Stay away,but I may need your help! Mate choice and manipulation of prospective parents‐in‐law

Mate choice involves intense manipulation between the parties involved. This research investigates the manipulation tactics that individuals use in two different scenarios, namely, in order to keep a distance from their mates' parents and in order to secure their help in maintaining an intimate relationship with their children. Study 1 found 29 acts that individuals used to keep the parents of their mates at a distance and 22 acts that individuals used to secure the help of their mates' parents in maintaining a relationship with their children. Study 2 employed a sample of 352 individuals and classified the former in six and the latter in two distinct manipulation tactics. Study 3 employed a sample of 306 parents to assess the effectiveness of the different manipulation tactics.     

Interparental disagreement over in‐law choice

Parents are influential over their children's mate choices, which raises the question of whether mothers and fathers agree when it comes to selecting spouses for their daughters and sons. Based on evolutionary reasoning, this article hypothesizes that there is interparental disagreement over in‐law choice. In particular, it is predicted that fathers are more willing than mothers to make in‐law choices so as to benefit themselves at the expense of their children. Evidence from 2 independent studies provided support for this hypothesis. Two interaction effects were also found—namely, mother–father disagreement is higher when the cost of mate selection is higher for their children than when it is lower, and disagreement more often occurs over the mate choices of daughters.