Mate Choice:

Physical Attractiveness & Competence:

"Beyond physical attractiveness—an initial and well-studied filter (Egebark et al., 2021; Kenrick et al., 1993), another fundamental and cross-culturally important feature that people use to identify suitors is the ability to acquire resources—what might be called “competence” (Jonason & March, 2021) ..."

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"Although romantic relationships may seem trivial compared with other matters in the modern world, such as pandemics, global climate change, and food insecurity, we would not be here to ponder these modern-day existential threats if our ancestors had made deleterious mate choices. Mate choice, in both our ancestral and modern past, has a real impact on individual well-being. Mating mistakes have both reproductive and psychosocial outcomes ..."