How People Become Attractive to Prospective Mates: Strategies of Self-Promotion in the Greek Cultural Context

How People Become Attractive to Prospective Mates: Strategies of Self-Promotion in the Greek Cultural Context. Menelaos Apostolou, Yan Wang, Athina Gavriilidou. Evolutionary Psychology, October 4, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049211045271

Abstract: An important aspect of human mating is to appeal to prospective mates. Accordingly, the current research attempted to identify the strategies that people use in order to become more attractive as prospective intimate partners. More specifically, using open-ended questionnaires in a sample of 326 Greek-speaking participants, we identified 87 acts that people performed in order to become more attractive as mates. By using quantitative research methods in a sample of 2,197 Greek-speaking participants, we classified these acts into 16 different strategies. We found that, enhancing one's looks and becoming more pleasant, were among the most preferred strategies. Women were more likely than men to adopt strategies that involved looks, while men were more likely than women to adopt strategies that involved resource acquisition capacity. Moreover, age effects were found for most strategies. The identified strategies were classified into two broader domains, one aiming to develop and demonstrate fitness-increasing qualities, and the other to deceive about fitness-impairing traits.

Keywords: self-promotion strategies, mating strategies, mating, attraction

Discussion

By using a combination of qualitative research methods, we identified 87 acts that people were likely to perform in order to become more attractive as mates. Using quantitative research methods, we classified these acts in 16 different strategies. Among the most likely to be used ones, were to enhance one's looks and to become more pleasant. Women were more likely than men to adopt strategies which involved looks, while men were more likely than women to adopt strategies which involved demonstrating resource acquisition capacity. Moreover, age effects were found for most strategies. The identified strategies were classified into two broader domains, one aiming to develop and demonstrate fitness-increasing qualities, and the other to deceive about fitness-impairing traits.

As it was originally predicted, factors which indicated desirable character traits emerged, namely “Become more pleasant” and “Self-improvement.” About 80% of the participants indicated that they would try to look more pleasant, and about 57% that they would try to improve themselves, especially their character. Research on mate preferences indicates that, being kind and understanding, are highly valued in prospective partners (Buss, 2016); thus, we expected that a factor reflecting people's effort to appear more kind would emerge, but this was not the case. One possible explanation is that such effort was captured in other strategies. In particular, people indicated that they would do volunteer work, which classified under the “Increase intellectual capacity” factor. Furthermore, people who score low in kindness may try to keep it hidden (see O'Sullivan, 2008), which is captured by the “Keep undesirable traits hidden” factor. Future research could extend the current study by asking people to rate specifically if, in order to become more attractive to prospective mates, they would attempt to demonstrate kindness and understanding.

Moving on, also consistent with our original prediction, factors that reflected resource provision capacity emerged, namely “Increase social status,” “Spend money on someone I am interested in,” and “Showing off and exaggerating wealth.” Resource provision capacity was also captured in the “Increase intellectual capacity” and the “Show off abilities and talents” strategies, as intelligence, talents, and abilities predict this capacity. People indicated an increased willingness to use these strategies; for instance, about 54% of the participants indicated that they would be likely to demonstrate their abilities and talents, and more than half of the participants indicated that they would spend money on someone they were interested in. Yet, the “Showing off and exaggerating wealth” was not a preferred strategy, as only 5% of the participants indicated that they would use it.

In accordance to our original prediction, strategies emerged that relate to good looks, namely “Enhance looks,” “Lose weight,” “Drastic appearance changes,” and “Enhance social media profile.” The “Enhance looks” strategy was the most preferred one, with more than 84% of the participants indicating that they were likely to adopt it. Similarly, in order to become more attractive as mates, nearly 55% of the participants indicated that they would try to lose weight, and more than one in five that they would enhance their social media profile. These findings suggest that, in order to become more attractive as partners, people predominantly resorted to strategies aimed to enhance their looks. This conclusion is not surprising, given that looks summarize information about traits with high fitness value, including health, genetic quality and reproductive capacity. In addition, looks, as opposed to other traits, such as resource provision capacity, can be assessed in a few seconds, so in screening for desirable mates, it would be efficient for mate-seekers to start from looks, and if these satisfy them, to proceed in assessing other traits. This being the case, it would not be effective if people paid attention to demonstrating other qualities ignoring their looks, because prospective mates would not bother to assess them if looks did not appeal to them.

