Search

Attachment theory is an enduring and generative framework for understanding infant and romantic relationships. As a lifespan phenomenon, attachment research has focused largely on developmental processes and how to link the infant attachments with later close relationships, but there has been comparably less scholarly attention targeted at the evolutionary origins and functionality of romantic attachments, in particular. Here, I advance a two-system approach to attachment, proposing that infant attachments and romantic attachments constitute etiologically distinct systems that evolved in response to different selection pressures, serve different evolutionary functions, and are fundamentally different in nature with regard to operation and necessity toward their respective evolutionary goals. This two-system approach has downstream implications for future attachment research, most notably with regard to how the romantic attachment system develops over the lifespan, and the extent to which romantic attachments guide the formation of relationships in adulthood.

Cross-cultural research on long-term mate preferences in Muslim-majority countries is scarce. The research described here aims to examine the KASER (kindness/dependability, attractiveness/sexuality, status/resources, education/intelligence, and religiosity/chastity) model of mate preferences in Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey ( N = 1,089). We examined structural validity, measurement invariance between men and women, sex differences, cultural differences, and Big Five personality correlates of these dimensions of mate preferences. Findings supported preregistered hypotheses regarding sex differences in mate preferences. Multilevel models suggested that the magnitude of sex differences was invariant across cultures. Personality correlates of mate preferences varied across cultures, but agreeableness consistently predicted the preference for kind and dependable partners across cultures. In sum, sex differences in mate preferences within and across three Muslim-majority countries described here replicate previous findings, but evidence for personality correlates of mate preferences is mixed, variable across cultures, and in need of further examination in non-Western samples.

Selecting a long-term romantic partner is largely contingent upon identifying behavioral repertoires indicating an ability to foster individual and communal flourishing through benevolence and relational fidelity. Within this suite of socially desirable traits are virtues that could be critical in selecting long-term mates. The current program of research presents two studies investigating the extent people select mates embodying virtue. Study 1 tasked participants with indicating the desirability of prospective mates espousing high and low levels of the three fundamental virtues, as observed through the VIA Model: caring, self-control, and inquisitiveness. High levels of virtue were especially desirable for long-term mating, with the preference for self-control being largest. Study 2 considered dispositional preferences for long-term mating, as indexed through restricted sociosexuality, with sociosexually restricted individuals reporting aversion to prospective mates exhibiting low self-control. We frame results through an evolutionary context and recommend future research to understand the adaptive function of virtue.

A popular trade-offs theory, used to explain patterns of human mating, holds that masculine men provide reproductive benefits that might include higher genetic quality, whereas feminine men provide greater direct benefits such as parental investment. In line with the latter premise, previous studies have found that feminine-faced men are perceived as better parents. However, direct empirical investigations of this premise have been so far lacking. Here, we obtained ratings of the parental qualities of 108 fathers, as assessed by themselves, their grown-up daughters, and/or the daughter’s mother, using the Nurturant Fathering Scale. We also obtained facial photographs of the fathers, and calculated several standard objective measurements of the fathers’ facial masculinity. There was high agreement between the three family members in their assessments of the parenting qualities of the father. However, there was no good evidence that facially feminine men were more investing fathers. Unless evidence for feminine men’s greater parental investment can be found elsewhere, this raises further questions over the application of the trade-offs theory in understanding the appeal of men’s facial femininity.

Women’s preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces have been extensively studied. By contrast, little is known about how gay men respond to masculine facial characteristics. One area of disagreement in the emerging literature on this topic is the association between gay men’s partnership status and masculinity preference. One study found that partnered gay men showed stronger preferences for masculine faces than did single gay men, while another study found that partnered gay men showed weaker preferences for masculine faces than did single gay men. We re-examined this issue in a sample of 618 gay men, finding no significant difference between partnered and single gay men’s masculinity preferences. Together with the mixed previous findings, our null result suggests that the effect of partnership status on gay men’s face preferences is not robust.

