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Dominance, Prosocial Orientation, and Female Preferences: Do Nice Guys Really Finish Last?
Abstract
Three multimethod studies (total N = 348) probed the hypothesis that women's attraction to men would be influenced by male prosocial orientation. In Study 1, prosocial men were rated as more physically and sexually attractive, socially desirable, and desirable as dates than were nonprosocial men. Dominant men were no more attractive than low-dominance men, and male dominance did not interact with male prosocial orientation in eliciting attraction from women. In Study 2, prosocial orientation was manipulated to avoid ''personalism,'' but still affected attraction. Across all measures attraction was an interactive function of dominance and prosocial tendencies. Dominance alone did not increase any form of attraction measured. In Study 3, male prosocial tendencies and dominance interacted to affect women's attraction to men. Results are discussed in terms of the place of altruism and dominance in evolutionary approaches to human interpersonal attraction.
Decisions about who to date are increasingly being made while viewing a large pool of dating prospects simultaneously or sequentially (e.g., online dating). The present research explores how the order in which dating prospects are evaluated affects the role in dating decisions of a variable crucial to relationship success – partner responsiveness. In Study 1, participants viewed dating profiles varying in physical attractiveness and responsiveness. Some participants viewed responsive profiles first whereas others viewed unresponsive profiles first. Results revealed that responsive targets were rated more favorably following exposure to unresponsive targets, regardless of level of attractiveness. Study 2 specifically targeted how contrast effects affect romantic evaluations of a physically unattractive, yet responsive, target. Results again revealed that unattractive, responsive targets were viewed more favorably after exposure to unresponsive dating prospects, regardless of these unresponsive prospects' physical attractiveness. These results highlight the importance of the context in which dating decisions are made.
Among 223 college students from the University of Zagreb, 105 male and 118 female students, aged 19-34 years, examined the association among religiosity (general, intrinsic, extrinsic-social and extrinsic-personal religiosity), sexuality (three sexual styles/scripts; "role enactment", "sexual trance" and "partner engagement"; age for onset of sexual intercourse and number of sexual partners) and prosociality (emotional empathy and altruism). Intrinsic and extrinsic-social religiosity were positively correlated with preferences for partner engagement, and negatively correlated with number of sexual partners. General, intrinsic, extrinsic-social and extrinsic-personal religiosity were positively correlated with emotional empathy; general and extrinsic-personal religiosity were also positively correlated with altruism. Partner engagement and sexual trance were positively correlated with emotional empathy, and number of sexual partners was negatively correlated with emotional empathy. There were some gender differences in the relationships among three examined fields. Furthermore, sexually unexperienced students had significantly higher results in intrinsic, extrinsic-social and extrinsic-personal religiosity than sexually experienced students had. The results are discussed regarding the theories of consistency and possible alternative explanations.
Exposing individuals to erotic stimuli modifies perceived time horizons, causing subjects to assign greater value to the present than the future. This can be explained by different models, including the theory of visceral factors and evolutionary psychology. Specifically, evolutionary theory analyses the latest reasons as explanatory variables of this behaviour. An evolutionary perspective was used to perform two experiments where individuals were exposed to pictures containing erotic stimuli. The first experiment, in which both men and women took part, shows that the influence of such stimuli on risk perception is different in the two sexes. The second experiment, in which only women took part, shows that female risk perception varies according to the subject's aims in a relationship.
Evolutionary theory predicts rigorous competition in nature and selfish behavior is thus seen as its inevitable consequence. Evidence of altruistic and cooperative behavior therefore appears at odds with evolutionary theory. However, evolutionary psychology suggests that past environments may be different from the current environments that humans inhabit. Here it is hypothesized that competition in two past environments might have led to strategies that favored altruism and cooperation toward nonkin. First, the expansion of the human brain is seen as requiring long-term, quality parental investment to sustain it. Altruistic displays could well have signaled an ability and willingness to provide such parental investment in a potential mate and been favored as a result. Second, the development of extra-somatic weapons is seen as leading to competition within hominin groups becoming more costly as disputes would have become lethal A cooperative strategy could have achieved greater net fitness if the benefits of reduced involvement in such lethal disputes exceeded the costs of cooperation. Genes associated with human altruism and cooperation toward nonkin could thus have increased in frequency and come to be expressed in modern human populations despite the environments in which they evolved no longer being fully evident in the modern world.
Agreeableness is probably best conceptualized as a general latent variable that summarizes more specific tendencies and behaviors. Agreeableness should certainly qualify as an individual difference having significance for people's daily transactions. It can be predominantly an affective evaluation and may be a more diffuse reaction. Across a range of studies, agreeableness emerges in the natural language descriptions of the self and peers. Furthermore, there is evidence that self-rating and peer evaluations converge in assessing agreeableness. Later, the prosocial personality is discussed in this chapter. Prosocial behavior can be conceptualized as a form of agreeableness. Recent research suggests that there may be important dispositional components to prosocial behavior, and these may be seen even in young children. Precise identification of these dispositions has been inhibited by problems of differentiating among social motives, and by weak measures of altruism as an outcome and as a disposition. Basic bio-behavioral research suggests that individual differences in agreeableness in adults may have their origins in affective self-regulatory processes in childhood. In particular, individual differences in the pattern of inhibition of negative effect may be related to the development of agreeableness and these may be related to health, especially cardiovascular disease.
