What is Mating Intelligence and Why Study it?

In its most general terms, Mating Intelligence is defined as the set of cognitive mechanisms and abilities that underlie human mating psychology. The approach taken here suggests that the psychological mechanisms for human mating can be conceptualized as cognitive abilities – or as a form of intelligence.

In their book Mating Intelligence: Sex, Relationships, and the Mind's Reproductive System, Geher and Miller (2008) divide these kinds of abilities into two broad categories – abilities that are directly related to content tied to mating (i.e., mating mechanisms) and abilities which reflect creative intelligence and that serve the purpose of display during courtship (i.e., fitness indicators). Thus, some aspects of human intelligence are specifically about mating (e.g., the ability to say just the right thing to a potential mate so as to get that person’s attention/interest) while other aspects of human intelligence have nothing to do with mating on the surface (e.g., complex and sophisticated linguistic abilities), but they are hypothesized to be integral to mating as they act as effective courtship displays (that ultimately advertise one’s fitness – see Geoffrey Miller’s (2000) book, The Mating Mind, for an evolutionary account of creative displays as designed to advertise genetic fitness).

Given its emphasis on reproduction, the evolutionary perspective clearly suggests that features of organisms which facilitate success in mating will be particularly strong targets of selection and will be major elements of the physiognomy and psychology of the organism. As such, we conceive of human mating intelligence as a major feature of human psychology from an evolutionary perspective.

For more information on mating intelligence, please email Glenn Geher.

<>Also, for more information, including a teaching module on mating intelligence and several readings on the topic, visit Glenn's Homepage.