The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of a New Mating Effort Questionnaire
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of a New Mating Effort Questionnaire Graham Albert1 · George B. Richardson2 · Steven Arnocky3 · Zeynep Senveli1 · Carolyn R. Hodges‑Simeon1 Received: 20 November 2019 / Revised: 8 July 2020 / Accepted: 10 July 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract In this study, we review the psychometric literature on mating effort and find that extant instruments (1) have not been adequately evaluated in terms of internal structure and measurement invariance, and (2) disproportionately focus on mate retention and intrasexual competition tactics designed to repel competitors, relative to attraction and investment effort. To address these gaps in the literature, we carried out two studies to develop and validate a new Mating Effort Questionnaire (MEQ). In Study 1, we report a pilot study in which participants’ responses to an item pool were submitted to exploratory factor analysis. In Study 2, we replicated the structure found in Study 1 using confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample. A three-factor solution yielded the best fit. The three factors reflected respondents’ allocation of energy to attracting high mate value partners when already mated, seeking out romantic partners when single, and investing in their current romantic partner and relationships. Strong partial measurement invariance held across the sexes, implying that observed scores may be used to compare them. We also found evidence of concurrent validity via associations between the MEQ and constructs such as sociosexual orientation, K-factor, mate retention behaviors, and respondents’ sexual behavior. These findings suggest that the MEQ is a valid and novel measure of individual differences in mating effort which is well suited to complement existing mating effort measures. Keywords Life history · Human mating · Measurement · Mating effort
Introduction Reproductive strategies are adaptive programs that function to promote reproductive success (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). Investments in reproductive strategies can be subdivided into energy allocated toward (1) current mates, (2) offspring, and (3) seeking new mating opportunities (Marlowe, 1999; Rowe, Vazsonyi, & Figueredo, 1997). Mating effort, which subsumes effort allocated toward (1) and (3), can be further subdivided Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01799-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Graham Albert [email protected] 1
Department of Anthropology, Boston University, 232 Bay State Rd., Boston, MA 02215, USA
2
School of Human Services, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
3
Department of Psychology, Nipissing University, North Bay, ON, Canada
into various domains such as allocation of energy to casual sex (e.g., Gangestad & Simpson, 1990; Jackson & Kirkpatrick, 2007; Penke & Asendorpf, 2008), intrasexual competition for access to mates (Buunk & Fisher,
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