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Benefits of Short-Term Mating

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

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Synonyms

Intersexual selection; Mate preferences; Sex differences

Definition

Direct and indirect benefits of engaging in short-term mating relationships.

Introduction

According to sexual strategies theory (SST), men and women evolved to adopt mating strategies that were aimed to solve recurring adaptive problems faced ancestrally (Buss and Schmitt 1993). Since men and women differ in their reproductive biology, sex differences are a fundamental component of SST, and therefore, the biological differences between the sexes influences the temporal dimension of mating strategies. For women, the heavy investment of pregnancy and child rearing means that reproduction is a costly process, whereas men only invest in sperm production, and paternal investment is not always certain. These sex differences in reproduction factor into the mating strategy utilized by men and women, as maximizing reproductive success may be favored by the least investing sex and maximizing parental investment may be...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

    Ray Garza

Authors
  1. Ray Garza
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Correspondence to Ray Garza .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  2. Rochester, MI, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Tara DeLecce

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Garza, R. (2020). Benefits of Short-Term Mating. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_279-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_279-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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