Unrestricted sexuality promotes distinctive short- and long-term mate preferences in women

•We examined the relationship between sociosexuality and mate preferences among women.•With increasing sexual openness, preferences of short- and long-term partners diverge.•These findings were observed in both India and the USA.

The dual-sexual strategy hypothesis claims that women select different men for short- and long-term relationships. In short-term relationships, women are attracted to good genes (e.g., masculinity, attractiveness); in long-term relationships, material traits (e.g., good income, patient) are favoured. A potential predictor of women's mating strategy is sociosexuality, a measure of an individual's willingness to engage in casual, uncommitted sex. We asked whether women high in sociosexuality (i.e., unrestricted sexuality) would demonstrate greater distinctiveness between short- and long-term mate preferences. In an online study, participants (N = 459) from India and the USA were apportioned a 'mate budget' to construct their ideal short- and long-term partners. Mate Dollars could be spent on either genetic or material traits. As expected, genetic traits were favoured for short-term relationships; material traits were favoured for long-term relationships. However, women with a more restricted sexuality preferred short-term mates who closely resembled their long-term preferences. Women from the USA (with typically less restricted sexuality) showed more distinctive preferences than women from India (with typically more restricted sexuality). Overall, a woman's sociosexuality influences the distinctiveness of her short- and long-term mate preferences.