Transactional
Why men collect things? A case study of fossilised dinosaur eggs
Menelaos Apostolou
Journal of Economic Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Collecting entails substantial costs in terms of effort, money, time and space needed to find, obtain and store desirable items. Still, the non-utilitarian nature of collectibles suggests that a simple economic justification of this behaviour is unlikely. Moreover, the apparent sex difference, with collectors being almost exclusively men, indicates a possible reproductive motive. However, presently available theories have failed to identify these motives and predict its patterns leaving collecting behaviour unexplained. This paper employs recent developments in the fields of evolutionary psychology and theoretical biology in order to construct a plausible theory which accounts for collecting behaviour. In particular, it is argued that collecting has evolved to facilitate reliable communication between males with respect to their unobserved resource acquisition capacity. Based on this theoretical framework three hypotheses are derived: the desirability of a collectible item is positively related to its rarity, aesthetic pleasingness, and size. Evidence based on eBay auction sales of fossilised dinosaur eggs provides support for all three hypotheses.
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Marrying Up: The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching
Ran Abramitzky, Adeline Delavande & Luís Vasconcelos
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We assemble a novel dataset to study the impact of male scarcity on marital assortative matching and other marriage market outcomes using the large shock that WWI caused to the number of French men. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that post war in regions with higher mortality rates: men were less likely to marry women of lower social classes; men were more likely and women less likely to marry; out-of-wedlock births increased; divorce rates decreased; and the age gap decreased. These findings are consistent with men improving their position in the marriage market as they become scarcer.
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Lucky in Life, Unlucky in Love? The Effect of Random Income Shocks on Marriage and Divorce
Scott Hankins & Mark Hoekstra
Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2011, Pages 403-426
Abstract:
Economists have long been interested in the extent to which economic resources affect decisions to marry and divorce. However, this issue has been difficult to address empirically due to a lack of exogenous income shocks. We overcome this problem by exploiting the randomness of the Florida Lottery and comparing recipients of large prizes to those of small prizes. Results indicate that while positive income shocks of $25,000 to $50,000 do not cause statistically significant or economically meaningful changes in divorce rates, single women are less likely to marry as a result of the additional income.
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Parental influences on sexual preferences: The case of attraction to smoking
H. Aronsson, J. Lind, S. Ghirlanda & M. Enquist
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, March 2011, Pages 21-41
Abstract:
We investigated whether a sexual preference for smoking can be related to past experiences of parental smoking during childhood, as predicted by the theory of sexual imprinting, but also by sexual conditioning theory. In a sample of over 4000 respondents to five Internet surveys on sexual preferences, we found that parental smoking correlates with increased attraction to smoking in self-reported hetero- and homosexual males. Maternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking both in hetero- and homosexual males, while paternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking only in males who prefer male partners. We could not explain these findings by considering other factors than parental smoking habits, such as possibly biased reporting, indicators of a sexually liberal lifestyle or phenotype matching. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that sexual preferences are acquired early in life by exposure to stimuli provided by individuals in the child's environment, such as caregivers. The sex specificity of the parental effect is consistent with sexual imprinting theory but not with conditioning theory.
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Julia Becker & Stephen Wright
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research tests a model for understanding how benevolent sexism undermines, whereas hostile sexism promotes, social change. Study 1 (N = 99) and Study 2 (N = 92) demonstrate that exposing women to benevolent sexism decreases their engagement in collective action, whereas exposure to hostile sexism increases it. Both effects were mediated by gender-specific system justification and perceived advantages of being a woman. In Study 2, positive and negative affect also mediated these relationships. Results from Studies 3 and 4 (N = 68 and N = 37) support the causal chain described in the mediational models tested in Studies 1 and 2. Manipulations that increased gender-specific system justification (Study 3) and perceived advantages of being a woman (Study 4) reduced intentions to participate in collective action.
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Waiting to Be Asked: Gender, Power, and Relationship Progression Among Cohabiting Couples
Sharon Sassler & Amanda Miller
Journal of Family Issues, April 2011, Pages 482-506
Abstract:
The majority of young married Americans lived with their spouses before the wedding, and many cohabited with partners they did not wed. Yet little is known about how cohabitating relationships progress or the role gender norms play in this process. This article explores how cohabiting partners negotiate relationship progression, focusing on several stages where couples enact gender. Data are from in-depth interviews with 30 working-class couples (n = 60). The women in this sample often challenged conventional gender norms by suggesting that couples move in together or raising the issue of marriage. Men played dominant roles in initiating whether couples became romantically involved and progressed to a more formal status. Although women and men contest how gender is performed, cohabiting men remain privileged in the arena of relationship progression. The findings suggest that adherence to conventional gender practices even among those residing in informal unions perpetuates women's secondary position in intimate relationships.
