Men’s mate value is an important factor affecting their tendency to engage in short-term mating: High mate-value men were more likely to adhere to a short-term pluralistic mating strategy

Do high mate-value males adopt a less restricted sociosexual orientation? A meta-analysis. Jessica E. Desrochers, Ashley Locke, Graham Albert, Ben Kelly, Steven Arnocky. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Due to sex differences in obligatory parental investment males, relative to females, have the potential to benefit more from short-term, pluralistic mating. Yet not all men enact such a mating strategy. Both Sexual Strategies Theory and Strategic Pluralism Theory together suggest that mate value is one important individual difference factor that should directly influence the adoption of longer-term versus shorter-term mating. It has previously been hypothesized that high mate value men should be most likely to adopt a short-term mating strategy. Yet evidence to support such a link has been mixed. We conducted a meta-analysis with all available data in order to obtain a better representation of the true nature of the relationship between self-perceived mate value and sociosexual orientation scores and to determine whether there may be a publication bias regarding this link. Although explained variance in SOI-R ranged as high as 39% in individual studies, a meta-analysis suggested that self-report mate value accounts for roughly 6% of the variance in men’s sociosexual orientation. Findings provide compelling evidence that men’s mate value is an important factor affecting their tendency to engage in short-term mating: High mate-value men were more likely to adhere to a short-term pluralistic mating strategy, as demonstrated by their higher SOIR scores.