Single men may be lustful, but they have less wanderlust than their married brethren. Bachelors are also more xenophobic than married men, and women of any marital status.
The discrepancy may be because a man's value as a mate is culture-bound, according to Satoshi Kanazawa, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Wealth and social status are men's standard bargaining chips in the search for mates. But BMWs and second homes aren't portable, nor are they universally appreciated. Women in the Amazon rain forest won't be impressed by a Grammy award or a Nobel Prize, nor can men brag to women about their achievements unless they speak the same language, says Kanazawa. Conversely, American women are not likely to be impressed by large penis sheaths.
Evolutionary psychology maintains that women's desirability resides in youth and beauty, attributes that are fairly universal and don't have to be checked by customs officials. To test whether these evolutionary tenets translate into less globe-trotting for single men, Kanazawa examined a survey that detailed the travel itineraries and xenophobic attitudes of more than 16,000 Europeans. Kanazawa found that unmarried men are significantly less likely to travel or want to travel to foreign countries than are unmarried women. They are significantly more likely to find people of other nationalities and races "disturbing." Kanazawa compared these findings with data on unmarried American men, as measured by the General Social Survey. The GSS provided no data on actual travel, but again, single men reported more xenophobic attitudes than did single women.
