Evolutionary Psychology PDF - Chapter 4

ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 118 who ignored the child in distress to be low in attractiveness as a marriage partner (1.25), indeed the lowest of all. Third, the efect of interacting positively with the child proved not to be a result of the man showing domestic proclivities in general. Women foun...

ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 118 who ignored the child in distress to be low in attractiveness as a marriage partner (1.25), indeed the lowest of all. Third, the efect of interacting positively with the child proved not to be a result of the man showing domestic proclivities in general. Women found the man vacuuming, for example, to be less attractive (1.3) than the man simply standing alone doing nothing (2.0). This study suggests that women prefer men who show a willingness to invest in children as marriage partners. Is this preference unique to women? To address this issue, la Cerra conducted another study, this time using women as models and men as raters. Women were posed in conditions parallel to those of the male models in the frst study. The results for men were strikingly diferent from those for women. Men found the woman standing alone to be just as attractive (average attractiveness rating, 2.70) as the woman interacting positively with the child (2.70). In fact, the varying contexts made little diference to men in their judgments of how attractive the woman was as a marriage partner. In short, women appear to have a specifc preference for and attraction to men who show a willingness to invest in children, but the reverse is not true. These fndings have been replicated by Gary Brase, who made several methodological improvements (Brase, 2006). An interesting study explored the importance of men’s interest in infants on women’s attraction to a man as a long-term mate (Roney, Hanson, Durante, & Maestripieri, 2006). The experimenters gave a sample of men the “interest in infants test,” which assesses the degree to which men prefer to look at infant faces—a measure that predicts men’s actual levels of interaction with infants. Next, these men’s faces were photographed. A sample of 29 women rated each photo on a set of variables that included “likes children.” Women also rated each man’s attractiveness as a short-term and long-term romantic partner. The results proved fascinating. First, women were able to accurately detect men’s interest in infants simply from looking at the photos of their faces. It is likely that women were picking up on the positivity and happiness in the facial expressions of men who had an interest in children. Second, men who women perceived as liking infants were judged to be very attractive as long-term mates; men’s perceived liking of infants, in contrast, did not boost their attractiveness in women’s eyes as a short-term mate. Taken together, these studies point to the importance of paternal qualities—a man’s interest in and willingness to invest in children—as critical to women’s selection of a longterm mate. Preference for Similarity Successful long-term mating requires sustained cooperative alliances over time. Similarity leads to emotional bonding, cooperation, communication, mating happiness, lower risk of breaking up, and possibly increased survival of children (Buss, 2003; Castro, Hattori, & Lopes, 2012). Women and men alike show strong preferences for mates who share their values, political orientations, worldviews, intellectual level, and, to a lesser extent, their personality characteristics. The preference for similarity translates into actual mating decisions, a phenomenon known as homogamy—people who are similar on these characteristics date (Wilson, Cousins, & Fink, 2006) and get married (Buss, 1985) more ofen than those who are dissimilar. Homogamy is strongest for intelligence, religiosity, and political orientation. It is positive but not strong for personality characteristics, including narcissism and manipulativeness (Kardum, Hudek-knezevic, Schmitt, & Covic, 2017). Homogamy for physical appearance might be due to “sexual imprinting” on the opposite-sex parent during childhood (Bereczkei, Gyuris, & Weisfeld, 2004). Interestingly, daughters who received more emotional support from their fathers were more likely to choose similar-looking mates (Nojo, Tamura, & Ihara, 2012; Watkins et al., 2011). Finally, there is strong homogamy for overall “mate value,” with the “10s” mating with other “10s” and the “6s” mating with other “6s” (Figueredo et al., 2015). 