Synonyms
Definition
Assortative mating is the nonrandom coupling of individuals based on resemblance on one or more characteristics (Buss 1984).
Introduction
“Tell me what company thou keepest and I’ll tell thee who thou art” (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Chap. XXIII).
Assortative mating (AM) is one of the major departures from random mating. It occurs in two forms, positive AM or homogamy, when phenotypes of mated partners are more similar than would be expected under random mating, and negative AM or heterogamy (disassortative mating), when the mated partners are more dissimilar than they would be under random mating. Assortment is usually measured as a correlation between the values of the same phenotypic or genotypic characteristics across mating partners. The primary effect of AM is a change in the expected genotypic frequencies from those expected under the Hardy-Weinberg law. Positive AM has much the same effect as...
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Kardum, I., Hudek-Knezevic, J., Mehic, N. (2019). Assortative Mating. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3853-1
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