Introduction

A considerable proportion of people living in Western societies experience poor mating performance, meaning that they face difficulties in starting and/or keeping an intimate relationship (Apostolou, Shialos, Kyrou, Demetriou, & Papamichael, 2018). Recent research has identified several predictors of poor mating performance, including sexual functioning, self-esteem, personality (i.e., extroversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism), and jealousy (Apostolou et al., 2018; Apostolou, Paphiti, Neza, Damianou, & Georgiadou, 2019). The current study contributes to this line of work by testing the predictions that poor flirting skills, poor mate signal-detection ability, and high shyness would predict poor performance in mating. We will start our analysis by discussing the nature of poor mating performance.

Poor Mating Performance in an Evolutionary Perspective

Mating success has prominent evolutionary significance because those who fail to attract and retain a partner, in comparison to those who do not, face considerably lower chances to see their genetic material represented in future generations. This fact translates into strong selection pressures being exercised on people to evolve adaptations that would enable them to succeed in this endeavor (Buss, 2017). Emotions such as romantic love, loneliness, jealousy, and sexual desire constitute such examples. For instance, loneliness is a negative emotion that motivates people to find intimate partners in order to get rid of it (Apostolou, 2016). These mechanisms work reasonably well as most people eventually find a partner, marry, and have children (Miller, 2011).

Yet for many people residing in preindustrial societies, these mechanisms do not work sufficiently well, resulting in long-term or permanent singlehood. In particular, recent research indicated that almost one in two adult individuals experienced difficulties in attracting and retaining a mate and were likely to experience prolonged spells of singlehood (Apostolou, Papadopoulou, & Georgiadou, 2019). Evolutionary theorizing can enable us to understand the observed prevalence rates of poor mating performance. More specifically, a major insight of evolutionary psychology in understanding human behavior is that behavioral mechanisms have evolved in the ancestral human environment which is likely to have been very different from the contemporary one (Tooby & Cosmides, 2015). Thus, if a specific aspect of the contemporary environment is different from the ancestral one, the behavioral adaptations that have evolved to interact with it may not work well.

In more detail, for reasons such as random genetic mutations, most traits exhibit variation (Hallgrímsson & Hall, 2005). Selection forces act on this variation, removing from the population any variants that are harmful to the fitness (i.e., survival and reproductive success) of individuals and their genetic relatives (Fisher, 1958). Thus, in a specific environment, selection forces would allow variation in a trait that is not harmful to one’s fitness. Nonetheless, if the environment with which this trait interacts in a fitness-increasing manner changes considerably, part of the variation may become fitness-impairing. Selection forces would remove the fitness-impairing variants, eventually adjusting the variation of the trait to the new environmental conditions. This process takes time, and if the change in the environment had been very recent, there would not have been sufficient time for selection forces to remove all these variants from the population. Accordingly, there would be several individuals today who exhibit nonoptimal variation in the trait under consideration and, who are thus, likely to suffer fitness penalties. This evolutionary mismatch hypothesis (Crawford, 1998; Li, van Vugt, & Colarelli, 2018; Maner & Kenrick, 2010) can explain why several people today face difficulties in the domain of mating (Apostolou, 2015).

In particular, one aspect of the environment that has experienced considerable change relates to mate choice. Evidence from anthropological, historical, and phylogenetic studies indicated that in ancestral human societies, mate choice was regulated. More specifically, evidence from preindustrial societies, which resembled the way of life of ancestral ones, indicated that the typical mode of long-term mating was arranged marriage, where parents chose spouses for their children (Apostolou, 2007, 2010). For example, evidence from a sample of 190 contemporary foraging societies indicated that the most frequent mode of long-term mating, in about 70% of the societies in the sample, was arranged marriage with free courtship marriage being the common practice in about 4% of the societies (Apostolou, 2007). A different study employed comparative phylogenetic analyses with the purpose of reconstructing the ancestral human condition and provided further support that arranged marriage was typical in ancestral foraging societies (Walker, Hill, Flinn, & Ellsworth, 2011). In the same vein, free mate choice had not been the norm in any of the recorded historical societies as marriages were typically arranged (Apostolou, 2012; Coontz, 2006). Furthermore, men form male coalitions in order to fight other men and monopolize their resources, including women, by force (Ghiglieri, 1999; Tooby & Cosmides, 1988). Anthropological, historical, and archeological evidence suggests that such fights were common in ancestral societies (Bowles, 2009; Keegan, 2004; Puts, 2016).

In sum, there are good reasons to believe that the ancestral context of mating has been different from the contemporary one, in the sense that people were more constrained in exercising mate choice freely. Most probably, a woman living in ancestral human societies would receive a husband from her parents or she would become the wife or concubine of a man who had successfully used force to monopolize her. Most probably, a man would receive a wife from his parents, or he would have secured one from fighting other men. Adaptations evolved in mating have evolved to enable men and women to secure mates in such a context and may not work equally well in securing mates in a contemporary postindustrial context, where people have to find mates on their own without the contribution of their parents and without using force.

Still, the anthropological and historical evidence indicates that, in ancestral human societies, mate choice was also exercised. For instance, mate choice was exercised prior to marriage in premarital relationships, within marriage in extramarital relationships, and in divorce and later marriages, which were less likely to be controlled by parents (Apostolou, 2017). Thus, our point here is not that free mate choice was totally absent in ancestral human societies but that it was much more limited than in contemporary postindustrial ones.

On the basis of this theoretical framework, it has been predicted that several mechanisms involved in mating exhibit nonoptimal variation affecting mating performance, including mechanisms that regulate sexual functioning, personality traits, flirting skills, mating effort, and attention to looks (Apostolou, 2015; Apostolou et al., 2018, Apostolou, Paphiti, et al., 2019). One study found that, nearly one in two individuals experienced difficulties in either starting or keeping a relationship, with their mating performance being predicted by their level of sexual functioning, self-esteem, self-perceived mate value, pickiness, personality, attention to looks, and mating effort (Apostolou et al., 2018). A different study found that emotional intelligence, dark triad traits, jealousy, and attachment style were significant predictors of mating performance (Apostolou et al., 2019). The present research aimed to contribute to this line of work by identifying additional predictors of mating performance.