Big Five Traits Related to Short-Term Mating: From Personality to Promiscuity across 46 Nations

Evolutionary Psychology
www.epjournal.net – 2008. 6(2): 246-282
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Original Article
Big Five Traits Related to Short-Term Mating: From Personality to Promiscuity
across 46 Nations

David P. Schmitt, Bradley University, Department of Psychology, Peoria, IL 61625, USA. Email: dps@bradley.edu
(Corresponding author)
Todd K. Shackelford, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, USA.1
Abstract: As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, 13,243 participants from 46
nations responded to self-report measures of personality and mating behavior. Several traits
showed consistent links with short-term mating. Extraversion positively correlated with interest
in short-term mating, unrestricted sociosexuality, having engaged in short-term mate poaching
attempts, having succumbed to short-term poaching attempts of others, and lacking relationship
exclusivity. Low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness also related to short-term mating,
especially with extra-pair mating. Neuroticism and openness were associated with short-term
mating as well, but these links were less consistent across sex and nation. Nation-level links
between personality and sexuality replicated within-region findings, such as the strong
association between national extraversion and national sociosexuality. Discussion focuses on the
origins of personality-sexuality links and their implications across nations.
Keywords: Big Five; personality; cross-cultural psychology; evolutionary psychology; short-
term mating; sexual behavior
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Introduction
Short-term mating is likely to have been a recurrent feature of human evolutionary
history, occasionally generating substantial reproductive benefits for ancestral members of both
sexes (Kelly and Dunbar, 2001; Little, Cohen, Jones, and Belsky, 2007; Little, Jones, Penton-
Voak, Burt, and Perrett, 2002; Scheib, 2001; Schmitt, 2005a; and see for review, Smith, 1984,
and Buss, 2003). But there are reproductively-relevant costs to short-term mating as well, for
ancestral humans as assuredly as for modern humans. For example, short-term mating

1 All editorial decisions were handled by Associate Editor Dr. Steven Platek
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behaviors—including variants such as promiscuity, infidelity, and the poaching of other people’s
long-term partners—represent significant health concerns to individuals, relationships, and
societies throughout the world. Short-term mating can lead to relationship dissolution (Bringle
and Buunk, 1991; Gottman, 1994), sexual jealousy and violent retribution by aggrieved partners
(Buss, 2000; Malamuth, 1998), and the contraction of sexually-transmitted diseases and
infections (Mashegoane, Moalusi, Ngoepe, and Peltzer, 2002; Pinkerton and Abramson, 1996).
In sub-Saharan Africa alone, 23 million adults are currently infected with HIV, with most cases
traceable to instances of short-term mating (Shelton et al., 2004).
An important task for personality psychologists is to identify those individual differences
most closely associated with short-term mating. Doing so would give scientists a better
framework for understanding the etiology of permissive sexual attitudes and risky sexual
practices (Trobst, Herbst, Masters, and Costa, 2002). Previous research suggests some of the
traits from the Big Five model of personality (Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1990) are associated
with short-term mating (Hoyle, Fejfar, and Miller, 2000; Schenk and Pfrang, 1986; Shafer, 2001;
Wright, 1999; Wright and Reise, 1997). In this article, the links among all five dimensions of the
Big Five and multiple measures of short-term mating were examined across 46 nations
representing 10 major regions of the world.

