Self-esteem and the Matching Effect in Mate Selection

Self-esteem and the Matching Effect in Mate Selection Artem Kaznatcheev (artem.kaznatcheev@mail.mcgill.ca) Department of Physics and School of Computer Science, McGill University, 3600 University Street, Montreal, QC H3A 2T8 Canada Kyler Brown (kyler.brown@mail.mcgill.ca) Laboratory for Natural and Simulated Cognition, Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Penfield Avenue, Montreal, QC H3A 1B1 Canada Thomas R. Shultz (thomas.shultz@mcgill.ca) Department of Psychology and School of Computer Science, McGill University, 1205 Penfield Avenue, Montreal, QC H3A 1B1 Canada Abstract the most promising early experiments (Berscheid, Dion, Walster, & Walster, 1971) showed only a weak match- ing effect (Wetzel & Insko, 1982) that was overpowered by the attractiveness effect. So, why has the matching hypothesis survived? Direct experiment is not the only way to test the hy- pothesis; one can also observe existing couples. The matching theory has been consistently supported when the correlation between the attractiveness of male and female partners in real couples was studied (Kalick & Hamilton, 1986). In average couples correlations of . 38 (Murstein, 1972a), . 39 (Price & Vandenberg, 1979), . 42 (Feingold, 1981) and . 53 (Citelli & Waid, 1980) were found. Further studies (White, 1980) expanded their in- vestigation to differentiate between the type (and asso- ciated longevity) of relationships, observing intra-couple attractiveness correlations of . 18 for casual dates, com- pared to the correlation of . 56 and . 63 for serious daters and engaged or married couples, respectively. The strong correlations in real couples provide the main evidential support for the matching hypothesis. The stark dichotomy between direct experiment and observations of existing couples raises the question: is the matching hypothesis a good model for human courtship? By itself the matching hypothesis fails to match experiment but corresponds well to correlation studies in existing couples. It is the goal of this paper to provide a synthesis of the hypothesis and the apparent preference for the most attractive partner into a single computational model. The computational approach was famously pursued by Kalick and Hamilton (1986). The Kalick and Hamilton simulation assumed every person has access to both their own attractiveness rating and their partner’s attractive- ness rating. Experimentally, the latter assumption is valid. Cunningham and Wu (1995) found a correlation of . 9 between a single rating and the average rating of pictures of women. This correlation remains high if ei- ther the female picture of the rater is from a different culture. The assumption of access to own attractive- ness, however, is not supported by experiment. Rand The matching effect is the empirical finding that roman- tic couples have a high correlation in physical attractive- ness. It remains a debate as to whether this correlation is based purely on similarity preference - the matching hypothesis - or marketplace forces. We present a new marketplace model for romantic relationships. Previous models granted every person access to his/her own at- tractiveness. In reality, people have only a vague idea of their own attractiveness ratings. We introduce a con- cept analogous to self-esteem to model this phenomenon. Further, we extend beyond previous models by dealing explicitly with both the initialization and development of a relationship. Our model accounts for the exper- imental tendency to choose more attractive partners, while still explaining observed intra-couple attractive- ness correlation and the difference in correlation between casual and serious daters. Keywords: mate selection; matching hypothesis; self- esteem; social cognition Introduction The study of dating behavior in humans has both shed light on and raised many questions about the dynamics of human relations. A common parameter across myriad studies of human partner selection has been the physi- cal attractiveness of individuals (Cash, 1981). Walster, Aronson, Abrahams, and Rottman (1966) attempted to address the tyranny in the advantages of attractive in- dividuals by proposing the matching hypothesis. Bas- ing their hypothesis on the Level of Aspiration The- ory (Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, & Sears, 1944), they pre- dicted that, in making a realistic social choice, an indi- vidual would choose a partner similar in social desirabil- ity. Simply, when faced with a realistic choice, one would choose a romantic partner of nearly identical physical at- tractiveness. The theoretical sanctuary that the matching hypothe- sis offers from physical misgivings has not been well sup- ported by direct experimental tests (Kalick & Hamilton, 1986). When homely men estimated attractive women as more likely to reject them compared to their hand- some brethren, no significant difference in their choice of prospective partners was observed: both groups opted to choose the more attractive women (Huston, 1973). Even