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Experimental evidence that women speak in a higher voice pitch to men they find attractive
Paul Fraccaro et al.
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, March 2011, Pages 57-67
Abstract:
Although humans can raise and lower their voice pitch, it is not known whether such alterations can function to increase the likelihood of attracting preferred mates. Because men find higher-pitched women's voices more attractive, the voice pitch with which women speak to men may depend on the strength of their attraction to those men. Here, we measured voice pitch when women left voicemail messages for masculinized and feminized versions of a prototypical male face. We found that the difference in women's voice pitch between these two conditions positively correlated with the strength of their preference for masculinized versus feminized male faces, whereby women tended to speak with a higher voice pitch to the type of face they found more attractive (masculine or feminine). Speaking with a higher voice pitch when talking to the type of man they find most attractive may function to reduce the amount of mating effort that women expend in order to attract and retain preferred mates.
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Effect of Self-Reported Sexual Arousal on Responses to Sex-Related and Non-Sex-Related Disgust Cues
Richard Stevenson, Trevor Case & Megan Oaten
Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2011, Pages 79-85
Abstract:
Prior to and during sexual intercourse, people are exposed to stimuli that in other contexts might act as disgust-eliciting cues. This study examined whether sexual arousal, in contrast to general arousal, could selectively reduce reported disgust for cues that pilot participants identified as sex or non-sex related. Male undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of four viewing groups. One group viewed erotic female images, a second clad female images, a third pleasantly arousing images (e.g., skydiving), and a fourth unpleasantly arousing images (e.g., an aimed gun). After the viewing phase, all participants were exposed to pairs of real disgust elicitors (sex versus non-sex related) drawn from various sensory modalities. Participants in the erotic images group, who rated being more sexually aroused than those in the other three groups, also reported being significantly less disgusted by sex-related elicitors. While the mechanism for this effect is not currently known, our findings suggest one plausible explanation for risky sexual behavior as well as having implications for the role of disgust in sexual dysfunction.
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Desire in the face of death: Terror management, attachment, and sexual motivation
Gurit Birnbaum, Gilad Hirschberger & Jamie Goldenberg
Personal Relationships, March 2011, Pages 1-19
Abstract:
Four studies examined the impact of mortality salience (MS) on sexual motivation. In Studies 1-3, participants were primed with death-related thoughts and then rated their desire to engage in sex in different contexts. Study 4 included an assessment of reasons for engaging in sex. Results showed that MS increased the desire for romantic sex, regardless of gender, and the desire for casual sex among more avoidant men. Sexual desire was fueled by distinct patterns of motives among highly anxious and avoidant people. These findings suggest that the variety of meanings sexual behavior has for different people may explain why, in some cases, sexual behavior may function as a defense against mortality concerns, whereas in other cases, it may exacerbate threat.
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Workaholism and marital estrangement: A rational-choice perspective
Gideon Yaniv
Mathematical Social Sciences, March 2011, Pages 104-108
Abstract:
Workaholism is an addiction to work. It is a major source of marital estrangement and breakdown as well as a severe threat to physical and psychological health. While addiction to harmful goods has gained considerable attention in the economic literature, addiction to work, with one recent exception, has totally escaped economists' notice, despite the growing concern with its devastating consequences. The present paper makes a second step in applying economic reasoning to this problem, developing a dynamic model of rational workaholism. The model demonstrates that it is not necessary for work to be addictive per se in order to exhibit an addictive pattern throughout which work intensity monotonically increases with time. Marital estrangement alone may inflame the desire for work, which in turn further exacerbates estrangement. The model determines the optimal intensity of work and quality of marriage for the workaholic over time, showing that even a happily married, forward-looking individual might be swept into an addictive course of excessive work that leads to marital breakdown.
