Sexual Relations
Humor ability reveals intelligence, predicts mating success, and is higher in males
Gil Greengross & Geoffrey Miller
Intelligence, July-August 2011, Pages 188-192
Abstract:
A good sense of humor is sexually attractive, perhaps because it reveals intelligence, creativity, and other ‘good genes' or ‘good parent' traits. If so, intelligence should predict humor production ability, which in turn should predict mating success. In this study, 400 university students (200 men and 200 women) completed measures of abstract reasoning (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices), verbal intelligence (the vocabulary subtest of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery), humor production ability (rated funniness of captions written for three cartoons), and mating success (from the Sexual Behaviors and Beliefs Questionnaire). Structural equation models showed that general and verbal intelligence both predict humor production ability, which in turn predicts mating success, such as lifetime number of sexual partners. Also, males showed higher average humor production ability. These results suggest that the human sense of humor evolved at least partly through sexual selection as an intelligence-indicator.
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Inge Lens et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
In line with evolutionary principles of reproduction and mate selection, the current research shows that women's attention to status cues fluctuates across their menstrual cycle. Specifically, we show that women pay more attention to status products in a visual display around ovulation than in other phases of their menstrual cycle. Pill use eliminates these cycle phase effects. The results are discussed in relation to research on female mating goals and conspicuous consumption.
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Mating Interest Improves Women's Accuracy in Judging Male Sexual Orientation
Nicholas Rule et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People can accurately infer others' traits and group memberships across several domains. We examined heterosexual women's accuracy in judging male sexual orientation across the fertility cycle (Study 1) and found that women's accuracy was significantly greater the nearer they were to peak ovulation. In contrast, women's accuracy was not related to their fertility when they judged the sexual orientations of other women (Study 2). Increased sexual interest brought about by the increased likelihood of conception near ovulation may therefore influence women's sensitivity to male sexual orientation. To test this hypothesis, we manipulated women's interest in mating using an unobtrusive priming task (Study 3). Women primed with romantic thoughts showed significantly greater accuracy in their categorizations of male sexual orientation (but not female sexual orientation) compared with women who were not primed. The accuracy of judgments of male sexual orientation therefore appears to be influenced by both natural variations in female perceivers' fertility and experimentally manipulated cognitive frames.
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Bruce Ellis et al.
Development and Psychopathology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Girls receiving lower quality paternal investment tend to engage in more risky sexual behavior (RSB) than peers. Whereas paternal investment theory posits that this effect is causal, it could arise from environmental or genetic confounds. To distinguish between these competing explanations, the current authors employed a genetically- and environmentally-controlled sibling design (N = 101 sister pairs; ages 18-36), which retrospectively examined the effects of differential sibling-exposure to family disruption/father absence and quality of fathering. Consistent with a causal explanation, differences between older and younger sisters in the effects of quality of fathering on RSB were greatest in biologically disrupted families when there was a large age gap between the sisters (thus maximizing differential exposure to fathers), with greater exposure within families to higher quality fathering serving as a protective factor against RSB. Further, variation around the lower end of fathering quality appeared to have the most influence on RSB. By contrast, differential sibling-exposure to family disruption/father absence (irrespective of quality of fathering) was not associated with RSB. The differential sibling-exposure design affords a new quasi-experimental method for evaluating the causal effects of fathers within families.
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Women's perception of men's sensation seeking propensity from their dance movements
Nadine Hugill et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Risk-taking behaviour in men, an expression of the more general personality trait sensation seeking, has been hypothesized to be an evolved aspect of male psychology that arose through sexual selection. Sensation seeking could be seen as a costly behavioural trait that signals a man's health and vigour and is preferred by women. This study extends knowledge about risk-taking as a cue in human mate choice by examining whether women can perceive men's sensation seeking propensity (assessed with the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V; SSS-V) by viewing their dance movements. We videotaped 50 men's dancing and had 60 women judge each dancer on perceived attractiveness and risk-taking. A positive and significant correlation was found between women's attractiveness judgements and male's SSS-V total score, thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility. Further, women's risk-taking judgements were related to men's boredom susceptibility. We conclude that (i) male sensation seeking propensity is signalled via their dance movements, and (ii) women are sensitive to these cues as they consider men who score high on sensation seeking as attractive. We discuss our results with reference to the evolutionary psychology concept of sexual selection and mate preferences.
