A new study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin explores the idea that people’s desired traits in a romantic partner may shift over time due to life events and personal growth. The findings indicate that there is both stability and change in partner preferences, and individuals do not always realize that their preferences have changed.
The work builds on previous research showing mixed findings regarding whether people’s ideal partner preferences change over time. Previous studies have focused on examining the changes in people’s preferences or how people believed their preferences had changed. However, none of these studies directly investigated whether the perceived changes aligned with the actual changes in ideals.
It is important to note that a person’s perception of changes may be influenced by biases, such as recall biases, which can impact the accuracy of their self-reported changes in preferences. In their new study, Julie Driebe and colleagues sought to provide a more nuanced understanding of how and why people’s partner preferences may shift over time.
Driebe and her team hypothesized that over 13 years, partner preferences will mostly remain stable with increasing interest in status, resources, and desire for a family.
The research team contacted participants who participated in the Berlin Speed Dating Study (BSDS) in 2006 and tried to reach them again after approximately 13 years. The initial study involved 382 participants, and 204 could be found and convinced to participate.
Participants completed assessments of their ideal partner preferences, their perceived change in preferences over time, and the number of partners they had had in the 13-year period. A principal component analysis was conducted on the ideal partner preferences to extract eight preference dimensions: warmth-trustworthiness, vitality-attractiveness, status-resources, family orientation, intelligence, creativity, humor, and adventurousness-confidence.
The researchers calculated correlations between participants’ preferences at the beginning of the study and their current preferences for different dimensions of a partner’s traits. The results showed that there were positive correlations between the two timepoints, indicating that people’s preferences remained relatively stable over time.
But the results showed that some ideal partner preferences did indeed shift over time. Specifically, participants placed less importance on physical attractiveness and wealth as they got older but placed more importance on traits such as kindness, humor, and shared values. The researchers also found that life events such as becoming a parent or experiencing a breakup were associated with changes in partner preferences.
The study also explored how becoming a parent affected preferences. Individuals who became parents during the study or had intentions to become parents showed lower stability in their preferences for status and resources than those without children. This suggests that the decision to have children can influence and change what people look for in an ideal partner.
Data analysis also found that, on average, participants placed increasing importance on status and resources over time, especially among younger individuals. They also placed less importance on vitality and attractiveness. However, the increase in family orientation was only significant for younger individuals, while older participants already had a higher preference for family orientation at the beginning.
As for individual perceptions of changes in their preferences, most people generally believed their preferences had changed, particularly in valuing intrinsic characteristics (e.g., warmth, trustworthiness) more and valuing appearance less. However, their perceptions of change did not always align with the actual changes. Participants had the most insight into changes in family orientation but less insight into changes in status and resources and intelligence.
The study was limited to its sample; they could only include people who had participated in the earlier study. Additionally, the study did not explore the role of cultural or societal factors in shaping partner preferences over time.
Despite these limitations, this study provides valuable insights into the complex nature of romantic relationships and mate selection processes. It highlights the importance of considering personal growth and life experiences when studying partner preferences and suggests that people’s ideal partners may change as they themselves change over time.
“We provide evidence that ideal partner preferences are considerably stable over 13 years, with some changes being related to life events such as parenthood,” the researchers concluded. “The importance of a partner with status and resources increased over time, with this increase being stronger for younger individuals. For some preferences (e.g., family orientation), participants knew how they had changed over time, while for other preferences change perceptions did not mirror actual changes. Future research should investigate further factors influencing stability and change in ideals as well as the factors facilitating or hindering insight into such changes.”
The study, “Stability and change of individual differences in ideal partner preferences over 13 years,” was authored by Julie C. Driebe, Julia Stern, Lars Penke, and Tanja M. Gerlach.