We examine how impression management can influence the types of products consumers suggest for joint consumption in same-gender and mixed-gender situations. We show that when motivated to engage in impression management, those who care the most about their self-presentations (high self-monitors) are more likely to choose products that take into account the need to accommodate the co-consumer’s preferences as well as the desire to remain consistent with gender role expectations and to correct negative expectations of sexism. Whereas the co-consumers’ preferences and chooser’s gender role expectations are aligned in same-gender situations (i.e., females consuming with females), in cross-gender situations (i.e., males consuming with females), male consumers’ willingness to accommodate the female co-consumer’s preferences are limited by gender role expectations in certain social contexts (e.g., romantic relationships). Within mixed-gender situations, we also find that high self-monitoring male consumers’ ability to accommodate a feminist female co-consumers’ preferences is limited by the desire to correct negative expectations and avoid appearing sexist.
This study investigates whether particular personality traits predict the desire to choose a dominant partner. Specifically examined are the traits of sensation seeking and trait anxiety as predictors of the preference for a dominant female/male partner. Sixty-eight men and 104 women (N = 172) participated in an online survey. Individuals who avoid boredom and seek out exciting social activities have a stronger desire for a dominant partner. For female participants, we detected experience seeking and trait anxiety as additional factors associated with the preference for a dominant partner. Women higher in trait anxiety and lower in experience seeking have a higher preference for a dominant man. Gender differences are interpreted with regard to sexual selection theory and individual differences with respect to the theory of assortative mating.
Evolutionary leadership theory (ELT) argues that humans possess specialized psychological mechanisms for solving coordination problems through leadership and followership. We discuss the evolutionary functions and psychological processes underlying leadership, and how to study leadership and followership from an integrated evolutionary perspective. An evolutionary perspective offers novel insights into major barriers to leadership effectiveness in organizations. These obstacles include (a) mismatches between modern and ancestral environments, (b) evolved cognitive biases affecting leader selection and decision-making and (c) innate psychological mechanisms designed to dominate and exploit other individuals. Understanding the evolved psychological mechanisms underlying leadership, in terms of adaptive functions, mismatches, and psychological processes, is critical for the development and integration of leadership theory, research, and practice.
A short-term longitudinal study during early childhood (N = 96; M = 42.80; SD = 7.57) investigated the concurrent and prospective association between prosocial behavior and social dominance. Time-intensive school-based focal child sampling with continuous recording observations of prosocial behavior to peers were conducted and teacher-reports of social dominance were collected. The study documents significant prospective links between prosocial behavior to peers and increases in social dominance over time. Social dominance was not associated with changes in prosocial behavior. The findings extend past empirical work in early childhood and future directions are discussed.
Five studies tested the common assumption that women prefer nonconformist men as romantic partners, whereas men prefer conformist women. Studies 1 and 2 showed that both men and women preferred nonconformist romantic partners, but women overestimated the extent to which men prefer conformist partners. In Study 3, participants ostensibly in a small-group interaction showed preferences for nonconformist opposite-sex targets, a pattern that was particularly evident when men evaluated women. Dating success was greater the more nonconformist the sample was (Study 4), and perceptions of nonconformity in an ex-partner were associated with greater love and attraction toward that partner (Study 5). On the minority of occasions in which effects were moderated by gender, it was in the reverse direction to the traditional wisdom: Conformity was more associated with dating success among men. The studies contradict the notion that men disproportionately prefer conformist women.
© 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
This research examined the joint influence of emotion expression (pride vs. shame) and color (red vs. blue) on female and male perceptions of the attractiveness and social position of a male target. In female perceivers, we observed an Emotion Expression x Color interaction: for women viewing a man displaying pride, the color red increased their perceptions of his attractiveness, but for women viewing a man displaying shame, the color red tended to decrease their perceptions of his attractiveness. Male perceivers did not show this Emotion Expression x Color interaction. A main effect of emotion expression was observed for both male and female perceivers on both status and dominance ratings, independent of color. These findings point to a moderator of the influence of the color red in female mate evaluation, and illustrate the powerful, embodied connection between emotion expression and social position.
According to sexual selection theory and costly signaling theory, men benefit from signaling costly mate qualities to attractive women. To date, several studies have investigated whether men use conspicuous altruism to attract women, but the findings are mixed. This study investigated whether men being observed by an attractive woman engage in competitive economic altruism in three social dilemma games - the Dictator Game, Trust Game (2nd mover), and Public Goods Game - in comparison to men being observed by a non-attractive woman. Results showed that altruistic contributions in the games were not significantly larger in the attractive observer group than in the non-attractive observer group. Exploratory analyses did reveal, however, that amongst participants with an attractive observer only, dispositional generosity had a strongly positive effect on altruism while dispositional dominance had a negative effect on altruism. Moderating effects of key individual differences suggest that the mixed findings within the empirical literature may be attributed to the existence of multiple male courtship signaling strategies. As such, the findings suggest a promising way for future studies to identify different signaling strategies, but until the findings can be replicated with specific hypothesis-driven studies they should be considered with caution.
