bims-chumac Biomed News
on Context effects on human mate choice
Issue of 2021–08–01
six papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Arch Sex Behav. 2021 Jul 29.
      Men, relative to women, can benefit their total reproductive success by engaging in short-term pluralistic mating. Yet not all men enact such a mating strategy. It has previously been hypothesized that high mate value men should be most likely to adopt a short-term mating strategy, with this prediction being firmly grounded in some important mid-level evolutionary psychological theories. Yet evidence to support such a link has been mixed. This paper presents a comprehensive meta-analysis of 33 published and unpublished studies (N = 5928) in which we find that that self-reported mate value accounts for roughly 6% of variance in men's sociosexual orientation. The meta-analysis provides evidence that men's self-perceived mate value positively predicts their tendency to engage in short-term mating, but that the total effect size is small.
    Keywords:  Mate value; Mating strategies; Meta-analysis; Sexual behavior; Sociosexual orientation; Strategic pluralism theory
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01937-6
  2. J Fam Psychol. 2021 Jul 29.
      Little research exists concerning the Western marriage proposal ritual, and rejected proposals are particularly understudied. The current research used the lens of life script theory to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze 374 first-person written accounts of accepted and rejected marriage proposals between men and women that were sampled from online forums. Rejected proposals were more likely than accepted proposals to violate the proposal script. Compared to accepted proposals, rejected proposals included fewer ritual elements and they often happened "off-time." Specifically, rejected proposals came earlier in the relationship, typically prior to the discussion of the topic of marriage by the couple, and rejected men sometimes proposed to "save" an unstable or abusive relationship that was headed toward dissolution. As with other important life transition events, audiences played an important role in many proposals. Rejected proposals were more likely to occur in public than accepted proposals, and when present, audience members often participated in the proposal by encouraging couples to follow the proposal script and by expressing dissatisfaction when the script was violated. Some audiences became hostile when the woman said "no." Also consistent with life script theory, couples evinced strong emotions during proposals, and confusion and anger were common emotional responses among rejected suitors. Indeed, 15% of rejected proposal accounts described intimate partner violence. Yet, about 30% of relationships continued after the rejection, sometimes for years. These and other novel results contribute to the science of close relationships, family psychology, life script theory, commitment, rejection, and social rituals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000903
  3. Psych J. 2021 Jul 28.
      People evaluated their own voices as sounding more attractive than others rated their voices (i.e., self-enhancement effect from the perspective of the rater, termed "SE_rater"), and people also rated their own voices as more attractive than the voices of others (i.e., self-enhancement effect from the perspective of the voice, termed "SE_voice"). The aim of the present study is to explore whether the gender context (i.e., same-sex and opposite-sex rating context) could influence the SE effect of voice attractiveness evaluation. Male and female participants were asked to rate the attractiveness of their own voices and other participants' voices, either in a same-sex session or an opposite-sex session. The results demonstrated both the SE_rater and SE_voice effect in the same-sex and opposite-sex contexts, for both male and female. More importantly, we found that the SE_rater for the male voices was significantly greater than that for the female voices in the same-sex context whereas no such difference was found in the opposite-sex context. In addition, the SE_voice effect in men was larger in the same-sex context than that in the opposite-sex context whereas the SE_voice in women was smaller in the same-sex context than that in the opposite-sex context. These findings indicated that the self-enhancement effect of vocal attractiveness was modulated by the gender context.
    Keywords:  attractiveness; context; gender; self-enhancement effect; self-voice
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/pchj.472
  4. Arch Sex Behav. 2021 Jul 30.
      Gender norms related to sexual behavior have a pervasive impact on the psychosocial development of men. These norms have been theorized to influence the formation of male sexual scripts, including those that place high emphasis on performative abilities. While research has indicated that endorsing performance-based scripts can have negative consequences, little work has examined how this sexual ideology is communicated by men to their peer groups. Using structural equation modeling, the current study tested a model of openness to communicate sexual behavior that is incongruent with existing performance-based scripts. A sample of 424 men were recruited from a variety of Internet platforms to participate in a one-time online survey. Results demonstrated that endorsing performance-based scripts impeded men's ability to discuss sexual behavior with male peers, female peers, and sexual partners. Men's lack of transparency about particular sexual experiences may be contributing to harmful narratives that rigidly emphasize sexual performance.
    Keywords:  Male sexuality; Sexual communication; Sexual performance; Sexual script theory
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01980-3
  5. Popul Res Policy Rev. 2021 Aug;40(4): 771-793
      Despite changes in marriage's role in young adulthood, youth in the United States report similar or higher expectations to marry than those from decades before, and very few report explicit expectations to not marry. Marital expectations may be one way to understand if the U.S. is indeed experiencing a second demographic transition, and uncertainty in those answers may provide additional information beyond simply yes and no. Using public-use data from 1976 to 2017 from the 12th Grade Monitoring the Future annual cross-sectional surveys, I found that young men and women were more likely to report uncertainty than explicitly expect not to marry, and that boys were generally more uncertain than girls. Slight changes in past decades suggest that boys are becoming more certain regarding marriage, however, and gender differences have diminished over time. Additionally, between 2008 and 2017, I found that boys with the greatest educational prospects were the least likely to report uncertainty about marriage. Uncertainty is common in adolescent marital expectations and should be considered as a possibly informative answer to questions about hypothetical marriages. Results suggest that marriage continues to hold strong meaning in adolescents' ideals.
    Keywords:  gender; marriage; marriage expectations; second demographic transition
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-020-09614-7
  6. Sex Cult. 2021 Jul 20. 1-19
      The romance plot is one of the most pervasive narratives in Western society. It is a cultural masterplot: a story with which almost everyone is familiar, which can deeply and intrinsically shape the way we think about how we live. This article examines how people interact with the romance masterplot and how it affects their search for love on dating apps in Australia during the global pandemic in 2020. Using data drawn from interviews and focus groups, and combining sociological research and narrative theory, we explore the way the romance masterplot affects the way people approach romance in dating apps, and how this has been complicated by the pandemic. We propose that participants use of dating apps in this period was characterised by 'jagged love', which we have theorised in relation to Zygmunt Bauman's notion of 'liquid love'. This manifested cyclically, as participants turned to the apps seeking the security offered by the romance masterplot in a time of global uncertainty; swiped, matched, and messaged in large numbers, and lost faith in the apps ability to deliver on the romantic masterplot. While episodic behaviour on dating apps is not new, the pandemic heightened and accelerated the process as people desperately sought the certainty offered by the romance masterplot, quickly lost faith because of the limitations of the pandemic, and then returned again.
    Keywords:  Covid-19; Dating apps; Intimacy; Jagged love; Romance narratives; Romantic love
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09896-9