Age Gaps and Relationship Dynamics

Introduction

When individuals are asked what is the acceptable age gap in dating, the ‘half plus seven’ rule is inevitably cited (Karantzas, 2017; Ritschel, 2018). This provides an indication of the socially acceptable minimum age difference when choosing a dating partner by dividing your own age by two then adding seven. Numerous arguments have been forwarded concerning this ‘rule’ some claiming its baseless perpetuated by men as justification of dating young women. Contrarily, some researchers and experts in the field argue that love or relationship cannot be equated mathematically or scientifically. However, there is view that age is just but a number and has little if no influence on the relationship. According to Karantzas (2018) approximately 8% of the married heterosexual couples are within the age gap of 10 years. Although this observation various with culture, studies have general found that women place more importance on the status resources and status of male partners perceived in the form of investment of time and effort as child bearers. As such, given that accumulating resources take time so people tend to acquire enough resources to comfortably provide for other later in life.

Nevertheless, argued from evolutionary perspective, there is evidence suggesting men value vitality and attractiveness more than women because fertility is associable with youthfulness (Banks, & Arnold, 2001; Buss, & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). But these explanation failure to cater for reverse occurrence where older women marry youth male or existence of age gap in same sex relationships. Moreover, in contemporary society where more women work in high paying position meaning less reliance in on men for reliance but the age gap persist. Recently, questions have been raised in attempt to provide insight into this age-gap issues particularly given that couples with huge age (more than 10 years) experience social disapproval (Karantzas, 2018; Schumacker, 2018). Big issues is what accounts for those who deviate from the half plus seven rule? Why do older men engage in relationships with much younger women? Why do men desire their partners to be much older?

In generality, there are more mechanisms that drive our mate preferences than simply pulling out your calculator and calculating whether you will go on a date with that cute guy you just met at the bar. Concepts regarding age disparity in sexual relationship have developed over the years in the realm of social science and psychology and vary among different societies. Differences in age preferences in mate selection may stem from evolutionary mating strategies, where evolutionary psychologists argue that concepts of these relationships can be explained as a function of selective processes that have occurred in our evolutionary history (Berscheid, & Regan, 2016; Durante et al., 2016).

Since males and females invest different resources to provide for other that include their partners and offspring, psychologists thus argue that they should have evolved preferences for different characteristics when selecting potential sexual and romantic dating partners. Men generally tend to invest in resources such as food, security and shelter thus generally women tend to be more attracted to males who possess such resources or exhibit the potential of attaining those resources. As suggested by Whitbourne (2017) and Gilmour (2018) in order to ensure survival for themselves and their potential offspring. Moreover, Paukku & Kotiaho (2008) and Jones & Ratterman (2009) argued that producing offspring women tend to invest much more of their bodily resources. Consequently, males tend to be attracted to healthy and fertile women to improve the likelihood of successful reproduction (Youthfulness is associated with offspring productivity). From this perspective, age reflects an essential visible cue of a women’s fertility given that they have a limited reproductive window. As illustrated by Patterson (2017) and The Conversation (2014), since women are only capable of procreation from puberty to the onset of menopause, which currently varies between the late forties and early fifties and have a high reproductive value in their twenties, it points to the tendency of men having preference for younger female partners specifically those who are in their peak of reproductive years. Although evolutionary perspectives provide insights on age preferences among partners, it is not without its limitations (Swanson, 2014).

Differences in age preferences in mate selection may also stem from socio-cultural perspectives, where social psychologists provide an account of partner-age preferences through social exchange terms. Specifically, the Structural Powerlessness theory (Buss & Barnes, 1986) holds that women are generally powerless and are perceived as objects of exchange. Since they have been pushed out of the job market or rather they have limited income generating resources at their disposal as well as having limited paths for personal advancements, women tend to seek mates who hold characteristics associated with power such as income capacity (Buss, 1989; Stewart et al., 2000), high education levels (Greitmeyer, 2005, Kenrick et al., 1990, Lance, 1998), and having a high social status (Feingold, 1992, Townsend and Levy, 1990, Townsend, and Wasserman, 1998). As pointed before, these elements (status and resources) are likely attained later in life hence prevalence of women dating older men, which as referred in literature ‘Hypergamy’. Numerous social psychological studies of mate preferences have examined the desirability of having access to financial resources, finding that women tend to prefer men who have relatively high incomes or access to financial resources at their disposal (Cameron et al., 1977, Campos et al., 2002, Harrison and Saeed, 1977, Lance, 1998, Pawlowski and Koziel, 2002, Valliant, 2006).