Personality Traits and Short-Term Mating

Perhaps the strongest personality predictor of short-term mating is impulsive sensation-
seeking (Hoyle et al., 2000; Zuckerman and Kuhlman, 2000). Studies have consistently linked
sensation-seeking to short-term mating (Franzini and Sidemen, 1994; Linton and Wiener, 2001;
Mashegoane et al., 2002; Ripa, Hansen, Mortensen, Sanders, and Reinisch, 2001), including
men’s patronage of prostitutes (Wilson, Manual, and Lavelle, 1992). Impulsive sensation-
seeking is closely associated with the Big Five dimensions of low agreeableness and low
conscientiousness (Zuckerman, 1994; Zuckerman, Kuhlman, Joireman, Teta, and Kraft, 1994).
Not surprisingly, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness have been linked directly to
short-term sexual behavior across many studies (Barta and Kiene, 2005; Buss and Shackelford,
1997; Hoyle et al., 2000; Markey, Markey, and Tinsley, 2003; Schmitt, 2004; Trobst et al., 2000;
Wright and Reise, 1997).
Based on his three-factor model of personality, Eysenck (1971, 1976) has argued that
extraversion is central to explaining individual differences in sexuality, including many facets of
short-term mating. For example, extraverts are more likely than introverts to endorse favorable
attitudes about having multiple sex partners and to engage in sexual intercourse with more
partners than introverts do (Eysenck, 1976; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975). Similar associations
between extraversion and short-term mating have been documented by others (Barnes,
Malamuth, and Cheek, 1984; Cooper, Agocha, and Sheldon 2000; Costa et al., 1992; Snyder,
Simpson, and Gangestad, 1986), including links with extra-pair mating and promiscuous sexual
behavior (Buss and Shackelford, 1997; Pinkerton and Abramson, 1995; Schenk and Pfrang,
1986; Schmitt, 1996; Schmitt and Buss, 2001; Wright, 1999). Some investigators have found that
neuroticism correlates with facets of short-term mating (Lameiras Fernandez and Rodriguez
Castro, 2003; Zuckerman, 1993), including more sexual risk-taking (Ball and Schottenfeld,
1997; Cooper et al., 2000; McCown, 1992; Naff Johnson, 1997).


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Personality Traits and Short-Term Mating across Nations

Most of the studies and findings reporting associations between personality traits and
short-term mating have been based on responses from college students residing in the United
States or the United Kingdom. We attempted to replicate and extend these findings in three
ways. First, we examined the entire Big Five model in relation to short-term mating. We were
particularly interested in whether some Big Five traits are more closely linked with short-term
mating than others. Second, we examined a wide variety of short-term mating variables,
including interest in short-term mating, short-term mating behavior, and both the infidelity and
promiscuity facets of short-term mating (Schmitt and Buss, 2000). Third, we assessed these
variables across multiple college student and community samples from 46 nations representing
10 major regions of the world, including North America (represented by 3 nations; see Table 1),
South America (four nations), Western Europe (eight nations), Eastern Europe (ten nations),
Southern Europe (five nations), the Middle East (three nations), Africa (five nations), Oceania
(three nations), South/Southeast Asia (one nation), and East Asia (four nations).
Assessing personality and short-term mating across nations is important for several
reasons. First, many psychologists have suggested that it is critical to conduct cross-cultural
studies on correlates of personality instead of simply assuming their universality (Church and
Lonner, 1998). Heine and his colleagues, for example, comment that most personality research
has been “conducted by North American researchers at North American universities with North
American participants using methodologies that were developed in North America” (Heine,
Lehman, Markus, and Kitayama, 1999, p. 768). Such criticisms evoke concerns about the
generalizability of the personality predictors of short-term mating previously described and attest
to the necessity of replicating findings across diverse nations. Second, there is reason to believe
that nations vary in their Big Five personality traits (McCrae, 2002), including how variable
people are along these personality dimensions (Allik and McCrae, 2004; McCrae, 2001). Along
with evidence that short-term mating behavior also varies across nations (Schmitt, 2005a;
Schmitt et al., 2003), the present study helps to identify whether the same personality systems are
universally active in the etiology of short-term mating attitudes and behaviors. Third, if nations
do vary in the personality correlates of short-term mating, any application of individual
difference findings, such as attempts to reduce the incidence of short-term mating, would need to
take into account these cultural caveats.














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Table 1. Sample sizes, sampling type, and language of survey across 46 nations and 10 world
regions of the International Sexuality Description Project
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Sample Size




________________

World Regions

Men Women
Sample Type
Language
_________________
_____ _____
_______________
________________

North America 1,269
2,256
Canada


329
618
College Students
English/French
Mexico


90
100
Community-Based
Spanish
United States of America
850 1,538
College Students
English

South America

293 329
Argentina


107
136
College Students
Spanish
Bolivia


66
54
College Students
Spanish
Brazil


37
48
College Students
Portuguese
Peru


83
91
College Students
Spanish

Western Europe 852
1,471
Austria


167 223
College/Community
German
Belgium (Flanders)