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES Additional Mate Preferences: Kindness, Humor, Incest Avoidance, and Voice Women’s desires are even more complex than the previous discussion indicates, and new discoveries are being made every year. Women greatly value the traits of kindness, altruism, and generosity in a long-term mate (Barclay, 2010; Phillips, Barnard, Ferguson, & Reader, 2008). The 37-culture study found “kind and understanding” was universally ranked as the most desirable quality in a long-term mate out of 13 ranked qualities (Buss et al., 1990). Barclay (2010) experimentally manipulated vignettes that difered only in the presence or absence of hints of altruistic tendencies (e.g., when the phrase “I enjoy helping people” was embedded within a longer description of the potential mate). Women strongly preferred men with altruistic tendencies as long-term mates. Kindness toward whom matters. Women fnd kindness to be especially desirable when the kind acts are directed toward themselves, their friends, and their family; they shif their preferences to lower levels of kindness when the kind acts are directed toward other targets such as other women (Lukaszewski & Roney, 2010). Kindness and altruistic proclivities signal the possession of abundant resources (Miller, 2007), the willingness to provide resources to a woman (Buss, 2016b), good character (Barclay, 2010), good parenting and partnering qualities (Buss & Shackelford, 2008; Tessman, 1995), and a cooperative and non–cost-inficting disposition (Buss, 2010). Women clearly prefer long-term mates who have a good sense of humor (Buss & Barnes, 1986; Miller, 2000). Humor has many facets, two of which are humor production (making witty remarks, telling jokes) and humor appreciation (laughing when someone else produces humor). In long-term mating, women prefer and fnd attractive men who produce humor, whereas men prefer women who are receptive to their humor (Bressler, Martin, & Balshine, 2006). Precisely why do women value humor in a mate? One theory proposes that humor is an indicator of “good genes” (a ftness indicator), signaling creativity and excellent functioning of complex cognitive skills that are not impaired by a high mutation load (Miller, 2000). Other research indicates that humor is used to indicate interest in initiating and maintaining social relationships (Li et al., 2009). Evolutionary psychologist Athena Aktipis speculates that humor indicates an ability to deal better with confict and to be able to resolve issues without escalating confict (personal communication, March 2018). If correct, a good sense of humor might render relationships especially resilient to the stresses and strains that all couples go through. Another set of preferences centers on what women avoid or fnd intolerable in a mate— what are informally called deal breakers. Incest avoidance is one of the most important. Reproducing with genetic relatives is known to create “inbreeding depression,” ofspring with more health problems and lower intelligence because of the expression of deleterious recessive genes. Humans have powerful incest-avoidance mechanisms, such as the emotion of disgust at the thought of passionately kissing or having sex with a sibling (Fessler & Navarrete, 2004; Lieberman et al., 2003). Growing up with a sibling is a key cue that activates the inbreeding-avoidance adaptation (Lieberman, 2009; Lieberman, Tooby, & Cosmides, 2007). Indeed, co-residence duration predicts sexual aversions to peers with whom one grows up (Lieberman & Lobel, 2012). These incest-avoidance mechanisms are stronger in women than in men, which is consistent with parental investment theory—given that women have greater obligatory parental investment in ofspring, the costs of making a poor mating decision are typically higher for women than for men. Indeed, the characteristic “is my sibling” is one of the most powerful “deal breakers” for women when considering a potential mate, right up there with “beats me up,” “will have sex with other people on a regular basis when he is with me,” and “is addicted to drugs” (Burkett & Cosmides, 2006). Other deal breakers include: is currently dating multiple partners, is untrustworthy, is already married or in a relationship, 119 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 120 has a drug or alcohol problem, has poor hygiene, and smells bad (Jonason, Garcia, Webster, Li, & Fisher, 2015). Several studies support the hypothesis that women fnd a deep voice especially attractive in a potential mate (Evans, Neave, & Wakelin, 2006; Feinberg, Jones, Little, Burt, & Perrett, 2005; Puts, 2005). Hypotheses for why a deep male voice is attractive are that it signals (1) sexual maturity, (2) larger body size or physical formidability, (3) good genetic quality, (4) dominance, or (5) all of the above. Men with attractive-sounding voices have sexual intercourse earlier and have a larger number of sex partners. These fndings, along with direct evidence that women prefer men with a low voice pitch mainly in casual sex partners, suggest that this preference is more central to short-term than to long-term mating (Puts, 2005; see Chapter 6). Context Efects on Women’s Mating Strategies From an evolutionary perspective, preferences are not predicted to operate blindly, oblivious to context or condition. Just as human desires for particular foods (e.g., ripe fruit) depend on context (e.g., whether one is hungry or full), women’s preferences in a mate also depend in part on relevant contexts. Several contexts have been explored: the magnitude of resources a woman already has prior to her search for a mate, the degree of economic inequality between the genders across cultures, other women’s apparent attraction to a man, the temporal context