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Factors that influence mate selection
Factors that influence mate selection
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Selecting a romantic partner can be one of the best feelings in the world. There can be many ways that lead up to that partner even if it is true love and how well you know them. Also you will know how someone is the “right one” once you have known them for a while. Finding the right romantic partner is often a difficult journey, for several reasons. Perhaps you grew up in a household where there was no role model, healthy relationship and you doubt that such a thing even exists. Or maybe your dating history consists only of short, abrupt relationships where you or your partner gets bored too soon, and you don 't know how to make a relationship last. But there is always someone out there for you. One important aspect of choosing a romantic …show more content…
First step would be checking your list. Establishing a checklist of desired qualities for a partner is a common practice, but it has two major flaws: It typically does not involve an evaluative hierarchy which would give each negative or positive quality a different weight; and it does not give significant weight to the connection between the two. The second would be detecting major flaws and the method of detecting major flaws is more sophisticated and realistic. It assumes the presence of flaws in each of us, and it focuses on major flaws. There is also the assumption here that one can learn to live with minor flaws, major flaws pose a substantial danger to a profound long-term loving relationship. Then finally the third would be bringing out the best in you and that means in determining the loving connection between the two, profound positive qualities are of great significance, especially for the long term. A positive quality that is particularly valuable for maintaining and enhancing the connection is if the prospective partners are likely to bring out the best in each …show more content…
Psychological science has long been trying to answer this question, and with considerable success. Two main theories have guided scientific thinking on picking a partner. First is evolutionary theory, which claims that behavioral tendencies, physical characteristics, and personality features that promote our chances to survive and reproduce become, by that virtue, desirable to us. Secondly, the 'social role theory,’ developed by the American psychologist Alice Eagly, argues that social rather than biological processes dictate our social choices. As Blaise Pascal said “The winner is decided by a subjective internal process that is obscure and whimsical and does not necessarily obey the dictates of rationality, evolutionary mandates, cultural pressures, or even our own conscious will, plans or intentions. At the end of the day the heart has reasons that reason doesn’t
"Romantic love has been the norm since eighteenth-century Europe, when we began connecting marriage with romance." If people did not love each other, then there would be no relationship. Sure, they could try to make it happen, but what would be the point of having the relationship in the first place? If they are trying to escape from something and are not actually motivated by love, they are just creating a new entity to eventually want to escape from. Only love will cause people to remain and stay together in a relationship. According to a study done at Grand Valley State University, titled "The Social Psychology of Love and Attraction", it's true that "shared traits including similarity, religion, ethnic group and race were important features of the other person for over half the participants [in the study]. Each of these traits is linked to a commonality in background. People are subconsciously drawn to others who have the same familial background." This study shows that people do consider factors such as race and cultural identity when seeking a potential partner for a relationship. However, the study also shows that the most important factor in attracting a potential mate is personality. The second most is physical attractiveness. These traits are more important in deciding a potential mate than anything
The relationship between the husband and wife seems initially to be perfect. They both show each other expressions of love. There is understanding, harmony, financial security, and good communication between them. The couple spends a lot of time together, discussing future plans, and talking about the good moments they had in the past. However, behind all of this positive interaction between the two of them is something they are both not able
When thinking about romantic relationships, whether in the movies, media or your own relationship what characteristics come to mind? The topic we will discuss in this presentation attends to the romantic relationships within interpersonal communication.
Bonnie and Clyde, Adam and Eve, Beyonce and Jay-Z – these are six individuals, but perhaps more conspicuously, they conjure up an image of three couples, each better recognized as a unit than is any individual member of the dyad alone. Indeed, when individuals become romantically involved, they often morph into a single entity in the eyes of others; for example, celebrities Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie earned themselves the single moniker of “Brangelina” when they started dating, exemplifying this phenomenon of thinking about romantic couples as a unit rather than just as separate individuals. Yet, despite rife anecdotal evidence such as these compound couple nicknames, psychological theory and research have paid relatively little attention
The role of tribalism in choosing partners. Inclinations to tribalism may not be the primary reason for choice of partner, but may provide as an aid for group selection.
Karen Horney “Distrust between sexes” proceeds go into the different aspects of Love and Relationships. In this book Horney gives examples on how women deal with emotions which transitions from childhood to adult life. The fundamentals of documentation are displayed in unavoidable ways in most occurrences people run into. People are blind to the fact that love in relationships can be destroyed by overt or covert? In some cases lack of sympathy is then blamed, when relationships don’t work out between two individuals. Some couples fall into social, economic defaults which impacts the relationships. These are issues people never stop to think about, all they want to do is shift the blame to one another in a relationship. Self-preservation is a basic instinct for everyone and is present at birth. This can enhance the natural fear of losing ourselves in a relationship (Horney 1930). In Horney discussions I found that a person only feels despair because of the deep emotions of abundant from “Love” during childhood. That can develop more mixed emotions that turn into mistrust, which causes delusions that tell them they are not getting love from their partner (Horney 1930). With these types of feelings mistrust sips into relationships, starting from a child carries over into adult life. Reasons are when a child comes into the world learns everything it needs to know from its parent. If the child’s emotional needs are not taken care of when the family increases, the child will feel a need to compete for affection from the parents, which could turn into a painful situation. With this being said the child grows into an adult with suppressed aggression. If he/she has not learned how to deal with...