Social perspectives on patterns of age preferences in mate selection have also been explained in terms of societal norms regarding the appropriate age gap relations among couples (Lewis & Spainer, 1979). The fundamental assumption is that males and females internalize society’s notions about what is considered to be a normal partnership throughout the course of their socialization. The age related norms for partner selection are stabilized by social sanction, whereby those who violate norms are penalized that include isolation and being ridiculed (Birch, 2018; Ryan, 2014; Drefahl, 2010). As a result, individuals conform into deriving the normal age gap relations and imitate these internalized perceptions through their own mating decision process.

From this perspective, age preferences are essentially based on what society perceives as acceptable and individuals then internalize these conventions, majority of unions, particularly in western societies, are characterized by the male being on average three years older than his partner (Hagestad, 2018; Carmichael, 2011). In essence, as pointed by Vera et al. (1990), most societies holds that males should be slightly older than the women but larger age gaps between partners is not considered to be an age norm of relationships. Despite rich insights which this theory has provided, like the evolutionary theory, the theory has focused on the presence and motives behind sex differences in dating and has spent less time emphasizing on less central attributes such as age and intelligence.

Socio-sexuality

Conversely, the theory claims that men value physical beauty perceiving physical attractiveness as an essential measure for building a lasting relationship (Buss & Barnes, 1986).

Research into sexuality has been significantly centred on sex differences in sexual permissiveness. In comparison to women, men tend to have more permissive attitudes towards casual sex, fantasize more frequently about having sex with various partners and engage in less restricted socio-sexual behaviours (Buss & Shmitt, 1993; Eysenck, 1976; Griffit & Hatfield, 1985; Hendrick, 1985). Conventionally, a large pool of studies have shown that relative to women, men are inclined to value physical attractiveness, whereas women place greater emphasis on individual characteristics such as compassion, kindness, and financial capacity (Buss, 1989; Buss & Barnes, 1986; Hill, 1945; Hudson & Henze, 1969; McGinnis, 1958).

Moreover, given the apparent sex differences in relation to the level of parental investment to the offspring throughout evolutionary history (Trivers, 1972), evolutionary theorists have proposed that these gender differences may suggest distinctive reproductive schemas (Buss, 1985; Kenrick & Trost, 1987; Symons, 1979; Wilson, 1978). More specifically, males have been selected to inherit greater sexual permissiveness and to favour mates who possess characteristics indicative of their youth along with their fertility and reproductive value (Buss, 1989). On the other hand, females have been perceived being less permissive and to favour mates depending on abundancy of resources they possess and inherently desire mates who display evident of high parental investment/involvement.

According to Sexual Strategies Theory (Buss & Schmitt, 1993) men tend to possess three particular adaptations which generally provides an indication of how they are more oriented towards short-term mating in comparison to women:

Males have a greater desire for short-term mating relative to women;

Males favor larger numbers of sexual mates over time relative to women; and

Males require less time prior to consenting to sex relative to women.

The findings also found that short-term mating preferences for men included reducing partner desirability standards, favoring partners that demonstrate more sexual experience or are highly promiscuous (Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Moreover this line of thought suggests that men would be predisposed to prefer younger female partners when selecting potential mates whereas women represent a more cautious mate selection and prefer mates who can provide more resources (Trivers, 1972; li et al., 2002). In fact, Antflock (2017) highlights that women of all ages prefer slightly older sexual partners while men, regardless of their age, have a preference for women in their 20s.

A study conducted by Kenrick et al. (1993) found that men tend to be less selective with respect to the desired characteristics in a mate for a casual sex relationship informally referred to as ‘one-night stand’. The study also reported that men sought significantly lower levels of attractiveness and dominance from a casual sex partner in comparison to a potential long-term partner (Conley, 2011; Fielder, & Carey, 2010; Reid et al., 2011). While women engage in casual sex as well, their motive is slightly different to that of men. Antflock (2017) further clarifies that women engage in casual sex relationships with a goal of establishing grounds to progress into a long-term relationship. Overarching, the current study aims test whether an individual’s (males in particular) willingness to select partners of different ages is a function of their desire to engage in casual sex relationships.

Building from above findings, one can argue on prevalence of sex-specific differences in mate selection criteria. Relative to women, males are predicted to have more casual sex partners and therefore will not be restricted to a particular age gap when selecting a mate. To assess the relationship of casual sex, among men in particular and their willingness to date people of different ages, the study perceives men’s mate selection is influenced by their greater willingness to engage in casual sex relations in comparison to women.