Many researchers have proposed that straight men prefer women’s faces displaying feminine shape characteristics at least partly because mating with such women will produce healthier offspring. Although a clear prediction of this adaptation-for-mate-choice hypothesis is that straight men will show stronger preferences for feminized versus masculinized versions of women’s faces than will gay men, only one previous study has directly tested this prediction. Here we directly replicated that study by comparing 623 gay and 3163 straight men’s preferences for feminized versus masculinized versions of faces. Consistent with the adaptation-for-mate-choice hypothesis of straight men’s femininity preferences, we found that straight men showed significantly stronger preferences for feminized female faces than did gay men. Consistent with previous research, we also found that gay men showed significantly stronger preferences for masculinized versions of male faces than did straight men. Together, these findings indicate the sexual orientation contributes to individual differences in men’s face preferences.

Since Buss (1989) initiated research in the field, sex differences in preferences for long-term mates have been extensively studied in evolutionary psychology. Numerous studies have reported robust sex differences such as: 1) a preference for a younger mate is stronger in men than women, 2) a preference for an older mate is stronger in women than men, 3) women value traits associated with resource acquisition, such as economic status and educational attainment, more highly than do men, and 4) men value physical attractiveness more highly than women. However, our replication of Bech-Sørensen & Pollet (2016) did not to show a significant sex difference in the preference for physical attractiveness among a Japanese sample while the other sex differences (age differences and resource acquisition abilities) were significant (Study 1). We designed study 2 to test if the non-significance was an artifact of the item used to measure the preference for physical attractiveness. Study 2 showed that the sex differences were not statistically significant. In addition, the effect of sex was significantly smaller than the pre-determined smallest effect size of interest (SESOI). #Pre-registration of the study can be found at https://psyarxiv.com/acy9z

The examination of multiple life history indicators is essential to evolutionary sciences. However, the statistical analysis of life history parameters covariation is not apparently clear, due to the statistical limitations of “classic” procedures like Factor Analysis and conceptual problems in interpreting covariation between life-history indicators as latent factors. Here we propose that Network Analysis represents a promising framework for the exploration of life history parameters. First, we briefly describe the basic metric of Network Analysis: nodes, edges, proximities, clustering, centrality indices and small-world estimations. Next, we show the implementation of Network Analysis using the empirical set of life history variables as an example (N=460). We collected information about 14 life history indicators that can be classified into five groups: environmental harshness, self-protection, mating, reproduction, and kin care. We showed that Network Analysis provided: 1) optimal level of non-trivial information (higher than factor analysis and lower than correlation analysis); 2) findings which are in accordance with the existing life-history data; 3) the estimation of age at first birth as a central node in the network; 4) dynamic view of life history events which can represent a solid basis for causal life history models. In sum, Network Analysis shows high potential both for conceptualizing life history pathways as dynamic networks and for statistical analysis of the covariation between the life history indicators.

Prior research suggests that women engage in attractiveness enhancing techniques to increase their mate value. This hypothesis suggests that attractiveness enhancing techniques are driven by evolutionary mechanisms in relation to increasing one’s mate value in the mating market. Therefore, people can engage in risky behaviours to achieve this goal, which can involve the use of sunbeds. We explored whether there was a mating motivation in a sample of sunbed users by exploring whether intrasexual competition, mate value, and self-esteem predicted attitudes towards sunbed use (n=98). We find that the only predictor of attitudes towards sunbed use was self-perceived mate value, in that those with higher self-perceived mate value reported negative attitudes towards sunbed use. We discuss these findings in light of evolutionary psychology.

Secondary data analyses (analyses of open data from published studies) can play a critical role in hypothesis generation and in maximizing the contribution of collected data to the accumulation of scientific knowledge. However, assessing the evidentiary value of results from secondary data analyses is often challenging because analytical decisions can be biased by knowledge of the results of (and analytical choices made in) the original study and by unacknowledged exploratory analyses of open data sets (Scott & Kline, 2019; Weston, Ritchie, Rohrer, & Przybylski, 2018). Using the secondary data analyses reported by Gangestad et al. (this issue) as a case study, we outline several approaches that, if implemented, would allow readers to assess the evidentiary value of results from secondary data analyses with greater confidence.

