Finding Love
Experienced Love: An Empirical Account
Saurabh Bhargava
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article presents new evidence on the prevalence, dynamics, and hedonic correlates of experienced love from data describing the emotion, well-being, and time use of a diverse sample of 3,867 U.S. adults every half hour for 10 days (N = 1.12 million) supplemented by a hedonic snapshot of an additional 7,255 adults. The findings allude to the seemingly functional and adaptive nature of love and to similarities across binary gender -- men and women reported comparable degrees of (passionate) partner love overall, elevated partner love after prolonged same-day separations, substantially elevated well-being in love’s presence, and reduced (but not extinguished) partner love in mature marital cohorts. The gender differences that were found -- women reported more child love than men, and men exhibited a less pronounced reduction in partner love across cohorts -- are also consistent with functional accounts of love that recognize the varying role of men and women in the formation and sustenance of relationships.
Perceptions of Income Inequality and Women’s Intrasexual Competition
Abby Ruder et al.
Human Nature, December 2023, Pages 605-620
Abstract:
Income inequality has been empirically linked to interpersonal competition and risk-taking behaviors, but a separate line of findings consistently shows that individuals have inaccurate perceptions of the actual levels of income inequality in society. How can inequality be both consistently misperceived and yet a reliable predictor of behavior? The present study extends both these lines of research by evaluating if the scope of input used to assess income inequality (i.e., at the national, state, county, or postal code level) can account for perception discrepancies and if actual/perceived inequality is associated with female intrasexual competition. Female participants recruited online from the general US population (n = 691) provided demographic information, measures of perceived income inequality, and measures of intrasexual competition attitudes and behavior. Actual and perceived income inequality (at any level) did not predict negative attitudes toward other women or female weighting of physical appearance as a desirable trait. Perceived income inequality and actual county-level inequality was, however, predictive of female competition in the form of self-sexualization clothing choice. Further analyses found that age and importance placed on physical attractiveness also predicted women’s clothing choices. Perceptions of income inequality were predicted not by actual Gini indices, but by beliefs about the levels of poverty and income gaps. These results highlight the importance of better understanding the proximate cues by which people perceive environmental features such as inequality, and how those cues are used to adjust interpersonal behaviors.
Celebrity Infidelity and Sex Crimes: An Empirical Investigation of Cheating, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, and Solicitation
Adam Lankford, Hannah Rae Evans & Austin Bowling
Sexuality & Culture, February 2024, Pages 333-353
Abstract:
Although celebrity infidelity and sex crimes have received much attention in recent years, there has been almost no criminological research on these behaviors among a large sample of celebrities. For this study, we closely analyzed infidelity, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and solicitation of sex workers among 200 of the most famous celebrities in America. Overall, our quantitative results strongly suggest that (1) celebrity men are far more likely to commit sexual transgressions than celebrity women, (2) celebrities who cheat on their romantic partner have a substantially increased risk of also committing sexual harassment, sexual assault, and solicitation, and (3) celebrity men are much more likely to engage in infidelity than men in the U.S. general population. Our results also provide some support for the possibility that celebrity women may be more prone to infidelity than the average American woman and celebrity men may be more likely to commit sexual harassment, sexual assault, or solicitation than the average American man. We interpret these findings in the context of sexual frustration theory, given that celebrities may experience more sexual temptations than the average person and some may feel more entitled to have their sexual demands met.
Adaptive Calibration of Dyadic Sexual Desire Is Sex Differentiated and Disrupted by Hormonal Contraceptives
Juliana French, Anastasia Makhanova & Andrea Meltzer
Archives of Sexual Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Adaptive calibration models suggest that features of people’s childhood ecologies can shape their reproductive outcomes in adulthood. Given the importance of dyadic sexual desire (i.e., desire for sex with a partner) for relationships and reproduction, we examined the extent to which people’s childhood ecologies -- especially the unpredictability of those ecologies -- adaptively calibrate such desire. Nevertheless, because female (versus male) sexual desire is presumed to be more sensitive to situational factors, and because hormonal contraceptives alter myriad aspects of female physiology that influence female sexual desire, we predicted that adaptive calibration of dyadic sexual desire would emerge more strongly for naturally cycling females (versus females who use hormonal contraceptives and versus males). In Study 1, a total of 630 participants (159 males, 203 naturally cycling females, and 268 females using hormonal contraceptives) completed questionnaires assessing the harshness and unpredictability of their childhood ecologies as well as their sexual desire. Consistent with predictions, childhood unpredictability (but not harshness) was positively associated with dyadic (but not solitary) sexual desire among naturally cycling females (but not among females using hormonal contraceptives nor among males). Study 2, which consisted of 736 females (307 naturally cycling females, 429 females using hormonal contraceptives), replicated this pattern of results for females. These findings add to a growing literature suggesting that the instability of people’s early childhood ecologies can adaptively calibrate their adult reproductive motivations and behaviors, including their dyadic sexual desire. Not only is the current finding among the first to show that some adaptive calibration processes may be sex differentiated, it further highlights that hormonal contraceptives, which alter the evolved reproductive physiology of females, may disrupt adaptive calibration processes (though such disruption may not be inherently negative).
Health Effects of Cousin Marriage: Evidence From U.S. Genealogical Records
Sam Hwang, Deaglan Jakob & Munir Squires
University of British Columbia Working Paper, October 2023
Abstract:
Cousin marriage rates are high in many countries today. We provide the first estimate of the effect of such marriages on the life expectancy of offspring. By studying couples married over a century ago, we observe their offspring across the lifespan. Using US genealogical data to identify children whose parents were first cousins, we compare their years of life to the offspring of their parents’ siblings. We find that marrying a cousin leads to more than a three-year reduction in offspring life expectancy. This effect is strikingly stable across time, despite large changes in life expectancy and economic environment.