Sex and the perceived effectiveness of short-term mate poaching acts in college students.

Abstract

Schmitt and Buss (2001) investigated acts that would be used in a mate poach. However, during their first phase of research, they failed to ask their participants to nominate acts in a short-term mate poaching context. This current study set out to discover the actions men use during short-term mate poaching and the effectiveness of these actions. Study 1 asked heterosexual men (N = 39) to nominate actions they would use for a short-term mate poach. Men were expected to nominate actions that display emotional support, caring, emotional stability, and dominance. Study 2 (N = 448) investigated which acts were perceived as most effective by both men and women. The five acts that were nominated as most effective were acts that signaled emotional commitment and altruism.