Citation

Rommel W. Social Science Information 2002; 41(3): 439-465.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0539018402041003005

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article reviews some recent evolutionary psychological theories about the interaction between environmental factors and sexual strategies. Evolutionary psychology explains sexual strategies in terms of innate information-processing mechanisms. The most important theoretical instrument relating to this topic is the theory of sexual selection and parental investment. Because of the unequal parental investment of the sexes, their sexual strategies differ. This is an important source of conflict between the sexes. Humans evolved in a complex social environment. As a consequence, human psychic mechanisms produce a wide variety of sexual strategies. Two dimensions along which human sexual strategies vary are considered here. First, people's mating strategies range from striving for a lifelong pair bond to aiming at a single act of copulation with someone. Second, strategies situated at the long-term end of the continuum can be polygynous, monogamous or polyandrous. The choices made by a concrete individual are influenced by several factors such as the personal life history, the general availability and predictability of resources, the distribution of political and economic power between men and women, the distribution of political and economic power between men themselves, the production mode of a society and finally the content of cultural representations in a society. It is shown that evolutionary psychology can be important for the explanation of contemporary behavioural differences. Some methodological problems of evolutionary psychology are reviewed and an evolutionary psychological perspective on the sex/gender distinction is considered.