Reproductive
success is a big part of evolution as without it genes would not be passed on.
Darwin (1874) came up with the theory of Sexual Selection to explain how one
sex attracts the other which contained two processes; Intrasexual Selection
(mate competition) where one sex competes with each other to gain access to the
other sex and Intersexual Selection (mate choice) where one sex looks for
members of the other sex that possess certain wanted qualities.
The female menstrual cycle is
said to be a factor of Sexual Selection. It is suggested that women nearest to
the most fertile part of their cycle are the most attractive to men. Miller et
al (2007) did a study to support this in the US by looking at the amount of
tips lap dancers received at various stages of their menstrual cycle. He found
that the girls in the most fertile part of their cycle earned almost twice the
amount of tips as the others. This would support the menstrual cycle as a
factor of Sexual Selection as it showed that the most fertile females were the
most attractive to the males.
Humans have a variety of
different mating strategies, some of which have evolve for short term mating
success. These tend to be more apparent in men as they aim to pass on as many
genes as possible through short term mating and casual whereas females can only
have one child at a time and so are more likely to look for long term
mating.
A study to support that evolved
short term mating strategies are more apparent in men was carried out by Clarke
and Hatfield (1989) when both male and female experimenters approached total
strangers and asked them a number of questions. It was found that of the
females approached 50% agreed to go on a date with the stranger, 6% agreed to
go back to his apartment and 0% agreed to have sex with him whereas of the men
approach 50% agreed to go on a date, 69% to go back to the apartment and 75% to
have sex with her. This supports that men are more interested in passing on
their genes quickly through short term mating as they were far more interested
in mating with the girl straight away and not interested on going on a date
whereas the girls were totally not interested in mating straight away but were
interested in dating suggesting that they had more long term mating strategies
in mind.
Research consistently shows that
men more than women have a desire for short term mating, however this is a very
gender bias view. Although short term mating carries some considerable
potential costs to a woman there are also possible benefits of it, such as more
genetically diverse offspring and a way of getting out of a poor quality
relationship, which also need to be taken into account when looking into short
term mating.
In long term mating both sexes
invest very highly in any offspring. As a poor quality long term mate could be
disastrous for both sexes there is very high level of sexual selection in both
when choosing a long term partner.
This was shown by Buss (1989) in
a supporting study where he looked at what both males and females want from a
partner in over 10,000 people in 37 different cultures. The main results showed
that women desired men with resources whereas most men put more importance on
physical appearance and age (wanting younger women) suggesting that they are
looking for fertility. Both sexes were shown to want both intelligence and
dependableness which are both linked to long term mating. This shows that
sexual selection is very important to both sexes but it also differs a lot
between the two and also shows that choosing a good long term partner through
sexual selection is an important part of the human reproductive behaviour.
Buss’s study is very valid both generally and culturally as it was carried out on a very large sample across many cultures meaning it was more likely to be a representative sample allowing his results to be generalized to others.
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