Attending Orientation
The Great Porn Experiment V2.0: Sexual Arousal Reduces the Salience of Familiar Women When Heterosexual Men Judge Their Attractiveness
Jordan Sculley & Christopher Watkins
Archives of Sexual Behavior, August 2022, Pages 3071–3082
Abstract:
Pornography has become widely accessible in recent years due to its integration with the Internet, generating social scientific and moralistic debate on potential “media effects,” given correlations between consumption and various sexual traits and behaviors. One popular public debate (Wilson, 2012) claimed that exposure to Internet pornography has addictive qualities that could impact men’s sexual relationships, underpinned by the “Coolidge effect,” where males are sexually motivated by the presence of novel mates. As claims about Internet and sexual addictions are scientifically controversial, we provide a direct experimental test of his proposal. Adapting a paradigm used to examine “Coolidge-like” effects in men, we examined the extent to which exposure to images of pornographic actresses altered men’s attractiveness ratings of (1) familiar faces/bodies on second viewing and (2) familiar versus novel women’s faces/bodies. Independent of slideshow content (pornographic versus clothed versions of same actress), heterosexual men were less attracted to familiar bodies, and homosexual men were less attracted to familiar women (faces and bodies), suggesting that mere visual exposure to attractive women moderated men’s preferences. However, consistent with one of our preregistered predictions, heterosexual but not homosexual men’s preferences for familiar versus novel women were moderated by slideshow content such that familiar women were less salient on the attractiveness dimension compared to novel women when sexual arousal was greater (pornographic versus clothed slideshows). In sum, our findings demonstrate that visual exposure/sexual arousal moderates attractiveness perceptions, albeit that much greater nuance is required considering earlier claims.
Unpredictable love? How uncertainty influences partner preferences
Femke van Horen & Kobe Millet
European Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do uncertain events (such as COVID-19) influence the types of partners that males and females feel attracted to in (online) dating? Four studies show that partner preferences are not fixed but dynamic and depend on people's temporary psychological state of uncertainty. Specifically, we show that when facing uncertainty, women are more attracted to men with tougher versus more tender facial features, whereas men are more attracted to women with more tender versus tougher facial features. This effect attenuates under certainty. We show furthermore that uncertainty (but not certainty) increases the preference of stereotypical partner types (caring vs. strong), which can be inferred from these facial features. These results are replicated with different facial stimuli and when uncertainty is activated due to COVID-19, pointing to the timeliness and generalizability of the findings. These findings have implications for our understanding of how and why partner preferences are influenced by uncertainty.
Male wage inequality and characteristics of “early mover” marriages
Hani Mansour & Terra McKinnish
Journal of Population Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous work shows that higher male wage inequality decreases the share of ever-married women in their 20 s, consistent with the theoretical prediction that greater male wage dispersion increases the return to marital search. Consequently, male wage inequality should be associated with higher husband quality among those “early-mover” women who choose to forgo these higher returns to search. We confirm using US decennial Census and American Community Survey (ACS) data from 1980 to 2018 that married women ages 22–30 in marriage markets with greater male wage inequality are more likely to marry up in education and in husband’s occupation. We additionally consider whether male wage inequality increases wage uncertainty, leading women to prefer older husbands who can send stronger signals of lifetime earnings. We confirm that higher male wage inequality is also associated with a larger marital age gap.
