title: Human mate choice and the wedding ring effect : Are married men more attractive?
abstract: Individuals are often restricted to indirect cues when assessing the mate value of a potential partner. Females of some species have been shown to copy each other's choice; in other words, the probability of a female choosing a particular male increases if he has already been chosen by other females. Recently it has been suggested that mate-choice copying could be an important aspect of human mate choice as well. We tested one of the hypotheses, the so-called wedding ring effect-that women would prefer men who are already engaged or married-in a series of live interactions between men and women. The results show that women do not find men signaling engagement, or being perceived as having a partner, more attractive or higher in socioeconomic status. Furthermore, signs of engagement did not influence the women's reported willingness to engage in short-term or long-term relationships with the men. Thus, this study casts doubt on some simplified theories of human mate-choice copying, and alternative, more complex scenarios are outlined and discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Göteborg University, Box 463, SE 405 30, Göteborg, Sweden. tobias.uller@zool.gu.se.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Uller
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Göteborg University, Box 463, SE 405 30, Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: L Christoffer
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Johansson
keywords: Human mate choice; Mate-choice copying; Wedding ring effect