In line with the sexual selection for altruism hypothesis, research has shown that men and women typically prefer hypothetical partners who are described as prosocial to otherwise similar individuals. In the present study, we consider this hypothesis in the real world by examining whether prosocial behavior conveys actual benefits in terms of real-life mating success. Using a nationally representative annual panel dataset, we examine the impact of single individuals’ prosocial behavior on their probabilities of finding a steady partner in the course of the following year. Our results show that single individuals who frequently engaged in prosocial behavior had substantially higher chances of being in a stable relationship the following year. The effect persisted even after accounting for individual differences in the Big Five personality traits and the degree of social involvement.
Several lines of evidence suggest that sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS) is an important variable in human mating. However, few studies have addressed the topic of differentiation of mate preferences in relation to individual attributes. Furthermore, no study has examined the influence of an individual’s dominance on actual and/or preferred partner’s height. Here, the first of two studies (N = 210) provides evidence that dominance significantly influences individual height preferences of women, but not of men. Specifically, less dominant women tended to prefer taller male partners, and more dominant women preferred shorter men relative to their own height. However, the second study, conducted among actual couples (N = 230), indicated that the influence of dominance on mate preferences does not generalize to real mate choices, as we observed no association between men or women’s dominance and actual partner height. Thus, it appears that although various mate characteristics (like SDS) may be preferred in a mate, there are many additional factors related to the choice of an actual partner that determine mate choice.
The nice guy stereotype asserts that, although women often say that they wish to date kind, sensitive men, when actually given a choice, women will reject nice men in favor of men with other salient characteristics, such as physical attractiveness. To explore this stereotype, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, 48 college women were randomly assigned into experimental conditions in which they read a script that depicted 2 men competing for a date with a woman. The niceness of 1 target man's responses was manipulated across conditions. In Study 2, 194 college women were randomly assigned to conditions in which both the target man's responses and his physical attractiveness were manipulated. Overall results indicated that both niceness and physical attractiveness were positive factors in women's choices and desirability ratings of the target men. Niceness appeared to be the most salient factor when it came to desirability for more serious relationships, whereas physical attractiveness appeared more important in terms of desirability for more casual, sexual relationships.
We examined whether or not different behavioral expressions of dominance by a male affected how introverted and extraverted women rated his sexual attractiveness. We assessed 81 women on the extraversion scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire–Revised Short Scale (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1991), and they then watched a 1-minute silent video of a male confederate in 3 dominance conditions (closed body posture [low], open body posture [medium], and open body posture with gesticulation [high]) and rated the male for sexual attractiveness. Results showed that higher dominance behavior significantly increased the confederate's attractiveness, accounting for 10% of the variance in attractiveness ratings. However, the women's personalities appeared to have no significant effect on these ratings. These results are discussed in relation to extant literature on the phenomenon that women do not select “nice guys” in preference to other men.
Previous research has documented that the colors red and black influence perceptions of attractiveness for men viewing women. Perceived sexual receptivity has been identified as a mediator for the red-attraction link, but there has been no research to date on the mechanism linking black to attractiveness. We conducted an experiment to test whether separate, unique mediators were responsible for color effects on attractiveness. We hypothesized that red would lead to attractiveness via perceived sexual receptivity, and that black would lead to attractiveness via perceived fashionableness. The data supported our central hypotheses, suggesting that color stimuli can lead to similar outcomes, but through different psychological processes.
Previous research has highlighted the social nature of humility. In three studies, we provide evidence that humility facilitates the initiation and maintenance of romantic relationships. In Study 1, very humble potential dating partners, relative to less humble partners, were rated more favorably and were more likely to elicit intentions to initiate a romantic relationship. Study 2 was a conceptual replication of Study 1 that provided evidence that participants find humble potential dating partners more attractive than arrogant dating partners. In Study 3, we examined perceptions of humility in participants in proximal or long-distance relationships. We found that humility buffers against unforgiveness in long-distant relationships. Although long-distance relationships were associated with greater unforgiveness, this effect was only present when partners were viewed as having low humility. Together, these findings highlight the social benefits of humility in initiating and maintaining romantic relationships.
Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that humans possess sex-differentiated mate preference adaptations. In the context of long-term mating, men are hypothesized to more strongly prefer cues to youth and fecundity, whereas women are hypothesized to more strongly prefer cues to status-related attributes. Eastwick, Luchies, Finkel, and Hunt (2014) recently asserted that if men and women evolved sex-differentiated desires, they should exhibit similarly sex-differentiated relational outcomes such as marital satisfaction in response to whether a partner fulfills those desires. This seemingly reasonable extrapolation from sex differences in mate preferences to sex differences in relationship outcomes is, from an evolutionary perspective, problematic and warrants careful conceptual analysis. Evolutionary psychologists have not predicted that selecting a mate with sex-differentiated desirable qualities always translates to more satisfying, trusting, and passionate relational outcomes. Indeed, in some cases obtaining an ideal partner is expected to lead to negative outcomes, such as incurring the costs of heightened courtship effort, mate retention exertion, and the painful experience of jealousy. There are 4 additional concerns with the Eastwick et al. analysis: (a) heterogeneous operationalizations of predictor and criterion variables, (b) inadequate treatment of individual differences in the expression of evolved mate preferences, (c) an overlooking of physical appearance cues central to women's long-term mate preferences, and (d) the impact of nonrandom mateship formation on sex-linked variances in preferred attributes (e.g., low status men and unattractive women may be underrepresented in studies of established couples). As conducted, the Eastwick et al. analyses, while valuable, did not adequately test function-related hypotheses derived from the evolutionary psychology of mate preferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Mate value is a construct of importance to many psychological (especially evolutionary psychological) theories. However, there are no well validated self-report measures of mate value. In light of this, we designed the Mate Value Scale (MVS): a brief, four-item measure that can assess mate value of the self, of one’s partner, or of another target. Study One demonstrates that the MVS has good internal consistency, a one-factor structure, and good convergent validity. Study Two replicates these psychometric findings along with demonstrations of good test–retest reliability and further convergent and discriminant validity. Study Three demonstrates how the MVS can successfully be applied to an evolutionary psychological domain (the sex difference in jealousy). Additional cited research demonstrates the MVS’s utility in a number of other domains. We conclude that the MVS is a short and effective measure of mate value.
Sexual selection theory and parental investment theory suggest that partner physical attractiveness should more strongly affect men's relationship outcomes than women's relationship outcomes. Nevertheless, the contextual nature of this prediction makes serious methodological demands on studies designed to evaluate it. Given these theories suggest that men value observable aspects of partner attractiveness more than women do only in the context of long-term and reproductively viable relationships, they require that studies testing this sex difference involve (a) participants in long-term relationships, (b) women of child-bearing age, and (c) measures of physical attractiveness that assess observable aspects of appearance. In our original article (Meltzer, McNulty, Jackson, & Karney, 2014), we applied 7 methodological standards that allowed us to meet these 3 criteria and demonstrated that partner physical attractiveness is more strongly associated with men's long-term relationship satisfaction than women's long-term relationship satisfaction. Eastwick, Neff, Finkel, Luchies, and Hunt (2014), in contrast, described an unfocused meta-analysis, a refocused meta-analysis, and new data that all failed to meet these criteria and, not surprisingly, failed to demonstrate such a sex difference. We continue to believe that men value physical attractiveness more than women do, that such preferences have implications for their evaluations of long-term relationships, and that studies properly calibrated to detect such differences will do so. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Three studies demonstrate that people are more likely to vote for political candidates who respond to injustice in a compensatory rather than punitive manner. Participants were more likely to vote for candidates who responded to various transgressions (the Darfur crisis, campus bike theft, and domestic violence) by compensating victims (or simultaneously compensating victims and punishing perpetrators) rather than solely punishing the perpetrator or not responding. Furthermore, participants’ perceptions of candidates’ warmth (but not competence) mediated the relationship between punishing versus compensating and voting.
The causes, mechanisms, and consequences of mate choice and competition for mates are currently among the most intensively discussed topics in evolutionary biology. However, primates are notably under-represented in this debate. In this review, we briefly summarize the main concepts of modern sexual selection theory and examine the evidence for the operation of sexual selection in primates. Traditional classifications of mating systems suffer from the problem of not considering reproductive strategies of both males and females equally and are biased by a strong male perspective. We therefore discuss the male and female perspective separately before examining the interaction of male and female strategies and sexual conflict. By using a comparative and theory-oriented approach to examine and integrate recent developments in primate sexual selection studies, we aim to draw some general conclusions about sexual selection in primates; identify reasons why primates have been neglected in particular areas of sexual selection research; and stimulate future research on all aspects of sexual selection in primates.
Color is a ubiquitous perceptual stimulus that is often considered in terms of aesthetics. Here we review theoretical and empirical work that looks beyond color aesthetics to the link between color and psychological functioning in humans. We begin by setting a historical context for research in this area, particularly highlighting methodological issues that hampered earlier empirical work. We proceed to overview theoretical and methodological advances during the past decade and conduct a review of emerging empirical findings. Our empirical review focuses especially on color in achievement and affiliation/attraction contexts, but it also covers work on consumer behavior as well as food and beverage evaluation and consumption. The review clearly shows that color can carry important meaning and can have an important impact on people's affect, cognition, and behavior. The literature remains at a nascent stage of development, however, and we note that considerable work on boundary conditions, moderators, and real-world generalizability is needed before strong conceptual statements and recommendations for application are warranted. We provide suggestions for future research and conclude by emphasizing the broad promise of research in this area. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology Volume 65 is January 03, 2014. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/catalog/pubdates.aspx for revised estimates.
