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What Does Evolutionary Psychology Claim About Mating?
Paul Eastwick, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, says the popular evolutionary account of mating, which he calls the evolutionary script, makes three claims about how men and women meet, mate, and relate.
Mate value comes first: a score on a 1 to 10 scale that pinpoints what someone can offer a romantic partner and determines how well that person will do on the mating market. The second idea holds that men and women are quite different, want different things out of relationships, and are motivated by different concerns. The third idea draws a fundamental distinction between short-term and long-term mating. People use different strategies for different kinds of partners, might be good at one kind or the other, and have to pick a lane.
As a young man, Eastwick heard a friend tell him to lift weights in order to attract women. The advice was a version of the evolutionary script, and he calls it the mate value idea in a nutshell.
