Women prefer mates who show strong personal growth motivation, particularly for long-term relationships, according to a new study published in Evolutionary Psychological Science.
Across human societies, choosing partners who can support long-term wellbeing, stability, and mutual investment is a central part of romantic decision-making. Traits that signal maturity, commitment, and fidelity tend to be especially valued in long-term relationships, whereas short-term preferences often focus more on immediate attraction or novelty.
Researchers have examined the cues people rely on when judging whether someone can meet their emotional, practical, or reproductive goals. Within this work, scholars have become increasingly interested in growth motivation—a person’s desire to broaden their perspective, develop wisdom, and pursue meaningful experiences—as a possible indicator of long-term partner quality.
In this study, Mitch Brown and colleagues examined whether people prefer partners who show strong growth motivation, and whether that preference shifts when considering short-term versus long-term relationships. They focused on two forms of growth described in humanistic psychology.
Experiential growth refers to pursuing happiness and wellbeing through experiences that offer hedonic satisfaction but ultimately deepen a sense of meaning. Reflective growth, in contrast, involves cultivating wisdom through thoughtful self-reflection and is linked to psychological maturity and prosocial tendencies.
Because both forms of growth motivation are associated with wellbeing and long-term developmental goals, the authors reasoned that individuals who exhibit them may signal maturity, investment potential, and relational stability, qualities especially relevant when evaluating long-term partners.
In the pilot study, 66 undergraduate participants from a Southeastern university in the United States evaluated short written profiles describing individuals who showed either high or low levels of experiential or reflective growth motivation. These profiles were adapted from language used in the Growth Motivation Inventory.
Participants rated each target on how growth-motivated they seemed overall, as well as how much they embodied experiential or reflective growth. The goal of the pilot was to confirm that the vignettes accurately conveyed the intended levels and types of growth motivation, and that participants consistently distinguished between high-growth and low-growth profiles.
For the main study, the authors recruited 508 heterosexual undergraduates (375 women, 133 men; mean age ~19 years) from the same region. Participants viewed four profiles describing opposite-sex individuals who varied in growth motivation (high vs. low) and growth type (reflective vs. experiential).
Each participant rated every target for desirability as a short-term mate and as a long-term mate, using standard definitions provided by the researchers. They also evaluated how prone each target seemed to be to infidelity, using a single-item measure frequently used in mate-preference research.
In the pilot study, participants consistently judged the high-growth profiles as much more growth-motivated than the low-growth profiles, regardless of whether the vignette described experiential or reflective forms of growth. This confirmed that the vignettes successfully communicated the intended personality differences and that participants reliably perceived these differences.
In the main study, a clear pattern emerged. Women showed a pronounced preference for high-growth men when imagining long-term relationships, rating them as far more desirable than men with low growth motivation. This was especially true for targets described as highly experiential in their approach to growth, though reflective growth was also strongly favored. Women also showed a modest preference for reflective high-growth men in short-term contexts, but these effects were small compared to the long-term advantage.
Men, in contrast, did not show meaningful differences in desirability ratings based on the growth traits of the targets; they responded similarly to high-growth and low-growth women across both short-term and long-term contexts.
Judgments about the likelihood of infidelity produced another consistent pattern. Both men and women believed that individuals low in growth motivation were more likely to cheat than those high in growth motivation. This perception was especially strong among women and was most pronounced when the low-growth target was described as lacking reflective growth.
Participants appeared to intuit that people who invest little in personal development may also be less committed or reliable partners, suggesting that growth motivation may serve as a broader interpersonal signal of fidelity and relationship stability.
Of note is that the study sample was primarily composed of young Western undergraduates, limiting the generalizability of the findings across cultures.
The research “Contextual Preferences for Growth Motivation in Mates” was authored by Mitch Brown, Natalie J. Gonzalez, and Jack J. Bauer.