Age preferences as a function of modeled behavior (social learning)

Partner age preferences, as a function of modeled behavior, is a process by which individuals use their parents as a template for selecting potential mates and is suggested to play an essential role in human mate selection. Few studies have investigated the effects of maternal and paternal characteristics in shaping partner preferences, however to our knowledge; no studies have examined the direct influence of parental age gaps onto offspring’s age preference of their partner. Studies have, however, indicated that heterosexual parental traits may influence mate selection (Zei et al., 1981; Wilson & Baret, 1987; Jedlicka, 1980). This findings have indicated correlation between father’s age and the age of one’s partner. More specifically, their results indicated that daughters, who were born to older men tend to date older men (Zei et al., 1981). Emphasizing on the assertion, study conducted by Wilson and Baret (1987) in Britain investigating the influence of parental characteristics and partner choice on 314 young women found a correlation between the biological father’s age at his daughter’s birth and the age discrepancy between the daughter and her partner. These findings suggest that children tend to learn the visual characteristics of their parents, particularly their age, and later find these characteristics preferable when selecting their own partner (Perrett el al, 2002).

Nevertheless, the studies mentioned above investigated whether individuals are attracted to parental characteristics, that is, individuals who are born to old parents should prefer older individuals than those born to younger parents but had little consideration of the influence of the age gap between the biological mother and father and the influence it has on the offspring’s mate preference. Stemming from social learning theories, which indicate that parents have the ability to socialize and transmit their preferences onto their offspring (Bisin, & Verdier, 2001), this study aims to test whether the age discrepancy between an individual’s parents becomes modeled by their offspring and consequently influences the preferred age of their partner. It hypothesize that individuals with larger parental age gaps will have a preference for older partners on both sexes, given that both males and females experience equal learning opportunity and mechanism their parents.

The influence of parental attachment styles on age preferences in mate selection (parental investment theory)

Research into attachment theory has become one of the most significant paradigms within the realm of social and personality psychology of relationships (Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2007). These attachment theories have been used to predict a vast number of personality traits as well as attachment styles as a product of parental-child relationship. Research suggested that securely attached individuals tend to seek long-term, monogamous sexual relationships (Brennman & Shaver, 1995; cooper, Shaver, & Collins, 1998). Moreover, they demonstrate positive relationship outcomes such as stability, satisfaction, support and trust (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007; Shaver, & Mikulincer, 2006). On the other hand, evidently attached individuals are inclined to develop asexuality with the absence of trust, intimacy and closeness (Brassard, Shaver, & Lussier, 2017; Cooper el al., 1998) and is found to be associated with higher levels of permissive sexuality (Schmitt, 2005a; Simpson, 1990) and a reduced likelihood of falling in love and maintaining a committed relationship. Anxious attachment styles have found to be correlated with dissatisfaction, conflict, high levels of union breakup, extreme jealousy, compulsive love and high demands of one’s partner (Follingstad et al., 2002; Fraley et al., 2006).

Attachment theories have demonstrated children form multiple attachments throughout childhood and the degree of reliance on various figures and are dependent on their repeated presence in the child’s life, the quality of care provided, the extent of emotional investment as well as the amount of time spent during interaction (Cassidy, 1999). Evidently, individuals who lack confidence in the attachment styles of their parental figures as adults are susceptible to establishing stable relationship attachments and responding sensitively to the needs of their own children (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999). Similarly, Feeney & Collins (2015) illustrated that the model provides life opportunities for growth and adversity where in its absence can be genesis of challenges with adult lasting relationship (attachment in adulthood life).

Numerous studies have highlighted that influence held by parent-child relationship on individual adulthood life arguing that parents have significant role in one caregiving, playmate, discipline, and attachment. According to Lamb (2004) and Schneider et al. (2001), absence of either parent (mother or father) will ultimately deprive one of safety, secure space, and protection. Gogtay et al. (2003) and Schimmenti & Bifulco (2015) assert childhood has a lot of influence on how one related with others that include feelings of insecurity, satisfaction, anxiety, avoidance and fear in relationships in adulthood. Research into father absent children indicate that males who have distant fathers exhibit a complex of aggression, competition, derogation of females while females tend to express early signs of sexual interest and sexual activity, negative perceptions towards makes and troubles establishing and maintaining long-term relationships with one male (Draper & Harpending, 1982).

