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scientificamerican.com

Altruistic People Have More Sexual Partners

Steven Arnocky,Pat Barclay

Credit: Alberto Ruggieri, Getty Images

At one time or another, weve all heard bits of romantic advice like nice guys finish last or treat em mean,
keep em keen, which suggest that being too nice will leave you disadvantaged in the world of mating.
These old tropes continue to be played out in mainstream dating culture remember the recent popularity of
negging? Essentially this refers to offering a backhanded compliment such as I like your eyes are you
wearing colored contacts? in order to subtly lower the social value of the person you are trying to attract.
There is some evidence that personality traits associated with being a jerk such as low agreeableness and
contentiousness, high extroversion and openness to experience, alongside narcissism, Machiavellianism
(being manipulative), and psychopathy (callousness, lying, thrill-seeking) may indeed be linked to increased
sexual behavior, particularly with respect to short-term mating. But does this capture what people actually
want in a mating partner? Do nice guys truly finish last?

One area of research which seems to contrast this notion is the study of altruism as a sexual signal. Altruism
involves behaving in ways that benefit another individual at some cost to ones own fitness. Recently,
converging evidence has suggested that altruism may play an important role in mate selection, thus

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highlighting a potentially important avenue along which good deeds done toward unrelated individuals
(exemplified today by acts like donating blood or helping to push a strangers car out of the snow) may have
evolved.

This theory suggests that altruism may serve, in part, to convey ones value as a mating partner, including
ones concern for others and likelihood of cooperating with future mates. Research has shown that we prefer
altruistic partners, all else being equal; especially for long-term mating (the evidence for altruism being
preferred in short-term mates is mixed). Not surprisingly, then, the pull to demonstrate ones altruism can be
strong. Some research has shown that men will actively compete with one another (termed competitive
altruism) by making charitable donations to women. Interestingly, these charitable donations increase when
the target of ones altruism is physically attractive.

From this research, it seems clear that people tend to report preferring altruistic partners. However,
preferences do not always translate into real-world mating decisions, and we wanted to know if altruists also
happen to experience more mating success. Previous findings from hunter-gatherer populations have shown
that men who hunt and share meat often enjoy greater reproductive access to women. But do these links hold
up in other cultural and contextual arenas, such as in contemporary North American society? To find out, we
conducted a set of two studies. In our first study, undergraduate men and women completed an altruism
questionnaire (involving questions like I have donated blood), along with a sexual history survey.
Participants also completed a personality inventory, given the possibility that those with certain personality
characteristics (such as being extroverted) might happen to engage in both more altruism and more sexual
activity. We found that people who scored higher on altruism also reported they were more desirable to the
opposite sex, had more sex partners, more casual sex partners, and had sex more often within relationships
(although this latter finding was not statistically-significant after controlling for personality variables). The
statistical models (including covariates) explained between 13 and 26% of variance in the sexual behavior
variables. Moreover, altruism mattered more for mens number of lifetime and casual sex partners than for
womens.

One limitation of this first study was the possibility that people might have reported their altruism or their
sexual histories in an unrealistically-positive light. For instance, some research has shown men to over-report,
and women to under-report their lifetime number of sex partners. To address this, in in a second study we
used a more subtle behavioral measure of altruism. At the end of the survey, each participant was entered onto
a draw for $100, and was given the choice to keep their winnings or to donate it to a charity. Participants again
reported on their sexual histories, completed a personality measure, as well as a scale to capture socially-
desirable responding and a measure of narcissism. Results showed that, even when controlling for these
variables, those who donated reported having more lifetime sex partners, more casual sex partners, and more
sex partners over the past year, with the models explaining between 7 and 28% of variance on the sexual
behavior variables. Men who were willing to donate also reported having more lifetime dating partners.
Conversely, personality traits (some of which comprise the jerk traits described earlier) did not relate
meaningfully to sexual histories.

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Future research might consider longitudinal studies of altruistic behavior among youth, with follow-up
reporting of sexual histories as they progress through adolescence and young adulthood in order to better
address the question of directionality (does altruism at time A predict mating at time B?). Our studies
examined a limited array of mating and sexual history variables. Future research should investigate variables
such as partner mate-value, perceived infidelity, relationship stability and satisfaction as metrics of long-term
relationship functioning, as well as how people prioritize the altruism of prospective mates relative to other
qualities like attractiveness or athleticism. Still, this research combines with previous findings on the
desirability of altruism and the tendency for men to compete in the realm of generosity. Indeed, one of us has
a female friend who would explicitly screen potential boyfriends based on whether they had donated blood:
Others, it seems, may doing the same.

Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a
recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters
editor Gareth Cook. Gareth, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, is the series editor of Best American
Infographics and can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.

Steven Arnocky

Dr. Steven Arnocky is an Associate Professor and Director of the Human Evolution Laboratory at Nipissing
University. His research is focused broadly on mate selection and intrasexual competition in humans.

Pat Barclay

Dr. Pat Barclay is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Guelph. His research focuses on
the impact of reputation on evolution of cooperation, especially in humans.

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