Strategic pluralism is a theory in evolutionary biology that suggests that women have evolved to evaluate men in two categories: whether they are reliable long term providers, and whether they contain high quality genes. The theory of strategic pluralism was proposed by Steven Gangestad and Jeffry Simpson, two professors of psychology at the University of New Mexico and Texas A&M University, respectively. As humans evolved, several trade-offs were prevalent, especially involving spending time and energy on child-rearing and mating. Gangestad and Simpson noted that even in species where male mammals offer little or no paternal investment, females still prefer some males over others for mating purposes. Ideally, a woman would attract and pair-bond with a mate that has both long-term providing benefits, while also carrying quality genes that are inheritable by her offspring. But since men that excel in both categories are very rare to come by, not all women will be able to secure such a man. The female preferences exhibited in situations where males are lacking parental investment can be attributed to good-gene sexual selection. Females observed in such conditions exhibited parallel behaviors as they revealed the tendency to select partners who were deemed genetically fit and reliable providers. Ultimately, as females evaluated males in this manner, it was evident that males who were on the positive side of the genetic fitness and reliability spectrums were favored as opposed to those who could not be such favorable mates for procreation. As a result, women evolved to prefer the men who exhibit viability and good condition, since such traits will likely be passed on to their offspring. This leads to most women facing trade-offs in their mating choice. Women often find themselves needing to compromise due to the unlikeliness of finding a male who is both genetically fit and willing to help in child-rearing. To solve the problem of these trade-offs, the theory of strategic pluralism says that women may have evolved to pursue a dual-mating strategy, whereby they secure long-term investments from one mate, while securing high quality genes from another mate when they are ovulating. Male and female mammals have revealed their different priorities, as males track females for opportunities to mate, while females track their environment for the necessary resources for parental investment. Such discoveries regarding the different ways male and female mammals prefer mating with one another have suggested that females prefer more long-term relationships, while males prefer short-term. However, there are instances of both sexes displaying both short term and long term mating preferences in specific contexts.
Experiments and studies
Although strategic pluralism is postulated for both animals and humans, the majority of experiments have been performed with humans. One experiment concluded that between short term and long-term relationships, males and females prioritized different things. It was shown that both preferred physical attractiveness for short term mates. However females preferred males with traits that indicated that they could be better caretakers, whereas the males did not change their priorities. The experimenters determined using the following setup: subjects were given an overall 'budget' and asked to assign points to different traits. For long-term mates, women gave more points to social and kindness traits, agreeing with results found in other studies suggesting that females prefer long term mates who would provide resources and emotional security for them as opposed to physically attractive mates. The females also prefer males who can offer them more financial security as this would help them raise their offspring. Females have also chosen males who have more feminine appearances because of an inverse relationship between a male's facial attractiveness and effort willing to spend in raising offspring. That is, more attractive males often put in less work as a caretaker while less attractive males will put in more work. On average, there is a wide amount of variability in male preferences than in females. This suggests there are enough of both males more suited for short-term relationships and those more suited for longer relationships.
Empirical Support
The strategic pluralism theory developed by Gangestad and Simpson has been empirically supported; however, there are still gaps of uncertainty which need to be filled. For example, the theory lacks information pertaining to the developmental processes which have influenced strategic variation in male and female mammals. Therefore, the biological reasoning behind the female evaluation of male partners remains unclear. Instead, research has only offered suggestions for why strategic selection occurs.
