Sexual Selection and Human Reproductive Behavior
Sexual selection is the evolutionary explanation of partner preference
Human reproductive behavior is any behavior surrounding mate choice and opportunities to reproduce and ass on genes
Anisogamy is the difference between gametes
Sperm = Infinite, Large numbers and can be produced frequently
Egg = Finite, one, produced once a month
Intersexual selection
Quality over quantity
Specific about who they mate with as they cannot mate very often, choose someone strong who can protect mother and child and someone with good resources
Women
Sexy sons hypothesis, mate with someone attractive so the offspring are attractive and more likely to reproduce and pass on the mothers genes
Intrasexual selection
Quantity over quality
Less specific because they can mate more often but do look for youthful women as they are more fertile
Men
Has lead to dimorphism which is the difference between men and women because men have got stronger to compete for mates while women have stayed comparatively small
Buss found that in 33 countries women wanted wealthy men (good resources) and men wanted youthful (fertile) women
Clark and Hatfield found that 75% of male college students would say yes to casual sex but 0% of females would
College students, older women may have been more likely to say yes because they have less time left to mate. Males may have been regarded 'lads' etc while females may have been labelled promiscuous
Singh found that men wanted a 0.7 hip to waist ratio. A small waist indicates a women is not pregnant and large hips indicates they have gone through puberty and are fertile