Singled out
Divorce Attitudes Among Older Adults: Two Decades of Change
Susan Brown & Matthew Wright
Journal of Family Issues, forthcoming
Abstract:
The authors used data from the 1994, 2002, and 2012 General Social Survey (N = 1,450) to examine whether support for divorce has increased among adults aged 50 years and older. Consistent with the rise in the gray divorce rate, today’s older adults were more accepting of divorce than their predecessors were two decades ago. Attitudinal change was modest between 1994 and 2002, but accelerated after 2002. The acceleration was primarily due to period rather than cohort change, signaling the role of broader shifts in the meaning of marriage as it has become deinstitutionalized. Older birth cohorts and individuals who were either divorced or remarried were especially likely to hold supportive attitudes toward divorce.
Associations between spouses’ oxytocin receptor gene polymorphism, attachment security, and marital satisfaction
Joan Monin et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2019
Abstract:
OXTR rs53576, a polymorphism on the oxytocin receptor gene, has previously been linked to individual differences in social behaviors. That is, individuals with the GG genotype show greater empathy, sociability, and emotional stability. In the context of close relationships, such psychological resources are associated with better relationship outcomes. However, no studies to our knowledge have examined associations between spouses’ OXTR polymorphisms, attachment security, and marital satisfaction. In the current study, 178 married couples (N = 356; ages 37–90) completed self-report measures of attachment security and marital satisfaction and provided saliva samples for genotyping. Results from Actor Partner Interdependence Models showed that individuals who had the GG genotype (actor effect) or had a spouse with the GG genotype (partner effect) reported greater marital satisfaction than individuals with AA or AG genotypes. Furthermore, greater attachment security mediated associations between GG genotype and marital satisfaction.
Hormonal predictors of women's sexual motivation
Talia Shirazi et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women's mating psychology may have evolved to track reproductive conditions, including conception risk, across and between ovulatory cycles. Alternatively, within-woman correlations between mating psychology and ovarian hormones may be byproducts of between-women relationships. Here, we examined associations between steroid hormones and two facets of sexual psychology with putatively different adaptive functions, sociosexual orientation and general sexual desire, in a sample of naturally cycling women (NC; n = 348, 87 of whom completed 2 sessions) and hormonally contracepting women (HC; n = 266, 65 of whom completed 2 sessions). Across two sessions, increases in estradiol predicted elevated sociosexual desires in NC women, and this relationship was stronger in women whose progesterone simultaneously decreased across sessions. Changes in hormones were not associated with changes in general sexual desire. Between-subjects differences in testosterone robustly, positively predicted sociosexuality and general sexual desire among NC women. Hormones were not consistently related to changes or differences in sexual psychology among HC women. The present results are consistent with testosterone contributing to individual differences, or modulating relatively long-term changes, in women's mating psychology. Further, our within-woman findings are consistent with the hypothesis that shifts in women's mating psychology may function to secure genetic benefits, and that these shifts are not byproducts of between-women associations.
Do Single Men Smell and Look Different to Partnered Men?
Mehmet Mahmut & Richard Stevenson
Frontiers in Psychology, February 2019
Abstract:
Previous research indicates human body odor (BO) can signal kinship, sickness and genetic compatibility. Based on research indicating single males have higher testosterone levels than partnered males and that higher testosterone levels are associated with stronger smelling BO, the current study aimed to determine if, by extension of previous findings, single males’ BO smells stronger than partnered males’ BO. Eighty-two heterosexual women aged 18–35 years rated the BO and faces of six different males also aged 18–35 years. Consistent with the hypothesis, single men’s BO smelled stronger than partnered men’s BO and single men’s faces were rated as more masculine than partnered men’s faces. The possible advantages of females being able to identify single males are addressed in the Discussion.
Willingness Toupee
David McEvoy, Ashton Morgan & John Whitehead
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we tackle the hairy problem of male pattern baldness. We survey balding men and elicit their willingness to pay to move from their current situation to a more plentiful one. Then we comb‐over the results. What's the average willingness to pay to move from a glistening cue ball to a luscious mane? About $30,000.
Does physical attractiveness buy happiness? Women’s mating motivation and happiness
Ahra Ko & Eunkook Suh
Motivation and Emotion, February 2019, Pages 1–11
Abstract:
Given the centrality of physical attractiveness in women’s mate value, we predicted that mating motive salience would increase the weight of physical attractiveness in women’s happiness. At an individual difference level, women with chronically high levels of mating motivation weighed physical attractiveness more heavily in their happiness than others (Study 1). When mating motivation were experimentally primed, happiness hinged more on physical attractiveness in the mating than in the control condition (Study 2). Finally, when compared across the ovulatory cycle, the importance of physical attractiveness in women’s happiness was accentuated during the high-fertility phase (Study 3). Results provide converging evidence that mating motivation increases the importance attached to and sensitivity towards physical attractiveness in appraising happiness among women. The current work suggests a novel evolutionary function of happiness, namely, to signal progress toward adaptively important goals.