Mate Preference Double Standards:The Role Of Traditional Gender Beliefs And Feminist Identity On Endorsement Of Women’s Choosiness

Women are always advised to be cautious and choosy when selecting a life-mate,implying a woman’s worth is tied to her mate or just marriage.It seems that mate selection is much more important for women than men.As a result,people are more likely to support women’s mate preference than men’s mate preference.Based on this social phenomenon,we borrowed the concept of double standard to confirm whether people have biased attitudes toward men and women who have different mate preferences.Despite a large body of literature dedicated to understanding the psychological mechanism of mate preference,no previous research has examined the social attitudes toward mate preference,particularly the gender gap on this topic.If there is such a biased gender script on men’s and women’s mate preference,similar to sexual double standards,we may get a better understand about the interwoven mechanism of adaptive instincts and sociocultural factors shaping people’s relationship initiation and courtship strategies.Given the complex development of gender ideologies in contemporary society,it’s critical to disentangle how traditional gender beliefs and feminist beliefs influence people’s attitudes toward mate selection.In summary,the purpose of this research was to determine whether people have biased attitudes toward men and women with different mate preference,as well as how traditional gender ideology and feminist identity influence with the level of endorsement of mate preference double standards(MPDS).Study 1 aimed to develop a new scale to measure people’s endorsement mate preference in the Chinese context.The majority of mate preference research is framed in a Western cultural context,no measurement tool for mate preference double standards is available.Thus,study 1 chose to create two original scales-Physical Attractive Preference Endorsement Scale & Economic Resources Preference Endorsement Scale,considering these two mate preferences are sex-typed(respectively valued by men and women).Study 1 firstly conducted an open-ended survey,in which 62 participants(M = 29.77,SD = 8.04)answered the question about what kind of behaviors represent individuals’ mate preference on physical attractive and economic resources,then conducted a preliminary measurement to sort out the items for the final scales(n = 399,M = 26.03,SD = 4.63).After item-total correlation analysis and exploratory factor analysis,we adopted 6 pairs of statements describing physical attractiveness preference and 7 pairs of statements describing economic resources preference(each pair contains two items with men and women as the subject,respectively),to compare the ratings toward men and women with a particular mate preference.Significant differences between scores on female and male items represent MPDS.For the Physical Attractive Preference Endorsement Scale,male items α =.72,female items α =.73;for the Economic Resources Preference Endorsement Scale,male items α =.71,female items α =.72.Study 2(n = 401)used the original Mate Preference Double Standards Scales to confirm the existence of MPDS.Women’s mate preferences were found more socially acceptable than men’s,irrespective of people’s personal preferences for an ideal partner.Study 3(n = 602)used the target evaluation tasks to confirm the existence of MPDS,and examined traditional gender ideology and feminist identity to detect the underlying factors.Results showed that evaluations towards female targets were generally more positive than male targets.Compared to non-feminists,feminists demonstrated double standards in an ambivalent form.Nonlabelers(agreed with feminist beliefs but denied the feminist identity)showed hostile bias toward men in evaluations,consistent with the characteristics of a feminist identity’s initial development stage.Furthermore,traditional gender ideologies(hostile vs.benevolent sexism)predicted the extent of double standards but with an opposite valence.Overall,our research confirmed MPDS both in personal endorsement and target evaluation results.These novel findings illuminated gender inequality in mate preference domains,increasing our understanding of the gender script in current society.