In the quest for romance, some individuals turn to luxury consumption as a powerful signal of social status. This phenomenon has been widely validated among men, but little is known about the role of luxury purchasing in women’s romantic endeavors. HKUST’s Qihui Chen and colleagues conceptualize a “mate screening motive” that explains how women use luxury goods to signal romantically to men—with important implications for luxury marketers and consumers seeking romantic partners.

“Consumption is an important tool that helps individuals form romantic relationships,” the researchers note. “Marketers, including luxury brands, regularly appeal to consumers’ romantic pursuits.” Research has shown that a romantic mating motive prompts men to display luxury goods to signal social status. The researchers theorized that women are instead driven by a mate screening motive—the “need to narrow down their mating options and deter undesirable pursuers”—to display luxury goods.

To test this theory, they conducted six studies and two follow-ups in controlled and field settings. In these studies, they manipulated the mate screening motive via varied approaches and measured women’s preferences for luxury versus non-luxury brands in the dating context.

Women exhibited a greater preference for luxury brands when driven by a stronger mate screening motive. However, high-quality potential dates made women “less likely to engage in luxury consumption due to their attenuated motive to screen pursuers.” When women had other ways to screen out and deter unwanted romantic pursuers, such as dating platform filters, they no longer engaged in mate-screening-driven luxury consumption. “This further supported the screening function of luxury consumption in women’s romantic pursuits,” the authors explain.

These findings have meaningful implications for marketers and consumers, including how luxury brands can market their products to women, how dating platforms can design a better experience for female users, and how women looking for love can ward off undesirable pursuers.