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Flirting with Threat: Social Identity and the Perils of the Female Communality Prescription
Avi Ben-Zeev et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Women face a unique pressure to satisfy agentic/competence goals simultaneously with communal/likeability goals and are thus held to a different standard of "niceness." We examined whether women under stereotype threat - a phenomenon in which socially-devalued group members experience underperformance due to fear of confirming negative stereotypes (e.g., Steele, 1997) - might succumb to a communal/likeability prescription to engage in instrumental flirtation, or non-sexual flirtation-consistent behaviors, despite findings that women under threat disavowed flirtation in self-reports. In the current study, women's verbal flirtation-consistent behaviors were similarly low under threat and no-threat interview conditions. However, women under threat exhibited increased nonverbal flirtation-consistent behaviors (Experiment 1), likely indicating a conflict between idealized and actual behaviors. Furthermore, men perceived women under threat as signaling increased sexual intent (Experiment 2), a disconcerting real-world ramification. We situate data in theorizing based on identity bifurcation, the Integrated Process Model of Stereotype Threat, and Self-Discrepancy theory.
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Fertility and Intergroup Bias in Racial and Minimal-Group Contexts: Evidence for Shared Architecture
Melissa McDonald et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research has shown that White women's bias against Black men increases with elevated fertility across the menstrual cycle. We demonstrate that the association between fertility and intergroup bias is not limited to groups defined by race, but extends to group categories that are minimally defined, and may depend on the extent to which women associate out-group men with physical formidability. In Study 1, Black and White women with strong associations between the racial out-group and physical formidability displayed greater bias against out-group men as conception risk increased. Study 2 replicated these results in a minimal-group paradigm. These findings are consistent with the notion that women may be endowed with a psychological system that generates intergroup bias via mechanisms that rely on categorization heuristics and perceptions of the physical formidability of out-group men, particularly when the costs of sexual coercion are high.
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Why do men seek status? Fitness payoffs to dominance and prestige
Christopher von Rueden, Michael Gurven & Hillard Kaplan
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 22 July 2011, Pages 2223-2232
Abstract:
In many human societies, high male social status associates with higher fertility, but the means by which status increases lifetime fitness have not been systematically investigated. We analyse the pathways by which male status begets reproductive success in a small-scale, Amerindian society. Men who are more likely to win a dyadic physical confrontation, i.e. dominant men, have higher intra-marital fertility for their age, and men with more community-wide influence, i.e. prestigious men, exhibit both higher intra-marital fertility and lower offspring mortality. Both forms of status elicit support from allies and deference from competitors, but high status men are not provisioned more than their peers. Prestigious but not dominant men marry wives who first give birth at earlier ages, which multivariate analysis suggests is the strongest pathway between status and fitness in this population. Furthermore, men are motivated to pursue status because of fitness gains both within and outside of marital unions: dominant and prestigious men have more in-pair surviving offspring as well as more extra-marital affairs.
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Too much of a good thing? Variety is confusing in mate choice
Alison Lenton & Marco Francesconi
Biology Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Choice variety is supposed to increase the likelihood that a chooser's preferences are satisfied. To assess the effects of variety on real-world mate choice, we analysed human dating decisions across 84 speed-dating events (events in which people go on a series of sequential ‘mini-dates'). Results showed that choosers made fewer proposals (positive dating decisions) at events in which the available dates showed greater variety across such attributes as age, height, occupation and education, and this effect was particularly strong when choosers were confronted with a larger number of opposite-sex speed daters. Additionally, participants attending events in which the available options showed greater variety across these attributes were less likely to choose the consensually preferred mate option and more likely to choose no one at all. In contexts in which time is a limited resource, choice variety - rather than facilitating choice quality or increasing choosiness - is confusing and potentially detrimental to choice quality.
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Gül Günaydin et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does a new person's objective facial resemblance to a significant other influence snap judgments of liking, and if so, does this effect occur even when individuals are not consciously aware of the resemblance? Participants (romantic couples) made trait judgments about 24 novel faces, each shown for 500 ms. Objective facial resemblance was manipulated using morphing techniques such that half of the novel faces resembled participants' partner and half did not. We found that women's evaluations of novel men who resembled their partner (vs. those who did not) were more positive, but men's evaluations of novel women were not appreciably affected by facial resemblance. These results held even when individuals were not consciously aware of the resemblance. Moreover, the effect of facial resemblance on judgments of liking was more pronounced for individuals who were more satisfied in their relationship, suggesting that these results were due to activating the specific partner representation (rather than familiarity). This research shows that objective facial resemblance to a significant other influences snap judgments of liking automatically, effortlessly, and without conscious awareness.
