Age Preferences in Personal Advertisements: Two Life History Strategies or One Matching Tactic?

Abstract

Previous interpretations of human age preferences in mates posited two sex-linked `life history strategies' said to involve the parental investment potential of the other as revealed by that other's age. In contrast with a dual strategy, our study of 722 heterosexual personal advertisements written by persons aged 20 to 59 found overall patterns of correlations (r.81 to .95) between own and stipulated ages that were common to both men and women. For both sexes, reliable own/other correlations were generally found within age decades as well. Further, an analysis of 133 homosexual personal advertisements revealed a similar pattern of reliably correlated own/other ages. These findings point to a conclusion that regardless of sex or sexual orientation-it may not be the age of the other but the age of the self that is the key factor in a single `matching tactic' for stipulating age preferences in mates or partners.