Since Buss (1989) initiated research in the field, sex differences in preferences for long-term mates have been extensively studied in evolutionary psychology. Numerous studies have reported robust sex differences such as: 1) a preference for a younger mate is stronger in men than women, 2) a preference for an older mate is stronger in women than men, 3) women value traits associated with resource acquisition, such as economic status and educational attainment, more highly than do men, and 4) men value physical attractiveness more highly than women. However, our replication of Bech-Sørensen & Pollet (2016) did not to show a significant sex difference in the preference for physical attractiveness among a Japanese sample while the other sex differences (age differences and resource acquisition abilities) were significant (Study 1). We designed study 2 to test if the non-significance reflected changes in the Japanese society or was an artifact of the item used to measure the preference for physical attractiveness. In this pre-reregistration, we will first report the results of study 1 and then propose the plan for study 2. (Preprint of the accepted manuscript can be found at https://psyarxiv.com/9hkbq).

Cross-cultural research has repeatedly demonstrated sex differences in the importance of different partner characteristics when choosing a mate. Men typically report higher preferences for younger, more physically attractive women, while women prefer men that are wealthier and of higher status. As the assessment of such partner characteristics often relies on visual cues, this raises the question whether visual experience is necessary for sex-specific mate preferences to develop. To shed more light onto the emergence of sex differences in mate choice, the current study assessed how preferences for attractiveness, resources, and personality factors differ between sighted and blind individuals using an online questionnaire. We further investigate the role of social factors and sensory cue selection in these sex differences. Our sample consisted of 94 sighted and blind participants with different ages of blindness-onset, 19 blind/28 sighted males, and 19 blind/28 sighted females. Results replicated well-documented findings in the sighted, with men placing more importance on physical attractiveness and women placing more importance on status and resources. However, while physical attractiveness was less important to blind men, blind women considered physical attractiveness as important as sighted women. The importance of a high status and likeable personality was not influenced by sightedness. Blind individuals considered auditory cues more important than visual cues, while sighted males showed the opposite pattern. Further, relationship status and indirect, social influences were related to preferences. Overall, our findings shed light on the availability of visual information for the emergence of sex differences in mate preference.

Previous research has explored the role of prosociality in mate choice, predominantly focusing on the role of altruism. Although there is ample evidence to suggest altruism has evolved via mate choice, little research has unpacked prosociality by exploring the role of heroism in mate choice. Limited studies have been conducted in this area, and no studies have explored men’s desirability towards heroic targets. The aim of this study was to replicate and extend the limited research on the role of heroism in mate choice. Participants (n=276, 101 men and 175 women) rated several scenarios varying in heroism, whereby they were asked to rate how desirable targets were for a short-term and long-term relationship. The findings show that both men and women found heroic targets to be more desirable than targets low in heroism, although the main effect of sex was stronger for women than men. Furthermore, high heroic targets were rated as more desirable for long-term compared to short-term relationships, thus replicating and extending previous research. The findings add support to the adaptive role of heroism in human mate choice by exploring the role of heroism in both male and female mate choice. Data, materials, and the preregistered hypotheses/protocol are available on the Open Science Framework (osf.io/qbzw7/?view_only=e66411df988844cfa39e63c51ed33131).

Natural selection produces cognitive systems that are well designed for solving ancestral adaptive problems. For a group-living species like our own, this principle implies that interacting with others will be regulated by sophisticated cognitive systems. Here we explain how evolutionary game theory is used to identify ancestral problems of social interaction and what counted as adaptive solutions to these problems during our evolutionary past. We start with a detailed examination of selection pressures that shape mechanisms for interacting with kin; these specify an envelope of conditions in which selection favors (i) acting with beneficence toward kin and (ii) avoiding sexual contact with kin. By combining these analyses with knowledge of how our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived, evolutionary psychologists were able to develop and test hypotheses about the computational design of systems regulating interaction with kin. These cognitive adaptations produce intuitions about how we ought to treat kin and how kin ought to treat us—moral intuitions about duties of beneficence and sexual prohibitions. We then consider selection for cooperation with unrelated individuals and how this differs from interactions with kin. Topics include the evolution of cooperation by partner control (punishment) versus partner choice; collective action; and the role of luck versus effort in sharing. Research guided by these theories suggests that selection has produced adaptations that generate different moral inferences in each of these domains. Capturing this moral diversity may require normative theories that embrace moral pluralism—brands of ethical intuitionism, moral sentimentalism, or virtue ethics.

