Parent–child discrepancies in mate preferences: A three‐level meta‐analysis

Abstract

Through the lens of evolutional psychology, mate preferences are posited into a three “G” framework (good genes, good resources, and good persons/parents/partners) that captures genetic quality, resource acquisition, and personality and caregiving qualities. Previous research acknowledged that adult children had different mate preferences from their parents, but had no consensus on how such differences existed in certain mate characteristics. This meta‐analysis aimed to examine the discrepancies of characteristics in mate preferences between parent and adult child, and how the moderators of culture, gender, measurement scoring type, and study quality could influence such discrepancies. We summarized 25 eligible articles (N = 21,008) on parent–child discrepancies in mate preferences, which covered 1473 effect sizes. A three‐level random‐effects meta‐analysis result showed that adult children's mate preferences had significant differences from parents’ preferences on in‐laws in good genes (Cohen's d = 0.42, 95% CI [0.237, 0.595]), indicating that adult children emphasized more on traits associated with genetic quality. No significant group differences were found on the related traits about good resources (Cohen's d = −0.11) and good persons/parents/partners (Cohen's d = 0.08), indicating that parents and children have similar preferences on provisioning‐related mate traits and personality. Our results also revealed that the parent–child discrepancies in mate preferences differ across culture, gender, measurement scoring type, and study quality. Our results offer insights into revisiting evolutionary perspectives of mate preference and highlighting the existing parent–child discrepancies in mate preferences that can be explained through social structural theories and family systems theory. We also discussed practical implications for research on mate preferences and highlighted new avenues for future studies.