Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
2-2020
Abstract
People seek warm and trustworthy individuals as long-term mates for numerous reasons. Indeed, such individuals are prone to cooperation, have strong parenting skills, have the ability to fulfill our need to belong, and may provide a relationship that is characterized by greater closeness, protection, acceptance, and safety. Although prior work has shown that both sexes indicate equally strong preferences for these traits in potential mates, few studies have examined whether people actually respond favorably to partners high in warmth-trustworthiness in live mating contexts. We, thus, demonstrated that people’s stated preferences for warmth-trustworthiness (a) predicted their attraction to potential mates in a live mate-selection context (Study 1) and (b) interacted with their partners’ actual traits to predict satisfaction with their marriages (Study 2). Together, these studies demonstrate the importance of partner traits associated with warmth and trustworthiness and add to recent research suggesting that people can accurately report their romantic-partner preferences.
Keywords
warmth-trustworthiness, mate preferences, speed-dating, marital satisfaction, longitudinal design
Discipline
Applied Behavior Analysis | Personality and Social Contexts
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Volume
46
Issue
2
First Page
298
Last Page
311
ISSN
0146-1672
Identifier
10.1177/0146167219855048
Publisher
SAGE Publications (UK and US)
Citation
VALENTINE, Katherine A., LI, Norman P., MELTZER, Andrea L., & TSAI, Ming-Hong.(2020). Mate preferences for warmth-trustworthiness predict romantic attraction in the early stages of mate selection and satisfaction in ongoing relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 46(2), 298-311.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2890
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219855048