Mate choice decisions have long-term effects on both party's well-being as well as reproductive outcomes. Consequently, evolutionary biology and psychology devoted a large body of research on investigating human mate choice. The evolutionary psychology of human partner selection can be perceived as inter-connected processes, such as mating strategy, mate preferences, and mate choice. This dissertation thesis consists of two larger segments. The first segment is an Introduction to my four original research papers in the second segment. In the Introduction, I discuss heterosexual partner selection in two parts. First, I describe how mating strategies affect mate preferences, what the key mate preference dimensions are - both positive and negative factors of partner evaluations -, how stable they are, and how they change over time within a person. Further, I review the concept of mate value and how mate preference factors are weighing in the overall perception of mate value on the mating market. In the second part, I discuss how partner preferences are integrated into mate choice, also known as the mate choice integration models. The Additive and Threshold models of mate choice, the Euclidean distance model, and Assortative mating will be discussed in detail since they are the most commonly applied...

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Os humanos têm enfrentado a escolha entre preferências por traços femininos e masculinos, isto é, entre investimentos diretos (cuidado parental) e indiretos (qualidade genética) na reprodução, respectivamente, o que afeta a percepção de atratividade e indica qualidades biossociais. A FM é influenciada principalmente por hormônios reprodutivos, mas sua percepção é mediada por: 1) contextos biopsicossociais (autopercepção e percepção por terceiros), 2) múltiplos canais de informação (visual e vocal) e/ou 3) ameaças ambientais (patógenos e escassez de recursos). Estudos anteriores possuem limitações, como ausência de clareza quanto à associação entre autopercepção e percepção por terceiros da FM; incongruência nas informações das faces e vozes dos homens; e estudos focando principalmente nas preferências das mulheres por faces e vozes manipuladas digitalmente e usando um modelo de escolha forçada. Assim, examinamos: (a) possíveis associações entre percepções subjetivas (autopercepção e percepção por terceiros da FM e atratividade) e FM medida; (b) concordância na FM de mulheres e homens percebida por terceiros; e (c) influência de patógenos (PT) e escassez de recursos (ER) nas preferências pela FM no sexo oposto. Tiramos fotos faciais e gravamos vozes e danças de público-alvo de 41 mulheres e 38 homens e medimos o dimorfismo sexual da forma facial, a frequência fundamental vocal e o etograma das danças. Estes participantes também autoavaliaram sua FM e atratividade faciais, vocais e comportamentais. Posteriormente, 64 (43 mulheres) e 51 (28 mulheres) estudantes avaliaram respectivamente a FM e atratividade dos estímulos do público-alvo. Com as avaliações da FM escolhemos os cinco mais masculinos e os cinco mais femininos para cada estímulo, dentro de cada sexo. Finalmente, 370 estudantes (206 mulheres) leram um artigo de jornal da condição controle e um dos artigos da condição ambiental (PT ou ER); o artigo PT era sobre o Aedes aegypti, enquanto o artigo ER era sobre a crise econômica brasileira. Os participantes foram aleatoriamente designados para o contexto de relacionamento de curto ou longo prazo. Após cada artigo, os voluntários avaliaram a atratividade dos estímulos do público-alvo individualmente. Cada amostra conteve diferentes estudantes do estado de São Paulo com 18 a 35 anos. As percepções subjetivas das mulheres não refletiram as percepções dos terceiros nem as medidas objetivas. Todavia, a FM facial e 8 vocal delas se correlacionou, sugerindo concordância informacional. Diferentemente, as autoavaliações dos homens e as avaliações de terceiros quanto à FM e atratividade se correlacionaram. Ademais, o tom de voz mais masculino se associou com a FM autodeclarada e declarada por terceiros. Entretanto, as avaliações de terceiros quanto à FM facial e vocal não se relacionaram, indicando mensagens distintas. Além disso, no contexto de longo prazo, as mulheres preferiram um mosaico entre faces masculinas e vozes femininas após a ER. Os homens, por sua vez, preferiram vozes masculinas, sugerindo preferência por parceiros com maior acesso a recursos. Não houve efeito da condição PT no contexto de curto prazo, indicando a influência do modelo experimental. Finalmente, as danças não produziram qualquer efeito, sugerindo um desenvolvimento diferente das faces e vozes / During evolution, humans faced the trade-off between preferences for feminine and masculine traits which are connected to direct (parental care) and indirect (genetic quality) investments into reproduction, respectively. Therefore, femininity-masculinity (FM) affects perceived attractiveness and indicates biosocial qualities. Physiological and morphological FM are primarily influenced by reproductive hormones; however, its perception can be mediated by: 1) biopsychosocial contexts (e.g. self- and other-perception), 2) multiple channels of information (e.g. visual and vocal information), and 3) environmental threats (e.g. pathogens and resource scarcity). However, previous studies show limitations. Firstly, it is unclear if self- and other-rated FM are associated. Secondly, results suggest that womens faces and voices present concordant information about their FM; however, mixed results are found for men. Finally, studies mainly focus on womens preferences for digitally manipulated male faces and voices in a forced-choice design. Thus, we examined: (a) possible associations between subjective perceptions (i.e. self- and other-rated FM and attractiveness), and measured FM; (b) whether womens and mens FM is concordantly perceived by third-party raters; and (c) the influence of pathogen threat (PT) and resource threat (RT) on womens and mens preference for FM in the opposite sex. We took facial photos, and recorded voices and dances of a target sample of 41 women and 38 men and we measured sexual dimorphism of facial shape, vocal fundamental frequency, and ethogram of videos. These participants also self-rated their facial, vocal, and behavioral FM and attractiveness. Later, 64 (43 women) and 51 (28 women) students independently rated facial, vocal and behavioral FM and attractiveness of the target sample, respectively. Finally, 370 (206 women) students were primed with newspaper-like articles on either PT (Aedes aegypti, and its mosquito-borne diseases) or RT (Brazilian economic crisis), and compared to a control condition (lions poisoned in a Kenyan Reserve). Participants were randomly assigned either for a short- or long-term relationship. After each priming article, participants rated attractiveness of the five most masculine and the five most feminine stimuli of the opposite sex of the target sample in a standalone-rating design. Each sample was independent and comprised students, aged 18-35 years, from universities across the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. In women, results showed that 10 subjective perceptions did not reflect perceptions of others or objective measures. However, womens facial and vocal FM correlated positively, suggesting concordant information about mate quality. In contrast, mens self-rated FM and attractiveness correlated with third-party ratings, and male voice pitch correlated with self- and other-rated FM. Nevertheless, other-ratings on mens FM did not correlated, indicating multiple messages. Finally, for long-term context, women preferred a mosaic of mens masculine faces and feminine voices after primed with RT condition. Men, however, preferred masculine female voices, suggesting a preference for partners with easier access to resources. There was no effect of PT condition in short-term context, indicating the influence of the study design. Finally, no effect was found for dances, suggesting a different development than faces and voices

