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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science pp 1–7Cite as

Desire to Be Included Among Desirable Women

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Synonyms

Appearance enhancement effort; Attractiveness effort; Epigamic display; Intersexual selection

Definition

Women’s desire to be considered among “desirable” women involves motivation and effort toward displaying attributes that enhance their desirability as either a mating or social partner.

Introduction

Men, more than women, prefer physically attractive and sexually faithful mates. Women and girls who are high on these desired traits might also be more popular within their same-sex peer networks. Accordingly, women, more than men, are motivated to display and accentuate these mate-value and peer-valued characteristics, which are, in part, signals of reproductively and socially relevant information. Social-cognitive mechanisms such as social comparison, as well as emotions such as envy, appear to underlie some behaviors associated with women’s desire to be considered among desirable women.

Across diverse human cultures, men’s and women’s mate preferences have been shown to...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada

    Steven Arnocky

Authors
  1. Steven Arnocky
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Correspondence to Steven Arnocky .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Arnocky, S. (2016). Desire to Be Included Among Desirable Women. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_881-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_881-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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