Mons Bendixen

Norwegian University of Science and Technology | NTNU · Department of Psychology

A prospective partner’s sexual history provides important information that can be used to minimise mating-related risks. Such information includes the number of past sexual partners, which has an inverse relationship with positive suitor evaluation. However, sexual encounters with new partners vary in frequency over time, providing an additional di...

This book provides a cutting-edge overview of emotion science from an evolutionary perspective. Part 1 outlines different ways of approaching the study of emotion; Part 2 covers specific emotions from an evolutionary perspective; Part 3 discusses the role of emotions in a variety of life domains; and Part 4 explores the relationship between emotion...

Sexual violence among adolescents represents a significant problem in society. In this study, we aimed to examine risk factors for sexual violence perpetration in adolescent men and victimization in adolescent women among a community sample of Norwegian high school students. The participants (560 men and 751 women, aged between 16 and 21 years) res...

This study examines what beliefs people hold about other men’s and women’s reaction to infidelity and how related these beliefs are to one’s own jealousy response and to various socio-cultural influences. This novel approach was examined in a Facebook snowball sample (N = 1213) who responded to three infidelity scenarios regarding what aspect of in...

Introduction How we perceive social-sexual behavior, and to what extent we consider such behavior to be sexual harassment, is dependent on several situational factors. Prototypical #MeToo features (male actor and female target, higher status, repeated, private behavior, sexualized physical contact) have previously been shown to increase the degree...

Sexual double standards are social norms that impose greater social opprobrium on women versus men or that permit one sex greater sexual freedom than the other. This study examined sexual double standards when choosing a mate based on their sexual history. Using a novel approach, participants (N = 923, 64% women) were randomly assigned to make eval...

Evolutionary social science is having a renaissance. This volume showcases the empirical and theoretical advancements produced by the evolutionary study of romantic relationships. The editors assembled an international collection of contributors to trace how evolved psychological mechanisms shape strategic computation and behavior across the life s...

The Oxford Handbook of Human Mating covers the contributions and up-to-date theories and empirical evidence from scientists regarding human mating strategies. The scientific studies of human mating have only recently risen, revealing fresh discoveries about mate attraction, mate choice, marital satisfaction, and other topics. Darwin’s sexual select...

Recent cross-cultural and neuro-hormonal investigations have suggested that love is a near universal phenomenon that has a biological background. Therefore, the remaining important question is not whether love exists worldwide but which cultural, social, or environmental factors influence experiences and expressions of love. In the present study, w...

Flirting involves various signals communicated between individuals. To attract potential mates, men and women exhibit flirtatious behavior to get the attention of, and potentially elicit sexual or romantic interest from, a desired partner. In this first large, preregistered study of judgement of the effectiveness of flirtation tactics based on Sexu...

Depressive symptoms are prevalent in adolescence, and girls have higher levels of depressive symptoms and depressive disorder than boys. Rumination and especially brooding, seem to be a central maintaining factor of depressive symptoms, where metacognitions about rumination play a prominent role in maintaining depressive rumination. There is a sex...

Mennesket er et resultat av evolusjonsprosessen. Denne prosessen har formet vår menneskelige natur; vår psykologi er et resultat av evolusjon. Denne boken gir en kort introduksjon til evolusjonspsykologi som forskningstilnærming. Forfatterne tar utgangspunkt i sin egen og internasjonale kollegaers forskning på menneskets evolverte seksuelle psyko...

A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attentio...

A wide range of literature connects sex ratio and mating behaviours in non-human animals. However, research examining sex ratio and human mating is limited in scope. Prior work has examined the relationship between sex ratio and desire for short-term, uncommitted mating as well as outcomes such as marriage and divorce rates. Less empirical attentio...

In this study we examined how people perceive social‐sexual behavior of women and men, and how these perceptions were associated with beliefs about the outcomes of the #MeToo movement, sexism, traditional values, and gender equality. In addition, we examined the effect of having experienced sexual harassment on such perceptions. Analyses were perfo...

Many different predictors for belief in conspiracy theories have been empirically validated in different studies. The current study considers the relative contribution of individual differences in dimensions of schizotypal personality, social dominance orientation (SDO), right wing authoritarianism (RWA), paranormal beliefs (PB) and the newer const...

