Sociosexual orientation, life history strategy, and reproductive success: A large-scale cross-cultural analysis across 92 contemporary societies

This study presents a large-scale cross-cultural analysis to examine the relationships between sociosexual orientation, life history strategy, and reproductive success across 92 contemporary societies. We aim to contribute to the understanding of whether sociosexual orientation is part of a fast-slow continuum of life history strategies and how these factors are related to reproductive outcomes overall as well as among men and women separately. Specifically, we addressed four research questions: (1) is a relatively fast life history strategy at the population level associated with an unrestricted sociosexual orientation at the individual level; (2) is an unrestricted sociosexual orientation positively associated with the number of children at the individual level; (3) is a relatively fast life history strategy at the population level associated with a higher number of children per individual; and (4) is the association between sociosexual orientation and number of children moderated by the country-level indicator of life history strategy? Using multilevel models in an analytic sample of 80,047 participants from 92 countries, we found a differentiated pattern across levels of analysis. At the country level, a relatively faster life history strategy (rF-LHS) was initially associated with lower sociosexuality; however, this association did not persist after adjusting for country-level covariates. By contrast, rF-LHS was consistently positively associated with the number of children reported by participants. For attitudes and desire toward uncommitted sex, between-country differences were not associated with fertility, within-country deviations were negatively associated with number of children, and there was little evidence that this within-country association varied as a function of rF-LHS. For sociosexual behavior, between-country differences were positively associated with fertility, within-country deviations were negatively associated with number of children, and this negative within-country association became weaker in countries with higher rF-LHS. Sex-stratified analyses revealed a stable asymmetry: the negative within-country association between sociosexuality and fertility was stronger among women, whereas the positive country-level association between rF-LHS and fertility, as well as the moderation pattern for sociosexual behavior, were more pronounced in the pooled and male specifications. These findings do not support treating sociosexuality as a straightforward core marker of the fast–slow life history continuum in contemporary reproductive contexts. Rather, sociosexuality appears to be part of a multilevel and context-dependent process linking mating orientation to reproductive outcomes.