Thursday, June 02, 2011
Dating More Difficult in Larger Cities
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200910/why-dating-is-difficult-in-new-york-or-london
Gilbert and Mosteller prove (yes, this is mathematics, notscience, so there can be absolute proofs) that the optimal strategy is toreject the first 37% of all the candidates, and then select the first candidate who is better than any previous candidate.
Switching gears from mathematics to evolutionary psychology, given that this strategy is mathematically proven to be optimal, the logic of natural selection suggests that, over a long period of human evolution, all women will eventually be selected to employ this strategy, without being consciously aware of the mathematics behind it. Women who adopt the “Reject the first 37% and choose the next best” strategy are expected to achieve greater reproductive success on average than women who adopt the “Marry the first one I can find,” or “Reject the first 5% and choose the next best” or “Reject the first 90% and choose the next best” or any other potential strategy. Unconsciously, all women should have the evolved psychological mechanism to reject the first 37% of the total estimated number of lifetime potential mates, and choose the next best candidate.
