Parent-Offspring Conflict over Mate Choice: An Experimental Investigation Using a Chinese Marriage Market

Jeanne Bovet, Eva Raiber, Weiwei Ren, Charlotte Wang () and Paul Seabright

No 2018-005, Working Papers from Department of Research, Ipag Business School

Abstract: Both parents and offspring have evolved mating preferences that enable them to select 10 mates and in-laws to maximize their inclusive fitness. Although such preferences may substantially overlap, the theory of parent-offspring conflict predicts that preferences for potential mates may differ between parents and their offspring, especially with respect to the importance of investment potential and the biological quality of a mate. Indeed, individuals are expected to value biological quality more in their mates than in their in-laws, and to value investment potential more in their in-laws than in their mates. We tested this hypothesis in China using a naturalistic ?marriage market? where parents actively search for marital partners for their offspring. Parents gather at a public park in order to advertise the characteristics of their adult children, looking for a potential son or daughter-in-law. To experimentally investigate parent-offspring conflict in mating preferences, we presented 832 parents and young adults from the city of Kunming (Yunnan, China) with hypothetical mating candidates varying in their levels of income (as a proxy for investment potential) and physical attractiveness (as a proxy for biological quality). Consistent with parent-offspring conflict theory, we found a significant difference between preferences of young women and parents, with the former evaluating physical attractiveness as more important than parents. We also found a strong effect of the sex of the mating candidate on preferences, as physical attractiveness was deemed more valuable in a female potential mate or in-law, thus underlining the specific role of female physical appearance in the evolution of mate choice.

Keywords: mate choice; in-law preferences; parent-offspring conflict; trade-offs; attractiveness; sex differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2018-01-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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