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Vanessa Schick, Brandi Rima & Sarah Calabrese
Journal of Sex Research, January 2011, Pages 74-81
Abstract:
Media images of the female body commonly represent reigning appearance ideals of the era in which they are published. To date, limited documentation of the genital appearance ideals in mainstream media exists. Analysis 1 sought to describe genital appearance ideals (i.e., mons pubis and labia majora visibility, labia minora size and color, and pubic hairstyle) and general physique ideals (i.e., hip, waist, and bust size, height, weight, and body mass index [BMI]) across time based on 647 Playboy Magazine centerfolds published between 1953 and 2007. Analysis 2 focused exclusively on the genital appearance ideals embodied by models in 185 Playboy photographs published between 2007 and 2008. Taken together, results suggest the perpetuation of a "Barbie Doll" ideal characterized by a low BMI, narrow hips, a prominent bust, and hairless, undefined genitalia resembling those of a prepubescent female.
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Heterosexual Romantic Couples Mate Assortatively for Facial Symmetry, But Not Masculinity
Robert Burriss et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Preferences for partners with symmetric and sex-typical faces are well documented and considered evidence for the good-genes theory of mate choice. However, it is unclear whether preferences for these traits drive the real-world selection of mates. In two samples of young heterosexual couples from the United Kingdom (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2), the authors found assortment for facial symmetry but not for sex typicality or independently rated attractiveness. Within-couple similarity in these traits did not predict relationship duration or quality, although female attractiveness and relationship duration were negatively correlated among couples in which the woman was the more attractive partner. The authors conclude that humans may mate assortatively on facial symmetry, but this remains just one of the many physical and nonphysical traits to which people likely attend when forming romantic partnerships. This is also the first evidence that preferences for symmetry transfer from the laboratory to a real-world setting.
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Mate retention behavior modulates men's preferences for self-resemblance in infant faces
Lisa Welling, Robert Burriss & David Puts
Evolution and Human Behavior, March 2011, Pages 118-126
Abstract:
Visual assessments of relatedness may affect paternal investment decisions and altruistic behaviors. Work examining preferences for cues to self-resemblance in child faces has been equivocal, with findings showing that men have a higher preference than women, that preference for self-resemblance was statistically significant in women but not men, and that both men and women have a significant preference for self-resemblance when making parental investment decisions. Using data from 67 heterosexual romantic couples, we present evidence that both men and women prefer self-resembling infants, but show no significant preference for partner-resembling infants. Moreover, men's intersexual negative inducement tactics were correlated with, and significantly predicted, their preferences for self-resembling infants. These findings provide evidence that, although both men and women show a general preference for self-resemblance in infant faces, men's preferences for self-resemblance may be further modulated by perceived threat of cuckoldry.
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Christopher Watkins et al.
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, March 2011, Pages 69-82
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that men may possess adaptations that evolved to counter strategic variation in women's preferences for masculine men. For example, women's preferences for masculine, dominant men are stronger during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle than at other times and men demonstrate increased sensitivity to facial cues of male dominance when their partners are ovulating. Such variation in men's dominance perceptions may promote efficient allocation of men's mate guarding effort (i.e., allocate more mate guarding effort in response to masculine, dominant men in situations where women show particularly strong preferences for such men). Here, we tested for further evidence of adaptations that may have evolved to counter strategic variation in women's masculinity preferences. Men who reported having particularly feminine romantic partners demonstrated a greater tendency to attribute dominance to masculinized male faces than did men who reported having relatively masculine romantic partners. This relationship between partner femininity and men's sensitivity to facial cues of male dominance remained significant when we controlled for potential confounds (men's age, self-rated masculinity, reported commitment to their relationship, and the length of the relationship) and may be adaptive given that feminine women demonstrate particularly strong preferences for masculine, dominant men. While previous research has emphasized variation in women's masculinity preferences, our findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that sexual selection may also have shaped adaptations that evolved to counter such systematic variation in women's preferences for masculine, dominant men.
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Sex While Intoxicated: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Youth
Amy Herrick et al.
Journal of Adolescent Health, March 2011, Pages 306-309
Background: The social marginalization and victimization experienced by sexual minority youth (SMY) may lead to increased risk behaviors and higher rates of negative health outcomes compared with their heterosexual peers.
Methods: We conducted a meta-analysis to examine whether SMY reported higher rates of sex while intoxicated. Studies that report rates of substance use during sex in both SMY and heterosexual youth and had a mean participant age of 18 or less were included in our meta-analysis. Effect sizes were extracted from six studies (nine independent data sets and 24 effect sizes) that met study criteria and had high inter-rater reliability (.98).
Results: Results indicated that SMY were almost twice as likely to report sex while intoxicated as compared with heterosexual peers. A random-effects meta-analysis showed a moderate ([overall weighted effect OR] = 1.91, p <
.0001) weighted effect size for the relationship between sexual orientation and the use of drugs at the time of sexual intercourse, with the mean effect size for each study ranging from 1.21 to 3.50 and individual effect sizes ranging from .35 to 9.86.
