Dissertation Research: Long-Term Mate Choice among the Shuar of Ecuador

选择一个长期的浪漫伴侣是大多数人生活中的一个核心问题;对我们的进化祖先来说，这肯定是一个适应性的挑战，对他们来说，合作养育可能是同时养育几个后代的必要条件。选择一个能够愉快和富有成效地互动的伴侣的能力具有深远而关键的影响，但我们对这一重要决策过程的心理机制知之甚少。 本论文的研究由文化人类学家结合民族志和实验心理学方法，以解决一些目前的差距，我们的理解的因素，有助于选择浪漫的合作伙伴。 这项研究将在厄瓜多尔的一个低地群体Shuar中进行，对他们来说，交配环境更接近于我们交配心理最有可能进化的环境：狩猎和园艺的生存模式，生活在少数家庭的小社区中，对他们来说，丈夫和妻子的共同努力是成功养育后代的关键。 人种学访谈将丰富我们对一个与通常研究人群截然不同的社区中的关系过程和变量的理解，而结构化的评级任务将揭示构成浪漫伴侣之间难以捉摸的“兼容性”的变量。 通过系统地研究人们谈判浪漫关系开始的过程，有可能在关系满意度和质量方面提高长期成果。 在我们国家历史上的一个时期，浪漫的伙伴关系和建立在它们之上的家庭越来越脆弱和短暂，关于人性这一方面的新知识将对整个社会和政策制定者产生重要的更广泛的影响。

The choice of a long-term romantic partner is an issue of central importance in the lives of most people; and must have been an adaptive challenge to our evolutionary ancestors, for whom cooperative parenting was probably necessary to raise several offspring simultaneously. The ability to choose a partner with whom one is able to interact pleasurably and productively has far-reaching and critical consequences, yet we know little about the psychological mechanisms that underlie this vital decision-making process. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist combines ethnographic and experimental psychological methods in order to address some of the current gaps in our understanding of the factors that contribute to the selection of romantic partners. The study will be carried out among the Shuar, a lowland Ecuadorian population for whom the mating environment more closely matches that in which our mating psychology most likely evolved: in a subsistence pattern of hunting and horticulture, living in small communities of few families, and for whom the combined efforts of husband and wife are essential for successfully raising offspring. Ethnographic interviews will enrich our understanding of relationship processes and variables in a community very different from the usual study populations, and structured rating tasks will shed light on the variables that make up the elusive quality of "compatibility" between romantic partners. By systematically studying the processes through which people negotiate the beginning of a romantic relationship, it may be possible to enhance long-term outcomes in terms of relationship satisfaction and quality. At a period in our nation's history when romantic partnerships and the families that are built upon them are increasingly fragile and short-lived, new knowledge on this aspect of human nature will have important broader impacts for society at large as well as for policy makers.