Partner choice
Partner choice describes a process in which humans or animals choose relationship partners or even pure sexual partners . In humans, different factors play a role in this process; In rich countries of the Western world , these include factors such as sexual attractiveness , life plan considerations, sensations , experiences and habitual similarities.
Theoretical approaches (overview)
There are different theoretical approaches to partner selection:
- The evolutionary psychological theory of sexual strategies (Sexual Strategies Theory) (e.g. Buss, 1989; Buss & Schmitt, 1993): If the goal of partner choice is procreation, argues Buss (1989), partner choice strategies serve to find optimal partners identify in order to increase the genetic fitness of one's own offspring through successful reproduction and ensuring survival (compare zoological fundamentals of sexuality ).
- In contrast are the social-psychological role theories ( social role theories , such as Alice H. Eagly 1987) the social environment as a key consideration for gender differences in mate choice. In particular, was the type of division of labor in a society and the resulting gender roles for partner selection criteria for men and Women crucial.
- Further models are the complementarity model by Winch (1958), the phase model by Saxon (1968), the instrumentality theory by Centers (1975), the psychoanalytic model by Jung (1978), the altruism model by Kirchler (1989) and the step model by Klein (1991 ).
Bruce K. Eckland published a review article on theoretical approaches to mate selection in 1982.
Social psychological approaches
Social Role Theories
In contrast to the evolutionary psychological approach, gender-specific behaviors should depend on the adaptation ( socialization ) to different gender roles that a society has in store. The more unequal the social positions of men and women in a society, the greater the difference in behavior. According to the Social Role Theories (Eagly, 1987; Eagly, Wood & Diekman, 2000), this gender hierarchy develops differently in different societies due to the gender-specific division of labor . Social roles are defined as "a collection of beliefs and views that the majority of members of a society share and that relate to how a person who holds a particular social position behaves or should behave " (Eagly et al., 2000) . Since both sexes perceive different roles , they also adapt their behavior when choosing a partner. Studies have shown that women in many cultures have less power, influence and resources than men, as women mainly do household chores and lower-paid jobs due to the specific division of labor. This results in different roles and - expectations that Eagly (2000) as "resource provider" ( breadwinner ) and "homemaker" ( housewife called).
The social role theory also includes the hypothesis of Wellek (1963), according to which the choice of partner is based on a complementary gender role identification, so that women with very female gender role identification (e.g. 90% female, 10% male) men with a complementary male gender role identification (e.g. 10% female, 90% male) so that the male and female proportions always add up to 100%. Conversely, according to this hypothesis, people with less accentuated sexual role identification also look for their equals.
Homogamy and heterogamy
In addition to the aspect of physical attractiveness , partner selection also takes place according to criteria such as similarity , sympathy and complementarity . Two basic hypotheses about partner choice are distinguished:
- According to the homogamy hypothesis, partners are selected according to similar criteria and the same conditions as possible are brought into a partnership : descent, age, level of education, social status, financial situation, hobbies, political inclination, religion. In addition, there should be an endogamy principle according to which the choice of partner is determined by cultural and subcultural similarities.
- According to the heterogamy hypothesis, opposites attract: A partner is primarily sought who brings opposing character traits to the partnership.
Empirical studies have shown that the homogamy thesis is particularly true. The American psychologist Steven Reiss empirically demonstrated in 2000 that partner characteristics are homogamous in the area of existential values and social norms - but heterogamous in the area of hobbies and interests. Reiss took up considerations of the psychologist William McDougalls , which were based on the model of causal attribution from 1932.
In the extensive survey of over 6,000 men and women from the USA , Japan and Canada , Reiss traced human behavior back to 16 relevant life motives. From this he developed a complex, non-hierarchical order of homogeneous basic human motifs, which became relatively popular in the following years (see Reiss's taxonomy ).
If partners have predominantly the same or similar values for the basic norms examined, the probability of a stable relationship is over- random . The sociology describes, moreover, that relations which have more than one social class to be justified away, are below average stable.