Previous reports that women with attractive faces are healthier have been\ud widely cited as evidence that sexual selection has shaped human mate\ud preferences. However, evidence for correlations between women’s physical\ud health and facial attractiveness is equivocal. Moreover, positive results on this\ud issue have generally come from studies of self-reported health in small\ud samples. The current study took standardized face photographs of women\ud who completed three different health questionnaires assessing susceptibility\ud to infectious illnesses (N=590). Of these women, 221 also provided a saliva\ud sample that was assayed for immunoglobulin A (a marker of immune\ud function). Analyses showed no significant correlations between rated facial\ud attractiveness and either scores on any of the health questionnaires or\ud salivary immunoglobulin A. Furthermore there was no compelling evidence\ud that objective measures of sexual dimorphism of face shape, averageness of\ud face shape, or facial coloration were correlated with any of our health\ud measures. While other measures of health may yet reveal robust associations\ud with facial appearance, these null results do not support the prominent and\ud influential assumption that women’s facial attractiveness is a cue of young\ud adult women’s susceptibility to infectious illnesses, at least in our study\ud population.

This letter (to appear in Behavioral Ecology) reports alternative analyses of Shimoda et al. (2018 Behavioral Ecology https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arx124). These new analyses suggest that conception risk has similar effects on in- and extra-pair sexual desire, rather than the effect on extra-pair desire reported by Shimoda et al. (2018).

Al-Shawaf et al. (2015 Evolution & Human Behavior, 36, 199-205) found that people who were more interested in pursuing a short-term mating strategy (indexed by higher total scores on the Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory) reported less sexual disgust (indexed by lower scores on the sexual disgust subscale of the Three Domain Disgust Scale). By contrast with these results for sexual disgust, Al-Shawaf et al. (2015) observed no significant associations between interest in pursuing a short-term mating strategy and moral or pathogen disgust. This pattern of results, wherein sociosexuality correlates with lower sexual disgust but is unconnected to disgust more generally, may indicate specific cognitive adaptations that counter the possible disgust responses associated with engaging in short-term mating. Here we replicated Al-Shawaf et al’s (2015) findings for sexual disgust and sociosexual orientation in a large sample (N=7166). Although we found that individuals who were more interested in pursuing a short-term mating strategy reported significantly lower moral disgust, these relationships were very weak. Together, these results suggest a robust relationship between disgust and short-term mating that is relatively specific to sexual disgust.

The present article reports the results of a meta-analysis of nine student replication projects of Elliot et al.’s (2010) findings from Experiment 3, that women were more attracted to photographs of men with red borders (total n = 640). The eight student projects were part of the Collaborative Replication and Education Project (CREP; https://osf.io/wfc6u/), a research crowdsourcing project for undergraduate students. All replications were reviewed by experts to ensure high quality data, and were pre-registered prior to data collection. Results of this meta-analysis showed no effect of red on attractiveness ratings for either perceived attractiveness (mean ratings difference = –0.07, 95% CI [–0.31, 0.16]) or sexual attractiveness (mean ratings difference = –0.06, 95% CI [–0.36, 0.24]); this null result held with and without Elliot et al.’s (2010) data included in analyses. Exploratory analyses examining whether being in a relationship moderated the effect of color on attractiveness ratings also produced null results.

