levo
Log inStart

Relationships

Evolutionary explanations for partner preferences

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 3

Overview

Sexual selection and anisogamy as explanations for partner preferences, intrasexual and intersexual selection, Buss's cross-cultural survey and Clark and Hatfield's study, and the social and same-sex challenges to the evolutionary account.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Process

What type of relationship do evolutionary explanations of partner preferences struggle to explain?

Process

According to evolutionary explanations, what do males look for in a partner?

Key term

What is intersexual selection?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is sexual selection?

    Model answer

    An evolutionary process in which characteristics that increase reproductive success, by making an individual attractive to mates or able to compete for them, are passed on, even if they do not aid survival.

  2. 2

    What is anisogamy?

    Model answer

    The difference between male and female sex cells: sperm are small, plentiful and cheap to produce, whereas eggs are large, limited in number and costly to produce.

  3. 3

    What is intrasexual selection?

    Model answer

    Competition between members of one sex, usually males, for access to the other sex, so that the winners mate and pass on the characteristics that helped them win.

  4. 4

    What is intersexual selection?

    Model answer

    Selection in which members of one sex, usually females, choose mates from the other sex according to preferred characteristics, which then become more common.

  5. 5

    Why do females tend to be choosier than males when selecting a partner?

    Model answer

    Females invest far more in each offspring through pregnancy and nursing, so a poor choice is costly and they benefit from a strategy of quality over quantity.

  6. 6

    What is the sexy sons hypothesis?

    Model answer

    The idea that a female who mates with a male with an attractive trait will have sons who inherit that trait and are themselves chosen by future females, spreading the trait.

See the rest and revise

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Social Influence
Memory
Attachment
Approaches in Psychology

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

The stage comes second.
pre-operationalsensorimotorconcrete

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AThe mean is the arithmetic average of a data set.
BEvery value in the set is added together.
CThe total is divided by the number of values.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

Imitation means copying the behaviour of a model.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Relationships, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Start revising, £5 a monthSee how the method works

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.