In addition to the preference for a person with a personality that is similar to one's own, there is, statistically independent, a strong tendency to repeatedly choose a partner whose personality is similar to the ex-partner.
Social closure
With the concept of social closure , homogamous tendencies are brought into connection with social structure in sociology .
In 2007, the microcensus in Germany recorded married couples and unmarried partnerships in which both partners gave information on their education in the categories “high”, “medium” and “low”. According to this, 61% of the couples had the same educational qualification. In 30% of the cases the man had a higher level of education than the woman. In 9% of the couples it was the other way round.
Individual psychology
For Alfred Adler , marriage or love as partners - alongside work and community - is one of the three life tasks that all people have to solve. Adler sees it in the narrower sense as a task for two people of different sex who live and work together. In the larger context, there are two people who work on a social problem as part of humanity and are connected to the past and the future. He sees a positive evolutionary development in the educational change ( marriage counseling or couple therapy ) away from a self-related, expectant, pampered attitude towards a task-oriented, beyond self, cooperative attitude, which is guided by a sense of community .
For Adler, the right choice of partner for love and marriage is crucial in addition to physical suitability and attraction, the right attitude towards all three life tasks: The partner must have proven that he can maintain friendship, must be interested in his work and be more interested in his partner to show as for yourself.
According to Wolfgang Hantel-Quitmann , the choice of partner today is primarily determined by the hope that the person sought will help the person seeking personal development. People have life and love topics that they are mostly not aware of and that can change significantly in the course of life. In the case of young people, this can be, for example, moving away from home; If this detachment has been managed with the help of a partnership, the partnership often breaks up because it has lost its original function and has not developed new functions.
Evolutionary Psychology Approach
According to the theoretical approach of evolutionary psychology , people look for evolutionary sexual partners who can offer the highest possible survival probability for their own offspring. The approach is based on Charles Darwin's theory that living beings strive to produce as many viable offspring as possible, as well as the assumption that adaptive capacities go back to the time of our ancestors and are inherited to this day, and relates to heterosexual pairing. However, the application of evolutionary theory to human psychology is controversial. In the opinion of the critics, reproduction as a goal of partner choice is also overrated.
Sexual Strategies Theory
Amount of parental investment
Trivers (1972) defined his theory of parental investment and sexual selection as follows: Parental investment is any form of investment in offspring that precludes the possibility of investing in other offspring.
It includes invested time, energy and efforts made to ensure the survival of the offspring, especially at the expense of competition for other partners. It therefore also represents a reduction in one's own reproductive value such as fertility and mating success. The sex that invests more in offspring has higher demands when choosing a partner and is more careful or more selective when choosing a partner. Buss (2000) concluded from this that the person who is most likely to meet the needs of the courted partner is chosen. Cross-cultural women who invest more weight the economic status of potential partners higher than men. The amount of investment in offspring therefore differs between men and women. While a man can theoretically have unlimited offspring, women invest much more with pregnancy. Therefore, from an evolutionary point of view, men tend to pay more attention to quantity in attachment and reproductive behavior, while quality plays a greater role for women.
Partner preferences
female beauty ideal of the high renaissance (oil painting by Raphael , 1515)
Buss and Schmitt argued in 1993 that women primarily developed preferences that mark a man as a breadwinner and protector, including a man's social status and the resources at his disposal. Compared to men, women should feel attracted to partners who show non-verbal dominance behavior. In particular, tall men with an athletic build should be considered attractive, but more important are characteristics that indicate maturity, intelligence, reliability and ambition (assets, professional position, status symbols ). Due to pregnancy and breastfeeding, women could invest heavier resources and therefore prefer older, more affluent partners with a high social status who can support a family over the long term (maximum benefits). Men, on the other hand, should value the physical appearance and attractiveness of women across cultures higher, who convey a high reproductive value and fertility of the partner, that is, they would prefer women with high reproductive value, as this is limited in time (maximum reproductive potential). Men would instinctively judge women's reproductive value according to physical appearance - such as physique, smooth skin, shiny eyes - and behavior, such as physical activity and gestures.
