One’s Better Half: Romantic Partners Function as Social Signals

• DOI: 10.1007/s40806-017-0095-7
• Publication Date: 2017-03-16T19:57:15Z
• Authors: Bo Winegard; Ben Winegard; Tania Reynolds; David C. Geary; Roy F. Baumeister
• Keywords: 5. Gender equality; 05 social sciences; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences; 16. Peace & justice

Four studies tested the hypotheses that (1) romantic partners function as hard-to-fake signals of status and (2) men are concerned about signaling their status to both other men and to other women. In study 1, participants rated the status of an individual (gender remained neutral) who was described as attending a party with either a high-quality good (watch, car, mate) or a low-quality good. Participants rated the high-quality signaler as possessing more status than the low-quality signaler. Importantly, the high-quality mates functioned similarly to other high-quality material goods. In study 2, participants rated the status, niceness, and competence of men with high-quality mates and similarly described me with low-quality mates. Participants consistently rated the men with high-quality mates as possessing more status than similarly described men with low-quality mates. In study 3, we had only men rate that status of men with high-quality, average-quality, and low-quality mates. Men consistently rated other men with high-quality mates as possessing more status than similarly described men with low-quality mates. Finally, in study 4, we tested whether men signal high-quality mates predominantly to other men or to other women. Results supported the hypothesis that men are more concerned about signaling the quality of their mate to other men than to other women. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings.