Previous mate preference studies indicate that people prefer partners whose personalities are extremely kind and trustworthy, but relatively nondominant. This conclusion, however, is based on research that leaves unclear whether these traits describe the behavior a partner directs toward oneself, toward other classes of people or both. Because the fitness consequences of partners' behaviors likely differed depending on the classes of individuals toward whom behaviors were directed, we predicted that mate preferences for personality traits would change depending on the specific targets of a partner's behavioral acts. Consistent with this, two experiments demonstrated that people prefer partners who are extremely kind and trustworthy when considering behaviors directed toward themselves or their friends/family, but shift their preferences to much lower levels of these traits when considering behaviors directed toward other classes of individuals. In addition, both sexes preferred partners who direct higher levels of dominance toward members of the partner's own sex than toward any other behavioral target category, with women preferring levels of dominance toward other men as high as — or higher than — levels of kindness and trustworthiness. When asked to rate traits for which the behavioral target was left unspecified, furthermore, preferences were very similar to self-directed preferences, suggesting that previous trait-rating studies have not measured preferences for partners' behaviors directed toward people other than oneself. These findings may provide a basic contribution to the mate preference literature via their demonstration that ideal standards for romantic partners are importantly qualified by the targets of behavioral acts.
The human mate preference literature includes a large number of studies that have sought to identify the personality traits possessed by the ideal romantic partner. These studies have generally converged in finding that people report preferring traits related to kindness and trustworthiness above all other aspects of personality (e.g., Botwin et al., 1997, Buss et al., 1990, Buss and Barnes, 1986, Cottrell et al., 2007, Ellis et al., 2002, Fletcher et al., 1999, Kenrick et al., 1993, Kenrick et al., 1990, Li et al., 2002, Li and Kenrick, 2006, Pillsworth, 2008 and Regan et al., 2000). When forced to make trade-offs among various desirable attributes, the differential value of these traits becomes even more pronounced (Fletcher et al., 2004, Li et al., 2002 and Li and Kenrick, 2006), to the point that Li et al. (2002) concluded from their findings that “people may desire as kind a mate as possible” (p. 953). In addition, despite theoretical reasons to believe that women should prefer intrasexually dominant men (e.g., Sadalla et al., 1987 and Snyder et al., 2008), both sexes self-report much lower preferences for dominance-related traits than for traits related to kindness and trustworthiness (Botwin et al., 1997, Fletcher et al., 1999, Kenrick et al., 1990 and Kenrick et al., 1993). Based on these findings, then, the extant self-report literature suggests that people who are highly kind and trustworthy — but also relatively nondominant — should be the most attractive romantic partners of both sexes.