Males and females who differed in self-monitoring propensities indicated their preferences for an evening date by ranking the desirability of nine opposite-sex targets who were varied in attractiveness and personality. In contrast to past research, criteria used to evaluate dating partners were not influenced by participants' self-monitoring propensities. Results provided little evidence that dating orientations of high and low self-monitors vary systematically when partners are selected from a broad, representative array of alternatives. Consistent with past research, men weighed attractiveness cues more heavily than did women; women attached more weight to dispositional information than men did. Yet, internal analyses revealed that the dating orientations of male and female participants were really more similar than different: Both the looks and the character of prospective dating partners were highly salient to men and women, who were most interested in dating individuals who maximized total outcomes across both dimensions.
Past research finds evidence that college women prefer a romantic partner who is dominant more than one who is not dominant. However, this research failed to include a control condition in which neither dominant nor nondominant behaviors are described. Study 1 and Study 2 included such a control condition and found that describing men as either dominant or nondominant decreased the desirability of hypothetical dating and romantic partners for undergraduate women. When asked to describe their ideal partner in Study 3, very few women identified dominant as a desirable trait. However, several traits associated with dominance, such as assertiveness and confidence, were selected. The findings suggest that a simple dominant–nondominant dimension may not be very useful when predicting women's mate preferences.
Surveyed women consistently specify preferences for egalitarian dates and/or mates. A common perception is that many of these same women often select consorts who are inscrutable, assertive, and controlling, ultimately bemoaning their choices. Dominance has been experimentally shown to provide initial attraction advantages. The Byronic Hero, a venerable literary model, embraces protagonists who possess extraordinary masculine traits that include dominance but also multiple personal flaws. Byronic Heroes, easily identified and plentiful in popular fiction, appear strongly to resonate with youthful audiences and provide alluring portrayals of heterosexual relations. In a classroom survey employing slide images of paired apparel models and a blind date scenario, collegiate women slightly but significantly preferred models independently judged to project Byronic traits over equally handsome men who appeared affable and conventional. Subject comments on Byronic models uniquely included allusions to sexual and mysterious/rebellious attributes. It was concluded that projections of Byronic masculinity provide initial advantages in the securing of heterosexual liaisons.
This study explores the adaptive functions and design features of self- and other- deprecating humor. Sixty-four female and 32 male college students participated in a two- part study. In the first part, we examined the relationships among participant demographics, personality traits, and preferences for producing different types of humor. Men report using more other-deprecating humor than women do, and the use of other-deprecating humor decreases with age for both sexes. In the second part of the study, each participant listened to tape recordings of opposite-sex people who were described as having different levels of status, and who produced different types of humor; then participants rated each person's attractiveness as a potential short-term and long-term mate. Humor type and presenter status had no effects on short-term attractiveness, but self-deprecating humor by high-status presenters (but not low-status presenters) increased long-term attractiveness for both sexes. These results are discussed in the light of sexual selection theory and costly signaling theory.
The current review aims to unify existing views of altruism through an examination of the biological bases of a fundamental form of giving: altruistic responding. Altruistic responding is most salient during heroic acts of helping but is also observed any time one perceives another's distress or need, which in turn motivates one to help at a current cost to the self. Such aid is simple, observable across species, and rooted in the instincts and circuits that evolved to maximize inclusive fitness through the care of helpless offspring. By design, the system already biases aid to both kin and nonkin under conditions that are largely adaptive. These inherent benefits are also buttressed in primates and humans by known, later-arriving benefits to helping in group-living animals. Evidence for the proposed homology between altruistic responding and offspring retrieval is presented through 10 key shared factors. Conceptually, both require (a) participation by nonmothers, (b) motor competence and expertise, (c) an adaptive opponency between avoidance and approach, and a facilitating role of (d) neonatal vulnerability, (e) salient distress, and (f) rewarding close contact. Physiologically, they also share neurohormonal support from (g) oxytocin, (h) the domain-general mesolimbocortical system, (i) the cingulate cortex, and (j) the orbitofrontal cortex. The framework intermixes ultimate and proximate levels of analysis and unifies existing views by assuming that even complex human behaviors reflect ancient mammalian neural systems that evolved to solve key problems in adaptive ways, with far-reaching consequences for even our most venerated human traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
In the New York Times bestselling book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2006), the world was granted its first exclusive introduction to the steadily growing dating coach and pick-up artist community. Many of its most prominent authorities claim to use insights and information gleaned both through first-hand experience as well as empirical research in evolutionary psychology. One of the industry's most well-respected authorities, the illusionist Erik von Markovik, promotes a three-phase model of human courtship: Attraction, building mutual Comfort and Trust, and Seduction. The following review argues that many of these claims are in fact grounded in solid empirical findings from social, physiological and evolutionary psychology. Two texts which represent much of this literature are critiqued and their implications discussed.