In order to understand the present lifestyles relating to different approaches and tactics applied by humans in mate choice preferences, there is the need to refer to Darwin (1859, 1871) evolutionary perspectives. Darwin (1871) sexual selection is the driving force for males and females reproductive quest for their genes survival. These driving forces have been classified into two categories as intra-sexual and intersexual mate selection.Intersexual selection is male sexual selection process whereby males compete with other males and the females choose the strongest as their ideal partner. Intra-sexual selection occurs when the male species fight among themselves and the strongest gain access to females for
Sexual selection comes in two forms. One, is direct competition between males for access to females. The other is through the females’ choice among possible mates. (pg. 148) In both types of sexual selection, the males compete for the females. The classic sexual selection arguments that Darwin first presented, were improved when genetics discovered how significant sexual recombination was to genetic variability and speciation. In our class discussion we were asked if animals and humans selected their partners in different ways. I agreed as well as disagreed that we are different in our selection. Humans and animals essentially need the same things, and when looking for a partner there isn’t much of a difference. We all look for the partner with the physical aspects that appeal to another, and for protection, the strongest is typically the best mate in both animal and human worlds. But for humans, emotions come into play, and we also chose on personality. One can have all of the qualifications that are “necessary” in the choosing of a mate, but if their personality does not cohabitate with the other party member, they will not be chosen for a lifelong relationship. Nonetheless, emotional choses may be the only true difference we have to that of
“Love interrupts at every hour at the most serious occupations, and sometimes perplexes for a while even the greatest minds.” – Schopenhauer1 All of us that have been in love can identify with this quote, but the real question is how do we find, and choose our lovers? Schopenhauer would argue that making a decision, about an ultimate lover is merely biological. He believes in something he calls the will to life which he defines as “an inherent drive within human beings to stay alive and reproduce.”1 We sometimes even ask ourselves why him, or why her? We have absolutely no conscious say in the partner we pick, and that our animalistic subconscious picks our lovers. Yes, humans do romantic things with their lovers, and for their lovers to strengthen the connection like: picnics, expensive dinners, and rose petals on the floor. But the main decision is ultimately based on biological factors alone. The last thing you’re thinking about when getting someone’s number at a club is having a baby, but subconsciously that’s the truth .1 I will analyze Schopenhauer’s ideas of love, giving modern evidence, as well as stories of personal experience throughout the next few paragraphs. I believe Schopenhauer hit the nail right on the head when it comes to love (besides his idea of polygamy.)
It may seem obvious to some why people mate, however there are many facets to human mating. Psychology has shown that reasons for mating have gone beyond the scope of love and physical attractiveness. People may search for mates who resemble archetypical images of the opposite-sex parent, mates with characteristics that are either complementary or similar to one's own qualities, or mates with whom to make an exchange of valuable resources (Buss 238). Although these theories play a key role in understanding patterns in human mating preferences, evolutionary psychology and sexual selection theory provide more concrete frameworks for explaining human mating.
love with flowers " is frequently used in the flower industry to get people to
At some point in our lives where we are searching for that special someone. The methods of going about dating have changed quite dramatically over the years. Going out has grown from traditional dating, to internet 'dating', to group dating.
Joshua Ackerman, Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management writes in the Scholarly Journal, Let’s Get Serious: Communicating Commitment in Romantic Relationships, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, that some commonly thought notations about expressing or communicating love may be incorrect.
Individuals involved in romantic relationships often send messages to one another with the intent to convey honest information about their romantic partner. Literature on this topic has already been published, but researcher Shuangyue Zhang found gaps and unanswered questions in this previously conducted research that he wanted to resolve. In 2009, Zhang began researching the hurtful, but honest messages that are sent and received in romantic relationships with two overlapping goals in mind. He wanted to uncover the “motivations and relational consequences of honest, but hurtful evaluated messages,” while simultaneously investigating “the relational satisfaction, sex of the respondent and message types” (Zhang, 2009). With his purpose in place, Zhang developed a hypothesis for his research that stated, “Recipients will interpret honest, but hurtful messages more negatively than will senders” (Zhang 2009). The subjects of Zhang’s study, 515 undergraduate students (32.4% male and 77.6% female) from Midwestern University, were given one of two different questionnaires, “one sender questionnaire and one receiver questionnaire,” and asked to “reconstruct a conversation” that they took part in that involved an honest, but hurtful evaluative message (Zhang, 2009). Participants were then given a scale and asked to rate the hurtfulness, emotional pain and alleged honesty of the message that they recoded (Zhang, 2009). At the conclusion of the study, Zhang measured and assessed the honesty motives, perceived intent and relational ramifications of the messages (Zhang, 2009). The study effectively conducted by Shuangyue Zhang in 2009 not only yielded findings in support of the hypothesis, but also revealed other findings. These other findings...
Throughout most of my life I have gained friendships and relationships with others that have turned into long term, but others which only lasted a short while. The friendship that has greatly impacted my life significantly over the last eight years is someone who means so much to me. This meaningful friendship all started back when I was in middle school, which has grown stronger over the years. I met Brooke in middle school because we had some of the same classes and were in homeroom together. Our friendship developed quickly and lasted throughout our high school years. We became really close our Junior and Senior year of high school. But, maintaining our friendship hasn’t always been so easy. Today, we text and call each other on our free time, but I know I can count and rely on her when I need someone to talk too. I call her my second sister and vice versa. And when we go home on breaks we see one another as much as we can. The best part of our relationship is that if one is in need of advice or in need of a shoulder to cry on, we are always there for one another. Keeping in contact is very important in our relationship and communication has played a key role in our relationship.