Chinese mate preferences: Cultural evolution and continuity across a quarter of a century

Abstract

Expressed mate preferences provide unique windows into the cultural evolution of values and evolved mating psychology. The current study used two research instruments—one ranking procedure and one rating procedure—to examine mate preferences in mainland China. We compared modern Chinese (n = 1060) with Chinese studied a quarter of a century earlier (N = 500). Results revealed several cultural changes in values – a dramatic decrease in the importance of virginity, and an increase in the importance of good financial prospects – changes that occurred for both men and women. In contrast to those cultural changes, gender differences in mate preferences for cues to fertility (youth, physical attractiveness) and resources (good financial prospects, social status) remained invariant. Discussion highlights limitations of the study, and stresses the importance of both cultural evolution and evolved mate preferences.

Introduction

Mate preferences acquire scientific importance for several key reasons. First, mate preferences influence who is chosen and who is excluded from mating, thus influencing the current direction of sexual selection (Darwin, 1871). Second, mate preferences of one sex determine which members of the opposite sex are considered to be high and low in mate value, which influences variables ranging from the desirability of the mate one can attract to social status within the group (Buss, 2003). Third, mate preferences of one sex influence which mate attraction and mate retention tactics will be effective in members of the opposite sex—tactics that embody the desires of the individual a person is trying to attract or retain (Buss and Shackelford, 1997, Schmitt and Buss, 1996). Fourth, some mate preferences may be evolved psychological adaptations, representing important solutions to cardinal problems of mating such as choosing a mate who is fertile or a mate willing and able to invest in offspring (Buss, 1989). Fifth, mate preferences reveal important cultural values, and when examined over time, can be used to assay the cultural evolution of values (Buss, Shackelford, Kirkpatrick, & Larsen, 2001). For all these reasons, the study of human mate preferences represents an exceptionally important and necessarily ongoing scientific endeavor.

China is especially interesting for studying mate preferences because it has undergone dramatic cultural changes over the past 25 years. Prior to 1989, China was relatively closed to Westerners; since then, it has become increasingly open. Economically, wages and variance in wages were low compared to those in Western cultures. Wages have risen as a majority of businesses have shifted from being state-owned to becoming privately owned. Consequently variance in wages has increased. In the mating domain, sexuality has become less restricted and premarital sex more common. A key question is whether Chinese mate preferences have changed to reflect these dramatic cultural changes. Has the increased variance in economic resources across individuals led to increased importance attached to a mate’s resource capacity? Has the loosening of sexual restrictions led to decreased importance Chinese individuals attach to virginity in mates? These are key questions addressed by the current study, which seeks to contribute to knowledge about cultural evolution as well as cultural continuity and universality (Heine & Norenzayan, 2006).

The dramatic cultural changes in China also make it a scientifically interesting culture for testing key evolutionary hypotheses about gender differences in mate preferences. Because fertility cannot be observed directly, evolutionary psychologists hypothesized that men value physical appearance in mates because appearance provides a wealth of observable cues to fertility (Buss, 1989, Symons, 1979). Because human fertility is sharply age-graded, evolutionary psychologists hypothesized that men have evolved preferences for young mates (Symons, 1979). Because reproductive biology involves the heavy obligatory parental investment of nine months of pregnancy, evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that women have evolved preferences for mates able to acquire resources and willing to invest resources in them. These sex differences are hypothesized to be universal across cultures (e.g., Badahdah and Tiemann, 2005, Buss, 1989, Gottschall et al., 2004, Khallad, 2005). This study was partly designed to examine whether these sex differences persist in a culture that has undergone dramatic changes over the past quarter of a century.