Sex Differences in Preferred Age

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Sex Differences in Preferred Age Of Mates Angela
M. Minton Dept. of Psychology
Sociology Columbus State University
Minton, A., Schmidt, M.S. (2003, May April).
Sex differences in preferred age of mates. Poster
presented at the annual meeting of the Georgia
Psychological Association and paper presented at
the 2nd annual Columbus State University Student
Colloquium, Columbus, GA.
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Introduction

• Evolution of human mate choice
• Men prefer younger mates
• Women prefer older mates
• Why? Evolutionary Theory Suggests
• Women seek mates based on their potential to
  invest in, provide for, and protect offspring
• Men seek mates based on reproductive value
• Parental Investment promotes choosiness in
  women and competition in men.

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Parental Investment for Women and Men

• Female investment
• Direct bodily investment and high energy
  consumption (ovulation, gestation, lactation)
• Production of limited and large expensive eggs
  (400 per lifetime)
• Male investment
• Indirect bodily investment through providing
  resources, protection, etc.
• Production of many, small and relatively cheap
  sperm (400 million per ejaculation)

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Figure 1 Relative size of human egg and sperm
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How is this related age?

• Older Men
• Resources Money / Property
• Knowledge / Experience
• Social Status / Ambition
• Maturity / Dependability / Stability
• Younger Women
• Higher Fertility / Reproductive capacity
• Health / Energy
• Child-bearing ability

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Previous Research by Kenrick and Keefe (1992)
Investigated age preferences in mates using 218
personal ads from singles newspapers as their
data set. Findings supported predictions made by
the evolutionary model (Figure 2).
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Figure 2 Data from Kendrick Keefe (1992)
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Hypotheses for the Present Research

• We expected to obtain data similar to Kendrick
  and Keefe (1992)
• Men
• Younger men will prefer young women (close to
  their own age) but...
• Older men will prefer younger women
• Women
• Both younger and older women will prefer older men

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Method

• The Match.com website was accessed
• A 25-mile radius of zip code 30332 (metropolitan
  Atlanta, GA) was entered as the sample region.
• Profiles of the first 100 men and 100 women were
  downloaded

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Method (contd.)

• The following data were recorded and calculated
• Subjects age (MF 37 MM 39)
• Minimum and maximum preferred age of mate
• Ideal age of mate
• (max age min age) divided by 2
• Difference in subjects age and ideal age of mate

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Results
Table 1 Mean Preferred Ages of
Mate _____________________________________________
_______ Sex Min Age Max Age
Ideal Age Age Difference Female
34 45 40 2.5 Males 28
41 34 - 4.4 _____________________________
_______________________ Indicates
statistically significant difference between
males and females (t test, p lt .001)
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Figure 3
r - 0.41 p lt .001
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Figure 4
r - 0.62 p lt .001
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Discussion

• Results were consistent with the evolutionary
  hypothesis for sex differences in preferred age
  of mates (e.g., Kendrick and Keefe, 1992)
• Most of our hypotheses were supported
• Men
• Younger men preferred young women (close to their
  own age) and older men preferred younger women
• Women
• Younger women preferred older men
• However, older women preferred men close to their
  own age (not older)
• A trade-off might exist between age and
  compatibility (personality, intellect, age-cohort)

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Discussion (contd.)

• Limited Generalization
• Future research should use samples from other
  regions of the US and other cultures around the
  world
• Other explanations for the results?
• Social exchange hypothesis
• Mate choice is based on the learned social
  value of a potential mate
• In American society
• Female value Youth and beauty
• Male value Economic resources
• Cross-cultural studies are essential for
  providing data to test these alternative
  hypotheses