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Women’s Personal Resources

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

  • 131 Accesses

Synonyms

Family roles, Gender equality, Income, Pay equity

Definition

Material assets (e.g., income, property) owned by women.

Introduction

This entry provides a brief overview of research about associations between women’s economic resources and their long-term partner preferences. These associations are of special interest in light of women’s tendency to attribute more importance to financial resources in a partner than men do (Buss 2011). Whether this pattern is a result of evolved adaptations, sociocultural factors, or some combination of the two continues to be a subject of controversy. Evolutionary psychological theory stipulates that female reproductive success depends on resources necessary to raise offspring. Hence, women should prefer partners with an ability to invest direct resources in offspring, resulting in a preference for good financial prospects (e.g., Buss and Schmitt 1993). From a sociocultural view, pervasive gender inequalities make women more likely to adopt...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Marcel Zentner

Authors
  1. Marcel Zentner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcel Zentner .

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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Zentner, M. (2016). Women’s Personal Resources. 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_19-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_19-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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