Men’s Mate Value Correlates with a Less Restricted Sociosexual Orientation: A Meta-Analysis

Steven Arnocky*, Jessica Desrochers, Amanda Rotella, Graham Albert, Carolyn Hodges-Simeon, Ashley Locke, Jacob Belanger, Danielle Lynch, Benjamin Kelly

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Men, relative to women, can benefit their total reproductive success by engaging in short-term pluralistic mating. Yet not all men enact such a mating strategy. It has previously been hypothesized that high mate value men should be most likely to adopt a short-term mating strategy, with this prediction being firmly grounded in some important mid-level evolutionary psychological theories. Yet evidence to support such a link has been mixed. This paper presents a comprehensive meta-analysis of 33 published and unpublished studies (N = 5928) in which we find that that self-reported mate value accounts for roughly 6% of variance in men’s sociosexual orientation. The meta-analysis provides evidence that men’s self-perceived mate value positively predicts their tendency to engage in short-term mating, but that the total effect size is small.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3663-3673
Number of pages11
JournalArchives of Sexual Behavior
Volume50
Issue number8
Early online date29 Jul 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Mate value
  • Mating strategies
  • Meta-analysis
  • Sexual behavior
  • Sociosexual orientation
  • Strategic pluralism theory

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