Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Selecting a Mate

Selecting a Mate


Natural selection is the necessity to make sure our species survives. As humans for us to survive for a long time we need to find a mate with adaptive traits. According to Darwin sexual selection is, “the struggle between males for possession of the females; the result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring.” In finding our mate we look at a mates value. When your value is higher you are more appealing to others. People who are physically attractive tend to have an easier time finding someone. But it is not just about being physically attractive, when selecting a mate psychological and values also factor in. From our textbook the author defines good genes hypothesis as, “the member of the other sex selects an attractive individual based on the assumption that attractiveness signals genes for health, fertility, and intelligence.” Women and men both look for different traits in the opposite sex. Research has shown that women look for men that are financially stable and ambitious. On the other hand men look for women who have good looks which relates to fertility.


When we covered this topic in class it really intrigued me. Personally, I think that you can’t really be in a relationship with someone unless your physically attracted to them. But sometimes even if the person is not that good looking there personality or values outweigh there lack of looks. When we watched the video in class I thought it was very interesting how each man and woman paired up with someone that had around the same mate value as each other.

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