Sex differences in jealousy responses to sexual and emotional infidelity are robust in samples of heterosexual adults, especially in more gender egalitarian nations. However, investigations of when and how these differences develop have been scant. We applied two forced choice infidelity scenarios in a large community sample of high school students...

In several recent papers the sex difference in regret predicted by sexual strategies theory has been supported: men more than women report regret passing up short-term sexual opportunities (inaction regret), while women regret having had sexual encounters (action regret). However, the adaptive function of regret, to improve future behavioral choice...

Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and you...

The #MeToo movement has to a large degree addressed a specific type of sexual harassment, focusing on quid pro quo over hostile environment type sexual harassment. Prototypical #MeToo features include male over female actor; superior over subordinate actor; repeated over single case harassment; private over public settings; personal over general ta...

Few studies have investigated what soldiers find meaningful after being exposed to highly stressful events and what positive effects they might have in the aftermath. This study reports the psychometric properties of a newly developed questionnaire, Meaning of Service (MoS), and its application to the study of how strongly meaning-making processes...

The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg’s Triangular Love Scale – STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined mor...

Infidelity represents a major threat to relationships, often resulting in dissolution of couples. The process from infidelity to potential breakup was studied in 92 couples using questionnaires concerning hypothetical scenarios of sexual and emotional infidelity. Structural equation model analyses using couple data for both infidelity types suggest...

Several recent papers have established a link between personality and Tinder use, particularly with regards to sociosexuality and motivations for use. Following up our recent publication on dating apps and the studies linking Tinder and sociosexuality, we provide a more detailed investigation of the efficiency of using Tinder to acquire one-night s...

The Confluence Model is a general framework for understanding developmental processes by trac- ing the mutual influences between the individual and his or her social environment as they unfold over time to shape some characteristic of person- ality (Kihlstrom 2018). The general framework of the model has been applied to the study of sexual coercion...

Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for the...

Humans express a wide array of ideal mate preferences. Around the world, people desire romantic partners who are intelligent, healthy, kind, physically attractive, wealthy, and more. In order for these ideal preferences to guide the choice of actual romantic partners, human mating psychology must possess a means to integrate information across thes...

Mate choice lies close to differential reproduction, the engine of evolution. Patterns of mate choice consequently have power to direct the course of evolution. Here we provide evidence suggesting one pattern of human mate choice—the tendency for mates to be similar in overall desirability—caused the evolution of a structure of correlations that we...

Objective Scant research exists on the gender-specific association between physical activity, insomnia symptoms and depressive symptoms among adolescents. The present study investigates the direct and indirect association of insomnia and physical activity with symptoms of depression. Design In a community-based sample (N = 1485) we investigated fa...

The frequency of sexual intercourse within couples is associated with a variety of factors, such as relationship length, sexual and relationship satisfaction, and perceived quality of the relationship. Love, as a commitment device, might reduce interest in extrapair sex. Therefore, one can expect a negative association between measures of passion a...

Sexual signaling is subject to manipulation, and miscommunication may occur because of biased interpretations of signals, or because of strategical downplaying of sexual interest (playing hard-to-get). In this paper, we examined initial perceptions of cues from opposite sex partners along with participant reported own sexual attraction and signaled...

This study investigates individual differences, sex differences and predictors of current and prior use of Picture-Based Mobile Dating Apps (PBMDA), including level and type of PBMDA activity, and reasons for PBMDA use. Six hundred and forty-one Norwegian university students aged between 19 and 29 years completed a questionnaire in lecture breaks....

Casual sex and hookups are largely synonymous and involve sexual behaviors that occur outside ongoing committed relationships. These brief uncommitted sexual encounters occur among individuals that are not dating or romantic partners, and they are performed without any expectations of future romantic relationships. The encounter typically occurs on...

Sex differences in sexual regret are found to be robust across nations. Participants in Norway (N = 547) and the United States (N = 216) reported their level of regret for their most recent casual sexual experience. Participants also reported on proximate factors hypothesized to predict casual sex regret: negative emotions (worry), feeling pressure...

Objectives: The paper examines how strongly non-physical peer sexual harassment is associated with a wide range of well-being outcomes from symptoms of depression and anxiety to self-esteem, and body image. Methods: Two large community samples of high school students were analyzed (n=1384 and n=1485). Students responded to questionnaires on being s...

