and parent), it was possible to determine whether women's criteria for partners varied across experimental contexts. Findings suggest that extra-pair mateships may have served the evolutionary function of obtaining "good genes," because attract iveness was more important in extra-pair mateships to the detriment of good character. This effect was maintained even when characteristics of the fem ale participants (age, parity, marital experience) were covaried. In additi on, the preference for physical attractiveness was specific to the sexual c ontext, it did not generalize, in a second experiment, to choices among sho rt-term mate coworkers.