Sex ed
Human preferences for sexually dimorphic faces may be evolutionarily novel
Isabel Scott et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 7 October 2014, Pages 14388-14393
Abstract:
A large literature proposes that preferences for exaggerated sex typicality in human faces (masculinity/femininity) reflect a long evolutionary history of sexual and social selection. This proposal implies that dimorphism was important to judgments of attractiveness and personality in ancestral environments. It is difficult to evaluate, however, because most available data come from large-scale, industrialized, urban populations. Here, we report the results for 12 populations with very diverse levels of economic development. Surprisingly, preferences for exaggerated sex-specific traits are only found in the novel, highly developed environments. Similarly, perceptions that masculine males look aggressive increase strongly with development and, specifically, urbanization. These data challenge the hypothesis that facial dimorphism was an important ancestral signal of heritable mate value. One possibility is that highly developed environments provide novel opportunities to discern relationships between facial traits and behavior by exposing individuals to large numbers of unfamiliar faces, revealing patterns too subtle to detect with smaller samples.
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Casual Contraception in Casual Sex: Life-Cycle Change in Undergraduates' Sexual Behavior in Hookups
Jonathan Bearak
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article describes life-cycle change in the sexual behavior of undergraduates in "hookups" (which are outside traditional dates or relationships) during years 1-4 of college, explains a decline in the use of condoms, and shows how changes in the odds of coitus and condom use depend on family background, school gender imbalance, and whether the partners attend the same college. Coitus becomes increasingly likely as students progress through college. Condom-use rates, in contrast, decline precipitously between the freshman and sophomore years, before stabilizing. This rapid normalization of unprotected sex in hookups arises as students adapt to a high-education culture. Condom-use rates in the freshman year are lowest among students who have the most highly educated mothers. After the freshman year, students with lower-educated mothers converge to the same lower rate. This decline is pronounced when the partners attend the same college. Implications for health and social policy are discussed.
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Arielle Deutsch & Wendy Slutske
Journal of Sex Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research on relations between casual sex and mental health is inconclusive; while some studies indicate casual sex may lead to more negative mental health (e.g., depression), other studies report no such relationship. Using a genetically informed approach, this study examined whether earlier casual sex (i.e., ever engaging in casual sex and number of casual sex partners) in adolescence has a causal influence on later mental health in young adulthood (i.e., depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation), as well as the reverse relationship (adolescent negative mental health on young adult casual sex) by exploiting the quasi-experimental nature of discordant-twin models. Multilevel models that measured within-twin and between-twin pair effects of adolescent casual sex were estimated, using 714 twins (357 twin pairs) from the sibling subsample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Results indicated that there was no causal relationship between casual sex in adolescence and higher levels of depressive symptoms or suicidal ideation in young adulthood, and these effects did not differ by gender. There were also no causal relations between adolescent depressive symptoms or suicidal ideation and casual sexual experience in young adulthood. Implications for ways to increase scientific rigor by using different methods (e.g., genetically informed analyses) are discussed.
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Influence of Sexually Degrading Music on Men's Perceptions of Women's Dating-Relevant Cues
Teresa Treat et al.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the influence of manipulated and naturalistic exposure to sexually degrading music on young men's perceptions of women's dating-relevant affective cues. Three hundred ninety-seven undergraduate heterosexual men completed an affect-identification task in which they judged whether women communicated sexual interest, friendliness, sadness, or rejection. Either sexually degrading popular music, non-sexually degrading popular music, or no music played on headphones. Participants completed questionnaires assessing music-listening habits and rape-supportive attitudes. Manipulated exposure to degrading music did not affect men's sensitivities to or biases for women's cues. In contrast, men who reported greater naturalistic exposure to rap and hip-hop music and who endorsed more rape-supportive attitudes were more likely to perceive women's positive affect as sexual interest, if the women were provocatively dressed. On balance, these findings are largely inconsistent with theoretical expectations regarding the deleterious effects of sexually degrading music on attitudes and concurrent social perception.
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Self-enhancement biases, self-esteem, and ideal mate preferences
Margaret Brown & Jonathon Brown
Personality and Individual Differences, February 2015, Pages 61-65
Abstract:
People seek ideal romantic partners who are similar to themselves. In this research, we tested whether this preference reflects a self-enhancement bias. Study 1 (N = 40) found that people who like themselves a lot (i.e., high self-esteem people) were more likely to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-evaluations than were people whose self-feelings are more ambivalent (i.e., low self-esteem people). Study 2 (N = 141) extended these findings by showing that low self-esteem participants who had just been given positive feedback about themselves were just as apt as high self-esteem participants to describe their ideal romantic partner in terms that matched their self-descriptions. Taken together, these findings suggest that the more that people like themselves, the more they will desire an ideal romantic partner who is just like them.
