Peter Todd: U of Indiana Cognitive Science, Informatics, and Psychological and Brain Sciences

The choice of a mate is not only one of the most important decisions in our lives, but also one of the most difficult, fraught by lack of knowledge of the options to come and inability to return to options already passed by. How do we make this challenging sequential choice, at the same time we are trying to convince someone else to choose us—and more specifically, how do we decide when our search is over? To find out, we could follow a set of individuals through multiple relationships over an extended period of time—or we can speed things up: We can build simulated mate-seekers who embody plausible decision rules for searching for partners, and see how they fare in an artificial mating market, comparing their behavior to that of aggregated humans. We can also speed up human mate-seekers themselves, by having them participate in speed-dating events and observing their searches as they meet and interact with a succession of potential partners. With these methods we are testing a satisfying search model that adjusts mate aspiration levels lower after failed relationships and higher after successful ones. We are also able to test other hypotheses about the kinds of mate choices people make, and how well matched they end up being.