Dr Paul Eastwick

But once again, I think we have overestimated some of them.

Let's talk about the mate preferences first.

And I know you're familiar with the concepts of stated and revealed preferences, right?

There's a distinction between what people say they want in a partner and what they actually want to partner.

They're preferences as they are revealed through interactions with real people.

And this was one of the first things we studied 20 years ago.

We knew that the men in our sample would say they cared about attractiveness more than women.

And we knew that the women in our sample would say they cared about ambition more than men.

But when we sent them speed dating, what you saw was like, oh, ambition is a mild aphrodisiac.

They like the ambitious guys more than the non-ambitious guys, but...

The men like the ambitious women a little bit more than the unambitious women.

And there was no gender differences.

And that was the first thing that clued us in that like, whoa, maybe when men say they want these things, they're misunderstanding their own preferences in some ways.

And same thing for women, too.

I would say that probably the thing that has stood out the most is, you know, what I just mentioned.

So ambition, earning potential.

These are, you know, they inspire romantic desire a little bit.

People are like a little bit happier in their ongoing relationships if they think their partner is ambitious and successful, for example.

Right.

But that's really one where we've seen there's no gender difference in that overall effect.