The study of social dominance has a long tradition within the peer relationships literature, but rarely has the topic been investigated observationally and longitudinally within other salient close relationships. The present study investigated the role of experiences in social relationships and adjustment indices in childhood in predicting later observed non-verbal social dominance behaviors in the context of romantic relationships in emerging adults. Analyses from a subsample (N = 70) from a 29-year prospective longitudinal study revealed links between early peer behavior and subsequent romantic relationship interactions for men and women. Non-verbal social dominance behaviors were concurrently associated with poor romantic relationship quality, conflict, and physical and verbal aggression within the dyad. Both childhood externalizing and internalizing behaviors significantly predicted non-verbal social dominance behaviors in the romantic partner interactions.
This study examined the effects of expressions of humor and physical attractiveness on desire for future interaction in various types of heterosexual relationships. Humor was manipulated using interview transcripts containing humorous self-deprecating responses: physical attractiveness was manipulated using photographs. Men were found to emphasize physical attractiveness more than did women for dating, sexual intercourse, and a serious relationship. Consistent with the Social Transformation Model of Humor introduced in this article, individuals, particularly men, expressing humor were rated as more desirable than nonhumorous individuals for a serious relationship and marriage, but only when these individuals were physically attractive. Humorous individuals were perceived to be more cheerful but less intellectual than nonhumorous individuals. The Social Transformation Model appears to be a valuable way of looking at the interaction of humor and physical attractiveness. Directions for future research based on this model are discussed.
Women prefer dominant men as short-term mates and prestigious men as long-term mates. People associate short-term mating with masculine male facial features and long-term mating with feminine male facial features. The present study found that people associate dominant men with masculine facial features and short-term mating strategies, and prestigious men with feminine facial features and long-term mating strategies. Both men and women prefer high-prestige men for social relationships. Women prefer high-prestige men for long-term romantic relationships, yet prefer high-dominance men for brief sexual affairs. Although men were generally accurate in predicting women’s partner preferences, men overestimated the degree to which women would find the high-dominance man more attractive for all types of relationships.
This article reports results of a multiple-coder content analysis of the mate preferences of characters in two different sources of literary data: 658 traditional folktales from 48 different culture areas and plot and character summaries from 240 works taken to be representative of Western literature. This study represents an attempt to extend some of the mate preference findings of Buss [Behav. Brain. Sci. 12 (1989a) 1] in a large data set of non-Western, preindustrial populations. A prominent criticism of Buss was that a preponderance of data was gathered from Western or westernized societies and, as a result, it was not possible to rule out the conclusion that regularities in mate preferences resulted from cultural transfer rather than from evolved sexual psychology. By including information derived from band, tribal, and preindustrial state populations, the current study attempts to address concerns based on the possibility of cross-cultural transfer.
Previous mate preference studies indicate that people prefer partners whose personalities are extremely kind and trustworthy, but relatively nondominant. This conclusion, however, is based on research that leaves unclear whether these traits describe the behavior a partner directs toward oneself, toward other classes of people or both. Because the fitness consequences of partners' behaviors likely differed depending on the classes of individuals toward whom behaviors were directed, we predicted that mate preferences for personality traits would change depending on the specific targets of a partner's behavioral acts. Consistent with this, two experiments demonstrated that people prefer partners who are extremely kind and trustworthy when considering behaviors directed toward themselves or their friends/family, but shift their preferences to much lower levels of these traits when considering behaviors directed toward other classes of individuals. In addition, both sexes preferred partners who direct higher levels of dominance toward members of the partner's own sex than toward any other behavioral target category, with women preferring levels of dominance toward other men as high as — or higher than — levels of kindness and trustworthiness. When asked to rate traits for which the behavioral target was left unspecified, furthermore, preferences were very similar to self-directed preferences, suggesting that previous trait-rating studies have not measured preferences for partners' behaviors directed toward people other than oneself. These findings may provide a basic contribution to the mate preference literature via their demonstration that ideal standards for romantic partners are importantly qualified by the targets of behavioral acts.
Women's mate choice criteria were examined experimentally in the contexts of long-term and extra-pair mateship scenarios. In long-term mateships, women may benefit by pairing with males who provide material resources and assistance in child rearing. In contrast, in extra-pair mateships, women may benefit in other ways, with such benefits outweighing the potential costs imposed by a primary mate who discovers the relationship. One benefit, or evolutionary function, of extra-pair mateships may be to replace a primary mate, in which case mate preferences should look similar across long-term and extra-pair contexts. However, another function of extra-pair mateships may be to obtain high quality gametes (Le., “good genes”), in which case women should be differentially attracted to cues of heritable phenotypic quality, such as physical attractiveness. By using detailed verbal and pictorial descriptions of men and requiring participants to trade off physical attractiveness for good character (i.e., being a good cooperator and parent), it was possible to determine whether women's criteria for partners varied across experimental contexts. Findings suggest that extra-pair mateships may have served the evolutionary function of obtaining “good genes,” because attractiveness was more important in extra-pair mateships to the detriment of good character. This effect was maintained even when characteristics of the female participants (age, parity, marital experience) were covaried. In addition, the preference for physical attractiveness was specific to the sexual context; it did not generalize, in a second experiment, to choices among short-term male coworkers.
