Preferences in the Early Stages of Mate Choice

Abstract

Romantic partnership is often considered an optimal barometer of intergroup relations. To date, however, it has been challenging to distinguish the characteristics people prefer in a partner from the types of partners that are locally available. Online dating presents a new opportunity to address this puzzle. In this paper, I use behavioral data from a popular online dating site to answer three questions regarding preferences in the early stages of mate choice: First, to what extent do people prefer similarity versus status in a partner—and do these preferences vary by gender? Second, what is the relative importance of different types of preferences—and to what extent are apparent preferences for one characteristic merely a “by-product” of preferences for another characteristic with which the first is correlated? Third, do preferences vary at different moments of selection—and if so, how? These analyses not only provide a nuanced portrait of how interpersonal dynamics shape broader social structures—here, a network of romantic ties—but they recommend a future approach to mate choice that prioritizes processes over outcomes and more deeply engages the literature on gender, social networks, and symbolic boundaries.

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