Evolutionary Psychology

Cassidy, Brittany S.; Saribay, S. Adil; Yüksel, Hüseyin; Kleisner, Karel

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231186119pmid: 37428141

Although decades of research have identified facial features relating to people's evaluations of faces, specific features have largely been examined in isolation from each other. Recent work shows that considering the relative importance of these features in face evaluations is important to test theoretical assumptions of impression formation. Here, we examined how two facial features of evolutionary interest, facial attractiveness and facial-width-to-height ratio (FWHR), relate to evaluations of faces across two cultures. Because face evaluations are typically directly measured via self-reports, we also examined whether these features exert differential effects on both direct and indirect face evaluations. Evaluations of standardized photos naturally varying in facial attractiveness and FWHR were collected using the Affect Misattribution Procedure in the United States and Turkey. When their relative contributions were considered in the same model, facial attractiveness, but not FWHR, related to face evaluations across cultures. This positive attractiveness effect was stronger for direct versus indirect evaluations across cultures. These findings highlight the importance of considering the relative contributions of facial features to evaluations across cultures and suggest a culturally invariant role of attractiveness when intentionally evaluating faces.

Lee, Anthony J.; McGuire, Nikita K. J.

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231175073pmid: 37735893

Facial femininity in men is purportedly used as a cue by women as a signal of parental quality and willingness to provide resources. Accordingly, in contexts where choosing a partner that will provide resources is more beneficial (e.g., when resources are scarce), women have shown an increase preference for facial femininity in male faces. However, domains of scarcity often covary, and it is, therefore, unclear whether these contextual shifts in facial masculinity/femininity preferences are specific to material scarcity (as implied by previous theory), or due to an unrelated domain of scarcity (e.g., time or psychological scarcity). Here, a sample of 823 women completed the Perceived Scarcity Scale, which measures three separate domains of scarcity: material scarcity, time scarcity, and psychological scarcity. Participants also rated the attractiveness of 42 male faces, which were measured on objective sexual dimorphism and perceived masculinity. Consistent with theory, material scarcity, and not time or psychological scarcity, was associated with a decreased preference for objective sexual dimorphism (i.e., an increased preference for facial femininity). This study provides evidence that women use sexual dimorphism as a cue to material resource provisioning potential when assessing men as a mate.

Jin, Cheng-wen; Chen, Rui

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231193993pmid: 37587741

Consumers always delay their choices, which can cause companies to suffer tremendous losses. One reason for such delay is a lack of confidence. Confidence in consumer decision-making can stem from many sources, including social power. In this research, we find that selection power with regard to choosing a romantic mate increases consumers’ decision confidence and, in turn, decreases choice deferral. We define the concept of intersexual selection power (ISP), and propose certain factors that can induce individuals’ asymmetric ISP. We conducted four studies to explore four factors that could influence consumers’ ISP perceptions (sex, mating cues, sex ratio, and mate value) and the effects of such power perception on choice deferral. The results showed that individuals with high ISP perception have more decision confidence and a lower choice deferral rate than individuals with low ISP perception regardless of the way in which choice deferral is measured.

Al-Shawaf, Laith; Lewis, David M. G.; Ghossainy, Maliki E.; Kennair, Leif Edward Ottesen; Mikloušić, Igor; Schwarz, Sascha; White, Kaitlyn P.

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231179408pmid: 37427411

In recent years, researchers have discovered much about how disgust works, its neural basis, its relationship with immune function, its connection with mating, and some of its antecedents and consequents. Despite these advances in our understanding, an under-explored area is how disgust may be used to serve a communicative function, including how individuals might strategically downplay or exaggerate the disgust display in front of different audiences. Here, we generated two hypotheses about potential communicative functions of disgust, and tested these hypotheses in four countries (Turkey, Croatia, Germany, and Norway). We found no evidence in support of either hypothesis in any country. Discussion focuses on the likely falsity of the two central hypotheses, alternative interpretations of our findings, and directions for future research.

Liu, Yuan Yuan; Lu, Hui Jing; Zhu, Nan; Chang, Lei

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231190051pmid: 37519224

The present study examined longitudinal relations between adverse environment (at the community and family level), life history (LH) profile (conceptualized as a suite of behavioral and physical traits with converging adaptive functions), and crystalized intelligence (mathematics and vocabulary test scores) using data on 1,185 Chinese adolescents obtained from the China Family Panel Studies survey. Multilevel structural equation modeling indicates that early familial environmental harshness was negatively associated with slow LH profiles and crystalized intelligence, slow LH profiles were positively associated with crystallized intelligence, and early community-level environmental harshness strengthened the positive association between slow LH and crystalized cognitive abilities. The results underscore the importance of the childhood environment in fostering individual LH and cognitive development.

Arnocky, Steven; MacKinnon, Megan; Clarke, Sadie; McPherson, Grant; Kapitanchuk, Emily

2023 Evolutionary Psychology

doi: 10.1177/14747049231185782pmid: 37488989

Human appearance enhancement effort has recently been considered from an evolutionary perspective as an adaptive and sexually dimorphic strategy for effective female intrasexual and intersexual competition. Most writing and research on the topic to date has focused on appearance enhancement as a means of mate attraction, with relatively less research examining its role in mate retention. The present study considered whether romantic jealousy, as a negative emotion experienced in response to perceived threat to a desired relationship, predicts costly and/or risky appearance enhancement independent of the closely related emotion of envy. In a sample of 189 undergraduate women, results showed that romantic jealousy and dispositional envy were positively correlated with one another. Results further demonstrated that romantic jealousy predicted women's positive attitude toward cosmetic surgery, willingness to use a one-week free tanning membership, willingness to use a risky diet pill, and intent on spending a greater proportion of their income on appearance enhancement, but not intended use of facial cosmetics. Results held independent of participants’ dispositional envy, suggesting that romantic jealousy is a unique predictor of women's efforts at enhancing their physical appearance, which could extend into costly and physically risky mate retention efforts.