129
284
College Students
Dutch (Flemish)
Finland


26
67
Community-Based
Finnish
France


46
53
College Students
French
Germany


218
372
College/Community
German
Netherlands

92
111
College Students
Dutch
Switzerland


57
94
College Students
German
United Kingdom

117
268
College/Community
English

Eastern Europe 841
1,082
Croatia


98
100
College Students
Croatian
Czech Republic

72
98
College Students
Czech
Estonia


60
84
College Students
Estonian
Latvia


75
78
College Students
Latvian
Lithuania


39
38
College Students
Lithuanian
Poland


210
379
College Students
Polish
Romania


97
103
College Students
Romanian
Serbia


91
94
College Students
Serbian
Slovakia


55
68
College Students
Slovak
Slovenia


44
40
College Students
Slovenian

Southern Europe

406 668
Greece


37
153
College Students
Greek
Italy


91 108
College/Community
Italian
Malta


103 119
College Students
English
Portugal


98 131
College Students
Portuguese
Spain


77 157
College Students
Spanish
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Middle East


411 474
Israel


130 170
College Students
Hebrew
Lebanon


102 117
College Students
English
Turkey


179 187
College/Community
Turkish

Africa


421 379
Botswana


94 114
College Students
English
Congo, Dem. Rep. of
86 48
College/Community
French
Ethiopia


90 60
College/Community
English
Morocco


55 67
College Students
English
Zimbabwe


96 90
College Students
English

Oceania


341 463
Australia


176 261
College Students
English
Fiji and Pacific Islands
65 50
College/Community
English
New Zealand

100 152
College Students
English

South/Southeast Asia
93 118
Philippines


93 118
College Students
English

East Asia


518 557
Hong Kong (China)

90 94
College Students
English
Japan


125 86
College Students
Japanese
Korea, Rep. of

189 289
College Students
Korean
Taiwan


114 88
College Students
Mandarin
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Worldwide ISDP Sample: 5,445 7,798

College/Community
24 Languages
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Note. All samples were convenience samples. Further details on sampling methods within each nation are available
from the author. Additional samples from Chile, Ukraine, Cyprus, Jordan, South Africa, Tanzania, Bangladesh,
India, Indonesia, and Malaysia were included in the International Sexuality Description Project, but participants in
those samples did not complete all measures used in this study.

Method

Samples


The samples in this study are from the International Sexuality Description Project (ISDP;
Schmitt et al., 2003, 2004). The ISDP included a total of 56 nations. However, some participants
did not receive, or did not fully respond to, all measures relevant to the present study.
Specifically, participants from Chile, Ukraine, Cyprus, Jordan, South Africa, Tanzania, India,
Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia were not included in the present study due to substantial
missing or incomplete data. As shown in Table 1, the present dataset included 46 nations from
the world regions of North America (n = 3,525), South America (n = 622), Western Europe (n =
2,323), Eastern Europe (n = 1,923), Southern Europe (n = 1,074), Middle East (n = 885), Africa
(n = 800), Oceania (n = 804), South/Southeast Asia (n = 211), and East Asia (n = 1,075).
Following previous work (Schmitt et al., 2003), and in an effort to present the key results as
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concisely as possible, we will focus most of the current analyses at the level of world region. All
nation-level results are available from the first author.
Most samples were comprised of college students; some included college students plus
general members of the community; and two (Finland and Mexico) consisted solely of
community members (see Table 1). All samples were convenience samples. Most samples were
recruited as volunteers, some received course credit for participation, and some received a small
monetary reward for their participation. All samples were administered an anonymous self-report
survey, and most surveys were returned via sealed envelope or the usage of a drop-box. This
form of assessment tends to minimize response biases involving sexual surveys (Alexander and
Fisher, 2003; Andersen and Broffitt, 1988). Return rates for college student samples tended to be
high (around 95%), although this number was lower in some nations. Return rates for community
samples were around 50%. Further details on the sampling and assessment procedures within
each nation are provided elsewhere (Schmitt et al., 2003, 2004) and are available from the first
author.

Procedure


Participants were provided with a brief description of the study, including the following
instructions: “This questionnaire is entirely voluntary. All your responses will be kept
confidential and your personal identity will remain anonymous. No identifying information is
requested on this survey, nor will any such information be added later to this survey. If any of
the questions make you uncomfortable, feel free not to answer them. You are free to withdraw
from this study at any time for any reason. This series of questionnaires should take about 20
minutes to complete. Thank you for your participation.” Details on incentives and cover stories
used across samples are available from the first author.