Reproducibility is essential to science, yet a distressingly large number of research findings do not seem to replicate. Here I discuss one underappreciated reason for this state of affairs. I make my case by noting that, due to artifacts, several of the replication failures of the vastly advertised "Open Science Collaboration’s Reproducibility Project: Psychology" turned out to be invalid. Although these artifacts would have been obvious on perusal of the data, such perusal was deemed undesirable because of its post hoc nature and was left out. However, while data do not lie, unforeseen confounds can render them unable to speak to the question of interest. I look further into one unusual case in which a major artifact could be removed statistically—the nonreplication of the effect of fertility on partnered women’s preference for single over attached men. I show that the “failed replication” datasets contain a gross bias in stimulus allocation which is absent in the original dataset; controlling for it replicates the original study’s main finding. I conclude that, before being used to make a scientific point, all data should undergo a minimal quality control—a provision, it appears, not always required of those collected for purpose of replication. Because unexpected confounds and biases can be laid bare only after the fact, we must get over our understandable reluctance to engage in anything post hoc. The reproach attached to p-hacking cannot exempt us from the obligation to (openly) take a good look at our data.

The Dual Mating Strategy hypothesis proposes that women’s preferences for uncommitted sexual relationships with men displaying putative fitness cues increase during the high-fertility phase of the menstrual cycle. Results consistent with this hypothesis are widely cited as evidence that sexual selection has shaped human mating psychology. However, the methods used in most of these studies have recently been extensively criticized. Here we discuss (1) new empirical studies that address these methodological problems and largely report null results and (2) an alternative model of hormonal regulation of women’s mating psychology that can better accommodate these new data.

It is well established that men report greater jealousy when imagining scenarios in which their romantic partner interacts with men displaying masculine physical characteristics. However, few studies have tested for corresponding effects of sexually dimorphic characteristics on women’s jealousy or tested for these effects in non-Western samples. Thus, we investigated the effects of experimentally manipulated sexually dimorphic face-shape cues on Chinese and White UK women’s jealousy perceptions. Chinese and White UK women both reported greater jealousy when imagining scenarios in which their romantic partner interacted with more feminine women. Both groups of women showed large effects of facial femininity on jealousy perceptions for both Chinese and White UK stimuli. Together, these results suggest that sexually dimorphic facial characteristics influence women’s jealousy and that this effect is not unique to women raised in Western cultures.

Although previous research has found that altruism is an important trait in human mate choice, much of this has concentrated on female preferences only. Subsequently, the current study explored how both men and women desire altruistic partners who varied in physical attractiveness for both short and long term romantic relationships. A sample of 136 women and 53 men viewed profiles of members of the opposite sex of either high or low physical attractiveness, alongside scenarios that described them as either being altruistic or not. Participants then rated each targets’ desirability as both a short and long term partner. As hypothesised, altruism was rated more desirable, particularly for long term relationships, by both men and women. However there were inconsistent findings when physical attractiveness was accounted for, which did not support the hypotheses nor directly replicate previous findings. Overall it was concluded that although the study provided strong support for the desirability of altruism being due to mutual mate choice, the additional effects of examining other mate choice traits such as attractiveness shows much is still to be known. Study materials and data available at DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/STXPF

The existence of ovulatory cycle shifts in women’s mate preferences has been discussed controversially. There is evidence that naturally cycling women in their fertile phase, compared to their luteal phase, evaluate specific behavioral cues in men as more attractive for sexual relationships. However, recent research has cast doubt on these findings. We addressed this debate in a large, pre-registered within-subject study including salivary hormone measures and luteinizing hormone tests. One-hundred-fifty-seven female participants rated natural videos of 70 men in dyadic intersexual interactions on sexual and long-term attractiveness. Multilevel comparisons across two ovulatory cycles indicated that women’s mate preferences for men’s behaviors did not shift across the cycle, neither for competitive, nor for courtship behavior. Within-women hormone levels and relationship status did not affect these results. Hormonal mechanisms and implications for estrus theories are discussed.

Although many researchers have assumed that vocal attractiveness functions as a health cue, direct tests of this assumption have been rare. Consequently, we will test possible correlations between women’s vocal attractiveness and susceptibility to infectious illnesses. We will test correlations between women’s vocal attractiveness and both a range of self-report measures of susceptibility to infectious illnesses and a commonly used salivary biomarker of immune response (secretary immunoglobulin A, measured from saliva).