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No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. However, the extent to which assortative preferences for height differ strategically for short-term versus long-term relationship partners, as they do for numerous other indices of mate quality, remains unclear. We explore this possibility in a large representative sample of over men and women aged 15β77 from Canada, Cuba, Norway and the United States. Positive assortative preferences for height were observed across sexes and samples, however the strength of these height preferences varied with relationship context for men, and not for women.
Taller men preferred relatively shorter women for short-term relationships than for long-term relationships, indicating stronger assortative preferences for height in a long-term context. These results provide preliminary evidence that, in addition to mate preferences for other physical traits related to mate quality such as masculinity in the body, face, and voice, assortative preferences for height do vary as a function of expected relationship length, but this was surprisingly only observed in preferences for female height.
Keywords: assortative mating, body size, relationship context, relationship length, cross-cultural, mate choice, mate preferences, sexual selection. One hundred and fifty years ago, Darwin published his now remarkably influential theory on sexual selection, emphasizing the role of phenotypic qualities in mate choice decisions Darwin, Since then, a vast body of literature offers converging evidence that mate choice decisions are critical for the reproductive success of humans and all other sexually reproducing organisms, and as such mate preferences have been largely shaped by sexual selection to maximize fitness Andersson, ; Conroy-Beam et al.
Mate preferences for physical height in humans are observed in both sexes and across diverse cultures Courtiol et al. This is perhaps not surprising given that height predicts a range of life-history and fitness-related factors including health, socioeconomic status, dominance, and reproductive maturity Pisanski and Feinberg, ; Stulp and Barrett, for reviews. Body size in humans, like in many other animals Andersson, , is a sexually dimorphic trait under natural and sexual selection that is both highly heritable and susceptible to environmental influences.
