Couple Simulation: A Novel Approach for Evaluating Models of Human Mate Choice. (August 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Conroy-Beam, Daniel
• Is Part Of: Personality and social psychology review. Volume 25:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 191
• Page End: 228
• Publication Date: 2021-08
• Subjects: mate choice -- human mating -- relationships -- agent-based modeling; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 155.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1088868320971258
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1088-8683

Abstract

Choosing a mate is perhaps the most important decision a sexually reproducing organism makes in its lifetime. And yet, psychologists lack a precise description of human mate choice, despite sustained attention from several theoretical perspectives. Here, I argue this limited progress owes to the complexity of mate choice and describe a new modeling approach, called "couple simulation, " designed to compare models of mate choice by challenging them to reproduce real couples within simulated mating markets. I present proof-of-concept simulations that demonstrate couple simulation can identify a population's true model of mate choice. Furthermore, I apply couple simulation to two samples of real couples and find that the method (a) successfully reconstructs real-world couples, (b) discriminates between models of mate choice, and (c) predicts a wide range of dimensions of relationship quality. Collectively, these results provide evidence that couple simulation offers a framework useful for evaluating theories of human mate choice.