Sex differences in parental preferences over a child's mate choice: A daughter's perspective

Although parental influence over mate choice is important to human mating decisions, it is often overlooked within evolutionary psychology. Based on evolutionary theory, we predict that, while both parents likely influence a child's mate choice, daughters will perceive having a low quality partner (i.e., traits indicating poor parental investment, a lack of creativity, and physical unattractiveness) would be more unacceptable to their mother when compared with the father. However, daughters will perceive having a partner with traits indicating low social status as more unacceptable to their father when compared with the mother. The results supported the hypotheses