Looking for a connection
Is There a Male Marital Wage Premium? New Evidence from the United States
Volker Ludwig & Josef Brüderl
American Sociological Review, August 2018, Pages 744-770
Abstract:
This study reconsiders the phenomenon that married men earn more money than unmarried men, a key result of the research on marriage benefits. Many earlier studies have found such a “male marital wage premium.” Recent studies using panel data for the United States conclude that part of this premium is due to selection of high earners into marriage. Nevertheless, a substantial effect of marriage seems to remain. The current study investigates whether the remaining premium is really a causal effect. Using conventional fixed-effects models, previous studies statistically controlled for selection based on wage levels only. We suggest a more general fixed-effects model that allows for higher wage growth of to-be-married men. The empirical test draws on panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979 to 2012). We replicate the main finding of the literature: a wage premium remains after controlling for selection on individual wage levels. However, the remaining effect is not causal. The results show that married men earn more because selection into marriage operates not only on wage levels but also on wage growth. Hence, men on a steep career track are especially likely to marry. We conclude that arguments postulating a wage premium for married men should be discarded.
American Political-Party Affiliation as a Predictor of Usage of an Adultery Website
Kodi Arfer & Jason Jones
Archives of Sexual Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The more politically conservative Americans are, the more restrictive their sexual attitudes are. A natural follow-up question is how this difference in attitudes relates to actual behavior. But self-reports of sexual behavior may be compromised by a social desirability bias that is influenced by the very sexual attitudes at issue. We employed a non-self-reported measure of sexual behavior: usage of the adultery-focused dating website Ashley Madison. Linking an August 2015 leak of user data from Ashley Madison to 2012 voter registration rolls from five U.S. states, we found 80,000 matches between 200,000 Ashley Madison user accounts and 50 million voters. According to simple rates in the sample, and also to predictively validated regression models controlling for state, gender, and age, we found that Democrats were least likely to use Ashley Madison, Libertarians were most likely, and Republicans, Greens, and unaffiliated voters were in between. Our results provide support for theories arguing that people with stricter sexual attitudes are paradoxically more likely to engage in deviant sexual behavior.
Women reveal, men conceal: Current relationship disclosure when seeking an extrapair partner
Susan Hughes & Marissa Harrison
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined sex differences in disclosing current, committed relationship status to potential extrapair copulation (EPC) partners. We hypothesized that women in a committed relationship would be more likely to reveal their relationship status to a potential EPC partner. When a woman reveals this information, it may appeal to a man’s evolved psychological preference for short-term mating, which increases his chance of reproduction without commitment. We also hypothesized that men in a committed relationship, in contrast, would be more likely to conceal their current relationship from a potential EPC partner. A committed man would be less able to provide time, commitment, and resources for which women have an evolved preference. The extrapair woman could sustain enormous costs should she bear offspring without his support. Responses from a heterosexual community sample of 322 women and 262 men (N = 584), with a diverse age range (M = 30.7, SD = 11.4), showed that women, compared with men, indeed indicated statistically more hypothetical and actual committed relationship status revelations to a potential EPC partner.
What you read and what you believe: Genre exposure and beliefs about relationships
Stephanie Stern et al.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research has shown that exposure to specific fiction genres is associated with theory of mind and attitudes toward gender roles and sexual behavior (e.g., Fong, Mullin, & Mar, 2013, 2015); however, relatively little research has investigated the relationship between exposure to written fiction and beliefs about relationships, a variable known to relate to relationship quality in the real world (e.g., Eidelson & Epstein, 1982; Lemay & Venaglia, 2016). Here, participants were asked to complete both the Genre Familiarity Test (Black, Capps, & Barnes, 2017), an author recognition test that assesses prior exposure to seven different written fiction genres, and the Relationship Belief Inventory (Eidelson & Epstein, 1982), a measure that assesses the degree to which participants hold five unrealistic and destructive beliefs about the way that romantic relationships should work. After controlling for personality, gender, age, and exposure to other genres, three genres were found to be significantly correlated with different relationship beliefs. Individuals who scored higher on exposure to classics were less likely to believe that disagreement is destructive. Science fiction/fantasy readers were also less likely to support the belief that disagreement is destructive, as well as the belief that partners cannot change, the belief that sexes are different, and the belief that mindreading is expected in relationships. In contrast, prior exposure to the romance genre was positively correlated with the belief that the sexes are different, but not with any other subscale of the Relationships Belief Inventory.
