Commitment
He Loves the One He Has Invested In: The Effects of Mating Cues on Men's and Women's Sunk Cost Bias
Rui Chen et al.
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The sunk cost bias, that is, people's suboptimal tendency to continue to pursue previously invested options, has been found in many domains, and various mechanisms have been proposed. The current study offers a novel perspective for understanding sunk cost bias. Drawing on previous findings suggesting that sunk cost bias may be adaptive and promoted by fundamental motives, it is theorized that sunk cost bias may be a goal-oriented behavior in the mating domain and that this bias can extend to consumption domains (e.g., product/service with nonrefundable deposits, lotteries earned through prior effort, loyalty program memberships obtained through previous purchases) when mating cues are salient. One field study and seven experiments (six of which were pre-registered) demonstrated that mating cues strengthen an implemental mindset among men (vs. women). Consequently, men exhibit a stronger sunk cost bias in consumption when mating cues are salient. However, this effect was not found among women due to differences in their mating tactics. In addition, this article distinguishes sunk cost effect from status quo bias and rules out multiple alternative explanations for the results (including affect, overconfidence, the investment-payoff link, persistence, perceived morality, shame, guilt, and disgust associated with abandoning the original option).
Why women cheat: Testing evolutionary hypotheses for female infidelity in a multinational sample
Macken Murphy, Caroline Phillips & Khandis Blake
Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2024
Abstract:
While scholars largely agree men's infidelity evolved by increasing offspring quantity, the evolutionary drivers of women's infidelity remain debated. The "good genes" (dual mating strategy) hypothesis posits infidelity allows women to pair the preferred genes of an affair partner with the preferred investment of their primary partner (Gangstad & Thornhill, 1998). The mate-switching hypothesis instead argues infidelity helps women obtain a new mate without a period of deprivation (Buss et al., 2017). To test these hypotheses, we conducted a pre-registered survey of 254 individuals from 19 countries and 6 continents who were previously or currently engaged in infidelity. We measured individuals' perception of their primary partner and their affair partner across four domains: physical attractiveness, personal attractiveness, attractiveness as a co-parent, and overall desirability (mate value). We also asked participants to report their motivations for the affair. Consistent with a dual mating strategy, women experienced stronger physical attraction to their affair partners and stronger parental attraction to their primary partners. Contrary to the mate-switching hypothesis, women did not prefer their affair partners overall, parentally, or personally. There were no significant gender differences in these findings, suggesting strategic dualism in men as well. Our qualitative data revealed a more nuanced story at the individual level, with participants reporting motives consistent with a variety of evolutionarily coherent strategies. While our quantitative results speak to the relevance of the dual-mating hypothesis to understanding infidelity, our findings also suggest that seeking infidelity's primary explanation in either gender is, perhaps, too simple an approach to the issue.
One of the guys: Are masculine women less of a mating threat?
Julia Hurwitz & Hannah Bradshaw
Personality and Individual Differences, November 2024
Abstract:
Recent research on cross-sex friendships has shown that women view same-sex others who befriend men (i.e., "guys' girls") as being less trustworthy, more sexually promiscuous, and as a greater mating threat than those who tend to befriend women (i.e., "girls' girls"). However, no research has examined how gender expression may influence women's judgments of same-sex others who prefer male or female friends. Based on past studies looking at biological cues of masculinity/femininity, it is possible women may consider a masculine "guys' girl" as a lesser mating threat than a feminine "guys' girl." Here, we conducted three studies to test this possibility in which we manipulated gender expression of the target through hobbies and interests (Study 1), clothing (Study 2), and facial sexual dimorphism (Study 3). We found that despite gender expression, women preferring male friends are typically seen as less trustworthy, more sexually unrestricted, and as greater mating threats than women preferring female friends. Only in Study 2, when clothing was manipulated, did gender expression seem to impact perceptions of trustworthiness and sexual restrictedness of the target. Thus, results indicate that women typically act negatively toward other women who prefer cross-sex friendships while gender expression of said woman has relatively little impact on perceptions.
Devaluation of Attractive Alternatives: How Those With Poor Inhibitory Ability Preemptively Resist Temptation
John Lydon et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do people resist in-the-moment temptation if they are poor at inhibiting their impulses? Theory on self-control suggests that people have a toolbox of strategies available to them that may be used preemptively to dampen temptations. Applying this to the goal of relationship maintenance, in two studies, we examined whether people motivated to maintain their romantic relationship but poor at inhibitory control would appraise an attractive alternative (AA) as less appealing prior to a face-to-face interaction. In Study 1 (N = 190), those with high motivation and low inhibitory control (measured with the Stroop) rated the AA as less appealing as compared with singles and those high in motivation and inhibitory control. We replicated the motivation by inhibitory control interaction in Study 2 (N = 219). The AAs paradigm and the Devaluation Effect provide a useful way to explore the toolbox approach to self-control strategies.
Arousal by Algorithm
Amy Adler
Cornell Law Review, August 2024, Pages 787-842
Abstract:
The problem of Big Tech has consumed recent legal scholarship and popular discourse. We are reckoning daily with the threats that digital speech platforms like Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok, and YouTube pose to our personal and political lives. Yet while this conversation is raging in discussions about the impact of technology on democracy, free speech, personal autonomy, and other urgent social issues, there has been no parallel discussion about how technology may be distorting our sexual culture. This Article fills that gap. Here I make a claim that no one has made in legal scholarship or in popular discourse: that the pornography industry, which has undergone a technological revolution in the last sixteen years, should now be reconceived of as a problem of Big Tech and the power of algorithmic speech platforms to shape our culture. Starting in 2007, pornography shifted to algorithm-driven tech platforms like Pornhub, almost all of which are controlled by one little-known, near-monopoly company called "Aylo" (formerly known as "MindGeek"). I argue that as Facebook, X, and YouTube are to democratic speech, Aylo/MindGeek is to sexual speech. Like these other platforms, the company's sites use algorithmic search engines and suggestions, rigid categorization of content, and artificial-intelligence driven search term optimization to constrain and warp what users are exposed to. Pornography now presents the distorting effects that accompany Big Tech speech platforms, such as filter bubbles, feedback loops, and the tendency of algorithmic suggestions to alter individual preferences. The lack of scholarly attention to this revolution in pornography is surprising given both the extreme scope of the changes and the strong interest scholars are paying to the legal and cultural implications of other Big Tech speech platforms. But it is also striking because the question of whether pornography changes us as individuals and as a society was once hotly debated in legal scholarship. In the 1980s and 90s, these issues consumed First Amendment and feminist legal scholars who debated the feminist critique of pornography of that era. Yet as the debate has moved on, scholars have overlooked the newfound relevance of that scholarship for the Big Tech incarnation of the porn industry. Drawing on that earlier scholarship, and on emerging literature about the power of Big Tech speech platforms, I show that the problems posed by the Big Tech takeover of pornography should be of concern not only to scholars who supported the feminist critique of pornography, but also and for different reasons, to those who opposed it and left it for dead. Anyone who has a stake in sexual autonomy should worry about the threat that the Big Tech transformation of pornography now poses.