Discussion: Our findings highlight the need for healthcare providers to screen SMY for participation in substance use during sexual intercourse and to offer risk reduction counseling during office visits.
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Cognitive Representations of Sexual Self Differ as a Function of Gender and Sexual Debut
Kristen Lindgren et al.
Archives of Sexual Behavior, February 2011, Pages 111-120
Abstract:
This research evaluated the association between gender and sexual debut (initial sexual intercourse) and indirect measures of sexuality. A sample of 440 U.S. college students (pre-sexual debut: 144 women, 153 men; post-sexual debut: 49 women, 94 men) completed the Sexual Self-Schema Scale (SSSS), which assessed cognitive representations about sexual aspects of oneself, and three Implicit Association Tests (IAT), which measured the strength of the associations between the concepts of self + sex, women + sex, and men + sex. Results replicated previous findings that (1) men more strongly associated self + sex and women + sex than did women, and (2) men and women had similarly strong associations of men + sex. Post-sexual debut women's self + sexual and women + sexual associations were stronger than pre-sexual debut women's. Men's associations did not differ significantly as a function of sexual debut. Post-sexual debut women's SSSS scores were more direct, more romantic, and less conservative than pre-sexual debut women's. Post-sexual debut men's SSSS scores were more aggressive and more open-minded than pre-sexual debut men's. Sexual debut appeared to be associated with sexualized and sexually liberal cognitive representations in women and, to a lesser extent, sexually liberal and aggressive cognitive representations in men. Findings were consistent with theories of cognitive consistency and provide preliminary evidence that sexual debut status was associated with differing cognitive representations.
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Using technology to control intimate partners: An exploratory study of college undergraduates
Sloane Burke, Michele Wallen, Karen Vail-Smith & David Knox
Computers in Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the extent to which a sample of 804 undergraduates at a large southeastern university used communication technology (e.g., cell phone, email, social network sites) to monitor or control partners in intimate relationships and to evaluate their perceptions of the appropriateness of these behaviors. Results of the online survey revealed that half of both female and male respondents reported the use of communication technology to monitor partners, either as the initiator or victim. Females were significantly more likely than males to monitor the email accounts of their partners (25% vs. 6%) and to regard doing so as appropriate behavior. Limitations and implications are suggested.
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Gender symmetry in intimate aggression: An effect of intimacy or target sex?
Catharine Cross, William Tee & Anne Campbell
Aggressive Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Men's greater use of direct aggression is not evident in studies of intimate partner aggression. In previous research, the effects of target sex and relationship intimacy have frequently been confounded. This study sought to examine these effects separately. One hundred and seventy-four participants (59 male and 115 female) read vignette scenarios in which they were provoked by a same-sex best friend, an opposite-sex best friend, and a partner. For each target, participants estimated their likely use of direct physical and verbal aggression as well as noninjurious forms of anger expression. Results showed that men lower their aggression in the context of an intimate partnership and that this is an effect of the target's sex. In contrast, women raise their aggression in the context of an intimate partnership and this is an effect of intimacy with the target. The use of noninjurious angry behavior did not vary between targets for either sex of the participant, which suggests that the effects of target are confined to behaviors which carry an intention to harm. Possible effects of social norms and oxytocin-mediated emotional disinhibition on intimate partner aggression are discussed.
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Dance confidence, age and gender
Peter Lovatt
Personality and Individual Differences, April 2011, Pages 668-672
Abstract:
Dance confidence is a measure of domain-specific self-esteem as applied to how a person feels about their social and recreational dance ability. This study is concerned with how dance confidence varies as a function of gender and age group. Thirteen thousand seven hundred and fifteen people watched a video and then completed an on-line survey. The results show that dance confidence varies as a function of gender and age group, such that, in general, females have higher levels of dance confidence than males, and dance confidence changes at significant points in the developmental cycle. For females, dance confidence levels start high in early adolescence, they drop significantly post-16 and then rise steadily through late-teens and early 20s before leveling off during mid-life. There is a significant drop in dance confidence for women when they reach their mid-late 50s. For men, dance confidence levels start low and then rise steadily during late teens and early 20s, before leveling off during mid-30s. There is a significant increase in dance confidence for men when they reach their mid-60s. The results, and the link between social dance and self-esteem, are discussed within the context of two theoretical models of self-esteem, the "Reflected Appraisal Model" and the "Competencies Model".