In women, growing without a father figure miss out on understanding boundaries of their male partner, protection, and security mostly tends to favour older men to replicate the abandonment of the father (Biller, & Weiss, 1970; Wakerman, 2015; Jain, 2015). On the other hand, Stewart (2014), Lewis & Lamb (2003), and Ellis et al. (2003), argued that men with father abandonment (‘daddy issues’) occasionally struggle to express their emotions or worse playing stereotype adopting a hard personality characterised by getting into physical fights, sleeping with lot of women, pursuing materialistic or social status, or refusing to back down in an argument. Studies have taken limited consideration on the implication of relationship development by men with ‘mother issues’ (mother abandonment) but this study hypothesize they get into relationship with older women seeking to fill the motherly void. As such, it aims to explore the assertion that parental abandonment in both men and women leads into dating older person in attempt to fill the gap created or because of limited insight into other genders. In essence, paternal and maternal absence predicts the relationship nature of both male and female in the adulthood and absence of one parent cannot be supplemented by presence of the other.

Elements relational disgust in male and female

Emotions of disgust have been associated with mate preferences, sexual activity and sexual arousal (Al-Shawaf et al., 2014; Borg, & de Jong, 2012; DeBruine et al., 2010; Fleischman, 2014; Fleischman et al., 2015), where studies in the last few decades have reported a robust sex difference in disgust where women have significantly higher levels of disgust relative to men (Al-Shawaf, & Lewis, 2013; Curtis et al., 2004; Haidt et al. 1994; Oaten, Stevenson, & Case, 2009; Schienle et al., 2005; Tybur et al., 2009). Various studies have suggested that socio-sexuality that is an individual’s willingness to engage in casual sex varies with individual’s disgust sensitivity (Al-Shawaf, Lewis, Alley, & Buss, 2015; Penke & Asendorpf, 2008). Of specific interest, Al-Shawaf et al. (2015) have observed an association between patterns of short-term mating and disgust and indicated that lower levels of sexual disgust are linked with individual’s higher tendency to engage in short-term relationships.

Unlike males, females are characterized by greater minimum obligatory parental investment, which attributes to their higher levels of sexual disgust (Fleischman, 2014). Females have evolved to be choosy and discriminative, especially when selecting short-term sexual partners and hence there relatively low thresholds for sexual disgust expedites female choosiness by reducing the probability of careless mating decisions, thus mate selection for women tend to be heavily influenced by their relative aversion to pathogens (Buss, 2003; Symons, 1979; Trivers, 1972). In contrast however, reduced sexual disgust among males appears to expand the pool of potential mates and contributes to their greater willingness to engage in short-term mating behavior (AlShawaf et al., 2014; Lewis et al., 2017).

This study aims to investigate whether disgust sensitivity can predict the motivation for age gap relationships. We anticipate that levels of disgust sensitivity will influence an individual’s age preferences when selecting a mate. More specifically, we hypothesis that individual differences in disgust sensitivity will provide an indication of age variance in dating, where relative to females, males will be more willing to date someone older than themselves as they tend to be less prone to disgust sensitivity than women and have greater willingness to engage in casual sex relationships.

Death anxiety as a function of dating younger

Awareness of personal death reflects one of the most existential concerns that drive individuals to search for the means to protect themselves against reminders and awareness of their own death. Over the last decade, terror management theories (TMT) have postulated innovative approaches in understanding the defense mechanisms that people use against the awareness of their own mortality. According to Depaola et al. (2013) and Schimmenti & Bifulco (2015), people predominantly men engage in relationship with younger women to feel younger and boost their ego. Sackville (2018) argued that men perceive older women as reminder of their age where one cannot pretend being a 30 year old while waking up to a sixty or fifty year older partner. Being in a relationship with a younger partner acts as life-affirmatory staving own fear of mortality or aging by making these older men feel younger and desired. Arguably, dating younger women leads to healthy living due to focus of maintaining that youthfulness and remaining in body shape. In contrast, limited studies exist on women perception towards young men whether they enter into relationship in attempt to hide these death anxiety. This study aims to explore this assertion that dating someone younger leads to living healthier and longer life with prediction that this death anxiety acts as key influencer in older men in dating younger women and need for long living.

Method

Participants

A total of 354 participants were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk system (Mturk). Mturk is an online market place, which enables individuals, known as “requesters” to post jobs such as human intelligence tasks and “workers” choose which jobs to participate, in exchange for a payment set by the requester (Buhrmeter, kwang, & Gosling, 2011). Participants were limited to those 18 years or older and received $0.75 (U.S.) upon completing the survey as compensation. Participants who were missing more than 30% from each scale or 5% of the overall data from the scales were excluded. Thus based on this exclusion criteria a total of (INSERT) participants were dropped from the study. Additionally, participants were also excluded from the study if they took under three minutes to complete the survey, as their responses may not be reliable. This lead to the exclusion of a further (INSERT) participants, hence a total of (INSERT) of the initial 354 participants were included in the study (mention how many males/females). Majority of the participants identified themselves as heterosexual (n=(INSERT)) with the rest either homosexual (n=(INSERT)) or bisexual (n=(INSERT)).