of mating (committed versus casual mating), and the woman’s mate value. Efects of Women’s Personal Resources on Mate Preferences An alternative explanation has been ofered for the preferences of women for men with resources—variously called the structural powerlessness, sex role socialization, or gender economic inequality hypothesis (Buss & Barnes, 1986; Eagly & Wood, 1999). According to this view, because women are typically excluded from power and access to resources, which are largely controlled by men, women seek mates who have power, status, and earning capacity. Women try to marry upward in socioeconomic status because this provides their primary channel for gaining access to resources. Men do not value economic resources in a mate as much as women do because they already have control over these resources and because women have fewer resources anyway. The society of Bakweri, from Cameroon in West Africa, provides one test case of this hypothesis by illustrating what happens when women have real power (Ardener, Ardener, & Warmington, 1960). Bakweri women hold greater personal and economic power because they have more resources and are in scarcer supply than men. Women secure resources not only through their own labors on plantations but also from casual sex, which is a lucrative source of income. There are roughly 236 men for every hundred women, an imbalance that results from the continual infux of men from other areas of the country to work on the plantations. Because of the extreme imbalance in numbers of the sexes, women have considerable latitude to exercise their choice in a mate. Women thus have more money than men and more potential mates to choose from. Yet Bakweri women persist in preferring mates with resources. Wives often complain about receiving insufcient support from their husbands. Lack of sufcient economic provisioning is the reason most frequently cited by women for divorce. Bakweri women change husbands if they fnd a man who can ofer them more resources and pay a larger bride-price. When women are in a position 4 WOMEN’S LONG-TERM MATiNG STRATEGiES to fulfll their evolved preference for a man with resources, they do so. Having personal control of economic resources apparently does not negate this mate preference. Professionally and economically successful women in the United States also value resources in men. One study identifed women who were fnancially successful, as measured by their salary and income, and contrasted their preferences in a mate with those of women with lower salaries and income (Buss, 1989a). The fnancially successful women were well educated, tended to hold professional degrees, and had high self-esteem. Successful women turned out to place an even greater value than less professionally successful women on mates who have professional degrees, high social status, and greater intelligence and who are tall, independent, and self-confdent. Women’s personal income was positively correlated with the income they wanted in an ideal mate (+.31), the desire for a mate who is a college graduate ( +.29), and the desire for a mate with a professional degree ( +.35). Contrary to the sex role hypothesis, these women expressed an even stronger preference for high-earning men than did women who are less fnancially successful. Professionally successful women, such as medical and law students, also place heavy importance on a mate’s earning capacity (Wiederman & Allgeier, 1992). Cross-cultural studies consistently fnd small but positive relationships between women’s personal access to economic resources and preferences for mates with resources. A study of 1,670 Spanish women seeking mates through personal advertisements found that women who have more resources and status were more likely to seek men with resources and status (GilBurmann, Pelaez, & Sanchez, 2002). A study of 288 Jordanians found that both women and men with high socioeconomic status place more, not less, value on the mate characteristics of having a college graduate degree and being ambitious-industrious (Khallad, 2005). A study of 127 individuals from Serbia concluded: “The high status of women correlated positively with their concern with a potential mate’s potential socio-economic status, contrary to the prediction of the socio-structural model” (Todosijevic, Ljubinkovic, & Arancic, 2003, p. 116). An internet study of 1,851 women, examining the efects of women’s actual income, found that “wealthier women prefer good fnancial prospects over physical attractiveness” (Moore, Cassidy, Smith, & Perrett, 2006, p. 201). Other large-scale cross-cultural studies continue to falsify or fail to support the structural powerlessness hypothesis, or social role theory as it is sometimes called (Lippa, 2009; Schmitt, 2012; Schmitt et al., 2009). The Mere Presence of Attractive Others: Mate Choice Copying Mate choices can be infuenced by the mating decisions of others. When a person’s attraction to or choice of a potential mate is infuenced by the preferences and mating decisions of others, this phenomenon is called mate choice copying. Mate copying has been documented earlier in a variety of species ranging from birds