Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky researched and explained how people think and behave in making financial decisions. They discovered that people often make irrational decisions that do not benefit them. They developed the field of behavioral economics.

Is there a corollary in how people make love decisions and choose mates? Do people make irrational choices, have cognitive illusions, and make faulty judgments that lead to poor mate choices and high divorce rates? If we do, how does it happen?

Several studies examine how people make choices in mates. Peter M. Todd et al. studied people involved in speed dating. They scrutinized the traits in mates people chose, not what they said they wanted. When there is a time restriction of five minutes in speed dating, they discovered, there is a disconnect between wants and actual choices.

Men made decisions to date women based mostly on their physical attractiveness.

Nor did women’s decisions about who they desired to date connect with what they said they wanted in a mate. Instead, they made decisions on both physical attractiveness and a sense of potential mate’s commitment to mate and family.

Alison P. Lenton et al., in a separate study involving speed dating, learned that, when short on time, people pay more attention to visual cues, the looks of would-be mates.........

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