When choosing a partner, a phenomenon which is called "assortative mating" (assortative mating) : People look for a partner with which corresponds approximately to their own perceived attractiveness level. The longer two people have known each other before their partnership begins, the less the appearance of the two partners plays a role.
See also: Gender theories in evolutionary psychology , attractiveness research and evolutionary aesthetics
Historical
Individual and collective choice of partner
In the western high culture the individual choice of partner prevails today. That is, a young person chooses his or her partner based on romantic love. Historically, that's not the norm. Until well into the 19th century, the decision to marry two young people in large parts of Europe was made either by their families or by the village community as a collective.
When the families chose the partner for their child, they made sure that he came from a family that was as wealthy as possible. He or she should also be healthy and capable of hard work. Since there was a desire for a family owner, the woman should be young. At that time, no consideration was given to the mutual sympathy of both partners. Relatives weddings were common among large farmers. So you wanted to keep the property in the family. In the early 18th century, almost 50% of women from eligible families were married to a relative (usually a second or third cousin). In large parts of Europe, marriage bans were common. This means that the authorities could forbid two young people from getting married if their material prospects were too bad. However, such prohibitions were partly based on direct economic interests of the rule, and they were not always practically enforceable. The collective interference in partner choice in northern Germany and Sweden went even further. There the community passed a series of tests for young people before they were allowed to seek a partner.
Transition from the collective to the individual choice of partner
This started to change in Europe during the industrial revolution . The first signs of change were evident in the newly emerging industrial workforce. The industrial workers took more and more the freedom of the autonomous choice of partner. Out of wedlock and premarital intercourse were also common. The rural proletariat imitated the industrial workers. In the old middle class, however, young people were still married off by their families; premarital intercourse was still taboo. Only gradually did this change. In numerous non-Western societies, the collective model of partner choice still prevails today.
Free choice of spouse is a human right . Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes a. the right of marriageable men and women to marry and to start a family and the requirement that the future spouses freely and unrestrictedly agree to marry. Something similar is regulated in Article 23 of the UN Civil Pact (see also: Protection of marriage and family ).
In the post-industrial society , expectations of a partnership continue to grow and the appreciation of personal ties continues to grow. This high demand pressure is expressed in the idealistic AMEFI concept ( Everything With One Forever ).
See also
- genetic matching (selection of a partner based on genetic variables)
literature
- Philippe Ariès, Georges Duby (ed.): History of private life . 5 volumes. Fischer , Frankfurt a. M. 1989, ISBN 3-10-033630-5 .
- Peter Borscheid: Peter Borscheid, Hans J. Teuteberg (ed.): Marriage, love and death. On the change in the family, gender and generation relationships in modern times (= studies on the history of everyday life . Volume 1 ). Coppenrath , Münster / Westf. 1983, ISBN 3-88547-275-9 , Money and Love. On the effects of the romantic on partner choice in the 19th century, p. 112-134 .
- David M. Buss , David P. Schmitt: Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating . In: Psychological Review . Vol. 100, No. 2 , 1993, p. 204–232 , doi : 10.1037 / 0033-295X.100.2.204 (English).
- Alice H. Eagly: Sex differences in social behavior. A social role interpretation . Erlbaum, Hillsdale , NJ 1987, ISBN 978-0-89859-804-9 (American English).
- Alice H. Eagly, Wendy Wood: Explaining sex differences in social behavior . In: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin . Vol. 17, No. 3 , 1991, pp. 306-315 , doi : 10.1177 / 0146167291173011 (English).
- Alice H. Eagly, Wendy Wood, Amanda B. Diekman: Thomas Eckes, Hanns M. Trautner (Eds.): The developmental social psychology of gender . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah , NJ 2000, ISBN 0-585-30065-8 , Social role theory of sex differences and similarities: A current appraisal, p. 123-174 .
