Study Examines How Monogamous and Polyamorous People Distribute Desired Traits Across Two Partners

When people imagine having two long-term romantic partners at the same time, most tend to prefer partners with broadly desirable qualities rather than assigning sharply different roles to each person. However, research suggests that some men approaching the scenario from a predominantly monogamous background were more likely to imagine one partner whose appeal centered on physical attractiveness and sexual skill.

The study, published in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, examined how people allocate desired traits between two hypothetical long-term partners and whether those preferences differ between predominantly monogamous and polyamorous participants. It also explored how participants imagined dividing time, financial resources and emotional investment between the relationships.

How relationship preferences might change with two partners

Most psychological research on mate preferences has examined what people value in a single partner, frequently identifying characteristics such as kindness, intelligence and physical attractiveness.

Consensual non-monogamy introduces a different question: when people can distribute desired characteristics across more than one hypothetical partner, do they continue to seek similarly well-rounded partners, or do they imagine different partners fulfilling different relationship roles?

The new research investigated this possibility without assuming that preferences observed in a hypothetical task necessarily reflect how people select partners in real relationships.

How the studies were designed

Ashley J. Coventry of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues conducted three studies using a constrained budget-allocation task. Participants received 70 points to distribute across characteristics for two hypothetical long-term partners, requiring them to make trade-offs.

The characteristics included ambition, physical attractiveness, intelligence, kindness and sexual skill. Researchers used cluster analyses to identify recurring combinations of desired traits and examined how participants intended to distribute time, money and emotional closeness between the two hypothetical relationships.

Because the task deliberately creates scarcity, the resulting profiles represent choices under experimental constraints rather than complete descriptions of participants’ ideal real-world partners.

Findings among predominantly monogamous participants

The first study included 267 predominantly monogamous U.S. participants. Two major profiles emerged: a relatively well-rounded partner, with resources distributed across several desirable characteristics, and a profile concentrated more heavily on physical attractiveness and sexual skill.

Almost three-quarters of participants created two partners belonging to the same general profile, most commonly two well-rounded partners. Just over one-quarter created different profiles for their two hypothetical partners.

Within this latter group, men were more likely than women to allocate traits in a way that produced one partner emphasizing physical attractiveness and sexual skill. The finding reflects an average sex difference within this particular hypothetical task rather than evidence that men generally want a separate sexual partner in real life.

A second study of 227 predominantly monogamous participants produced broadly similar patterns and additionally examined intended investment in the two relationships.

Participants who created one well-rounded partner and one more physically and sexually focused partner generally allocated more time, money and emotional closeness to the well-rounded partner. This suggests that the two hypothetical relationships were not necessarily envisioned as equally important, despite both being described as long-term.

What polyamorous participants envisioned

The third study included 169 participants who identified as polyamorous. They completed comparable trait-allocation and relationship-investment tasks.

A well-rounded partner profile again emerged as the most common pattern. However, the second major profile differed from that found among predominantly monogamous participants, emphasizing a combination of kindness and sexual skill rather than primarily physical attractiveness and sexual skill.

As in the predominantly monogamous samples, nearly three-quarters of polyamorous participants preferred two partners with similar profiles. Unlike the earlier samples, however, significant sex differences in partner-profile preferences were not detected.

Polyamorous participants who created two different partner profiles also allocated time somewhat unequally, although investment patterns were generally more balanced than those observed among predominantly monogamous participants who imagined different partner types.

These findings should not be interpreted as showing that polyamorous relationships are inherently more equal. The study measured hypothetical allocations and did not comprehensively compare actual relationship hierarchies between monogamous and polyamorous people.

Interpreting the patterns

One possible interpretation is that some predominantly monogamous participants approached the unfamiliar two-partner scenario by implicitly imagining relationships of different importance, which could help explain why resources were concentrated more heavily in one partner.

Polyamorous participants, by contrast, had experience or identification with a relationship framework in which multiple romantic connections are possible. That experience could influence how they approached the hypothetical exercise.

However, explanations involving deliberate rejection of relationship hierarchies should be treated cautiously. Polyamory includes both hierarchical and non-hierarchical arrangements, and the study did not distinguish sufficiently between these structures to establish that anti-hierarchical values produced the observed differences.

The cluster categories themselves also should not be interpreted as naturally occurring partner “types.” Statistical clustering identifies patterns within the available data, and different measures or analytical decisions could potentially produce different groupings.

Important limitations

The experimental point-budget task required participants to sacrifice one desirable characteristic to obtain more of another. Real relationships do not operate according to such a fixed allocation system, and attraction can develop through characteristics and interactions not represented by the five traits included in the study.

The polyamorous sample was also smaller than originally planned, reducing statistical power for detecting smaller differences. Participants were based in the United States, limiting conclusions about whether similar patterns would appear in other cultural settings.

The research also did not fully distinguish between different forms of polyamory, including hierarchical and non-hierarchical arrangements. Larger studies could examine whether relationship structure itself predicts how people distribute emotional, practical and financial investment.

Non-binary participants were not included in the main sex-based analyses, further limiting conclusions about gender-diverse populations.

Overall, the findings suggest that most participants, regardless of relationship orientation, imagined two partners with broadly similar desirable characteristics. The more striking differences appeared among the minority who divided desirable traits unevenly between partners.

Among predominantly monogamous participants, particularly men, this sometimes involved imagining one more well-rounded partner and another whose profile emphasized physical attractiveness and sexual skill. Among polyamorous participants, preferences were generally more similar between men and women, while the alternative partner profile combined kindness with sexual skill.

Rather than revealing fixed rules about monogamy or polyamory, the results suggest that people’s relationship experience and expectations may influence how they imagine distributing attraction, intimacy and investment when more than one long-term partner is considered.

Article prepared by Victoria Caldwell.