Eastwick Paul W, Finkel Eli J, Meza Eva M, Ammerman Kellie
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616.
Department of Psychology, Kellogg School of Management, the Institute for Policy Research, and the Center for Enlightened Disagreement, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Feb 4;122(5):e2416984122. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2416984122. Epub 2025 Jan 27.
In mixed-gender couples, men are older than women on average. Scholars and laypeople presume that this arrangement reflects mirrored preferences such that men desire younger partners and women desire older partners. Nevertheless, relevant published data on in-person romantic evaluations-that is, studies where adults interact in person and report their initial attraction to each other-are nearly nonexistent. We examined the association of a partner's age with romantic desire ( = 9,084 dyadic reports) among 6,262 blind daters who used a matchmaking service in hopes of finding a long-term partner. Preregistered tests revealed that people were (slightly) attracted to younger partners on average-and this association did not differ by gender. Conclusions were identical if we examined a) age difference from one's own age, and b) a dataset limited to women 40-and-under and mixed-gender dates. Furthermore, participant's self-reported "upper-age limits" played no meaningful role: Participants had a modest preference for youth overall, but it did not matter whether the partner's age fell below or above this personal maximum. We discuss the implications of the nonexistent initial-attraction gender difference for the age difference in mixed-gender couples.
在异性恋伴侣中，男性平均比女性年龄大。学者和普通人都认为这种年龄组合反映了一种相互映照的偏好，即男性喜欢更年轻的伴侣，而女性喜欢更年长的伴侣。然而，几乎没有关于当面浪漫评价的相关已发表数据，也就是说，几乎没有成年人进行面对面互动并报告他们对彼此的最初吸引力的研究。我们在6262名单身相亲者中研究了伴侣年龄与浪漫渴望之间的关联（9084份二人报告），这些单身相亲者使用了一家婚介服务机构，希望找到长期伴侣。预先注册的测试表明，人们平均（略微）更被年轻伴侣所吸引，而且这种关联在性别上没有差异。如果我们考察a）与自己年龄的年龄差，以及b）一个仅限于40岁及以下女性和异性约会的数据集，得出的结论是相同的。此外，参与者自我报告的“年龄上限”并没有起到有意义的作用：总体而言，参与者对年轻人有适度的偏好，但伴侣的年龄是低于还是高于这个个人上限并不重要。我们讨论了不存在初始吸引力性别差异对异性恋伴侣年龄差异的影响。
