Abstract
Contemporary women in Western cultures are often trying to juggle careers alongside personal and societal expectations for childrearing in an effort to “have it all.” We examine the effects of this balancing act on heterosexual women’s mate selection motivations. Across three Canadian samples (n = 360), we tested concurrent hypotheses about the desirability of both similar and complementary characteristics in a potential mate. Specifically, women’s aspirations (to prioritize career over family) and their expectations for the roles they will most likely adopt within their future partnerships (primary breadwinner and/or caregiver) were tested as key predictors of mate preferences. Although specific effects varied across samples, a mega-analysis of the combined sample and an internal meta-analysis of effect sizes from the three studies provided support for both complementary and similarity motives (controlling for gender role attitudes). Women’s aspirations to prioritize career (over family) predicted greater similarity in mate preferences, such that they placed less importance on men’s parenting qualities, more importance on their access to financial resources, and preferred a career-oriented over family-oriented exemplar. However, women’s expectations of actually taking on the breadwinner role predicted greater complementarity in mate preferences (greater desirability of parenting qualities and a family-oriented partner; with financial resources rated as less important). Our work expands current understanding of women’s decision-making processes when selecting a mate and has implications for men’s changing traits and roles.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acitelli, L. K., Kenny, D. A., & Weiner, D. (2001). The importance of similarity and understanding of partners’ marital ideals to relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships, 8(2), 167–185. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2001.tb00034.x.
Aron, A., & Aron, E. N. (1986). Love and the expansion of self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere Publishing Corp/Harper & Row Publishers.
Aron, A., Aron, E. N., Tudor, M., & Nelson, G. (1991). Close relationships as including other in the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 241–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.2.241.
Aube, J., & Koestner, R. (1995). Gender characteristics and relationship adjustment: Another look at similarity-complementarity hypotheses. Journal of Personality, 63(4), 879–904. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.ep9512221955.
Beall, A. T., & Schaller, M. (2014). Affective implications of the mating/parenting trade-off: Short-term mating motives and desirability as a short-term mate predict less intense tenderness responses to infants. Personality and Individual Differences, 68, 112–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.03.049.
Block, K., Croft, A., De Souza, L., & Schmader, T. (2019). Do people care if men don't care about caring? The asymmetry in support for changing gender roles. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 83, 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.03.013.
Block, K., Croft, A., & Schmader, T. (2018). Worth less?: Why men (and women) devalue care-oriented careers. Frontiers in Psychology, 9(1353). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01353.
Brown, E. R., & Diekman, A. B. (2010). What will I be? Exploring gender differences in near and distant possible selves. Sex Roles, 63, 568–579. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9827-x.
Buckels, E. E., Beall, A. T., Hofer, M. K., Lin, E. Y., Zhou, Z., & Schaller, M. (2015). Individual differences in activation of the parental care motivational system: Assessment, prediction, and implications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108, 497–514. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000023.
Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8483982.
Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on household labor: Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62, 1208–1233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.01208.x.
Conroy-Beam, D., Buss, D. M., Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (2015). How sexually dimorphic are human mate preferences? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 1082–1093. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167215590987.
Croft, A., Schmader, T., & Block, K. (2015). An under-examined inequality: Cultural and psychological barriers to men’s engagement with communal roles. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19, 343–370. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868314564789.
Croft, A., Schmader, T., & Block, K. (2019). Life in the balance: Are women’s possible selves constrained by men’s domestic involvement? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45, 808–823. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218797294.
Durante, K. M., Griskevicius, V., Simpson, J. a., Cantú, S. M., & Tybur, J. M. (2012). Sex ratio and women’s career choice: Does a scarcity of men lead women to choose briefcase over baby? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(1), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027949.
Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. New York: Psychology Press.
Eagly, A. (2013). Women as leaders: Leadership style versus leaders' values and attitudes. In R. Ely & A. Cuddy (Eds.), Gender and work: Challenging conventional wisdom (pp. 4–11). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Eagly, A. H., Eastwick, P. W., & Johannesen-Schmidt, M. (2009). Possible selves in marital roles: The impact of the anticipated division of labor on the mate preferences of women and men. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(4), 403–414. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208329696.
Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 735–754. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.46.4.735.
Eastwick, P. W., Eagly, A. H., Glick, P., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., Fiske, S. T., Blum, A. M. B., … Volpato, C. (2006). Is traditional gender ideology associated with sex-typed mate preferences? A test in nine nations. Sex Roles, 54(9–10), 603–614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9027-x.
Eastwick, P. W., & Finkel, E. J. (2008). Sex differences in mate preferences revisited: Do people know what they initially desire in a romantic partner? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(2), 245–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.94.2.245.
Joel, S., MacDonald, G., & Plaks, J. E. (2013). Romantic relationships conceptualized as a judgment and decision-making domain. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 461–465. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721413498892.
Kalmijn, M. (1994). Assortative mating by cultural and economic occupational status. American Journal of Sociology, 100, 422–452 Retrieved from https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/647947/jstor2.pdf.
Kalmijn, M. (1998). Intermarriage and homogamy: Causes, patterns, trends. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 395–421. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.24.1.395.
Kasser, T., & Sharma, Y. S. (1999). Reproductive freedom, educational equality, and females' preference for resource-acquisition characteristics in mates. Psychological Science, 10, 374–377. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00171.
Lakens, D., & Etz, A. J. (2017). Too true to be bad: When sets of studies with significant and nonsignificant findings are probably true. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 875–881. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617693058.
Larsen, K. S., & Long, E. (1988). Attitudes toward sex-roles: Traditional or egalitarian? Sex Roles, 19, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00292459.
Li, N. P., Valentine, K. A., & Patel, L. (2011). Mate preferences in the US and Singapore: A cross-cultural test of the mate preference priority model. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 291–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.10.005.
Lipsey, M. W., & Wilson, D. B. (2001). Practical meta-analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41.9.954.
Mare, R. D. (1991). Five decades of educational assortative mating. American Sociological Review, 56, 15–32. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095670.
Meeussen, L., Van Laar, C., & Verbruggen, M. (2018). Looking for a family man? Norms for men are toppling in heterosexual relationships. Sex Roles, 80(7–8), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-018-0946-0.
Oyserman, D., & James, L. (2011). Possible identities. In S. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 117–148). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Schimmack, U. (2012). The ironic effect of significant results on the credibility of multiple-study articles. Psychological Methods, 17, 551–566. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029487.
Simmons, J. (2014). Mturk vs. the lab: Either way we need big samples. Retrieved on July 2, 2015 from http://datacolada.org/2014/04/04/18-mturk-vs-the-lab-either-way-we-need-bigsamples/.
Tidwell, N. D., Eastwick, P. W., & Finkel, E. J. (2013). Perceived, not actual, similarity predicts initial attraction in a live romantic context: Evidence from the speed-dating paradigm. Personal Relationships, 20, 199–215. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2012.01405.x.
Zentner, M., & Mitura, K. (2012). Stepping out of the caveman’s shadow: Nations' gender gap predicts degree of sex differentiation in mate preferences. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1176–1185. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612441004.
Funding
This research was supported by the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology and the Society for the Psychology of Women (APA Division 35).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
All research conducted in this manuscript was in compliance with standards for the ethical treatment of human participants and approval from the University of British Columbia Ethics Board was obtained prior to data collection.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 428 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Croft, A., Schmader, T., Beall, A. et al. Breadwinner Seeks Bottle Warmer: How Women’s Future Aspirations and Expectations Predict Their Current Mate Preferences. Sex Roles 82, 633–643 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01080-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01080-6