This study tested the influence of personality information on judgments of physical attractiveness. Employing a within-subject design, 56 female and 22 male college students rated attractiveness of opposite-sex photos; participated in a distraction task; viewed each photo again, along with personality information (desirable, undesirable, none); and then rated the photos for physical attractiveness, desirability as a friend, and desirability as a dating partner. Personality information produced significant changes in ratings of physical attractiveness for attractive, neutral, and unattractive targets. The pattern of results is consistent with a model in which desirability of the target’s personality leads to greater desirability as a friend, leading to greater desirability as a dating partner, leading to the target being judged as more physically attractive.
Guided by Relational Framing and Parental Investment Theories, this investigation examined experimentally induced flirtatious
interactions. United States undergraduates (N = 252) from the Mid-Atlantic region viewed a flirtatious interaction and rated a confederate on physical and social attraction,
affiliation, dominance, and conversational effectiveness. Generally, it was hypothesized that different flirting motivations
would lead to different evaluations of the flirters, and perceptions of flirters would vary based on gender. Results revealed
that men were evaluated as more dominant and affiliative than women when flirting, but dominance in men was not perceived
as attractive or conversationally effective. In addition, men’s attraction to women increased significantly when women flirted
for sexual motives, and women’s attraction to men decreased significantly when men flirted for fun. Overall, the results provide
mixed support for both theories.
KeywordsFlirting–Parental Investment Theory–Relational Framing Theory–Attraction–Conversational effectiveness
You walk into a crowded negotiation room. Who do you notice? Who do you later remember? Do you try to fit in, or attempt to
stand out from others? Do you accept the first reasonable offer, or do you balk at that offer? The answers likely depend critically
on your current motivational state. Emerging evidence shows that a person’s behavior differs—sometimes dramatically—depending
on whether that person is concerned with personal safety, romance, status-seeking, affiliation, or is motivated to attain
some other evolutionary important goal. A growing body of research suggests that certain motivational states are considered
“fundamental” in a biological sense because of their implications for evolutionary fitness. In this chapter, we overview the
fundamental motives framework, highlighting its applications for business decision-making in marketing, management, entrepreneurship,
and finance. We then review recent research that has used this approach to study specific business-relevant topics such as
risky financial decision-making, negotiation, advertising, and innovation. Bridging evolutionary biology and business, the
fundamental motives framework not only provides novel insights into workplace decisions, but also holds promise as a powerful
approach for understanding how behavior in business contexts connects to other aspects of human and animal behavior.
KeywordsMotivation-Marketing-Decision-making-Decision biases-Advertising
The purpose of this study was to investigate why some women report a desire to date nice guys but prefer dating jerks. Specifically,
young women's dating choices based on their reasons for dating in general and the attractive/unattractive traits that they
perceive that a man possesses were explored. Popular texts offer evidence that young women may/may not select nice guys as
dating partners because nice guys may/may not be able to provide them with what they want from their dating experiences. Scholarly
texts offer evidence that the answer may lie in how the young woman perceives the nice guy—does he possess attractive or unattractive
personality traits? The results of the present study suggest that reasons for dating (i.e., not wanting physical contact, wanting stimulating conversation, and wanting an exclusive relationship) and perceived personality
traits (i.e., sweet/nice and physically attractive) influence a young woman's desire to date a nice guy, and that perceived
personality traits are better predictors of her choice of a man to date than are reasons for dating.
Relations among body image satisfaction and social comparisons to either same-sex peers or media models were examined in 2 studies of adolescent boys and girls. In the first study, 9th and 10th graders described their conceptions of attractiveness for same- and opposite-sex adolescents. These attractiveness attributes were then used in Study 2 in which 7th- and 10th-grade boys and girls reported on social comparisons to models/celebrities and same-sex peers. Body dissatisfaction was also assessed. The results confirmed that both same-sex peers and models/celebrities were the targets of social comparisons for physical attributes, but comparisons on personal and social attributes were more likely directed toward same-sex peers. For boys and girls, weight comparisons to both peer and model targets were primary correlates of body dissatisfaction. In addition, shape comparisons reported by the girls and facial comparisons endorsed by the boys also related to body dissatisfaction. Gender differences in social comparison indicated that girls reported more social comparisons across targets and attributes. Results are discussed in terms of the role of social comparison and peer context for body image during adolescence.
The perceived beauty of a potential partner has traditionally been explained in terms of physical characteristics such as body weight and the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), while non-physical characteristics have been neglected. This study looked at the contribution of body weight, WHR and personality to ratings of overall female attractiveness. Seventy-six participants rated 30 line drawings that varied 2 levels of personality (introverted, extraverted), 3 levels of body weight and 5 of WHR. Effect sizes were largest for body weight (0.58), followed by personality (0.25) and finally WHR (0.10). There were significant interactions between all three variables, with effect sizes ranging between (0.3 and 0.4). These results highlight the importance of examining non-physical characteristics when studying perceptions of human beauty, a finding consistent with the notion that beauty is more than just skin-deep.
