Dependents as signals of mate value in an online dating context

Abstract

Sexual strategies theory indicates that humans can adopt short- and long-term mating strategies, producing sex- and strategy-specific mating behaviours due to asymmetries in obligate parental investment into children. Consequently, demonstrating an ability and willingness to invest in a mate and offspring is highly desired under long-term mating contexts – especially by women. Investment may be financial and/or based on social status, as well as the ability to care for a mate and any resulting offspring. While male carers of dependents (i.e., pets and children) have typically been perceived as high-quality mates by women, no studies have examined how dependents are associated with short- and long term mating strategies. I selected profiles from the online dating platform Plenty of Fish to test the predictions that men seeking a long-term mate will be more likely to display a dependent on their profile, and those who display a dependent will do so more frequently than men seeking short-term mates and women seeking long-term ones. The results show that men seeking long-term mates were more likely to show a dependent and did so more frequently when compared to men seeking short-term mates; however, men and women seeking a long-term mate displayed dependents in a similar fashion. These patterns were driven mainly by the displays of high-investment dependents (children and canines). These findings indicate that men adopting long-term mating strategies are more likely to advertise their investment capabilities compared to those seeking a short-term mate in a modern dating context, which may be used to signal their mate value.