Prioritization of potential mates' history of sexual fidelity during a conjoint ranking task

This series of studies is the first to use conjoint analysis to examine how individuals make trade-offs during mate selection when provided information about a partner's history of sexual infidelity. across three studies,participants ranked profiles of potential mates,with each profile varying across five attributes: financial stability,physical attractiveness,sexual fidelity,emotional investment,and similarity. they also rated each attribute separately for importance in an ideal mate. overall,we found that for a long-term mate,participants prioritized a potential partner's history of sexual fidelity over other attributes when profiles were ranked conjointly. for a short-term mate,sexual fidelity,physical attractiveness,and financial stability were equally important,and each was more important than emotional investment and similarity. these patterns contrast with participants' self-reported importance ratings of each individual attribute. our results are interpreted within the context of previous literature examining how making trade-offs affect mate selection. © 2014 by the society for personality and social psychology,inc.