00:00 Dr. David Bus is an expert in evolutionary psychology and his laboratory studies the strategies that humans use to select mates in the short and long-term, including topics such as cheating, courtship, deception, status assessment, emotions related to mating love, mate poaching, biological influences on mate selection, and the darker aspects of mating and sexual behavior.

06:54 The theoretical framework for understanding mate choice is based on Darwin's theory of sexual selection, which includes intrasexual competition and preferential mate choice, and in the case of humans, both men and women have mate preferences that set the ground rules for competition among the opposite sex.

14:44 Women prioritize good earning capacity, slightly older age, and qualities associated with resource acquisition in long-term mates, while men prioritize physical attractiveness and prefer women who are younger than them on average.

23:07 Men prefer women who are increasingly younger than them as they get older, as shown by marriage statistics and expressed preferences, although there are constraints on age gaps in long-term relationships due to cultural differences and the need for compatibility.

31:23 Deception in online dating is common, with people posting misleading photos and profiles, but it is important to meet in person to get a more accurate sense of the person's true qualities, and some qualities, like emotional stability, can only be assessed over time.

39:42 Physical appearance is more important for women in short-term mating, while women prioritize "bad boy" qualities in short-term mating and "good dad" qualities in long-term mating, and women's attraction to men is more context-specific and varies more across contexts than men's attraction to women.

47:58 The two primary competing hypotheses for why women have affairs are the dual mating strategy hypothesis and the mate switching hypothesis, with evidence suggesting that the mate switching hypothesis is more likely, as women who have affairs often fall in love with their affair partner and become emotionally involved, which is not consistent with seeking good genes from a different partner.

55:51 Emotional infidelity involves falling in love with someone else and becoming psychologically close to them, while financial infidelity refers to keeping financial information and expenditures secret from a partner, with both forms of infidelity being common among both men and women.

01:03:34 Jealousy is an evolved emotion that serves several adaptive functions, including mate-guarding and mate retention, in order to preserve the investment made in a long-term romantic relationship.

01:11:36 Jealousy can be triggered by mate value discrepancies and potential mate poachers, leading to a range of responses from increased vigilance to violence, with intimate partner violence being functional in reducing perceived mate value discrepancies and controlling the partner.

01:19:13 Intimate partner violence can be triggered by male sexual jealousy and female self-defense, with motivations often different between genders, and it can be specific to circumstances such as pregnancy, where violence may be directed towards the woman's abdomen to terminate a pregnancy by a rival male.

01:27:32 High dark triad individuals tend to be perpetrators of sexual violence, including sexual harassment and coercion, due to their belief in the misperception that women are attracted to them, and when combined with a short-term mating strategy, this combination can lead to dangerous behaviors such as stalking and intimate partner violence.

01:35:33 Having children from a previous relationship generally decreases a woman's mate value, as it is viewed as a cost by potential partners, but in some cases, it can be a benefit if the person is willing to invest in the children; however, overall, having children tends to decrease both a woman's and a man's mate value, especially if the children are young and financially dependent.

01:43:15 Polyamory is an attempt to overcome certain evolved features of our mating psychology, such as the desire for sexual variety, but it often serves other aspects of our mating psychology, and different couples have different rules and constraints within polyamorous relationships.

01:51:06 Assessing one's own mate value accurately is complex due to the multitude of components involved, but people generally have an intuitive sense of relative mate value based on factors such as attention from others and consensual opinions.

01:58:55 Dr. David Buss discusses the concept of self-deception and how it can facilitate successful deception in others, as well as the role of self-confidence as a cue for others in assessing one's mate value.