Strategies of Human Mating

Modern humans have inherited the mating strategies that led to the success of their ancestors. These strategies include long-term mating, short-term mating, extra-pair mating, mate poaching, and mate guarding. This article presents empirical evidence supporting evolution-based hypotheses about the complexities of these mating strategies. Since men and women historically confronted different adaptive problems in the mating domain, the sexes differ profoundly in evolved strategic solutions. These differences include possessing different mate preferences, different desires for short-term mating, and differences in the triggers that evoke sexual jealousy. The study of human mating is one of the “success stories” of evolutionary psychology