Desirable
Joseph Price et al.
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use data from the General Social Survey (GSS) over a 40-year period (1973–2012) to evaluate changes in attitudes about pornography and pornography consumption among American young adults. One of the major challenges in making comparisons across birth generations is separating the effect of birth cohort from age and period effects. We use an intrinsic estimator to separately identify the effects of age, birth cohort, and time period using 40 years of repeated cross-section data. We find that, relative to the general population, young people's beliefs about whether pornography should be illegal have stayed relatively constant over this 40-year period and, if anything, have slightly increased. We also find that pornography consumption has been increasing across birth generations, though this increase has been smaller than would be inferred based on differences across generations at a single point in time, due to a strong age component in consumption patterns.
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Brendan Zietsch et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women’s preferences for masculine versus feminine male faces are highly variable. According to a dominant theory in evolutionary psychology, this variability results from adaptations that optimize preferences by calibrating them to certain contextual factors, including women’s self-perceived attractiveness, short- versus long-term relationship orientation, pathogen disgust sensitivity, and stage of the menstrual cycle. The theory does not account for the possible contribution of genetic variation on women’s facial masculinity preference. Using a large sample (N = 2,160) of identical and nonidentical female Finnish twins and their siblings, we showed that the proportion of variation in women’s preferences regarding male facial masculinity that was attributable to genetic variation (38%) dwarfed the variation due to the combined effect of contextual factors (< 1%). These findings cast doubt on the importance of these context-dependent effects and may suggest a need for refocusing in the field toward understanding the wide genetic variation in these preferences and how this variation relates to the evolution of sexual dimorphism in faces.
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Men’s Sexual Faithfulness Judgments May Contain a Kernel of Truth
Samantha Leivers, Leigh Simmons & Gillian Rhodes
PLoS ONE, August 2015
Abstract:
Mechanisms enabling men to identify women likely to engage in extra-pair copulations (EPCs) would be advantageous in avoiding cuckoldry. Men’s judgments of female sexual faithfulness often show high consensus, but accuracy appears poor. We examined whether accuracy of these judgments made to images of women could be improved through i) employing a forced choice task, in which men were asked to select the more faithful of two women and/or ii) providing men with full person images. In Experiment 1, men rated 34 women, for whom we had self-reported EPC behavior, on faithfulness, trustworthiness or attractiveness from either face or full person photographs. They then completed a forced choice task, selecting the more faithful of two woman from 17 pairs of images, each containing one woman who had reported no EPCs and one who had reported two or more EPCs. Men were unable to rate faithfulness with any accuracy, replicating previous findings. However, when asked to choose the more faithful of two women, they performed significantly above chance, although the ability to judge faithfulness at above-chance levels did not generalize to all pairs of women. Although there was no significant difference in accuracy for face and full person image pairs, only judgments from faces were significantly above chance. In Experiment 2, we showed that this accuracy for faces was repeatable in a new sample of men. We also showed that individual variation in accuracy was unrelated to variation in preferences for faithfulness in a long-term partner. Overall, these results show that men’s judgments of faithfulness made from faces of unfamiliar women may contain a kernel of truth.
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Assessment of Introital Lubrication
Samantha Dawson, Megan Sawatsky & Martin Lalumière
Archives of Sexual Behavior, August 2015, Pages 1527-1535
Abstract:
Vaginal vasocongestion and lubrication serve to prepare the vaginal lumen for sexual activity. Lubrication is important for sexual functioning and difficulties with lubrication are one of the most commonly reported symptoms of sexual dysfunction. Few studies have empirically examined how vasocongestion and lubrication relate to one another and there are currently no well-established measures of lubrication. In this study, we designed and tested a simple method to assess lubrication at the vaginal introitus in 19 healthy women, using litmus test strips. We examined the relationship between lubrication and vaginal vasocongestion (measured with a photoplethysmograph) when elicited by audiovisual sexual stimuli (male–female sexual interactions). Lubrication was elicited by the sexual stimuli and was strongly correlated with reports of sexual arousal. Unexpectedly, lubrication was not correlated with vasocongestion, even though the latter was also elicited by the sexual stimuli. We discuss the implications of these findings for informing our understanding of the female sexual response and the potential clinical and scientific utility of this new measure.
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Anthony Lee et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Environmental factors, such as pathogen prevalence and resource scarcity, are thought to influence mate preferences for traits related to health and resource provisioning potential. Specific body dimensions, such as women’s waist-to-hip-ratio (WHR), men’s shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR), and body mass index (BMI) have also been theorised to be associated with health benefits, or ability to deal with resource scarcity. Here, we test across two studies using different study designs whether the effects of pathogen disgust sensitivity and socioeconomic status (SES; a negative proxy for resource scarcity) on mate preferences extends to men’s WHR preferences, women’s SHR preferences, and both sex’s BMI preferences. Study 1 found that pathogen disgust significantly negatively influenced men’s WHR preference in female bodies, while SES was significantly negatively associated with women’s SHR and BMI preferences in male bodies. Study 2 found that pathogen disgust negatively predicted men’s WHR preference, and positively predicted women’s SHR preference, while SES negatively predicted men’s WHR preference. Our findings support the notion that body shapes are used as cues to health and likelihood of resource provision, and may help explain inconsistencies in the literature regarding variation in body shapes preferences.
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Does Pornography Consumption Increase Participation in Friends with Benefits Relationships?
Scott Braithwaite et al.
