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Sex Differences in Mate Value
Mate value has been seen to differ between males and females, and various studies have been conducted to determine what these are. Researchers have found that men place a much bigger emphasis on the reproductive capacity of a mate to ensure they are able to produce offspring. This reproductive capacity may be determined by focusing on the youth and attractiveness of a female. The same study also found that females place a greater importance on financial prospects, status and other qualities that are needed for the long term when selecting a mate.

Ben Hamida, Mineka and Bailey (1998) also looked into sex differences. It seems that men tend to select traits such as attractiveness, youth and thinness, which suggests a preference for uncontrollable qualities. This however differs from what females focus on, which are the opposite types of traits and ones that can be controlled. These include status, ambition, job prospects and physical strength.

These finding suggest that females are choosier when selecting a partner. Trivers (1972) suggested that this was the case because of parental investment. Since females invest more in the offspring, she requires a mate that can provide suitable attributes to be able to support and provide for the offspring.

Although there are differences between mate value, Buss (1989) also found that traits such as intelligence and health are rated equally in terms of importance by both men and women, suggesting that although there are obvious differences, there are also inherent similarities between the two.

Mate Value and Attractiveness
When looking at what affects mate value, attractiveness and body features seem to be a consistent indicator with certain characteristics predicting an increased mate value. Fink and Penton-Voak (2002) found that is the symmetry of a face is one method used to determine a person's attractiveness. People tend to value a high level of similarity when considering a potential mate. Another study looked at the effects of self-perceived attractiveness on mate preference and found that females who consider themselves above average attractiveness tended to prefer mates of a higher masculinity.

The waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR) of women is a feature that can be used to measure mate value. When males look for a long-term partner, they are looking for a healthy female with good reproductive value, and WHR is a good measure of both. There is also a strong preference for bigger breasts, as well as a low WHR when considering both short and long-term partners .When females look for potential male mates, they look at different features to men. It seems that averageness and texture of the pace play an important part in attractiveness of men. When looking at short-term mates, male attractiveness is rated higher than when looking for long-term mates, where other factors such as resources and financial prospects are more highly valued.

Cross Cultural Differences in Mate Value
Cross-cultural influences in regards to mate value is another factor that have been studied extensively. When looking at body attributes of women such as waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), there has been research looking into the variation in preference. Douglas and Shepard (1998) found that Peruvian Tribe men had a preference for a high WHR in comparison to the Western preference of a low WHR, due to the lack of media exposure. Another study looked at artists’ representations of male and female sculptures. When comparing Indian, African, Greek and Egyptian WHR, they all vary across the cultures. However, one common feature across all the cultures is that women are always depicted with a lower WHR than men. Another study, by Buss et al. (1990), looked at mate preferences in 37 different cultures and found that Indians, Chinese, Arabs and Indonesians place a huge emphasis on chastity, whereby both males and females place high importance on finding a mate who has not engaged in previous sexual experience. Saying this, Buss et al. (2001) also found that certain traits such as financial prospects and attractiveness remained relatively stable across cultures. While there is some evidence for the importance of WHR and other physical attractiveness, Wetsman and Marlowe (1999) looked at research from a Tanzanian tribe and found that WHR was not considered an important measure of attractiveness and therefore mate value.