Measures
Researchers from non-English-speaking nations were asked to use a translation/back-
translation process and to administer the ISDP in their native language. This procedure involved
the primary collaborator translating the measures into the native language of the participants, and
then having a second person back-translate into English. Differences between the original
English and the back-translation were discussed, and mutual agreements were made on the most
appropriate translation. This procedure balances the needs of making the translation meaningful
and naturally readable to the native participants, while preserving the original psychological
constructs (Brislin, 1993; Church, 2001; van de Vijver and Leung, 2000). Samples from
Morocco, Ethiopia, Fiji, the Philippines, and Hong Kong were administered the survey in
English, with certain terms and phrases annotated to clarify what were thought to be confusing
words for the participants. The translation of the ISDP survey into Flemish used only a
translation procedure, as this involved mainly word variant changes from the original Dutch.
Finally, pilot studies were conducted in several testing sites to clarify translation and
comprehension concerns.
Demographic measure. Each sample was presented with a demographic measure
including questions about sex (male or female), age, ethnicity, date of birth, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, and current relationship status. Not all of these questions were included in
all samples (e.g., date of birth was considered too invasive in some samples), and all
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collaborators were asked to adapt the demographic questions appropriately for their sample (e.g.,
ethnic categories varied).

Short-term mating measures. Short-term mating is not a one-dimensional construct. Some
individuals seek short-term sexual relationships in addition to their long-term relationships (i.e.,
infidelity; Wiederman, 1997). Others seek short-term partners as their primary mode of mating
(i.e., promiscuity; Paul, McManus, and Hayes, 2000). Still others may possess high levels of
interest in short-term mating, but are not able or willing to engage in short-term mating (Jackson
and Kirkpatrick, 2007; Webster and Bryan, 2007). Each of these facets of short-term mating are
likely interrelated, given that low levels of short-term sexual interest would lead to relatively
little short-term mating behavior. However, because of the potential differences between sexual
interests and behaviors, short-term mating was assessed in the present study using multiple
measures.
Included first was a 7-item index designed to assess current interest in short-term mating,
the Short-Term Mating Interests scale (see Schmitt, 2005b). The first three Short-Term Mating
Interests items are from the Number of Partners measure (Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Fenigstein
and Preston, 2007; Schmitt et al., 2003), which asks using open-ended scales for the number of
sex partners desired across various future time periods. Three of the most commonly analyzed
items include the time periods of “one month,” “one year,” and “five years” (Schmitt,
Shackelford, Duntley, Tooke, and Buss, 2001; Schmitt et al., 2003). For Short-Term Mating
Interests, all values on these three items that were above three were truncated down to three to
control for extreme values (see Schmitt, in press). The next three Short-Term Mating Interests
items are from the Time Known measure (Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Schmitt et al., 2003), which
asks the likelihood of consenting to sex with someone who is desirable (using a scale of +3 =
definitely yes to –3 = definitely not) after knowing that person for various time intervals. For
Short-Term Mating Interests, the time periods of “one month,” “one year,” and “five years” were
used. Also included in Short-Term Mating Interests was the Short-Term Seeking scale (Buss and
Schmitt, 1993; Schmitt et al., 2003). This is a single-item 7-point rating scale ranging from 1
(currently not at all seeking a short-term mate) to 7 (currently strongly seeking a short-term
mate). Responses to all seven items (three from the Number of Partners measure, three from the
Time Known measure, and the Short-Term Seeking scale) were summed to form the Short-Term
Mating Interests scale (see also Schmitt, 2005b). Cronbach’s alpha for Short-Term Mating
Interests across the ISDP was .80 (see Table 2).

