Chapter 7 Exercises: Evolutionary Psychology and Mate Selection

These exercises are designed to develop your ability to evaluate evolutionary claims critically — neither dismissing them reflexively nor accepting them uncritically. Bring your reasoning, your evidence, and your intellectual honesty.

Exercise 7.1 — The Falsifiability Test: Evaluating an Evolutionary Claim

Type: Analytical writing | Length: 400–500 words | Time: ~45 minutes

Good scientific hypotheses make specific, testable predictions. One major critique of evolutionary psychology is that many of its explanatory frameworks are too flexible — able to accommodate almost any empirical result after the fact.

Your task:

Select ONE of the following evolutionary claims and subject it to a rigorous falsifiability analysis:

a) "Men universally prefer younger mates because youth signals fertility." b) "Women universally prefer men with resources because paternal investment improves offspring survival." c) "Jealousy evolved to protect pair bonds, but the specific triggers differ by sex: men fear sexual infidelity, women fear emotional infidelity." d) "Humans find symmetrical faces more attractive because symmetry signals developmental health and genetic quality."

For the claim you choose, answer the following:

1. State the evolutionary mechanism. What selection pressure is invoked? What is the precise causal chain from ancestral environment to present-day preference?
2. Identify the specific predictions. What exact patterns should we observe if this claim is true? Be precise — "people prefer X" is not specific enough. Who prefers what, how much more than the alternative, under what conditions?
3. Design a falsifying test. Describe one study or piece of evidence that could disconfirm this hypothesis. What result would force you to conclude the evolutionary explanation is wrong? (If you cannot identify such a result, the hypothesis may be unfalsifiable — note this explicitly.)
4. Evaluate existing evidence. Does the current evidence confirm, disconfirm, or remain ambiguous? Cite at least one specific study or finding from the chapter.
5. Verdict. Is this a scientifically strong evolutionary claim, a just-so story, or something in between? Defend your assessment.

Exercise 7.2 — Reading the Data: What Buss's Numbers Actually Show

Type: Quantitative reasoning and interpretation | Length: 300–400 words | Time: ~30 minutes

Below are simplified versions of findings from Buss et al. (1989) using a 0–3 rating scale (0 = irrelevant, 3 = indispensable) for mate preferences across the 37-culture sample:

Questions:

1. The evolutionary interpretation highlights sex differences. Looking at the actual numbers, what do males and females agree on most strongly? What does this suggest about the relative importance of similarity versus difference in mate preferences?
2. The largest sex difference in this table is 0.46 points on a 3-point scale. In plain language, how large is this difference? Does it support the claim of fundamentally different male and female mating psychologies, or something more modest?
3. Eagly and Wood (1999) showed that sex differences in resource preferences decrease in societies with greater gender equality. Looking at the financial-prospects row, what alternative explanation does this finding support?
4. What does this table tell us? What does it not tell us? List one important limitation of mate preference survey data like these.

Exercise 7.3 — The Great Evo Psych Debate

Type: Structured group discussion | Time: 40–50 minutes in class

This activity models the argument between Nadia and Sam — but the goal is intellectual rigor on both sides, not winning.

Setup: The class divides into three groups.

• Group A: The Evolutionary Psychology Team. You are presenting the strongest reasonable version of the evolutionary psychology account of sex differences in mate preferences. Your job is not to be reductive but to make the most compelling, evidence-based case for evolved mating psychology. You should acknowledge legitimate limitations but defend the core framework.

• Group B: The Social Constructionist/Feminist Critique Team. You are presenting the strongest critique of evolutionary psychology's claims about sex differences in mate preferences. Draw on Eagly and Wood, Hrdy, Fine, Fausto-Sterling, and the WEIRD-bias literature. Your job is not to deny evolution but to challenge the specific inferences made about human behavior.

• Group C: The Methodological Jury. You are not arguing for either position. Instead, you are evaluating the quality of evidence presented by Groups A and B. After each side presents, you assess: Which arguments were backed by specific evidence? Which made unwarranted logical leaps? What additional studies would help resolve the debate?

Group C's final task: Write a 150-word verdict that honestly assesses the current state of evidence. Where does evo psych have strong support? Where is the evidence genuinely contested?

Exercise 7.4 — Personal Reflection: Evolved or Learned?

Type: Personal reflective essay | Length: 350–450 words | Time: Take-home

This is not a research paper. It is an invitation to think carefully about your own experience through the lens of what you have read.

Consider one quality or characteristic that you find genuinely attractive in other people. (This can be physical, behavioral, or personality-based — anything real to you.)

Reflect on the following:

1. The evolutionary account. How might an evolutionary psychologist explain why this trait is attractive? What signal might it send about genetic quality, resource-holding potential, parental capacity, or compatibility? Be specific — use the frameworks from the chapter.

2. The social learning account. How might this preference have been shaped by your upbringing, your cultural context, the media you consumed growing up, or specific experiences? Be honest about what you can actually trace.

3. The limits of introspection. Here is the hard part: we have limited conscious access to the origins of our own preferences. How do you know whether your reflection in points 1 and 2 is accurate? What does this limitation tell us about using self-report data to study attraction?

4. So what? Regardless of origin — evolved, learned, or some combination — how does knowing (or speculating about) the origin of a preference change (or not change) how you feel about it?

There is no correct answer to this exercise. The goal is careful, honest thinking.

Exercises contributed to course themes: Nature vs. Nurture | The Replication Crisis | Methodological Humility