For Love
Connect or protect? Social class and self-protection in romantic relationships
Lydia Emery & Eli Finkel
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, April 2022, Pages 683–699
Abstract:
Lower SES (socioeconomic status) couples tend to face particular challenges in their relationships. Relative to higher SES couples, they are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce—but they do not value their romantic relationships any less. Drawing on risk regulation theory and theories of social class as culture, we suggest that lower SES individuals adapt to their more chronically precarious environments by prioritizing self-protection more than higher SES individuals do, but that the need to self-protect may undermine relationship satisfaction. We investigate these ideas across 3 studies, using cross-sectional, longitudinal, and daily-diary methods. Lower SES individuals were more self-protective, both in their thoughts about their relationship (Studies 2–3), and in the judgments they made about their partner’s commitment level over 2 years (Study 1) and 2 weeks (Study 3). Self-protection, in turn, was associated with lower relationship satisfaction (Studies 2–3). However, lower SES individuals were only self-protective when feeling vulnerable in their relationships (Study 3). Taken together, these studies identify psychological mechanisms to explain why the structural challenges that lower SES individuals experience can make it more difficult to achieve satisfying relationships.
Kin-directed altruism and the evolution of male androphilia among Istmo Zapotec Muxes
Francisco Gómez Jiménez & Paul Vasey
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Male androphilia (i.e., sexual attraction and arousal to adult males) is considered an evolutionary puzzle because it reduces direct reproduction, but is influenced by genetic factors, reliably occurs across cultures, and has persisted over evolutionary time. The kin selection hypothesis states that genes for male androphilia can be maintained in a population if the costs of not reproducing directly are offset by enhancing the reproduction of kin. We tested this hypothesis among the Istmo Zapotec of Oaxaca, Mexico, where transgender and cisgender androphilic males are known as muxe gunaa and muxe nguiiu, respectively. We compared altruistic tendencies towards kin and non-kin children between muxe nguiiu (n = 106), muxe gunaa (n = 106), gynephilic men (i.e., men sexually attracted and aroused to adult females; n = 172), and androphilic women (n = 130). We also assessed whether the sisters of muxes (n = 96) reported receiving more childcare support from their muxe sibling compared to women with only gynephilic brothers (n = 65). The results showed that cisgender and transgender muxes reported more kin-directed altruistic tendencies than men. Muxe nguiiu also reported more kin-directed altruistic tendencies than women. When controlling for altruistic tendencies towards non-kin children, both muxe types exhibited more kin-directed altruistic tendencies than men and women. Women with muxe siblings reported receiving more childcare support from these relatives compared to women with only gynephilic brothers. These findings provide support for the kin selection hypothesis and highlight its potential role in elucidating the evolutionary paradox of male androphilia.
Pragmatic Men, Romantic Women: Popularity Feedback on Online Dating Platforms
Lanfei Shi, Peng Huang & Jui Ramaprasad
University of Maryland Working Paper, November 2021
Abstract:
Popularity feedback (e.g., upvotes on Reddit) is increasingly employed by digital platforms to motivate user participation, and such information is typically accessible to the public. Given the extrinsic incentives associated with such publicity, it is not clear whether feedback interventions would have similar effects when feedback information is delivered in private, i.e., it can only be viewed by the focal user for privacy reasons. Moreover, many digital platforms provide popularity information in both absolute and relative terms, and it remains unknown if users respond to the different types of feedback information in the same way. In collaboration with an online dating service provider, we design and conduct two randomized field experiments in which we provide private feedback to platform users. In the first experiment, we reveal information about their popularity relative to other users and investigate their post-feedback behavioral changes in two engagement strategies: the selectivity for potential partners they pursue (i.e., selectivity calibration) and the frequency of their online profile modifications (i.e., self-marketing). We find that the way individuals react to comparative popularity feedback is contingent on both revealed popularity and gender. Specifically, those who receive low-popularity feedback significantly increase self-marketing efforts and lower their selectivity, but the opposite is observed in individuals who receive high-popularity feedback. We also find that males exhibit pragmatic adaptations in selectivity calibration and self-marketing, whereas females display a 'romantic' persistence and show little strategic change in their behavior. We then compare the outcomes with those from a second experiment in which the intervention reveals absolute popularity instead of relative popularity, and conclude that social comparison associated with relative popularity drives user behavioral changes.
Female intrasexual competition is affected by the sexual orientation of the target and the ovulatory cycle
Nicoletta Bakolas & Justin Park
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research suggests that women use indirect aggression strategies to compete with same-sex peers and improve their mating prospects. One such tactic involves strategically transmitting reputation-damaging information as opposed to reputation-enhancing information, to lessen the appeal of sexual rivals. The present study further examined whether this strategic information transmission constitutes an intrasexual competition strategy, by comparing denigration of same-sex peers who constitute sexual competitors or noncompetitors as determined by their sexual orientation. This study also explored the impact of the ovulatory cycle on this strategy, following research suggesting that hormone fluctuation drives subtle behavioral changes near ovulation, amplifying other forms of intrasexual competition between women. Results indicated that among women identifying as straight, exposure to a same-sex peer who constituted a sexual rival (straight/bisexual target) led to greater transmission of reputation-damaging information relative to reputation-enhancing information, compared with exposure to a noncompetitor (lesbian target). The ovulatory cycle was found to be associated with denigration, but this did not depend on the sexuality of the target. Participants in the estimated high-estrogen phase showed greater denigration overall than participants in the low-estrogen phase, regardless of the target’s sexuality.
Resource availability differentially influences women’s perceptions of same- (versus cross-) sex others’ competitiveness
Hannah Bradshaw, Jaimie Arona Krems & Sarah Hill
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across four studies, the current research tested the prediction that women would perceive greater competitive tendencies in same- (vs. cross-) sex others when resources were scarce. Contrary to predictions, results found evidence that women perceived more competitive tendencies in same- (vs. cross-) sex targets when resources were abundant. Study 1 demonstrated that women (but not men) perceived greater competition within groups of female same-sex targets (vs. groups of male same-sex targets and groups of cross-sex targets) residing in ecologies where resources were widely available; no such pattern emerged when judging competition within groups residing in ecologies where resources were scarce. In Study 2, women (but not men) who held relatively low levels of resource scarcity beliefs (i.e., those who believed resources were relatively abundant) attributed greater competitive tendencies to same-sex targets than cross-sex targets. Study 3 showed that enacting a resource abundance (but not a scarcity) mindset led women to expect same-sex targets to behave more competitively toward them than cross-sex targets; this effect, however, did not replicate in Study 4. With the exception of Study 4, these data suggest that, contrary to intuition — and our predictions — women perceive same-sex others to be more competitive than cross-sex others when resources are abundant.
The effects of job displacement on spousal health
Nicholas Jolly
Review of Economics of the Household, March 2022, Pages 123–152
Abstract:
This paper studies how job displacement influences the health of the worker’s spouse. Results show that the husband’s displacement leads to an increase in the probability of the wife reporting her physical health as fair/poor. These wives are also more likely to experience high blood pressure, heart disease, and/or emotional issues. Wives who are in poor health at baseline, are in low financial standing prior to the husbands’ job loss, are not working two years before the husbands’ job loss, and have children at home at the time of the husbands’ displacement tend to drive these results. Husbands of displaced wives experience little change in self-reported health, the probability of high blood pressure, heart disease, or emotional issues.