HERITABILITY OF PREFERENCES FOR MULTIPLE CUES OF MATE QUALITY IN HUMANS

Human mate preferences have received a great deal of attention in recent decades because of their centrality to sexual selection, which is thought to play a substantial role in human evolution. Most of this attention has been on universal aspects of mate preferences, but variation between individual...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolution 2012-06, Vol.66 (6), p.1762-1772
Main Authors: Zietsch, Brendan P., Verweij, Karin J. H., Burri, Andrea V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Choice Behavior
Evolution
Evolutionary genetics
Female
Gender differences
Genetic variation
Genetics
Heritability
Human genetics
Humans
indirect benefits
Male
mate choice
Mating behavior
Medical genetics
multiple ornaments
Phenotypic traits
Preferences
Sexual Behavior
sexual selection
Spouses
Surveys and Questionnaires
twin study
Twins
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Summary:Human mate preferences have received a great deal of attention in recent decades because of their centrality to sexual selection, which is thought to play a substantial role in human evolution. Most of this attention has been on universal aspects of mate preferences, but variation between individuals is less understood. In particular, the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to variation in mate preferences is key to sexual selection models but has barely been investigated in humans, and results have been mixed in other species. Here, we used data from over 4000 mostly female twins who ranked the importance of 13 key traits in a potential partner. We used the classical twin design to partition variation in these preferences into that due to genes, family environment, and residual factors. In women, there was significant variability in the broad-sense heritability of individual trait preferences, with physical attractiveness the most heritable (29%) and housekeeping ability the least (5%). Over all the trait preferences combined, broad-sense heritabilities were highly significant in women and marginally significant in men, accounting for 20% and 19% of the variation, respectively; family environmental influences were much smaller. Heritability was a little higher in reproductive aged than in nonreproductive aged women, but the difference was not significant.
ISSN:0014-3820
1558-5646
DOI:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01546.x