Is the Anthropomorphization of Sex Dolls Associated with Objectification and Hostility Toward Women? A Mixed Method Study among Doll Users
Jeanne Desbuleux & Johannes Fuss
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Both the ownership and development of sex dolls and robots are passionately debated, with skeptics suspecting that their increasing human-likeness and the accompanying anthropomorphization (i.e., attributing human-likeness) reinforce the objectification of, and hostility toward, women. As empirical data are largely lacking, we scrutinized this hypothesis in a pre-registered study among doll owners (N = 217), comparing two user groups: “toy group” (n = 104; doll as sex toy) and “partner group” (n = 113; doll as partner). We related their objectification tendencies (i.e., seeing women merely as objects, e.g., to promote sexual desire) as well as their hostility toward women, to the anthropomorphization of their doll. Additionally, we collected qualitative data on how participants perceived their doll usage affected their attitudes toward women. The partner group expressed greater levels of hostility and anthropomorphization, moderate in magnitude. Objectification mediated the influence of anthropomorphization on hostility and a higher percentage described a change in attitudes toward women in response to doll use. These data provide the first empirical evidence that the tendency to anthropomorphize dolls is related to negative attitudes toward women. Given the ongoing development of sex robots designed to surpass dolls in human-likeness and anthropomorphization, this finding seems highly significant.
Stability and change in newlyweds’ social networks over the first years of marriage
Benjamin Haggerty et al.
Journal of Family Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Marriage sanctifies the relationship between two spouses, but what happens to their relationships with family, friends, and others who comprise their social networks? Scholarly accounts disagree about whether couples’ networks strengthen, weaken, or remain stable in the years after marriage. To reconcile competing perspectives, marriage licenses from lower income communities were used to recruit 462 spouses (231 couples) in their first marriages. Each spouse independently provided data on 24 network members with whom they interact regularly (over 11,000 network members). These data were used to calculate 14 dimensions of each spouse’s social network, and networks were assessed in this way three times over the first 18 months of marriage. Over time, spouses’ networks grew to include more of each other’s family members, more married and financially secure individuals and more members with whom they reported good relationships. For husbands, proportions of their own friends and their wives’ friends declined. Proportions of own family and members providing support did not change. With rare exceptions, these changes were not moderated by premarital parenthood, cohabitation, or relationship duration. Thus, regardless of a couples’ premarital history, getting married itself appears to be associated with specific changes in spouses’ social networks. Yet whether those changes broaden or narrow their networks depends on where in the network one looks. Illuminating how relationships between spouses are shaped by relationships outside the marriage therefore requires multifaceted assessments that are capable of distinguishing among discrete elements of couples’ social networks.
Is My Attachment Style Showing? Perceptions of a Date’s Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance and Dating Interest During a Speed-Dating Event
Eric Tu et al.
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Choosing who to pursue as a romantic partner can have wide-reaching consequences. Attachment anxiety (i.e., need for reassurance) and avoidance (i.e., comfort with closeness) are associated with relationship quality and maintenance, but do people accurately perceive a date’s attachment style and are these perceptions associated with dating interest? In a sample of 164 speed-daters (n = 1,869 dates), we found that people accurately perceived dates’ attachment anxiety, but not their attachment avoidance. Perceiving a date as more anxiously or avoidantly attached was associated with less dating interest, and when dates were higher on attachment anxiety, accurate perceptions of anxious attachment were associated with less dating interest. Implications for partner selection and for understanding perceptions in dating relationships are discussed.
Increased Urination Urgency Exacerbates Sexual Risk-Taking Through Heightened Sexual Arousal
Juwon Lee & Omri Gillath
Archives of Sexual Behavior, August 2022, Pages 2955–2967
Abstract:
Increased urination urgency has been shown to facilitate impulse control in cognitive domains, but its effects in other areas are unknown. We examined whether inhibitory spillover effects would replicate and extend to close relationships—specifically, influencing decision making related to sexual risk-taking. Across three studies, we either measured (Studies 1 and 3) or manipulated (Study 2) participants’ bladder pressure and assessed sexual self-control using a questionnaire of sexual risk-taking intentions (Study 1) or a simulated semi-behavioral sexual risk-taking (Choose Your Own Sexual Adventure) task (Studies 2 and 3). Study 1 (N = 44 men, 59 women) showed greater urination urgency was associated with greater sexual risk-taking. Study 2 (N = 65 men, 91 women) showed that increasing urination urgency led to greater sexual risk-taking, but only among men. Study 3 (N = 86 men, 183 women) showed elevated urination urgency was associated with an increase in sexual arousal, which accounted for the greater sexual risk-taking.