Mate choice is a fitness-relevant decision, that can be informed by the mate choices of others. Such mate-choice copying has been documented across multiple species, including humans. However, so has copying in many other contexts. As such, the exent to which mate-choice copying is underpinned by the same psychological mechanisms as copying in other contexts remains unclear. To test these hypotheses, we conducted an online experiment (recruiting from M-Turk, n = 165) to examine whether human mate choice copying is prestige and/or conformist biased (both of which are documented in other domains), and whether it differs between men and women. If mate choice copying is underpinned by broad-context mechanisms, we predict it will be similar in men and women, with both groups also exhibiting prestige-biased and conformist transmission. Our results match these predictions, exhibiting no evidence of a difference in mate-choice copying between men and women, and evidence of prestige-biased and conformist transmission. These results suggest that mate choice copying is the product of adaptive, broad-context copying mechanisms.

择偶是一项与健康相关的决定，可以通过其他人的择偶选择来了解。这种择偶复制现象在包括人类在内的多个物种中都有记录。然而，在许多其他情况下的复制也是如此。因此，择偶模仿在多大程度上与其他情况下的模仿是由相同的心理机制支撑的，目前仍不清楚。为了检验这些假设，我们进行了一项在线实验（从 M-Turk 招募，n = 165）来检查人类择偶复制是否存在声望和/或墨守成规的偏见（这两者在其他领域都有记录），以及男性和女性之间是否存在差异。如果配偶选择复制是由广泛的背景机制支撑的，我们预测男性和女性的情况会相似，两个群体也表现出声望偏见和顺从传播。我们的结果与这些预测相符，没有证据表明男性和女性在择偶复制方面存在差异，也没有证据表明存在声望偏见和顺从传播。这些结果表明，择偶复制是适应性、广泛背景复制机制的产物。