Materials and Procedure

First, participants were required to provide their informed consent prior to partaking in the study. Subjects were then asked to complete a series of questions regarding their personality and age preferences in dating. To measure individual differences in dating preferences, participants completed a set of scales designed to measure their age preferences for both long-term and short-term relationships, fear of death, disgust, modeled behavior, socio-sexuality and parental investment respectively. Subjects were then asked a series of demographic questions which included questions such as their age, ethnicity, whether their parents were still in a relationship with each other, their relationship status and their gender. Before completing the survey, participants were briefed about the purpose and the nature of the study. They were also assured that the information they provide will remain confidential and were provided with an email in the event that they had any questions about the study.

Age preferences

Four items were used to measure participants willingness to engage in relationships with someone either older than they are or younger using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “not at all” to “extremely”. The scale included the following questions: “How willing are you to have a casual sex relationship with someone older than you are?”, “How willing are you to get into a long-term committed relationship with someone older than you?”, “How willing are you to have a casual sex relationship with someone younger than you are?”, and “How willing are you to get into a long-term committed relationship with someone younger than you are?”.

Fear of death

Death anxiety was measured using The Death Anxiety Questionnaire (find person), which assessed negative attitudes, cognitions and affect towards death and dying, for either self or a significant other. The scale consisted of a 15-item self-report questionnaire using a Likert response format ranging from “not at all” to “extremely”. Sample items from the questionnaire include: “Do you worry about dying?” and “Do you worry that the person closest to you won’t be with you when you are dying”.

Disgust

The study used the Three Domain Disgust scale in order to assess the disgust sensitivity among the participants (Tybur et al., 2009). The scale consists of a 21-item measure with three seven-item factors measuring sexual, pathogen and moral disgust. Participants were asked to rate how disgusting they found each item on a 5-point Likert scale (“not at all disgusting” to “extremely disgusting”). Sample items from sexual disgust factors involved “finding out someone you do not like has sexual fantasies about you”, a sample from pathogen disgust is “seeing a cockroach running across the floor” and “intentionally lying during a business transaction” for moral disgust. The study measured all three forms of disgust in order to determine whether the anticipated relation between mate selection and disgust is limited to the sexual domain or permeates other facets of disgust.

Social learning

Two items were used to assess the influence of parental age gap onto offspring age preferences in dating. The two items were: “How old is the person you consider to be your mother?” and “How old is the person you consider to be your father?” Participants were required to respond by dragging a cursor to the age of their parents (or parental figures) where the ages ranged from 18-100 years old.

Socio-sexuality

Socio-sexuality was measured using the socio-sexual Orientation Inventory (SOI) (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). It is a 7-item measure assessing the sexual behaviors and attitudes of individual’s. Behavioral items include the following: the number of sexual partners within the last year, the number of different partner’s the individual foresees having within the next five years, and the number of partners an individual has had sex with on one and only one occasion. Participants were required to respond to the first three items numerically. The fourth item on the SOI was the frequency of fantasies one has about having sex with someone other than the current or most recent dating partner, and was followed by seven possible responses: never, once every two or three months, once a month, once every two weeks, a few times each week, nearly every day, at least once a day. Three additional items were used to assess attitudes towards casual sex and were the following. “Sex without love is ok,” with the response options ranging on a 7-point likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree; “I can imagine myself being comfortable and enjoying ‘casual’ sex with different partners,” and “I would have to be closely attached to someone (both emotionally and psychologically) before I could feel comfortable and fully enjoy having sex with him or her”. A survey error was made for the last two attitude items were the response options range from strongly agree to somewhat disagree. Evidently, the participants did not have the option of disagreeing with the statement and therefore the study cannot draw trustworthy conclusions from this scale.

Parental investment

Parental care was measured using the 26-item Relationship Quality Scale (13 items for each biological parent). Participants were asked to rate characteristics of their biological parents during the years they were growing up on a 5-point Likert scale with responses ranging from “not at all” to “extremely”. Sample items from the questionnaire include: “How much time and attention did she give you when you needed it” and “How much effort he put into watching over you and making sure you had a good upbringing”.

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