A 7-item measure of willingness to have sex without commitment, the Sociosexual
Orientation Inventory (Simpson and Gangestad, 1991) also was administered to participants in
the ISDP. The first three items of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory are intended to capture
behavioral expressions of short-term mating. Item one is: “With how many different partners
have you had sex (sexual intercourse) within the past year?” Item two is: “How many different
partners do you foresee yourself having sex with during the next five years? (Please give a
specific, realistic estimate).” Item three is: “With how many different partners have you had sex
on one and only one occasion?” Open-ended blanks are provided after each of the first three
questions of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory. The fourth item is designed to measure
covert sociosexual behavior: “How often do (did) you fantasize about having sex with someone
other than your current (most recent) dating partner?” This item is followed by an 8-point scale,
ranging from 1 (never) to 8 (at least once a day). Items five, six, and seven are designed to
measure sociosexual attitudes. Item five is: “Sex without love is OK.” Item six is: “I can imagine
myself being comfortable and enjoying “casual” sex with different partners.” Item seven is: “I
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would have to be closely attached to someone (both emotionally and psychologically) before I
could feel comfortable and fully enjoy having sex with him or her.” All three attitudinal items
are followed by 9-point scales ranging from 1 (I strongly disagree) to 9 (I strongly agree).
Responses to item seven are reverse-coded so that higher scores indicate more unrestricted
sociosexuality. According to Simpson and Gangestad (1991), items five, six, and seven are
highly correlated and should be merged to form a single “attitudinal” score. This attitudinal score
is then combined with the first four items to form the total Sociosexual Orientation Inventory
composite measure. However, each item of the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory composite
measure is first weighted using the following formula: (5 * Item One) + (1 * Item Two [with a
cap on Item Two of 30])) + (5 * Item Three) + (4 * Item Four) + (2 * Mean of Items Five, Six,
and Seven) = Total Sociosexuality (Simpson and Gangestad, 1991). Using this formula produces
a Sociosexual Orientation Inventory composite such that higher scores are associated with
unrestricted sociosexuality (i.e., more short-term mating). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for the
Sociosexual Orientation Inventory was .80.
All participants were presented with a questionnaire entitled “Anonymous Romantic
Attraction Survey” (Schmitt and Buss, 2001). The Anonymous Romantic Attraction Survey asks
a series of questions about personal experiences with romantic attraction and mate poaching (i.e.,
romantically attracting someone else’s partner). Each rating scale on the questionnaire asks
participants to describe their experiences with a specific attraction behavior. For the frequency of
attempting or succumbing to mate poaching behaviors, rating scale values range from 1 (Never)
to 7 (Always). Intermediate values are labeled rarely, seldom, sometimes, frequently, and almost
always. For the degree of success in mate poaching, rating scales range from 1 (Not at all
successful) to 7 (Very successful). An intermediate value of 4 (Moderately successful) also is
provided. These frequency and degree anchors tend to maximize the interval-level quality of
rating scale data (Spector, 1992). Two items from the Anonymous Romantic Attraction Survey
are relevant to the present study. The first question asks about the frequency with which
participants have attempted to short-term mate poach, “Have you ever tried to attract someone
who was already in a romantic relationship with someone else for a short-term sexual
relationship with you?” The second question asks “While you were in a romantic relationship, if
others attempted to obtain you as a short-term sexual partner, how successful have they been (if
others have never tried, skip this question)?” Responses to this item are a direct indicator of
previous infidelities.