Personality, from an evolutionary perspective, represents a meta-category of the output of a suite of species-typical, relatively domain-specific, evolved psychological mechanisms designed in response to the social adaptive problems recurrently faced by our ancestors. This conceptualization of human personality provides for novel and valuable reinterpretations of several areas of personality psychology including personality consistency, individual differences in personality, sex differences and similarities, and contextual determinants of personality. Explaining human personality from an evolutionary perspective has led to discoveries about the function of social information conveyed through standings on the Big-Five personality dimensions and discoveries in topics such as social anxiety, jealousy, altruism, aggression, psychopathology, mate preferences, and desire for sexual variety. We argue that limitations of the application of evolutionary theory to personality science are surmountable and that, despite these limitations, large strides have been and will continue to be made through a union of personality science and evolutionary science.
Evolutionary psychology has revolutionized research on human mate choice and sexual attraction in recent years, combining a rigorous Darwinian framework based on sexual selection theory with a loosely cognitivist orientation to task analysis and mechanism modelling. This hard Darwinian, soft computational approach has been most successful at revealing the adaptive logic behind physical beauty, demonstrating that many sexual cues computed from face and body shape are not arbitrary, but function as reliable indicators of phenotypic and genetic quality. The same approach could be extended from physical to psychological cues if evolutionary psychology built stronger ties with personality psychology, psychometrics and behavioral genetics. A major challenge for mate choice research is to develop more explicit computational models at three levels, specifying: (1) the perceptual adaptations that register sexual cues given sensory input, (2) the judgment adaptations that integrate multiple cues into assessments of overall attractiveness, and (3) the search strategies that people follow in trying to form mutually attracted pairs. We describe both recent efforts and possible extensions in these directions. The resulting confluence between evolutionary principles, cognitive models and game-theoretic insights can put mate choice research at the vanguard of an emerging `evolutionary cognitive science' more concerned with domain-specific mental adaptations than with domain-general intelligence.
Two studies employed a classic affiliation-under-stress paradigm and examined people’s preferences for affiliating with kind versus attractive same- and opposite-sex targets. When men were under default conditions of low stress, they preferred to affiliate with attractive women. However, men placed in a high stress situation instead preferred to interact with kind women. Regardless of stress level, women preferred to affiliate with kind, rather than attractive, men. When choosing among interaction partners of their own sex, participants uniformly chose to interact with kind others, regardless of stress level. This research builds on traditional stress-affiliation research, which has focused on whether people wish to affiliate with others who are currently in or have already experienced the same stressful situations. The current research suggests that stress may affect the enduring personal traits we seek in others. Possible motivations underlying men’s and women’s preferences in the current study (e.g., mating goals, self-protective goals) are discussed.
From an evolutionary perspective, beauty is regarded as an assessment of fitness value. The fitness value of a social partner can be influenced by both physical and nonphysical traits. It follows that the perceived beauty of a social partner can be influenced by nonphysical traits such as liking, respect, familiarity, and contribution to shared goals in addition to physical traits such as youth, waist-to-hip ratio, and bilateral symmetry. We present three studies involving the evaluation of known social partners showing that judgments of physical attractiveness are strongly influenced by nonphysical factors. Females are more strongly influenced by nonphysical factors than males and there are large individual differences within each sex. In general, research on physical attractiveness based on the evaluation of purely physical traits of strangers might miss some of the most important factors influencing the perception of physical attractiveness among known associates.
Unconditional altruism is an enduring puzzle for evolutionary approaches to social behavior. In this paper, we argue that costly signaling theory, a well-established framework in biology and economics, may be useful to shed light on the individual differences in human unconditional altruism. Based on costly signaling theory, we propose and show that unconditional altruistic behavior is related to general intelligence. The cost incurred by engaging in unconditional altruism is lower for highly intelligent people than for less intelligent people because they may expect to regain the drained resources. As a result, unconditional altruism can serve as an honest signal of intelligence. Our findings imply that distinguishing altruistic behavior from cooperative behavior in social psychological and economic theories of human behavior might be useful and that costly signaling theory may provide novel insights on various individual difference variables.
The study tested the proposition that relationship involvement influences the implicit responses of women to high and low status professions. It was hypothesized that when a high involvement context was primed, women would have more positive implicit associations with high status occupations than when a low involvement context was primed. In contrast, when a high involvement context was primed, women would have more negative associations with low status occupations than when a low involvement context was primed. To test the hypothesis, 123 female participants received a high or low relationship involvement prime. Then the participants completed a single category implicit associations test designed to measure the participants’ associations with either high or low status occupations. As predicted, the relationship involvement prime influenced the positivity of associations made with high and low status occupations. The study pointed to the possibility that persons possess evolutionary based implicit associations.
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