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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on June 11, 2004
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arh073
© 2004 by International Society for Behavioral Ecology
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Received June 5, 2003
Revised October 29, 2003
Accepted November 10, 2003

Mating games: the evolution of human mating transactions

Sarah E. Hill 1* H. Kern Reeve 2

1 Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX 78731, USA
2 Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14653, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sehill{at}mail.utexas.edu.


  Abstract

We propose a new, evolutionary, game-theoretic model of conditional human mating strategies that integrates currently disconnected bodies of data into a single mathematically-explicit theory of human mating transactions. The model focuses on the problem of how much resource a male must provide to a female to secure and retain her as a mate. By using bidding-game models, we show how the male's minimally required resource incentive varies as a function of his own mate value, the value of the female, and the distribution of the mate values of their available alternative mates. The resulting theory parsimoniously accounts for strategic pluralism within the sexes, mate choice differences between the sexes, and assortative mating, while generating a rich set of testable new predictions about human mating behavior.

Key words: assortative mating, evolution, game theory, human mating, mate choice, mating strategies .


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