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Mate Preferences after Having Children

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Mate preferences; Parenting effort; Remating; Stepparents

Definition

This section covers the theoretical considerations and existing data relevant to studying mate preferences after having children.

Introduction

Children dominate their parents’ time and energy and siphon a significant portion of their accrued resources. Although having children changes people’s lives substantially, the extent to which people’s mate preferences change after having children is unclear. The current chapter will address theoretical considerations important to developing hypotheses about mate preferences after having children and will summarize existing relevant data. First, because provisioning and caring for children was a recurrent adaptive problem, human mating psychology may have evolved to calibrate mate preferences to motivate the pursuit of partners who are able and willing to contribute resources and parenting effort and who will not pose a threat to existing children. Any shifts in...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, CA, 92407-2393, USA

    Cari Goetz

Authors
  1. Cari Goetz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cari Goetz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Goetz, C. (2016). Mate Preferences after Having Children. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_15-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_15-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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