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Choosing a Mate: What Do You—and Others—
Really Want?
March 4, 2009
In a program uniquely connected to the "Choices and Decisions" theme of
the 2008-2009 academic year, HHC students gathered
in the Great Room of the Hutton Honors College
with IU professor Peter Todd for an evening of discussion and
activities related to mate choice. Students participated in activities
that dealt with mate choice, and Todd discussed current
research (much of it his own) on the topic and how the data collected
over the course of
the evening compared.
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At the beginning of the program, Peter Todd talks briefly
to
students about the current research on mate choice.
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Student hosts Natsuki Atagi and Andrew Harbor pose
for a
picture while
tabulating the data collected over the course of the evening.
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Todd has students line up in two rows and then has them
ask those in the other row, one by one, where their fathers were born.
The challenge is to find the person whose father was born closest in
proximity to his or her own; each student, however, can only go forward
and has to guess whether those ahead might offer a better match than the
person with whom he or she is currently talking. The exercise is meant
to provide insights into the sequential decision-making that goes into
mate choice, as someone "left behind" may not be available at a later
point when one has checked out all the options!
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After the "father" exercise, the students shift into two
classrooms for a "speed-dating" exercise in which they look for
people with whom they would like to cook a meal. The students have
90 seconds with each person and have to decide on the spot if that
person would
be a good cooking match. Following this experiment, Todd
speaks to students about what speed-dating research tells us about what
matters most to people looking for mates.
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HHC student Michael Sampson-Akpuru and student Jordan
Kilpin get to know one another during their allotted 90 seconds.
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