Prioritization of Potential Mates' History of Sexual Fidelity During a Conjoint Ranking Task. (July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mogilski, Justin K.; Wade, T. Joel; Welling, Lisa L. M.
• Is Part Of: Personality & social psychology bulletin. Volume 40:Number 7(2014:Jul.)
• Page Start: 884
• Page End: 897
• Publication Date: 2014-07
• Subjects: romantic relationships -- judgment and decision making -- relationship cognition -- evolution; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167214529798
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0146-1672

Abstract

This series of studies is the first to use conjoint analysis to examine how individuals make trade-offs during mate selection when provided information about a partner's history of sexual infidelity. Across three studies, participants ranked profiles of potential mates, with each profile varying across five attributes: financial stability, physical attractiveness, sexual fidelity, emotional investment, and similarity. They also rated each attribute separately for importance in an ideal mate. Overall, we found that for a long-term mate, participants prioritized a potential partner's history of sexual fidelity over other attributes when profiles were ranked conjointly. For a short-term mate, sexual fidelity, physical attractiveness, and financial stability were equally important, and each was more important than emotional investment and similarity. These patterns contrast with participants' self-reported importance ratings of each individual attribute. Our results are interpreted within the context of previous literature examining how making trade-offs affect mate selection.