Apostolou Menelaos
Social Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia, Cyprus.
Evol Psychol. 2014 Jan 30;12(1):54-72. doi: 10.1177/147470491401200105.
Despite the fact that parents exercise considerable influence over their children's choice of a mate, little is known of their preferences for daughters- and sons-in-law, particularly in a post-industrial context. This research aims to close the gap in our knowledge by making a taxonomic contribution on the qualities desired in an in-law. In particular, parents have rated the desirability of 88 traits in a prospective daughter-in-law and a son-in-law; using principal components analysis, these traits have been classified into 11 broader in-law preferences. On the basis of this classification, four hypotheses were tested: First, parents ascribe different weights to different traits; second, parental preferences are contingent upon the sex of the in-law (i.e., certain traits are valued differently in a son- and in a daughter-in-law); third, parents have a preference for assortative mating (i.e., they want their prospective in-laws and their families to be similar to them); and fourth, in-law preferences are independent of the sex of the parent (i.e., mothers and fathers are in agreement with respect to what qualities they seek in a spouse for their children). The results from two independent studies provide support for the first three hypotheses, but little support for the fourth hypothesis.
尽管父母对子女的择偶选择有着相当大的影响，但对于他们对儿媳和女婿的偏好却知之甚少，尤其是在工业化后的背景下。本研究旨在通过对理想姻亲特质进行分类贡献来填补我们在这方面的知识空白。具体而言，父母对未来儿媳和女婿的88种特质的可取性进行了评分；通过主成分分析，这些特质被归类为11种更宽泛的姻亲偏好。基于这一分类，检验了四个假设：第一，父母对不同特质赋予不同权重；第二，父母的偏好取决于姻亲的性别（即某些特质在儿媳和女婿身上的价值不同）；第三，父母倾向于选择相似的配偶（即他们希望未来的姻亲和他们的家庭与自己相似）；第四，姻亲偏好与父母的性别无关（即母亲和父亲在为子女寻找配偶时所看重的特质方面意见一致）。两项独立研究的结果为前三个假设提供了支持，但对第四个假设几乎没有支持。
