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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Brains over beauty [sciencedaily.com]? But we all know that guys are hardwired for pretty faces and shapely bodies when it comes to choosing a mate, right?

Not so fast. Despite today's ongoing challenges in achieving gender equality, a new review of research on mate preferences conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Innsbruck suggests that modern men indeed increasingly value brains over beauty in their long-term partners.

"Our review across several disciplines suggest that mating preferences of men as well as women have responded with unsuspected speed to progress toward gender equality," said Marcel Zentner, professor of psychology at University of Innsbruck in Austria.

The common view is that our mate choices are evolutionarily "hardwired" in our brains and therefore minimally responsive to changing conditions. But some evolutionary scientists now argue that humans are programmed to respond with great flexibility to changing environments.

"This flexibility allows people to do what sociocultural theorists have maintained for a long time: Select partners who minimize the costs and maximize the benefits that they will experience in their future lives," said Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern.

Look at the lobes on that one...

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