Thesis supervisor: Szabolcs Számadó
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Károli Gáspár University Abbreviation of location of studies: KGRE
Description of the research topic:
Mate choice is one of the most important decisions in anyone’s life. While humans are not strictly monogamous yet most of humankind lives in long term monogamous relationships that has tremendous impact on the quality and success of life. Even for short term affairs the consequences can be long lasting (e.g. unwanted pregnancy, STDs). There is a strong incentive to create a positive presentation of the self in these situations by overplaying positive characteristics and downplaying or even hiding negative ones. While there is an enormous literature on human mate choice and a very extensive on manipulative mating strategies there is often a confusion about the level of explanations. These can be proximate (on the mechanism level) or ultimate (i.e. adaptive, on the evolutionary level). Our goals is to entangle these level of explanations with the use of diverse methods including literature review, experiments and mathematical models.
Required language skills: English Number of students who can be accepted: 2