People who enter into a new romantic relationship often experience that they are desired by others more than they were before

16 - Shifts in Partner Attractiveness: Evolutionary and Social Factors. Chp 16 from Part III - Postcopulatory Adaptations. Rebecca L. Burch et al. The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology, p 363-390. June 30 2022. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108943543.020

Summary: Researchers have spent decades investigating factors in attraction; biological variables, cultural norms, and social pressures have all had their time in the spotlight. Humans are complicated animals and each of these realms have shown measurable effects. However, evolutionary approaches provide a unifying theory that subsumes and explains each of these factors and how they interact to create intricate yet predictable patterns in human mating behavior. In this chapter, we give a brief summary of major factors influencing attractiveness as perceived by men, including biological factors such as age and ovulatory status but also social factors such as exposure to highly attractive, or simply novel, women. Understanding how attractiveness can vary over time and within relationships can be useful, not only to research but also in applied clinical fields such as couples’ and marital therapy.