Do humans prefer altruistic mates? Testing a link between sexual selection and altruism towards non-relatives

Humans are often seen as unusual in displaying altruistic behaviour towards nonrelatives. Here we outline and test a hypothesis that human altruistic traits evolved as a result of sexual selection. We develop a psychometric scale to measure mate preference towards altruistic traits (the MPAT scale). We then seek evidence of whether mate choice on the basis of altruistic traits is present and find it in one stud/ (N = 170 couples). We also predict that a stronger female MPAT, as measured by responses to the MPAT scale, will be expressed - a result found in all three studies (Ns = 380, 340, and 398). Both sets of results are consistent with the hypothesized link between human altruism towards non-relatives and sexual selection. © 2008 The British Psychological Society