He said, she said
Can you get the magic back? The moderating effect of passion decay beliefs on relationship commitment
Kathleen Carswell & Eli Finkel
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present research introduces the construct of a decay theory of passion - a lay belief that romantic passion decline is irreversible - and investigates how this construct interacts with existing levels of passion for one's romantic partner to predict lower relationship commitment and greater pursuit of romantic alternatives. Across three studies employing experimental and nonexperimental procedures - and a set of meta-analytic syntheses including additional studies - results generally supported the hypotheses that, although low passion is linked to lower commitment and greater pursuit of romantic alternatives, such effects are stronger when adherence to decay beliefs is high rather than low. These effects tended to be independent of effects of destiny and growth theories (Knee, 1998), a related set of lay theories in the domain of relationships. Mediated moderation analyses revealed that the moderating effect of decay theories on relationship commitment mediates the moderating effect of decay theories on the link between low passion and the pursuit of romantic alternatives. Discussion addresses the possibility that changing one's beliefs surrounding the nature of romantic passion may be an important, but previously overlooked, means for preventing one from prematurely abandoning an otherwise satisfying relationship.
Pornography and Sexual Behavior: Do Sexual Attitudes Mediate or Confound?
Paul Wright
Communication Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using four separate national probability metasamples of adults in the United States, two measures of pornography consumption, two measures of sexual attitudes, and two measures of sexual behavior, this article pits two macrotheories on pornography and its behavioral effects against each other in competing, falsifiable hypothesis tests. Specifically, the article compares the libertarian theory of pornography's hypothesis that sexual attitudes are a confound of the pornography consumption-sexual behavior relationship, with the sexual scripting theory of pornography's hypothesis that sexual attitudes are a mediator of the pornography consumption-sexual behavior relationship. No evidence was found to support the argument that pornography consumption-sexual behavior relationships are spurious and due to preexisting sexual attitudes. Alternatively, analyses uniformly supported the conceptualization of sexual attitudes as a mediating link between pornography consumption and sexual behavior.
The scent of attractiveness: Levels of reproductive hormones explain individual differences in women's body odour
Janek Lobmaier et al.
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 12 September 2018
Abstract:
Individuals are thought to have their own distinctive body odour which reportedly plays an important role in mate choice. In the present study we investigated individual differences in body odours of women and examined whether some women generally smell more attractive than others or whether odour preferences are a matter of individual taste. We then explored whether levels of reproductive hormones explain women's body odour attractiveness, to test the idea that body odour attractiveness may act as a chemosensory marker of reproductive fitness. Fifty-seven men rated body odours of 28 healthy, naturally cycling women of reproductive age. We collected all odours at peak fertility to control for menstrual cycle effects on body odour attractiveness. Women's salivary oestradiol, progesterone, testosterone and cortisol levels were assessed at the time of odour collection to test whether hormone levels explain body odour attractiveness. We found that the men highly agreed on how attractive they found women's body odours. Interestingly, women's body odour attractiveness was predicted by their oestradiol and progesterone levels: the higher a woman's levels of oestradiol and the lower her levels of progesterone, the more attractive her body odour was rated. In showing that women's body odour attractiveness is explained by levels of female reproductive hormones, but not by levels of cortisol or testosterone, we provide evidence that body odour acts as a valid cue to potential fertility.
Using 26,000 diary entries to show ovulatory changes in sexual desire and behavior
Ruben Arslan et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research reported ovulatory changes in women's appearance, mate preferences, extra- and in-pair sexual desire, and behavior, but has been criticized for small sample sizes, inappropriate designs, and undisclosed flexibility in analyses. In the present study, we sought to address these criticisms by preregistering our hypotheses and analysis plan and by collecting a large diary sample. We gathered more than 26,000 usable online self-reports in a diary format from 1,043 women, of which 421 were naturally cycling. We inferred the fertile period from menstrual onset reports. We used hormonal contraceptive users as a quasi-control group, as they experience menstruation, but not ovulation. We probed our results for robustness to different approaches (including different fertility estimates, different exclusion criteria, adjusting for potential confounds, moderation by methodological factors). We found robust evidence supporting previously reported ovulatory increases in extra-pair desire and behavior, in-pair desire, and self-perceived desirability, as well as no unexpected associations. Yet, we did not find predicted effects on partner mate retention behavior, clothing choices, or narcissism. Contrary to some of the earlier literature, partners' sexual attractiveness did not moderate the cycle shifts. Taken together, the replicability of the existing literature on ovulatory changes was mixed. We conclude with simulation-based recommendations for reading the past literature and for designing future large-scale preregistered within-subject studies to understand ovulatory cycle changes and the effects of hormonal contraception. Interindividual differences in the size of ovulatory changes emerge as an important area for further study.
What people prefer and what they think they prefer in short- and long-term partners. The effects of the phase of the menstrual cycle, hormonal contraception, pregnancy, and the marital and the parenthood status on partner preferences
Jaroslav Flegr et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The issue with most studies concerned with mate selection preferences in humans is that they rely on declarations and rational actions of experimental subjects, which are affected by their pre-conceived opinions and prejudices. Moreover, current research suggests that subcortical structures and processes, rather than the neocortex, play the principal role in actual partner choice behaviour. Consequently, we have only limited information on how relevant our current knowledge is in relation to real-life human ethology. To address these issues, we surveyed 2718 women and 4073 men between the ages of 16-50 and compared their declared and observed preferences for various properties in short-term and long-term partners. We found differences between what the subjects declared to prefer and what they preferred in reality: for example, men declared that wealth was the second least desirable property out of eleven in short-term partners, but we observed that in reality, they considered wealth the third most important factor after charisma and sense of humour. Similarly, while women declared that dominance and masculinity were desirable properties in short-term partners, in the observational part of the study, they showed little preference for these traits. Furthermore, we investigated the effects of the phase of the menstrual cycle, hormonal contraception, pregnancy, and partnership and parenthood status on these preferences. We found some support for the good parents hypothesis and no support for the good genes and the immunocompetence handicap hypotheses when observed, rather than declared preferences were considered. We also detected that hormonal contraception, and parenthood and partnership status influenced declared preferences in considerable ways, but had only a small, if any, impact on observed preferences. We suggest interpreting the results of studies reliant on declarations and rational actions of experimental subjects with great caution.
Pathogen avoidance mechanisms affect women's preference for symmetrical male faces
Sarah Ainsworth & Jon Maner
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current experiments tested the hypothesis that situational pathogen cues would increase mate preferences for facial symmetry-a characteristic thought to signal immunocompetence. Across 2 experiments, participants were primed with situational disease cues and were asked to select the more desirable of 2 virtually identical faces or nonsocial stimuli. In each case, one image of the pair had been altered to be highly symmetrical. Results of both experiments indicated that exposure to disease cues increased preference for symmetrical opposite sex targets, an effect that was relatively stronger among women than men (Experiment 2). No effects were observed for same-sex targets (Experiments 1 and 2) or nonsocial stimuli (Experiment 1). These experiments provide a conceptual replication of research reported by Little, DeBruine, and Jones (2011) and Young, Sacco, and Hugenberg (2011) and extend the literature on disease avoidance and mate preferences by offering new evidence that disease avoidance may be associated with stronger preference for facial symmetry in female perceivers than male perceivers.