As we originally predicted, the “Develop similar interests” strategy, where people become more attractive to prospective mates by showing them that they are similar to them, emerged. Here, individuals would adopt hobbies and habits of prospective partners, they would show agreement with them, and they would show interest in what interests them. This strategy seems to involve deception, as people would engage for instance, in specific activities in order to be liked by prospective partners, and not necessarily because they were genuinely interested in such activities. Yet, this strategy did not classify under the deception domain, suggesting that people were genuinely interested in becoming more similar to prospective partners, and not to deceive them that they were similar. This strategy was also popular, with more than 40% of the participants indicating a willingness to use it.

We did not predict the emergence of the “Do more risky, physically demanding and unusual things” strategy. One interpretation of this strategy is that, it enables people to signal their capacities in a reliable manner. For instance, only people who have good physical capacities would risk doing physically demanding things. Thus, such actions may reliably signal to prospective mates that individuals have good physical qualities (see Zahavi and Zahavi, 1997; Miller, 2000).

Consistent with our original prediction, the extracted strategies classified into two broader domains, namely a domain where people would attempt to develop and demonstrate desirable qualities, and another domain where they would deceive about undesirable traits. Thus, in the former domain, people would attempt to increase and demonstrate their resources generating capacity by receiving more education, getting a job promotion and spending money on a prospective partner, while in the second domain, they would attempt to exaggerate their wealth and present their financial situation better than it actually is. Similarly, in the former domain people would attempt to improve their character and they would demonstrate that they have good personality traits, such as pleasantness, while in the second domain they would attempt to hide character and behavioral flaws, such as a psychological problem. In the former domain, people would enhance their appearance by looking after their body, improve their clothing and losing some weight, while in the second domain, they would deceive about their physical qualities by drastically altering their body through artificial means, such as a plastic surgery and liposuction.

Men value looks in an intimate partner more than women (Buss et al., 2001; Thomas et al., 2020). Accordingly, women were more willing than men to use strategies for enhancing their looks. In particular, they indicated a higher willingness to improve their appearance by looking after their skin, hair, by wearing clothes that flattered them and by losing weight. On the other hand, women value resource acquisition potential in a prospective partner more than men (Buss, 2016; Thomas et al., 2020). Accordingly, men were more likely to attempt to develop and demonstrate resource acquisition capacity, by buying gifts for someone they were interested in, and by increasing their social status. They gave also higher mean scores in showing off abilities and talents, and in demonstrating and exaggerating wealth; these differences approached but did not pass however the significance level. Previous research has also identified similar sex differences (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). The current research, by identifying the structure of self-promotion strategies, has more accurately identified the strategies in which the sexes diverge or converge. Moreover, the significance and the magnitude of these differences is contingent to the cultural context of the study (Bendixen & Kennair, 2015). Thus, future research could employ the identified factor structure, in order to examine how sex differences vary across different cultural contexts.

Age predicted most strategies. As indicated by the effect size, the largest effect was over the “Enhance looks” strategy, with younger participants indicating a higher willingness to use it than older ones. One possible explanation is that, as people get older, their looks deteriorate, so this is not their strongest selling point in the mating market; accordingly, they divert their limited resources in displaying other qualities, which have a positive association with age. Consistent with this interpretation, we found that older participants indicated a stronger willingness to show off wealth and social status. We also found that, younger participants were more willing to attempt to enhance their social media profile than older participants. One explanation is that, older generations may be less familiar with social media, and less likely to use them than younger generations (see Correa et al., 2010). In addition, older participants indicated that they were more likely to attempt to lose some weight in order to become more attractive to prospective mates. One reason is that, as people get older, metabolism changes and it is easier to get extra weight (Pontzer et al., 2021), which turns losing weight a strategy more likely to be used by older participants.

In most cases, sexual orientation did not predict the use of the identified strategies, suggesting that individuals of different orientations employ similar strategies in order to become more attractive as mates. However, our results need to be considered preliminary, because although our sample was large, it was not large enough to include many participants in all sexual orientation categories. Accordingly, the lack of significant effects may partially be due to our study not having sufficient power. Moving on, we asked participants to indicate their willingness to use self-promotion strategies assuming that they were single. We aimed to assess the general willingness to use such strategies; thus, if we did not do so, most participants who were in a relationship or married would indicate a low willingness to use self-promotion strategies, as they had already secured a mate. Consequently, the way the study was designed, explains why marital status did not emerge as a statistically significant predictor of self-promotion mating strategies.