[Truncated abstract] The assumption that facial attractiveness signals mate quality is central to current evolutionary theories of human sexual selection. Evidence for direct links between attractiveness and mate quality is, however, scarce, and the exact nature of mate quality remains the subject of debate. Mate quality may include genetic diversity, because genome-wide diversity has been linked to individual fitness, and diversity within the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) has been associated with immunocompetence and health in many species. This thesis investigates whether individual genetic diversity plays a role in human sexual selection. The main aim is to examine whether MHC diversity, compared to genetic diversity in general, is especially important for mate preferences, health and mating success. The four studies herein are based on data collected from a large sample of heterosexual, Caucasian males and females. Participants were photographed, provided a DNA sample, and completed questionnaires regarding sexual history and health. Genetic diversity was calculated as both mean heterozygosity (H) and standardised mean-d2 (d2), separately for 12 MHC microsatellite loci and 11 nonMHC loci. The photographs were rated for various attractive features by opposite-sex raters. The first study investigated whether MHC diversity influences preferences for facial appearance in a potential mate, and if so, are they specific to the MHC and are they mediated by specific facial characteristics? I found that MHC-H, but not nonMHCH, positively predicted male facial attractiveness, and that this relationship was mediated by facial averageness. For females, nonMHC-d2 predicted facial symmetry, and potentially attractiveness. These findings indicate that faces contain visual cues to mate quality in both males and females, providing support for evolutionary theories that our preferences are adaptations for identifying mates of high quality. ... Measuring them both allowed me to tease apart their effects on mate preferences, and on health and mating success. Indeed, the MHC appears to be especially important in sexual selection as MHC diversity predicted female mate preferences after controlling for nonMHC diversity, and MHC dissimilarity predicted male mate preferences after controlling for nonMHC dissimilarity. Moreover, although MHC diversity did not appear to influence males’ preference for females, it did predict female mating success, suggesting that males also attend to MHC-related cues, although perhaps non-facial cues, when seeking mates. Additionally, nonMHC diversity predicted both male preferences for female faces and health, suggesting that such preferences are adaptive. Importantly, by providing direct links between facial attractiveness and biological markers of individual quality, genetic diversity, these results support the commonly held assumption that facial attractiveness signals mate quality.

Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the literature is fraught with conflicting methods, analyses, results, and conclusions. Using a new 45-country sample (N = 14,399), we attempted to replicate classic studies and test both the evolutionary and biosocial role perspectives. Support for universal sex differences in preferences remains robust: Men, more than women, prefer attractive, young mates, and women, more than men, prefer older mates with financial prospects. Cross-culturally, both sexes have mates closer to their own ages as gender equality increases. Beyond age of partner, neither pathogen prevalence nor gender equality robustly predicted sex differences or preferences across countries.