Every Five Years Since 1970, Dr

Every five years since 1970, Dr. O'Halloran has assessed the importance of a man's status and resources to women seeking a mate. In 2005, Dr. O'Halloran prepared a graph of his results. Assessment year (from 1970 to 2005) appeared along the x-axis; an index of the importance of a man's resources appeared on the y-axis. Based on your understanding of the text's discussion of mate choice, what do you think the function in the graph looked like, and why?

A) a line with a positive slope-with the rising cost of living, financial resources have become increasingly important
B) a line with a shallow negative slope-while cultural changes may influence the importance of certain mate selection criteria, behavior will still reflect its evolutionary heritage
C) a line with a steep negative slope-women have made great strides in achieving wage parity with men in recent decades, making a man's status and resources largely irrelevant to a woman
D) a flat line-mate selection criteria are almost entirely determined by evolutionary forces