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What Causes What
SMOKE

Sociosexuality (SOI-R) → Income hypergamy preference

Unrestricted sociosexuality is not a stealth measure of 'women want richer men'.

Observational · Low

The association does not survive the backdoor. Usually SES, outdoor time, or healthy-user bias.

Mechanism

Penke and Asendorpf (2008) gave the field a stable SOI-R. Pop-evo threads collapse that instrument into resource hypergamy or into Buss's youth-preference item. Different constructs, different questions, often opposite short-term vs insurance logics.

Caveats

Correlations between SOI and mate-preference items exist in some samples and are sex-differentiated. They do not identify a causal path from sociosexuality to hypergamy. The stamp is smoke so the collapse has a place to die.

Effect

qualitative. SOI-R measures orientation to uncommitted sex. Hypergamy measures resource weights. They are not substitutes.

Nodes

Psychology & behaviorSociosexuality (SOI-R)Psychology & behaviorIncome hypergamy preference

Named confounders

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Sociosexuality (SOI-R) → Income hypergamy preference.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-soi-not-hypergamy (atlas updated 2026-08-31).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-soi-not-hypergamy

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