Mate-by-Numbers: Budget, Mating Context, and Sex Predict Preferences for Facial and Bodily Traits

Unlike women, or men considering long-term mates, men pursuing short-term mating have shown a tendency to prioritize bodily information over facial information when assessing potential mates. Prior studies have documented this tendency across a variety of methods ranging from photograph ratings to forcing a choice between faces and bodies, but have yet to ask participants to prioritize individual traits in faces and bodies. The current study used a budget allocation method to do just that. We randomly assigned participants (N = 258) to a mating context (short-term or long-term) and a budget (high or low) and asked them to allocate points across 10 traits (five facial, five bodily) to design their ideal mate within their budget. As expected, men in the short-term mating context allocated more points to bodily traits, but only when in the low budget condition—in the high budget condition, men showed more interest in facial traits. Women, also as expected, and in contrast to men, showed a general trend toward favoring facial traits regardless of budget and condition. Overall, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that women’s bodies provide better information regarding immediate fertility and are thus more important for men to assess in short-term mating contexts.