Samples were then administered a measure of the “Sexy Seven” sexuality attributes
(Schmitt and Buss, 2000). The Sexy Seven measure asks participants to rate themselves
compared to others they know (using a nine-point scale from 1 = Extremely Inaccurate to 9 =
Extremely Accurate) on a list of 67 sexually-connotative adjectives. The Sexy Seven includes
one scale designed to capture variability in short-term mating, the Relationship Exclusivity scale.
The Relationship Exclusivity scale contains the following adjectival items: “adulterous [reverse-
scored],” “devoted,” “faithful,” “loose [reverse-scored],” “monogamous,” polygamous [reverse-
scored],” “promiscuous [reverse-scored],” and “unfaithful [reverse-scored].” In this study, the
Relationship Exclusivity scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .78 (see Table 2). Further
psychometrics on the Relationship Exclusivity scale can be found in Schmitt and Buss (2000).
For the purposes of this study, we will refer to the Relationship Exclusivity scale as a “Lack of
Relationship Exclusivity” such that it will correlate in the same direction as all other measures of
short-term mating.
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All measures of short-term mating were intercorrelated among both men and women.
Among men, short-term mating interests correlated with sociosexuality, r(4207) = +0.48, p <
.001, with having made short-term mate poaching attempts, r(4144) = +0.33, p < .001, with
having succumbed to short-term mate poaching by others, r(2841) = +0.29, p < .001, and with a
lack of self-described relationship exclusivity, r(4105) = +0.37, p < .001. Among women, short-
term mating interests correlated with sociosexuality, r(6155) = +0.49, p < .001, with having
made short-term mate poaching attempts, r(6109) = +0.28, p < .001, with having succumbed to
short-term mate poaching by others, r(4399) = +0.23, p < .001, and with a lack of self-described
relationship exclusivity, r(6029) = +0.28, p < .001. Further details concerning the
intercorrelations among sexuality measures are available from the first author.
Personality trait measure. Participants completed the Big Five Inventory (BFI), a
measure of the Big Five that has proven effective across nations and languages (Benet-Martinez
and John, 1998). The first scale of the BFI is Extraversion, which includes individual differences
in positive emotionality, sociability, energy levels, and talkativeness, among others (Costa and
McCrae, 1992; Lucas et al., 2000; Watson and Clark, 1997). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for
the Extraversion scale was .79. The second scale from the BFI is Agreeableness, which includes
individual differences in kindness, empathy, interpersonal trust, and humility (see Graziano and
Eisenberg, 1997). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for the Agreeableness scale was .71. The third
scale from the BFI is Conscientiousness (i.e., tending to be organized, reliable, hardworking, and
possessing high integrity; Hogan and Ones, 1997). In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for the
Conscientiousness scale was .79. The fourth scale of the BFI measures neuroticism. Neuroticism
is related to several personality disorders (Costa and Widiger, 1994) and is conceptually
anchored in high anxiety, depression, and vulnerability to stress. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha
for the Neuroticism scale was .80. The final scale from the BFI is Openness. People high in
openness tend to be imaginative, creative, introspective, and cultured (McCrae and Costa, 1997).
In this study, Cronbach’s alpha for the Openness scale was .77.

Results


Table 2 includes the means and standard deviations of men and women across all
measures of personality and short-term mating. Men and women were significantly different on
all measures of personality. Women scored higher on extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Men scored higher on openness. In terms of the magnitude
of the sex differences, Cohen (1988) suggests that an effect size (d) of ±0.20 be considered
small, ±0.50 be considered medium, and ±0.80 be considered large. Although women scored
significantly higher on many personality traits, most of these differences were less than small in
magnitude. The one exception involved neuroticism, in which women scored moderately higher
than men (d = -0.46). Men scored significantly higher on all measure of short-term mating, with
small to medium effect sizes in short-term mating interests (d = 0.68), sociosexuality (d = 0.74),
levels of short-term mate poaching attempts (d = 0.42), levels of having succumbed to short-term
mate poaching (d = 0.31), and in having a lack of relationship exclusivity (d = 0.53).
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Table 2. Descriptive Statistics and Sex Differences for Personality and Short-Term Mating Scales in the International Sexuality
Description Project
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________







Men

Women

Sex Differences






_________________
_________________
_________________








M

SD

M

SD

t

d

BFI: Extraversion (? = .79)


3.32
0.68
3.43
0.73
-8.00***
-0.14
BFI: Agreeableness (? = .71)


3.57
0.59
3.68
0.60
-10.16***
-0.18
BFI: Conscientiousness (? = .79)


3.39
0.66
3.50
0.66
-9.89***
-0.18
BFI: Neuroticism (? = .80)


2.79
0.72
3.14
0.75
-26.53***
-0.46
BFI: Openness (? = .77)



3.71
0.60
3.68
0.60
2.68**
0.05
Short-Term Mating Interests (? = .80)

11.64
7.16
6.77
6.37
36.36***
0.68
Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (? = .80)
46.85
29.74
27.59
19.66
44.85***
0.74
Mate Poaching Attempts (one item scale)

2.33
1.43
1.78
1.15
24.31***
0.42
Succumbed to Poaching (one item scale)

2.85
1.87
2.30
1.70
14.62***
0.31
Relationship Exclusivity (? = .78)


6.66
1.43
7.39
1.25
-30.49***
-0.53
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Note: **p < .01, *** p < .001. In general, d values of ±.20 are considered small, ±.50 are moderate, and ±.80 are large (Cohen, 1988).
Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 6(2). 2008
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