Sex differences in human mate preferences vary across sex ratios Walter, Kathryn V. Martínez Gutiérrez, Rocío Mate preferences Sex ratio Sex differences Cross-cultural Mating market This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. 1845586. The work of T.T.K.H. was supported by grant no. 501.01-2016.02 from the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED). A.O. was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (grant no. 626/STYP/12/2017). A.S. and P.S. were supported by National Science Center-Poland (grant no. 2014/13/B/HS6/02644). Marina Butovskaya and D.D. were supported by State assignment project No. 01201370995 of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Moscow, Russia. P.G., A.L. and N.M. were supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund-(OTKA; grant no. K125437). F.J. was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant no. 71971225). G.A. was supported by UKRI/GCRF Gender, Justice, Security Grant (grant no. AH/S004025/1). A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attention has been directed towards the relationship between sex ratio and mate preferences, despite the importance of mate preferences in the human mating literature. To address this gap, we examined sex ratio’s relationship to the variation in preferences for attractiveness, resources, kindness, intelligence and health in a long-term mate across 45 countries (n = 14 487). We predicted that mate preferences would vary according to relative power of choice on the mating market, with increased power derived from having relatively few competitors and numerous potential mates. We found that each sex tended to report more demanding preferences for attractiveness and resources where the opposite sex was abundant, compared to where the opposite sex was scarce. This pattern dovetails with those found for mating strategies in humans and mate preferences across species, highlighting the importance of sex ratio for understanding variation in human mate preferences. 2021-09-23T09:03:35Z 2021-09-23T09:03:35Z 2021-07-21 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Walter KV... [et al.] 2021. Sex differences in human mate preferences vary across sex ratios. Proc. R. Soc. B 288: 20211115. [https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1115] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/70394 10.1098/rspb.2021.1115 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Royal Society