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Social Influence Modulates the Neural Computation of Value
Jamil Zaki, Jessica Schirmer & Jason Mitchell
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social influence - individuals' tendency to conform to the beliefs and attitudes of others - has interested psychologists for decades. However, it has traditionally been difficult to distinguish true modification of attitudes from mere public compliance with social norms; this study addressed this challenge using functional neuroimaging. Participants rated the attractiveness of faces and subsequently learned how their peers ostensibly rated each face. Participants were then scanned using functional MRI while they rated each face a second time. The second ratings were influenced by social norms: Participants changed their ratings to conform to those of their peers. This social influence was accompanied by modulated engagement of two brain regions associated with coding subjective value - the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex - a finding suggesting that exposure to social norms affected participants' neural representations of value assigned to stimuli. These findings document the utility of neuroimaging to demonstrate the private acceptance of social norms.
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Thomas Pollet et al.
Hormones and Behavior, June 2011, Pages 72-77
Abstract:
Testosterone (T) has been argued to modulate mating and parenting behavior in many species, including humans. The role of T for these behaviors has been framed as the challenge hypothesis. Following this hypothesis, T should be positively associated with the number of opposite sex partners a male has. Indeed research in humans has shown that T is positively related to the number of opposite sex partners a young man has had. Here we test, in both men and women, whether this relationship extends to the lifetime number of sex partners. We also explored whether or not T was associated with current marital status, partnership status and whether or not the participant remarried. Using a large sample of elderly men and women (each sample n > 700), we show that T is positively and sizably associated with the number of opposite sex partners in men. When controlling for potential confounding variables such as educational attainment, age, BMI, ethnicity, specific use of a medication and time of sampling this effect remained. For women, the relationship between T and number of opposite sex partners was positive but did not prove to be robust. In both men and women there was no evidence for an association between T and current marital status and partnership status (being in a relationship or not). However, remarriage was positively associated with T, but only in males. Results are discussed with reference to the literature on T and sex partners, remarriage and more broadly the challenge hypothesis.
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Morten Frisch, Morten Lindholm & Morten Grønbæk
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Background: One-third of the world's men are circumcised, but little is known about possible sexual consequences of male circumcision. In Denmark (∼5% circumcised), we examined associations of male circumcision with a range of sexual measures in both sexes.
Methods: Participants in a national health survey (n = 5552) provided information about their own (men) or their spouse's (women) circumcision status and details about their sex lives. Logistic regression-derived odds ratios (ORs) measured associations of circumcision status with sexual experiences and current difficulties with sexual desire, sexual needs fulfilment and sexual functioning.
Results: Age at first intercourse, perceived importance of a good sex life and current sexual activity differed little between circumcised and uncircumcised men or between women with circumcised and uncircumcised spouses. However, circumcised men reported more partners and were more likely to report frequent orgasm difficulties after adjustment for potential confounding factors [11 vs 4%, ORadj = 3.26; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.42-7.47], and women with circumcised spouses more often reported incomplete sexual needs fulfilment (38 vs 28%, ORadj = 2.09; 95% CI 1.05-4.16) and frequent sexual function difficulties overall (31 vs 22%, ORadj = 3.26; 95% CI 1.15-9.27), notably orgasm difficulties (19 vs 14%, ORadj = 2.66; 95% CI 1.07-6.66) and dyspareunia (12 vs 3%, ORadj = 8.45; 95% CI 3.01-23.74). Findings were stable in several robustness analyses, including one restricted to non-Jews and non-Moslems.
Conclusions: Circumcision was associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women, notably orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia and a sense of incomplete sexual needs fulfilment. Thorough examination of these matters in areas where male circumcision is more common is warranted.
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The Next Problem With No Name: The Politics and Pragmatics of the Word Rape
Kate Lockwood Harris
Women's Studies in Communication, Spring 2011, Pages 42-63
Abstract:
In this study I asked women how the word rape fit and did not fit their own experiences of forced or unwanted sex with acquaintances. Although some participants noted that the term removed self-blame and indicated severity, most suggested that the word was limiting. It did not distinguish varied harms, created uncomfortable expectations for participants' behavior, eliminated moments of agency, and dichotomized experiences. By considering these limitations of available vocabulary, scholars may develop more robust theories of sexual violence.
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F.R. Moore et al.
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The stress-linked version of the immunocompetence handicap hypothesis has been proposed to account for inconsistencies in relationships between testosterone and immune response. The model has received some support from studies demonstrating roles of stress hormones in relationships between testosterone, immune function and secondary sexual ornamentation. Such work, however, has relied on artificial elevation of testosterone so may not reflect relationships in natural populations. We created human male facial stimuli on the basis of naturally co-occurring levels of salivary testosterone and the stress hormone cortisol. In Study 1 we tested female preferences for male faces with cues to combinations of the hormones across the menstrual cycle, and in Study 2 we tested perceptions of health and dominance in a novel set of facial stimuli. Females preferred cues to low cortisol, a preference that was strongest during the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle. The effects of cortisol on attractiveness and perceived health and dominance were contingent upon level of testosterone: the effects of the stress hormone were reduced when testosterone was high. We propose explanations for our results, including low cortisol as a cue to a heritable component of health, attractiveness as a predictor of low social-evaluative threat (and, therefore, low baseline cortisol) and testosterone as a proxy of male ability to cope efficiently with stressors.