Sex-Typed Chores and the City: Gender, Urbanicity, and Housework
Natasha Quadlin & Long Doan
Gender & Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does place structure the gendered division of household labor? Because people’s living spaces and lifestyles differ dramatically across urban, suburban, and rural areas, it follows that time spent on household chores may vary across places. In cities, for example, many households do not have vehicles or lawns, and housing units tend to be relatively small. Urban men’s and women’s time use therefore provides insight into how partners contribute to household chores when there is less structural demand for the types of tasks they typically do. We examine these dynamics using data on heterosexual married individuals from the American Time Use Survey combined with the Current Population Survey. We find that urban men spend relatively little time on male-typed chores, but they spend the same amount of time on female-typed chores as their suburban and rural counterparts. This pattern suggests that urban men do not “step up” their involvement in female-typed tasks even though they contribute little in the way of other housework. In contrast, urbanicity rarely predicts women’s time use, implying that women spend considerable time on household chores regardless of where they live. Implications for research on gender and housework are discussed.
Average Associations Between Sexual Desire, Testosterone, and Stress in Women and Men Over Time
Jessica Raisanen et al.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, August 2018, Pages 1613–1631
Abstract:
Sexual desire and testosterone are widely assumed to be directly and positively linked to each other despite the lack of supporting empirical evidence. The literature that does exist is mixed, which may result from a conflation of solitary and dyadic desire, and the exclusion of contextual variables, like stress, known to be relevant. Here, we use the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds as a framework for examining how testosterone, solitary and partnered desire, and stress are linked over time. To do so, we collected saliva samples (for testosterone and cortisol) and measured desire as well as other variables via questionnaires over nine monthly sessions in 78 women and 79 men. Linear mixed models showed that testosterone negatively predicted partnered desire in women but not men. Stress moderated associations between testosterone and solitary desire in both women and men, but differently: At lower levels of stress, higher average testosterone corresponded to higher average solitary desire for men, but lower solitary desire on average for women. Similarly, for partnered desire, higher perceived stress predicted lower desire for women, but higher desire for men. We conclude by discussing the ways that these results both counter presumptions about testosterone and desire but fit with the existing literature and theory, and highlight the empirical importance of stress and gender norms.
Relationship foraging: Does time spent searching predict relationship length?
Samantha Cohen & Peter Todd
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, July 2018, Pages 139-151
Abstract:
Animals foraging for resources often need to alternate between searching for and benefiting from patches of those resources. Here we explore whether such patterns of behavior can usefully be applied to the human search for romantic relationships. Optimal foraging theory (OFT) suggests that foragers should alter their time spent in patches based on how long they typically spend searching between patches. We test whether human relationship search can be described as a foraging task that fits this OFT prediction. By analyzing a large, demographically representative data set on marriage and cohabitation timing using survival analysis, we find that the likelihood of a relationship ending per unit time goes down with increased duration of search before that relationship, in accord with the foraging prediction. We consider the possible applications and limits of a foraging perspective on mate search and suggest further directions for study.
The impact of emotions on romantic judgments: Sequential effects in a speed-dating study
Laura Sels et al.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
How do our feelings impact the romantic judgments and decisions we make? In a speed-dating context, where people have to judge potential romantic partners sequentially, we investigated whether and how participants’ prior affective state guided romantic desire toward and actual choice for an interaction partner. We found evidence for contrast effects, meaning that romantic judgments contrasted with the affective states participants were in at the start of a new interaction. The more positive (excited, interested, or happy) participants felt after one interaction partner, the less attracted they were toward a new interaction partner, and the more negative they felt (irritated or bored), the more attracted they were. The effect of negative emotions (NEs) was primarily visible in men, for whom more prior NEs even increased the chance of choosing an interaction partner at the end of the evening. The effect of positive emotions (PEs), however, had faded away when people chose their date at the end. Additional analyses revealed that specific emotions showed differential effects on romantic desire and actual choice and that contrast effects were mediated but not fully explained (at least in the case of PEs) by desire toward the previous interaction partner.