Meaning and measurement of mating intelligence

Abstract

This thesis addresses the concept of Mating intelligence to the exploration of individual differences in the development of successful and fruitful relationships. The document is divided into 3 parts. Part 1 explores the theoretical domain of Mating Intelligence (MI). A number of concerns are raised about its coherence in relation to its claim to be an ‘evolutionary informed’ construct. The place of mating intelligence within the ‘intelligence’ domain is also questioned and it is concluded that the construct does not enjoy a robust theoretical status. Part 2 proceeds to examine the measurement properties of the MI construct as operationally defined by Geher and colleagues. A total sample of 2031 people from Ireland and Brazil were used in five empirical studies reported in this part of the thesis. These studies were designed to examine a) the generalizability of the MI test scores; b) the psychometric quality of MI measures; c) the robustness of the item domain; d) the equivalence of scores across culture and e) the concurrent validation of the construct. The conclusion was disappointing and demonstrated very little support for a psychometric domain underpinning the Mating Intelligence construct. Part 3 attempted to extend the studies beyond Mating Intelligence and was primarily based on a Grounded Theory study utilising Romantic Competence Theory. The emerging theory provided a basis for a new tentative model of relationship maintenance that may inform intervention in relationship counselling. A final study of Sexual Strategies theory using a qualitative Thematic Analysis rounds off the thesis. The final conclusion is that Mating Intelligence is a suboptimal construct that offers very little in an applied understanding of relationship maintenance.