Paul W. Eastwick, Jehan Sparks, Eli J. Finkel, Eva M. Meza, Matúš Adamkovič, Peter Adu, Ting Ai, Aderonke A. Akintola, Laith Al-Shawaf, Denisa Apriliawati, Patrícia Arriaga, Benjamin Aubert-Teillaud, Gabriel Baník, Krystian Barzykowski, Carlota Batres, Katherine J. Baucom, Elizabeth Z. Beaulieu, Maciej Behnke, Natalie Butcher, Deborah Y. Charles, Jane Minyan Chen, Jeong Eun Cheon, Phakkanun Chittham, Patrycja Chwiłkowska, Chin Wen Cong, Lee T. Copping, Nadia S. Corral-Frias, Vera Ćubela Adorić, Mikaela Dizon, Hongfei Du, Michael I. Ehinmowo, Daniela A. Escribano, Natalia M. Espinosa, Francisca Expósito, Gilad Feldman, Raquel Freitag, Martha Frias Armenta, Albina Gallyamova, Omri Gillath, Biljana Gjoneska, Theofilos Gkinopoulos, Franca Grafe, Dmitry Grigoryev, Agata Groyecka-Bernard, Gul Gunaydin, Ruby Ilustrisimo, Emily Impett, Pavol Kačmár, Young-Hoon Kim, Mirosław Kocur, Marta Kowal, Maatangi Krishna, Paul Danielle Labor, Jackson G. Lu, Marc Y. Lucas, Wojciech P. Małecki, Klara Malinakova, Sofia Meißner, Zdeněk Meier, Michal Misiak, Amy Muise, Lukas Novak, Jiaqing O, Asil A. Özdoğru, Haeyoung Gideon Park, Mariola Paruzel, Zoran Pavlović, Marcell Püski, Gianni Ribeiro, S. Craig Roberts, Jan P. Röer, Ivan Ropovik, Robert M. Ross, Ezgi Sakman, Cristina E. Salvador, Emre Selcuk, Shayna Skakoon-Sparling, Agnieszka Sorokowska, Piotr Sorokowski, Ognen Spasovski, Sarah C. E. Stanton, Suzanne L. K. Stewart, Viren Swami, Barnabas Szaszi, Kaito Takashima, Peter Tavel, Julian Tejada, Eric Tu, Jarno Tuominen, David Vaidis, Zahir Vally, Leigh Ann Vaughn, Laura Villanueva-Moya, Dian Wisnuwardhani, Yuki Yamada, Fumiya Yonemitsu, Radka Žídková, Kristýna Živná, Nicholas A. Coles
Ideal partner preferences (i.e., ratings of the desirability of attributes like attractiveness or intelligence) are the source of numerous foundational findings in the interdisciplinary literature on human mating. Recently, research on the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching (i.e., Do people positively evaluate partners who match vs. mismatch their ideals?) has become mired in several problems. First, articles exhibit discrepant analytic and reporting practices. Second, different findings emerge across laboratories worldwide, perhaps because they sample different relationship contexts and/or populations. This registered report—partnered with the Psychological Science Accelerator—uses a highly powered design (N = 10,358) across 43 countries and 22 languages to estimate preference-matching effect sizes. The most rigorous tests revealed significant preference-matching effects in the whole sample and for partnered and single participants separately. The “corrected pattern metric” that collapses across 35 traits revealed a zero-order effect of β =.19 and an effect of β =.11 when included alongside a normative preference-matching metric. Specific traits in the “level metric” (interaction) tests revealed very small (average β =.04) effects. Effect sizes were similar for partnered participants who reported ideals before entering a relationship, and there was no consistent evidence that individual differences moderated any effects. Comparisons between stated and revealed preferences shed light on gender differences and similarities: For attractiveness, men's and (especially) women's stated preferences underestimated revealed preferences (i.e., they thought attractiveness was less important than it actually was). For earning potential, men's stated preferences underestimated—and women's stated preferences overestimated—revealed preferences. Implications for the literature on human mating are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved) © 2024 American Psychological Association All rights, including for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies, are reserved.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States; Behavioral Decision Making Group, University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, CA, United States; Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, United States; Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia; Wellington Faculty of Health, School of Health, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand; Department of Social Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, United States; Department of Psychology, Redeemer's University, Nigeria; Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO, United States; Department of Psychology, Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga, Indonesia; Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal; Institut de Psychologie, Universite Paris Cite, Paris, France; Department of Educational Psychology and Psychology of Health, Pavol Jozef Safarik University, Slovakia; Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Poland; Department of Psychology, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, United States; Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States; Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland; Department of Psychology, Teesside University, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, Christ University, India; Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, United States; Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, South Korea; Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; Department of Social Science, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology, Malaysia; Department of Psychology, Universidad de Sonora, Mexico; Department of Psychology, University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia; Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom; Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China; Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States; Departament of Social Psychology, University of Granada, Granada, Spain; Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Departamento de Letras Vernaculas, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil; Department of Law, Universidad de Sonora, Mexico; Center for Sociocultural Research, HSE University, Russian Federation; Devision of Neuroinformatics in Function of Sustainable Development, Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, North Macedonia; Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Krakow, Poland; Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany; Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland; Psychology Program, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Turkey; Department of Psychology, University of San Carlos, Philippines; Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice, Kosice, Slovakia; IDN Being Human, Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland; Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines, Philippines; Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States; Department of Anthropology and Psychology, Universidad de Sonora, Mexico; IDN Being Human, Institute of Polish Studies, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland; Olomouc University Social Health Institute, Palacky University Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic; Department of Psychology, York University, North York, ON, Canada; Health and Social Sciences Cluster, Singapore Institute of Technology, Singapore; Department of Psychology, Marmara University, Turkey; Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia; Institute of Psychology, Eotvos Lorand University, Hungary; School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; Institute for Research and Development of Education, Faculty of Education, Charles University, Czech Republic; Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia; Department of Psychology, Bilkent University, Turkey; Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Skopje, North Macedonia; School of Psychology, University of Chester, Chester, United Kingdom; School of Psychology, Sport, and Sensory Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom; Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Japan; Departamento de Psicologia, Universidade Federal de Sergipe, Brazil; Department of Psychology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland; Department of Psychology, Centre for Learning Leadership and Excellence, centre national de la recherche scientifique, Universite de Toulouse, Toulouse, France; Department of Clinical Psychology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates; Department of Psychology, Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, United States; Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia; Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Japan; College of Engineering, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan; Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