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Sexual Well-Being: A Comparison of U.S. Black and White Women in Heterosexual Relationships
John Bancroft, Scott Long & Janice McCabe
Archives of Sexual Behavior, August 2011, Pages 725-740
Abstract:
In the United States, considerable attention has been directed to sexual behaviors of black and white adolescents, particularly age at first sexual experience and the prevalence of teenage pregnancies. More limited attention has been paid to comparing established sexual relationships in these two racial groups. In this study, we used a national probability sample to compare black (n = 251) and white (n = 544) American women, aged 20-65 years, who were in an established heterosexual relationship of at least 6 months duration. We focused on two aspects of their sexual well-being; how a woman evaluated (1) her sexual relationship and (2) her own sexuality. A range of possible determinants of sexual well-being, including demographic factors, physical and mental health, and aspects of the women's recent sexual experiences, were also assessed using Telephone-Audio-Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (T-ACASI). We found no significant difference between black and white women in their evaluation of their sexual relationships nor in the independent variables that were correlated with this evaluation. Black women, however, evaluated their own sexuality more positively than white women. In examining the correlates of this evaluation, a woman's rating of her own sexual attractiveness proved to be the strongest predictor, with black women rating themselves significantly more sexually attractive than did the white women. Overall, these findings were consistent with previous findings that, compared to white women, black women in the United States have higher self-esteem and tend towards more independence and individualism.
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Robin Edelstein, William Chopik & Emily Shipman
Hormones and Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Single individuals typically have higher testosterone compared to those who are partnered, suggesting that individual differences in testosterone are associated with mating effort, or people's motivation to find a sexual partner. However, there is less consistent evidence for links between testosterone and sociosexuality, or people's orientation toward uncommitted sexual activity. Based on Penke and Asendorpf's (2008) conceptualization, we propose that a more nuanced measure of sociosexuality may reveal more robust associations with testosterone. In the current study, we assessed relations between three components of sociosexuality - desire, behavior, and attitudes - and endogenous testosterone levels in men and women. We found that partnered status was indeed associated with lower testosterone in both men and women, but only among those who reported more restricted sociosexuality. Partnered men who reported greater desire for uncommitted sexual activity had testosterone levels that were comparable to those of single men; partnered women who reported more frequent uncommitted sexual behavior had testosterone levels that were comparable to those of single women. These findings provide new evidence that people's orientations toward sexual relationships, in combination with their relationship status, are associated with individual differences in testosterone. The current results are also among the first to demonstrate sociosexuality-testosterone associations in both men and women, and they reveal that the nature of these associations varies by gender. Together, these findings highlight the utility of a multifaceted conceptualization of sociosexuality and the implications of this conceptualization for neuroendocrine processes.
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Sex during menstruation: Race, sexual identity, and women's accounts of pleasure and disgust
Breanne Fahs
Feminism & Psychology, May 2011, Pages 155-178
Abstract:
While much research has addressed negativity surrounding women's menstruation, surprisingly little research has interrogated the relationship between menstruation and sexuality. This study used inductive thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with 40 women across a range of age, race and sexual orientation backgrounds to examine women's experiences with sex during menstruation. Results showed that, while 25 women described negative reactions - and two described neutral reactions - 13 women described positive reactions to menstrual sex. Negative responses cohered around four themes: women's discomfort and physical labor to clean ‘messes', overt partner discomfort, negative self-perception and emotional labor to manage partner's disgust. Positive responses cohered around two themes: physical and emotional pleasure from sex while menstruating, and rebellion against anti-menstrual attitudes. Notable race and sexual identity differences appeared, as white women and bisexual or lesbian-identified women described positive feelings about menstrual sex more than women of color or heterosexual women. Bisexual women with male partners described more positive reactions to menstrual sex than did heterosexual women with male partners, implying that heterosexual identity related to negative menstrual sex attitudes more than heterosexual behavior. Those with positive menstrual sex attitudes also enjoyed masturbation more than others. Implications for sexual identity and racial identity informing body practices, partner choice affecting women's body affirmation, and women's resistance against common cultural ideas about women's bodies as ‘disgusting' were addressed.