- Andreas Hejj : dream partner. Evolutionary psychology of partner choice . Springer , Berlin et al. 1996, ISBN 3-540-60548-7 .
- Werner U. Langthaler: Partner recognition, flirtation and our second nose . Waxmann , Münster et al. 2001, ISBN 3-89325-832-9 .
- Udo Pollmer , Andrea Fock, Ulrike Gonder , Karin Haug: Love goes through the nose. What influences and guides our behavior . Updated and revised new edition (= KiWi . Volume 629 ). 1st edition. Kiepenheuer & Witsch , Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03011-6 .
- Albert Wellek : Psychology (= Dalp pocket books . Volume 372 ). Francke, 1963, ZDB -ID 841724-6 .
Web links
- Florian Rötzer : Choosing a partner in the age of online contact exchanges. In: heise online . October 22, 2013 (Dating websites are growing in popularity; is sexual selection rational?).
- Jens Jessen : Partnership: We made the wrong number. In: The time . June 7, 2017 ("self-optimization" through strategic partner change).
Individual evidence
- ↑ BK Eckland: Theories of mate selection . In: Biodemography and Social Biology . tape 29 , no. 1-2 , 1982, pp. 7-21 , doi : 10.1080 / 19485565.1982.9988475 .
- ↑ Message: Partnership: Same type, same problems? In: Spektrum.de . July 30, 2019, accessed on August 3, 2019 (as an article published in the issue Spectrum: Brain & Mind 9/2019).
- ↑ Number of the week: In six out of ten couples, both partners have the same degree. (No longer available online.) Federal Statistical Office , September 2, 2008, archived from the original on September 10, 2008 ; Retrieved on June 19, 2013 : "The three categories used for the level of education" high "," medium "and" low "were defined according to the internationally comparable classification for the educational system" International Standard Classification of Education "(ISCED)."
- ↑ a b Heinz Ludwig Ansbacher : Alfred Adlers Sexualtheorien . Fischer paperback , Frankfurt a. M. 1989, ISBN 3-596-26793-5 . S. ??.
- ↑ Carmen Gräf: Choice of partner: repeat offenders in love. In: Zeit Online . October 29, 2009, accessed July 29, 2019; Quote: “Do some people really always fall for the same guy? Not at all, say psychologists: there is a lot more change than constancy in the choice of partner ”.
- ↑ David M. Buss , David P. Schmitt: Sexual Strategies Theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating . In: Psychological Review . Vol. 100, No. 2 , 1993, p. 204–232 , doi : 10.1037 / 0033-295X.100.2.204 (English).
- ↑ Jan Dönges: Finding a partner: When appearance no longer matters. In: Spektrum.de . August 26, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2019 . Quote: “'Equal and equal like to join' naturally also and especially applies to appearance. Sometimes, however, romance wins - when, psychologists have now found out. "
- ↑ cf. for example State Archives Administration Baden-Württemberg: The district of Tübingen. Official district description. Volume 1. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1967, p. 224: “Originally one wanted to maintain the subordinate association by preventing marriages with strangers (...), which proved to be impossible (...) [I] In general, one came when the marriage prohibitions were violated mildly away. "
- ↑ a b all from Edward Shorter : The Birth of the Modern Family . Rowohlt , Reinbek 1977, ISBN 3-498-06122-4 .
- ↑ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, concluded in New York on December 16, 1966 (translation) at www.admin.ch
- ^ Wiener Zeitung : Everything with one forever? As a result of individual isolation, the need for intimate connection has grown. Of the few binding relationships that individuals have left, the love relationship is the central, often the only personal bond. November 14, 2011, accessed November 9, 2015
- ↑ Der Spiegel : The normal dream couple from June 6, 2012, accessed on November 9, 2015
- ↑ For you : Satisfied long love, accessed on November 9, 2015
- ↑ Die Welt : Why be loyal when there is polyamory from December 19, 2011, accessed on November 9, 2015