Our research was designed to advance earlier work on self-promotion strategies, so it would be fruitful to compare our findings with past findings. More specifically, Schmitt and Buss (1996) came up with 31 such strategies, while our study extracted almost half this number. This difference is due to our use of dimension reduction techniques, which can provide a more accurate identification of the underlying factor structure. Furthermore, these techniques revealed an even broader two-domain structure. In addition, there were considerable similarities in the strategies identified by Schmitt and Buss (1996) and the ones we identified here, which were consistent with the evolutionary theoretical framework. Yet, there were also differences. One such difference was that Schmitt and Buss (1996) found several strategies including “Act Kind,” “Act Sensitive,” and “Act Helpful,” which demonstrate personality traits, such as kindness and understanding, but such strategies did not emerge here. One possible explanation is that this difference reflects a cultural difference. Another explanation is that Schmitt and Buss (1996) study investigated the acts that people do in order to become more attractive along with the acts that people do in order to attract prospective mates. The two are very similar but not completely overlapping. This difference can also explain why the strategies “Invoke Love,” “Make Proposition,” “Use Alcohol,” “Have Sex,” “Become Friends,” “Communicate Often,” and “Display Sexual Exclusivity” identified by Schmitt and Buss (1996) did not emerge here.

Furthermore, the “Enhance social media profile” strategy did not emerge in Schmitt and Buss (1996), as social media such as the Facebook, did not exist at that time. Similarly, the “Develop similar interests,” “Self-improvement,” and the “Keep undesirable traits hidden” did not emerge in Schmitt and Buss (1996) study. One possibility is that the current study employed a larger and more diverse sample than the Schmitt and Buss (1996) study, which means that the latter may have missed the acts that give rise to these factors. It could also be the case that these acts were identified, but these factors did not emerge because dimension reduction techniques were not used.

Environmental factors may affect the identified self-promotion strategies. For instance, the “Enhance social media profile” strategy would be less likely to be used in a cultural context where social media use is not widespread, than in a cultural context where most people have a social media profile. In addition, in pre-industrial societies parents have a considerable influence in determining their children's spouses, through the institution of arranged marriage (Apostolou, 2007, 2010). Thus, in these societies, people would direct their self-promotion strategies toward parents, adjusting them to become more attractive as prospective in-laws. Furthermore, environmental factors may affect the fitness-contributions of specific traits. For instance, the resource provision capacity of a prospective partner would be more fitness-increasing in a context where resources are scarce and the social support system is limited, than in a context where resources are more abundant and the social support system is highly developed. This being the case, people would be more likely to employ strategies that demonstrate their resource provision capacity in the former than in the latter context. Accordingly, we expect considerable cross-cultural variation in the self-promotion strategies, mandating future cross-cultural research in the area.

One limitation of the current work is that it employed self-report instruments, so there was no way for us to confirm the honesty of participants’ answers. Moreover, our research was based on non-probability samples, so its findings do not readily generalize to the population. Also, in order to take the survey, the respondent should had access to a computer or a smartphone. By recruiting over social media, there is the possibility that individuals of lower socio-economic status who may not have access to devices to use social media, were underrepresented. It is also possible that, those who were more involved in social media and therefore, were more likely to see the survey, differed from the general population with respect to self-promotion strategies. Furthermore, it appears that single people were overrepresented in our sample. One possible explanation is that, single people have a stronger motivation to attract partners, so they may be more interested in the topic of the study.

Moving on, in Study 1, participants were asked to indicate not only the acts that they had performed in the past, but also the acts that were likely to use in the future. We did so in order to construct a more inclusive list of acts that people would perform; however, by asking respondents to predict future actions, our list may have included acts that would rarely or never be employed. Moreover, participants responded hypothetically, so in actual situations, they may use different strategies than the ones they have indicated here. Furthermore, people may use different strategies for becoming attractive to casual and different strategies for becoming attractive to long-term mates (Schmitt & Buss, 1996); yet, in the current study, we did not distinguish between the two. In addition, in the current study we did not examine the effectiveness of the identified strategies, something that future studies need to do. In addition, there are several factors, such as personality, that predict the adoption of such strategies, which were not examined in the present study. Furthermore, the current research was confined to the Greek cultural context, and its findings may not readily apply to other cultural settings.

An important aspect of mating is to appeal to prospective mates. In the present study, we have identified a plethora of acts that people use in order to become more attractive as mates, and we have classified them in broader strategies. Nevertheless, in the light of the limitations of the current research, and the complexity of the phenomenon, much more work is required if self-promotion strategies are to be understood.