Huberman Lab
Essentials: How Humans Select & Keep Romantic Partners in the Short & Long Term | Dr. David Buss
02 Oct 2025
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. David Buss, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a pioneer in the field of evolutionary psychology. We explore the science behind human mate selection in both short- and long-term relationships. We discuss universal traits valued in long-term partners along with key differences between women and men in what they prioritize when selecting a mate. We also discuss the darker aspects of mating behavior, such as deception, the evolutionary function of jealousy and the motivations behind stalking. Read the episode show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AGZ by AG1: https://drinkagz.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman Timestamps (0:00) David Buss (0:21) Mate Selection, Preferences & Competition (3:26) Desirable Qualities of Men & Women, Universal Traits for Long-Term Mates (4:38) Women’s Preferences; Men’s Preferences; Age Differences (8:58) Sponsor: LMNT (10:32) Mate Deception & Online Dating, Tool: Travel, Stress & Emotional Stability (13:41) Short- vs Long-Term Mates, Men vs Women Preferences (15:58) Sponsor: AGZ by AG1 (17:27) Jealousy, Mate Value Discrepancy, Vigilance to Violence (20:58) The Dark Triad, Sexual Harassment & Coercion (22:18) Stalking, Motivations & Outcomes (24:57) Sponsor: Function (26:38) Childhood Attachment Styles & Relationship Stability (27:43) Self-Assessment for Mate Value, Self-Esteem (31:20) Evolutionary Psychology & Neuroscience (32:05) David Buss’ Books; Acknowledgements Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now, my conversation with Dr. David Buss. David, delighted to be here.
Excited to ask you a number of questions about these super interesting topics about how people select mates. Just to start off, perhaps you could just orient us a little bit about mate choice. You know, some of the primary criteria that studies show men and women use in order to select mates. Transient mates as well as lifetime mates.
Right. Well, that's a critical distinction because what people look for in a long-term committed mateship, like a marriage partner or a long-term romantic relationship, is different from what people look for in a hookup or casual sex. So that's actually critical. I wonder if we could maybe just back up a second and just talk a little bit about the theoretical framework.
for understanding mate choice. It basically stems from Darwin's theory of sexual selection. Darwin noticed that there were phenomena that couldn't be explained by this so-called survival selection. So he came up with the theory of sexual selection, which deals not with the evolution of characteristics due to their survival advantage, but rather due to their mating advantage.
And he identified two causal processes by which mating advantage could occur. One is intrasexual competition. And the logic was whatever qualities led to success in these same-sex battles, those qualities get passed on in greater numbers. And so you see evolution, which is change over time and increase in frequency of the characteristics associated with winning these battles.
what Darwin called contest competition. And we know that the logic of that is more general now and involves things like in our species competing for position and status hierarchies. But the second most relevant to your question about mate choice is preferential mate choice. That was the second causal pathway
And the logic there is that if members of one sex agree with one another about the qualities that are desired, then those of the opposite sex who possess the desired qualities or embody those desired qualities, they have a mating advantage. Those lacking desired qualities get banished, shunned, ignored, or in the modern environment become incels.
The logic there is very simple but also very powerful, and that is that whatever qualities are desired, consensually desired, if there's some heritable basis to those, then those increase in frequency over time.
And in the human case, these two causal processes of sexual selection are related to each other in that the mate preferences of one sex basically set the ground rules for competition in the opposite sex. So if, for example, hypothetically, women...
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