According to David Buss's evolutionary theory of sex differences in sexual strategies men prefer short term, promiscuous sexual encounters because each encounter may result in the conception of a child and the perpetuation of the man's genes. On the other hand, women prefer long term, committed relationships. Only having sex with a man with resources who is willing to commit those resources to the woman and their child is a much more adaptive strategy with respect to perpetuating the woman's genes than promiscuous sex. As a result of these different strategies men and women desire different things in a mate. Men desire youth and beauty because these are indices of a woman's fertility; women desire status, resources, and commitment. Both men and women value desirable personalities. Applying social exchange theory to the desires of men and women it was theorized that women exchange physical attractiveness for men with status, resources, commitment, and desirable personalities. Women of varying degrees of attractiveness were asked to rate their romantic partners, past and present, with respect to resource potential, commitment, and desirable personality. It was hypothesized that the attractive women would have romantic partners with greater resource potential and commitment, and more desirable personalities. The hypothesis was supported.
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