Sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and mate selection

Students at a southwestern university were surveyed to test the interrelations of three constructs: sexual-moral attitudes, love styles, and attraction criteria. Following the procedures of the National Health and Social Life Survey, from which the sexual-moral attitude items were obtained, we conducted a cluster analysis to create attitudinal groupings. We obtained four clusters representing various nuances of liberalism and conservatism. When compared on love styles, the clusters differed primarily on ludus and pragma. Not only did some of the liberal clusters differ from some of the conservative ones on love styles, but there were also some differences within liberalism and within conservatism. Cluster differences also emerged on the attraction criteria.