bims-chumac 2022-04-03 papers

bims-chumac

Biomed News

on Context effects on human mate choice

Issue of 2022–04–03
seven papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society

Are Toxoplasma-infected subjects more attractive, symmetrical, or healthier than non-infected ones? Evidence from subjective and objective measurements.
Knowing me, knowing you: Interpersonal similarity improves predictive accuracy and reduces attributions of harmful intent.
The influence of facial attractiveness and personal characteristics on imitation.
Body Gaze as a Marker of Sexual Objectification: A New Scale for Pervasive Gaze and Gaze Provocation Behaviors in Heterosexual Women and Men.
Safe Dating in the Digital Era: Protective Behavioral Strategies in Dating Behaviors Facilitated by Dating Applications.
The role of sex and emotion on emotion perception in artificial faces: An ERP study.
What Stops Unwanted Sexual and Social Advances Made by Heavy Drinking College Men?

PeerJ. 2022 ;10 e13122

Are Toxoplasma-infected subjects more attractive, symmetrical, or healthier than non-infected ones? Evidence from subjective and objective measurements.

Javier I Borráz-León, Markus J Rantala, Indrikis A Krams, Ana Lilia Cerda-Molina, Jorge Contreras-Garduño.

   Background: Parasites are among the main factors that negatively impact the health and reproductive success of organisms. However, if parasites diminish a host's health and attractiveness to such an extent that finding a mate becomes almost impossible, the parasite would decrease its odds of reproducing and passing to the next generation. There is evidence that Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) manipulates phenotypic characteristics of its intermediate hosts to increase its spread. However, whether T. gondii manipulates phenotypic characteristics in humans remains poorly studied. Therefore, the present research had two main aims: (1) To compare traits associated with health and parasite resistance in Toxoplasma-infected and non-infected subjects. (2) To investigate whether other people perceive differences in attractiveness and health between Toxoplasma-infected and non-infected subjects of both sexes.
Methods: For the first aim, Toxoplasma-infected (n = 35) and non-infected subjects (n = 178) were compared for self-perceived attractiveness, number of sexual partners, number of minor ailments, body mass index, mate value, handgrip strength, facial fluctuating asymmetry, and facial width-to-height ratio. For the second aim, an independent group of 205 raters (59 men and 146 women) evaluated the attractiveness and perceived health of facial pictures of Toxoplasma-infected and non-infected subjects.
Results: First, we found that infected men had lower facial fluctuating asymmetry whereas infected women had lower body mass, lower body mass index, a tendency for lower facial fluctuating asymmetry, higher self-perceived attractiveness, and a higher number of sexual partners than non-infected ones. Then, we found that infected men and women were rated as more attractive and healthier than non-infected ones.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that some sexually transmitted parasites, such as T. gondii, may produce changes in the appearance and behavior of the human host, either as a by-product of the infection or as the result of the manipulation of the parasite to increase its spread to new hosts. Taken together, these results lay the foundation for future research on the manipulation of the human host by sexually transmitted pathogens and parasites.

Keywords:  Attractiveness; Fluctuating asymmetry; Health; Parasites; Toxoplasma gondii

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13122
Cognition. 2022 Mar 26. pii: S0010-0277(22)00086-5. [Epub ahead of print]225 105098

Knowing me, knowing you: Interpersonal similarity improves predictive accuracy and reduces attributions of harmful intent.

J M Barnby, N Raihani, P Dayan.

  To benefit from social interactions, people need to predict how their social partners will behave. Such predictions arise through integrating prior expectations with evidence from observations, but where the priors come from and whether they influence the integration into beliefs about a social partner is not clear. Furthermore, this process can be affected by factors such as paranoia, in which the tendency to form biased impressions of others is common. Using a modified social value orientation (SVO) task in a large online sample (n = 697), we showed that participants used a Bayesian inference process to learn about partners, with priors that were based on their own preferences. Paranoia was associated with preferences for earning more than a partner and less flexible beliefs regarding a partner's social preferences. Alignment between the preferences of participants and their partners was associated with better predictions and with reduced attributions of harmful intent to partners. Together, our data and model expand upon theories of interpersonal relationships by demonstrating how dyadic similarity mechanistically influences social interaction by generating more accurate predictions and less threatening impressions.

Keywords:  Bayesian belief; Belief integration; Interpersonal alignment; Paranoia; Social learning; Social-value orientation

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105098
J Soc Psychol. 2022 Mar 30. 1-13

The influence of facial attractiveness and personal characteristics on imitation.

Jie Shen, Yan Zhou, Shuang Li, Shangfeng Han, Yetong Gan, Hua Huang, Qiang Xu, Lin Zhang.

  Imitation plays a crucial role in learning and communication, although a little is known whether individuals imitate each other based on particular personality traits. Facial features and personal characteristics are the major components of personal impressions. This study adopted the color paradigm to explore the effect of the two factors on imitation. Experiment 1 examined the effect of facial attractiveness and face gender on imitation. The results showed that woman who appeared attractive drove imitation more than woman who did not. However, men who appeared attractive and unattractive differed insignificantly. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of facial attractiveness and personal characteristics on imitation. The results of Experiment 1 were verified, stating that positive personal characteristics drove imitation more than negative personal characteristics. The study found that facial attractiveness still affected imitation when characteristics information appeared. Regarding negative personal characteristics, individuals who appeared attractive drove imitation more than individuals who did not. The results indicate that imitation is automated, influenced not only by face types but also by personal characteristics.