to fsh (Dugatkin, 2000; Hill & Ryan, 2006). Now it has been documented in humans. Two studies found that women judged a man to be more attractive when he was surrounded by women compared to when he was standing alone (Dunn & Doria, 2010; Hill & Buss, 2008a). Two other studies discovered a mate copying efect only when the man being evaluated was paired with a physically attractive woman (Little, Burriss, Jones, DeBruine, & Caldwell, 2008; Waynforth, 2007). Another study replicated the efect of a man being paired with an attractive woman using videotaped interactions in a speed-dating setting and found that the mate copying efect only occurred if the woman in the videotape showed interest in the man (Place, Todd, Penke, & Asendorpf, 2010). And another revealed that the efect is strongest when women believe that the man is actually partnered with the woman and infer that he possesses unobservable qualities that women prize in a potential mate (Hodehefer et al., 2016). Taken together, these studies reveal that women use social information, in this case a man being paired with an attractive and interested woman, as an important cue to his desirability as a mate. 121 ChALLENGES OF SEx AND MATiNG 122 Efects of Temporal Context on Women’s Mate Preferences A mating relationship can last for a lifetime, but ofen matings are of shorter duration. In Chapter 6, we will explore short-term mating in detail, but it is worthwhile to highlight now the fndings that show that women’s preferences shif as a function of temporal context. Buss and Schmitt (1993) asked women to rate 67 characteristics on their desirability in short-term and long-term mates. The rating scale ranged from −3 (extremely undesirable) to +3 (extremely desirable). Women found the following qualities to be more desirable in long-term marriage contexts than in short-term sexual contexts: “ambitious and career-oriented” (average rating, 2.45 in long term versus 1.04 in short term), “college graduate” (2.38 versus 1.05), “creative” (1.90 versus 1.29), “devoted to you” (2.80 versus 0.90), “fond of children” (2.93 versus 1.21), “kind” (2.88 versus 2.50), “understanding” (2.93 versus 2.10), “responsible” (2.75 versus 1.75), and “cooperative” (2.41 versus 1.47). These fndings suggest that temporal context matters a great deal for women, causing shifs in their preferences depending on whether a marriage partner or a casual sex partner is sought (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). Li and Kenrick (2006) found that women valued warmth and trustworthiness highly in a long-term mate but considerably less so in a short-term mate. In short, women seek “good partner” and “good dad” qualities in a long-term mate. Efects of Women’s Mate Value on Mate Preferences A woman’s physical attractiveness and youth are two indicators of her mate value, or overall desirability to men (see Chapter 5). As a consequence, women who are young and more physically attractive have more numerous mating options and so can become choosier in their selections. But does a woman’s mate value infuence her mate preferences? To fnd out, evolutionary psychologist Anthony Little and his colleagues had 71 women rate themselves on their perceptions of their own physical attractiveness and subsequently showed them photos of men’s faces that varied along the masculinity– femininity dimension (Little, Penton-Voak, Burt, & Perrett, 2002). Women’s self-rated attractiveness was signifcantly linked to attraction to masculine faces: the two variables correlated at +.32. Women who view themselves as physically attractive also show a more pronounced preference for symmetrical male faces (Feinberg et al., 2006) and men who display vocal masculinity, marked by a low-pitched voice (Pisanski & Feinberg, 2013). Studies of personal ads in Canada, the United States, Croatia, and Poland have found that women who are higher in mate value—women who are younger and more physically attractive— specifed a longer list of traits required in a potential mate than did women lower in mate value (Pawlowski & Dunbar, 1999a; Waynforth & Dunbar, 1995). Similar results have been found in Brazil (Campos, Otta, & Siqueira, 2002) and Japan (Oda, 2001). Furthermore, women who perceive themselves as higher in mate value tended to impose higher minimum standards in what they would require of a long-term mate on a wide variety of characteristics, notably social status, intelligence, and family orientation (Regan, 1998). A Croatian study of 885 found that women high on self-perceived physical attractiveness, compared to their less-attractive peers, preferred higher levels of education, intelligence, good health, good fnancial prospects, good looks, and favorable social status in a potential mate (Tadinac & Hromatko, 2007). A U.S. study had interviewers evaluate 107 women for face, body, and overall attractiveness (Buss & Shackelford, 2008). Attractive women expressed a desire for masculinity, physical attractiveness, sex appeal, and physical ftness. They also expressed a greater desire for potential income of a mate, good parenting qualities such as fondness for children, and good partner indicators such as being a