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Abstract
Research grounded in evolutionary theory suggests that individual socio-political attitudes covary with mating interests and may shift to adapt to the local mating market. In this thesis, I tested how individual traits and experimentally primed mating market cues affect attitudes towards promiscuity, sexism, same-sex rights, traditional family values, and wealth redistribution, whilst combining evolutionary and economic insights into human mating. After a general introduction to the thesis in Chapter 1, in Chapter 2, I reviewed evidence on the causes of the cultural suppression of female sexuality. This literature review found that an individual's tendency to suppress female sexuality is not only determined by their biological sex, but a combination of individual and mating market circumstances. In Chapters 3–6, through six experiments I manipulated participants' dating popularity (Experiments 3.1 and 4.1), perceptions of degrees of promiscuity (Experiment 5.1) and wedding spending (Experiment 5.2) in the mating market, and mating competitor quality (Experiments 6.1 and 6.2), and tested the effects on participants' socio-political attitudes. Overall, results were typically more complex than initially predicted. Dating popularity affected attitudes towards wealth redistribution in Experiment 3.1 but the effect did not replicate in Experiment 4.1, which instead found that rejected men were less sexually open than men who experienced less rejection. Sexually restricted Australian men were more supportive of traditional relationship norms when led to believe promiscuity was widespread (Experiment 5.1), and men were more opposed to same-sex marriage when led to believe wedding spending was minimal (Experiment 5.2). Finally, women were more supportive of traditional gender roles when exposed to both attractive and unattractive competitors (Experiment 6.1) and low-income competitors (Experiment 6.2), and sexually unrestricted men were more supportive of wealth redistribution than sexually restricted men only when exposed to high- and average-income competitors (Experiment 6.2). Based on these results, in the general discussion for this thesis (Chapter 7), I argued that socio-political attitudes may reflect individual self-interested concerns. I conclude by positing that evolutionary and economic theories can not only predict individual differences in socio-political attitudes, but also their plasticity and adaptability to different mating market contexts.