When women had no trait/financial information other than photos of potential mates, they showed mate-choice copying, not when they got personality trait or financial information (only for low-attractiveness and long-term potential mates)

Trait/Financial Information of Potential Male Mate Eliminates Mate-Choice Copying by Women: Trade-Off Between Social Information and Personal Information in Mate Selection. Xinge Liu, Cuihu Zhang, Xinlei Wang, Xinran Feng, Junhao Pan & Guomei Zhou. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Nov 2 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10508-021-02044-2

Abstract: Mate-choice copying occurs when people rely on the mate choices of others (social information) to inform their own mate decisions. The present study investigated women’s strategic trade-off between such social learning and using the personal information of a potential mate. We conducted two experiments to investigate how mate-choice copying was affected by the personal information (e.g., trait/financial information, negative/positive valence of this information, and attractiveness) of a potential male mate in short-/long-term mate selection. The results demonstrated that when women had no trait/financial information other than photos of potential mates, they showed mate-choice copying, but when women obtained personality trait or financial situation information (no matter negative or positive) of a potential mate, their mate-choice copying disappeared; this effect was only observed for low-attractiveness and long-term potential partners. These results demonstrated human social learning strategies in mate selection through a trade-off between social information and personal information.