Norway is one of the countries with the most progressive criminal justice systems in the Western world. Traditionally, the Norwegian criminal justice system has been mainly based on treatment and deterrence perspectives. While it is believed that criminal justice practices should be in accordance with public attitudes, few studies in Scandinavia ha...

Sexual regret was investigated across two disparate cultures: Norway (N = 853), a highly secular and sexually liberal culture, and the United States (N = 466), a more religious and more sexually conservative culture. Sex differences, individual differences in preferred mating strategy, religiosity, and cultural differences in sexual regret were ana...

This paper reports on the development and the psychometric properties of short forms of Ambivalent Sexism Scales toward women (ASI; Glick & Fiske, 1996) and men (AMI; Glick & Fiske, 1999), and a scale measuring rape stereotypes (IRMA; McMahon & Farmer, 2011). The short form AMI/ASI were applied for examining gender and educational differences in un...

From an Error Management Theory (EMT) perspective we expect a negative forgiveness bias, in which one underestimates a romantic partner's forgiveness following one's own transgressions. The function would be to secure that the transgressions are fully mended through reparative behavior. The extent to which this bias is related to infidelity and typ...

Mye av ungdommers seksuelle erfaringer skjer i dag utenfor en tradisjonell datingkontekst. På tross av dette har ungdommers seksuelle kommunikasjon sjelden vært fokus for forskning. Denne studien har undersøkt sending og tolkning av signaler mellom ungdommer på 16 og 19 år med fokus på en uforpliktende kontekst. Fokusgruppeintervjuer ble gjennom...

Kunnskapsstatusen gir en oversikt over norsk og annen nordisk forskning på bakgrunn av tilgjengelig kunnskap for perioden 2007-2015. Rapporten finner på bakgrunn av kartleggingsstudier at det å bli utsatt for uønsket seksuell oppmerksomhet i form av seksuell trakassering blant elever i ungdomsskolen og videregående opplæring utgjør et betydelig sam...

This is not an Abstract in conventional sense, but what the Encyclopedia terms a "Definition": Sexual behavior may be broadly defined as all behavior motivated by sexual feelings, desires, or gratification, whether reproductive or not. While a lot of this behavior may be understood and predicted from a reproductive, evolutionary framework, the mod...

The current study sought to answer three key questions about explaining the emotion of regret in the domain of casual sex: Are sex differences in sexual regret robust or attenuated in a highly egalitarian culture? What proximate psychological variables might explain sex differences in sexual regret? And what accounts for within-sex variation in exp...

This qualitative study explores the meaning-making process of veterans to address the positive aspects of military service in international operations. Thirteen veterans from a Force Protection Unit in Norway were interviewed about their deployment to Afghanistan. A thematic analysis revealed three main themes reflecting meaningful aspects of the s...

Despite some controversy about sex differences in jealousy, data largely support that sex differences studied with the forced choice (FC) paradigm are robust: Men, relative to women, report greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity than in response to emotional infidelity. Corresponding sex differences for continuous measures of jealousy ty...

In this study, we examined how jealousy responses in men and women were affected by 2D:4D digit ratio, a correlate of prenatal testosterone exposure, and actual infidelity experiences using the forced-choice paradigm. Extending the previous literature on responses to infidelity, we examined whether specific types of infidelity and whether active ma...

Competition for mates is a primary social psychological conflict. One may acquire a mate by promoting oneself by highlighting features that the opposite sex has evolved to desire in mates. One may also attack competitors, in an attempt to reduce their perceived mate value. The effectiveness judgment of 24 separate self-promotion and competitor dero...

There has been a steady increase in the number of rapes reported to the police in Norway during the past two decades. In this paper we examine factors associated with attitudes toward rape (as measured with 11 items from the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale) and attribution of responsibility to rape victims using a community sample of Norwegian...

Error Management Theory (Haselton and Buss, 2000; Haselton and Nettle, 2006) maintains that natural selection has engineered adaptations for judgment under uncertainty to minimize the overall cost of making errors, leading to universal biases in judgments of sexual interest in men and women. This study, using a sample of heterosexual Norwegian stud...

