| Trade-offs are decision-making strategies whereby individuals select or prioritize certain qualities at the expense of losing one or more other qualities. Conjoint analysis (CA) is a multivariate statistical analysis that measures how individuals make trade-offs when evaluating a collection of products, each comprised of multiple attributes. This dissertation demonstrates how CA can be used in human mating research to study trade-offs during romantic decision-making, to overcome some of the common design challenges of studying romantic relationship trade-offs, and to extend current human mating literature. Across three studies, CA is used to assess trade-offs made when evaluating potential romantic partners. Using a sample of romantic couples, Study 1 examines whether the relative importance of five potential mate characteristics (i.e., financial stability, physical attractiveness, history of sexual infidelity, emotional investment, and similarity) in men's and women's evaluations of potential long- and short-term mates varies across their (or their partner's) menstrual cycle. Similarly, Study 2 examines whether the relative importance of three facial cues of mate quality (i.e., sexual dimorphism, fluctuating asymmetry, and color cues to health) in men's and women's evaluations of male and female facial photographs shifts across their (or their partner's) menstrual cycle. Finally, Study 3 examines how individuals prioritize five sexually dimorphic facial cues (i.e., eyebrow prominence, cheekbone prominence, eye size, facial height, and jawbone prominence) when evaluating the attractiveness of same- and opposite-sex individuals as long- and short-term romantic partners. The importance of assessing these trade-offs are discussed within the context of previous literature and future directions in the study of human mating psychology. |