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Kasey Lynn Morris & Jamie Goldenberg
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2015, Pages 69-72
Abstract:
From the perspective of terror management theory, men's attraction to women poses a threat in the context of salient mortality concerns. We hypothesized that literal objectification - associating women with (non-mortal) objects - reduces this threat. Reactions to advertisements featuring sexually provocative women merged with objects (e.g., a woman merged with a bottle of beer), or control ads in which the women were separated from the objects, were examined in conjunction with a mortality salience manipulation. Replicating previous research (Landau et al., 2006), men, but not women, reported lower attractiveness ratings for the (non-merged) woman in response to a morality reminder. In contrast, men's attractiveness ratings for the merged (i.e., literally objectified) woman increased when mortality was salient. Further, men primed with mortality reported higher attractiveness ratings for the merged woman, compared to the same woman depicted as separate from an object. These findings help explain the prevalence and appeal of literal objectification, and provide evidence of its existential function.
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Sweet love: The effects of sweet taste experience on romantic perceptions
Dongning Ren et al.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
Terms of endearment such as "sweetie," "honey," and "sugar" are commonly used in the context of describing romantic partners. This article explores how a relatively subtle manipulation, namely taste sensations, might influence romantic perceptions of a nonestablished relationship. Consistent with predictions, results from Studies 1 and 2 (n = 280) showed that participants evaluated a hypothetical relationship, but not an existing relationship, more favorably when exposed to sweet taste compared to non-sweet taste control. Study 3 (n = 142) further showed that participants indicated greater interest in initiating a relationship with a potential partner when exposed to sweet taste, as compared to control participants. Implications for the role of sweet taste experiences in attraction and relationship initiation are discussed.
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David Beaulieu & Kristina Havens
Personality and Individual Differences, January 2015, Pages 200-207
Abstract:
The ovulatory shift hypothesis (Gangestad, Thornhill, & Garver-Apgar, 2005) makes three predictions. First, it posits that during peak fertility, women are more attracted to males who display characteristics of good genes. Secondly, it predicts that women predominantly experience ovulatory shifts when evaluating males as short-term sexual partners. Lastly, it predicts that ovulatory shifts should be non-existent when measuring mate preferences associated with long-term partner quality. However given that female preferences are formulated as a means to offset costs associated with reproduction (Buss, 1994) and such costs are more likely to be incurred during peak fertility, the current study (via the ovulatory reproductive safeguards hypothesis) posits that women during peak fertility should show a general increase in their mate preference criteria across a variety of characteristics and relationships. Using a within-subjects design and hormonal markers of fertility status, the present study investigates the degree to which ovulatory shifts in preferences are limited to short-term sexual liaisons and the degree to which such shifts are associated with characteristics related to long-term partner quality. Contrary to the ovulatory shift hypothesis (and in support of the ovulatory reproductive safeguards hypothesis), ovulatory shifts were found across a wide range of relationship contexts and preference characteristics.
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Anthony Little et al.
British Journal of Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Being paired with an attractive partner increases perceptual judgements of attractiveness in humans. We tested experimentally for prestige bias, whereby individuals follow the choices of prestigious others. Women rated the attractiveness of photographs of target males which were paired with either popular or less popular model female partners. We found that pairing a photo of a man with a woman presented as his partner positively influenced the attractiveness of the man when the woman was presented as more popular (Experiment 1). Further, this effect was stronger in younger participants compared to older participants (Experiment 1). Reversing the target and model such that women were asked to rate women paired with popular and less popular men revealed no effect of model popularity and this effect was unrelated to participant age (Experiment 2). An additional experiment confirmed that participant age and not stimulus age primarily influenced the tendency to follow others' preferences in Experiment 1 (Experiment 3). We also confirmed that our manipulations of popularity lead to variation in rated prestige (Experiment 4). These results suggest a sophisticated model-based bias in social learning whereby individuals are most influenced by the choices of those who have high popularity/prestige. Furthermore, older individuals moderate their use of such social information and so this form of social learning appears strongest in younger women.