Rapporten viser at det samlede nivået av å ha blitt utsatt for seksuell trakassering lå 10 prosentpoeng under nivået gjengitt i 2008-rapporten på tilsvarende mål. Det var likevel en stor andel elever (63% jenter og 62% gutter) som rapporterte minst en form for seksuell trakassering siste år. For seksuell tvang (fysisk) lå nivået omtrent 5 prosentpo...

Rape myths exist in all cultures. For female rape victims who appear before the court, such myths and attitudes among judges can be an obstacle in their struggle for credibility. The present study explores the acceptance of rape myths and sexism among 48 court and 243 lay judges in Norwegian courts. The results showed an overall low acceptance for...

We examined the effects of ostracism in early adolescent populations using the Cyberball paradigm (Williams, Cheung, & Choi, 2000). Ninety-one Swiss school students, aged 10-14 years, were randomly assigned to the ostracism (24 girls, 23 boys) or the inclusion (23 girls, 21 boys) condition and were led to believe that they were playing Cyberball wi...

We investigated the influence of the sex of the target and the sex of the sender on the judgment of slurs (verbal derogation). From previous research, we selected and clustered slurs into seven categories and respondents rated their degree of perceived insult in two consecutive questionnaire surveys (N = 281 and N = 224, respectively). Results conf...

Based on the notion that the history of victimization has an impact on the sensitivity to current victimization situations this study investigated whether victims of bullying show more pronounced responses to single episodes of social exclusion. We examined whether victimization experiences in school are associated with responses to ostracism in a...

Sexual harassment and coercion have mainly been considered from a sex difference perspective. While traditional social science theories have explained harassment as male dominance of females, the evolutionary perspective has suggested that sex differences in the desire for sex are a better explanation. This study attempts to address individual diff...

The aim of this study was to examine the level and affect of exposure to teacher bullying in primary and secondary schools on patients with personality disorders (PD). The study group contained 116 people (18-60 years old); 49 patients diagnosed with PD undergoing psychiatric treatment in 10 different psychiatric outpatient clinics in the Southern...

Høsten 2007 gjennomførte forfatterne på oppdrag fra opplæringsdirektøren ved Sør‐Trøndelag fylkeskommune en kartlegging av seksuell trakassering ved 9 videregående skoler i fylket. Denne kvalitative studien er en forlengelse av kartleggingsstudien med intervju av håndfull elever ved videregående skoler i Sør‐Trøndelag. Fokus for intervjuene har vær...

Denne rapporten inneholder den første kartleggingen av seksuell trakassering blant elever i videregående skoler her til lands. Elever ved i alt ni skoler i Sør-Trøndelag var med i kartleggingen. I tillegg ble det foretatt en kartlegging av lærernes opplevelser av seksuell trakassering fra elever på de samme skolene. En rekke former for uønsket trak...

Gang membership is repeatedly reported to be one of the strongest predictors of antisocial behaviour. However, whether this association primarily reflects a selection effect or whether it primarily is related to a facilitation of antisocial behaviour within the gang has scarcely been an object of empirical study. This paper examines how antisocial...

Purpose. The aim of this study was to examine whether a scale including frequency scores of antisocial behaviour is a more sensitive and better measure of antisocial involvement than a variety scale. Methods. Data from a representative sample of 1,292 Norwegian students aged 13 and 14 years was used to compare a 17‐item variety scale with two versi...

Background/AimsThis article describes the development of a new self-report instrument, the Bergen Questionnaire on Antisocial Behaviour, for the measurement of antisocial behaviour in preadolescence and early adolescence, and presents a number of substantive results derived from a multiple-cohort, longitudinal study involving 2430 Norwegian student...

This paper investigates the relationship between antisocial behaviour and injury-related behaviour in a sample of young Norwegian males and females. The results indicated that antisocial behaviour was positively related to risk-seeking behaviour and negatively related to safety-seeking behaviour. The associations were similar for both genders. The...

The long-term impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) has most typically been concentrated on the psychological outcomes. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between CSA and self-reported complaints including both psychological and psychosomatic problems as well as absenteeism. A random sample of 510 female and 486 male students...

Few studies of the prevalence and incidence of sexual abuse have been conducted in the Nordic countries. The aim of the present study was to estimate the prevalence of accounts of sexual abuse and to calculate the incidence of rape and attempted rape among students. A questionnaire was handed out to a random sample of 1,322 students in Trondheim. T...