Sexuality & Culture, September 2015, Pages 513-532
Abstract:
Friends with benefits (FWB) relationships integrate two types of relationships — friendship and a relationship that includes sexual intimacy but without an expectation of commitment. These relationships are often seen as less risky than other casual sexual behaviors, but they still pose a high risk of contracting an STI. Pornography consumption has been connected to increases in risky sexual behavior in other types of casual sex. In two studies (Study 1 N = 850; Study 2 N = 992), we examined the hypothesis that pornography use influences FWB behaviors, specifically through the mechanism of sexual scripts. Our results demonstrate that more frequent viewing of pornography is associated with a higher incidence of FWB relationships, a higher number of unique FWB partners, and engagement in all types of risky sexual behaviors during FWB relationships. We did a direct replication of these effects in Study 2 with all point estimates falling within their respective confidence intervals. We also examined these effects while controlling for the stability of FWB behaviors over the course of a semester. Finally, we provided evidence that more permissive sexual scripts mediated the association between frequency of pornography use and FWB behaviors. We discuss our findings with an eye toward mitigating public health risks among emerging adults.
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Influence of conception risk and sociosexuality on female attraction to male red
Pavol Prokop & Adam Pazda & Andrew Elliot
Personality and Individual Differences, December 2015, Pages 166–170
Abstract:
An experiment was conducted to test the moderating roles of ovulatory status and sociosexuality on female attraction to male red. Female participants were shown a picture of a man surrounded by a red or gray border, and then reported their sexual desire toward the man and their perceptions of his general likeability. The results indicated that women at times of high conception probability reported stronger sexual desire for the man surrounded by a red, relative to gray, border; this pattern was not found for women at times of low conception probability. The effect was significant only when the categorical “fertile window” (days 9–14) was calculated using the forward counting method from last menstrual onset. Color did not influence ratings of general likeability, and sociosexuality did not moderate the influence of color on participants' reports of sexual desire or their perceptions of general likeability. The results suggest that women tend to have a stronger sensitivity to red stimuli when their likelihood of conception is greatest. The increased sexual desire for men in red may be due to preferences for healthy and dominant men with high status.
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Joye Swan & Suzanne Thompson
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors examined the hypothesis that many individuals define monogamy based on emotional rather than sexual fidelity. Participants, 373 heterosexual college students and 282 gay men, read three vignettes of decreasing mitigation in which they imagined committing an act of infidelity against a hypothetical partner and where half the participants were cued to their emotional attachment toward the partner. Despite the infidelity, relationships in the emotional attachment–cued vignettes were rated as monogamous to a greater degree than relationships in the vignettes where emotional attachment was not cued. In addition, over one-third of the participants in our study reported infidelity in their current self-defined monogamous relationships yet also reported feeling more protected from sexual health risks and reported less condom use than individuals who defined their relationship as nonmonogamous. The implications for monogamy as a protective fallacy are discussed.
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Rui Chen, Yuhuang Zheng & Yan Zhang
Journal of Consumer Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Attitudes about commitment can affect consumers’ variety-seeking behavior. In the mating domain, short-term mating cues tend to activate an uncommitment mind-set in men and lead them to seek greater variety in romantic relationships; whereas long-term mating cues tend to activate a commitment mind-set in women and lead them to seek less variety. In this research, we explore whether short-term and long-term mating cues can likewise affect variety-seeking behavior in the product consumption domain through their influence on commitment attitude. In three experiments, we demonstrate that men’s variety-seeking behavior increases in the presence of short-term but not long-term mating cues; conversely, women’s variety-seeking behavior decreases in the presence of long-term but not short-term mating cues. These effects are caused by attitude toward commitment induced by mating cues. Past research concerning this topic has focused on one gender and on short-term mating cues only, but in this paper we provide a more complete picture — and a more coherent theory — of how, via influencing commitment attitude, mating cues affect variety-seeking behavior differently in men than in women.
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Claire Wilson et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, November 2015, Pages 427–431
Abstract:
We investigated the hypotheses that extraversion is associated with unrestricted sociosexuality (operationalized as greater sexual experience and greater short-term mating orientation) and that this association is mediated by reduced cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress. Study participants were heterosexual male college students (n = 109). Extraversion was assessed with the Big Five Inventory and sociosexuality was assessed with the Multidimensional Sociosexuality Orientation Inventory. Cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress was assessed via three saliva samples collected immediately before, immediately after, and 15 min after the Trier Social Stress Test. Extraversion was associated with greater sexual experience but not with greater short-term mating orientation. As predicted, more extraverted individuals showed a lower increase in cortisol in response to psychosocial stress than less extraverted individuals. Previous sexual experience and short-term mating orientation were negatively correlated with cortisol reactivity to stress. Finally, mediation analyses confirmed our hypothesis that cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress is a mechanism mediating the association between extraversion and unrestricted sociosexuality. These findings have implications for our understanding of the benefits and costs of different personality traits as well as for our understanding of the determinants or correlates of individual differences in sociosexuality.
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Daniel Re & Nicholas Rule
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People can reliably infer various traits, states, and group memberships from minimal cues. Despite impressive demonstrations of the breadth of social perception, however, few studies have critically examined the sensitivity and limits of social perception in specific quantitative terms. Here, we investigated the just noticeable difference for perceptions of a facial trait with profound consequences for social behavior, that is, facial attractiveness. Building on research examining facial adiposity, we determined the changes in body mass index needed to meaningfully alter perceivers’ judgments of weight and attractiveness. Although perceivers recognized differences as small as 1.33 kg/m2, changes of roughly twice that size (2.38 kg/m2 and 2.59 kg/m2 for women and men, respectively) were necessary to alter attractiveness. These findings contribute to a greater basic understanding of the precision and limits of social perception and may provide information of value to medical practitioners and individuals seeking to manage changes in weight.