Keywords:  Facial attractiveness; color paradigm; imitation; personal characteristics

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2022.2052002
Arch Sex Behav. 2022 Mar 29.

Body Gaze as a Marker of Sexual Objectification: A New Scale for Pervasive Gaze and Gaze Provocation Behaviors in Heterosexual Women and Men.

Ross C Hollett, Shane L Rogers, Prudence Florido, Belinda Mosdell.

  Body gaze behavior is assumed to be a key feature of sexual objectification. However, there are few self-report gaze measures available and none capturing behavior which seeks to invite body gaze from others. Across two studies, we used existing self-report instruments and measurement of eye movements to validate a new self-report scale to measure pervasive body gaze behavior and body gaze provocation behavior in heterosexual women and men. In Study 1, participants (N = 1021) completed a survey with newly created items related to pervasive body gaze and body gaze provocation behavior. Participants also completed preexisting measures of body attitudes, sexual assault attitudes, pornography use, and relationship status. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses across independent samples suggested a 12-item scale for men and women to separately measure pervasive body gaze (5 items) and body gaze provocation (7 items) toward the opposite sex. The two scales yielded excellent internal consistency estimates (.86-.89) and promising convergent validity via positive correlations with body and sexual attitudes. In Study 2, a subsample (N = 167) of participants from Study 1 completed an eye-tracking task to capture their gaze behavior toward matched images of partially and fully dressed female and male subjects. Men exhibited body-biased gaze behavior toward all the female imagery, whereas women exhibited head-biased gaze behavior toward fully clothed male imagery. Importantly, self-reported body gaze correlated positively with some aspects of objectively measured body gaze behavior. Both scales showed good test-retest reliability and were positively correlated with sexual assault attitudes.

Keywords:  Body; Eye tracking; Gaze; Sexual objectification

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02290-y
Violence Vict. 2022 Apr 01. 37(2): 185-200

Safe Dating in the Digital Era: Protective Behavioral Strategies in Dating Behaviors Facilitated by Dating Applications.

Rory T Newlands, Dominic M Denning, Kaiya S Massey, Lorraine T Benuto.

  Focus groups were conducted to examine college women's perceptions of the risks of dating app dating, how risks are mitigated, and if risk identification and mitigation strategies differ by sexual victimization status. Over 60% of the sample reported a history of sexual victimization. The risk associated with dating app use fell into three themes: unsafe sexual situations, deception, and non-sexual interpersonal violence. Participants' self-reported risk mitigation strategies included logistical strategies, investigative strategies, social strategies, instinctual strategies, and safety planning strategies. Sexually victimized women reported greater or comparable risk identification and risk mitigation strategies as non-victimized women, suggesting difficulties in risk responding.

Keywords:  college students; dating apps; sexual violence; victimization

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1891/VV-D-19-00173
Brain Cogn. 2022 Mar 24. pii: S0278-2626(22)00018-5. [Epub ahead of print]159 105860

The role of sex and emotion on emotion perception in artificial faces: An ERP study.

Livija Sarauskyte, Rasa Monciunskaite, Ramune Griksiene.

  Sex has a significant impact on the perception of emotional expressions. However, it remains unclear whether sex influences the perception of emotions in artificial faces, which are becoming popular in emotion research. We used an emotion recognition task with FaceGen faces portraying six basic emotions aiming to investigate the effect of sex and emotion on behavioural and electrophysiological parameters. 71 participants performed the task while EEG was recorded. The recognition of sadness was the poorest, however, females recognized sadness better than males. ERP results indicated that fear, disgust, and anger evoked higher amplitudes of late positive potential over the left parietal region compared to neutral expression. Females demonstrated higher values of global field power as compared to males. The interaction between sex and emotion on ERPs was not significant. The results of our study may be valuable for future therapies and research, as it emphasizes possibly distinct processing of emotions and potential sex differences in the recognition of emotional expressions in FaceGen faces.

Keywords:  Emotion recognition; Event-related potentials (ERPs); FaceGen faces; Facial expressions; Late Positive Potential (LPP); Sex effect

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2022.105860
J Interpers Violence. 2022 Apr 01. 8862605211072157

What Stops Unwanted Sexual and Social Advances Made by Heavy Drinking College Men?

Lindsay M Orchowski, Daniel W Oesterle, Michelle Haikalis.

  Although rates of sexual aggression are high among college men who engage in heavy drinking, little is known regarding how often heavy drinking college men initiate unwanted sexual advances towards women that could lead to a potential sexual assault or the reasons why these advances stop or proceed. The present study describes heavy drinking college men's (N = 210) initiation of unwanted sexual and social advances towards women, as well as outcomes of these interactions, including how often these behaviors continue, and men's perception of what stopped the behavior over a 3-month period. Men indicated whether they were in a situation where a sexual partner noted that she does not want sexual activity to proceed further, initiated unwanted sexual contact, initiated unwanted sexual intercourse, attempted to give a woman alcohol when she did not appear to want to drink, or attempted to take a woman to an isolated location when she did not appear to want to go. These unwanted sexual and social advances most often stopped because of women's verbal resistance (i.e., saying "stop" or "no"), or because men engaged in a discussion regarding the women's limits or choices. Given that none of the unwanted sexual or social advances stopped because of bystander intervention, the present study highlights the importance of raising awareness of the effectiveness of women's resistance tactics and continuing to train bystanders to notice and take action to address risky situations.

Keywords:  assertiveness; bystander behavior; college students; sexual aggression; sexual assault; sexual victimization

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211072157