- Email: [email protected]
Mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context Xiaolin Zhao, Xuehan Zhang, Juan Yang
T
⁎
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Mating preference Mortality salience Loose/tight culture Long/short term context
Sexual attitudes are influenced by social norms, with an open sexual attitude in loose cultures (e.g., United States), and a conservative sexual attitude in tight cultures (e.g., China). Previous studies have found that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context and prefer women's body in short-term mating context in loose culture. However, whether men in tight culture prefer women's body in one-night stand mating context is unknown. Moreover, previous studies have shown that mortality salience has an influence on human's reproductive behaviors, however, it is unclear how mortality salience affects men's mating preferences. Experiment 1 replicated the previous findings showing that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context (girlfriend), and prefer women's body in short-term mating context (one-night stand) in tight culture. Moreover, experiment 2 found that after priming with death, men in the long-term context prefer women's body more than that in control priming group, and they also rated higher importance of body in mating selection than that in control group. Our results suggested that mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context.
1. Introduction Evolutionary psychologists proposed that human beings would select those mating partners who enable them to improve their reproductive possibility, in other words, the essence of mate preference is to enhance reproductive success (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Symons, 1979). Actually, males face the challenge of assessing two mating-related uncertainties within the same female individual. On one hand, males are uncertain over female fecundity, including reproductive value which is defined as future reproductive potential and current fertility which is defined as the probability of present reproduction (Buss, 1989; Confer, Perilloux, & Buss, 2010); on the other hand, males are uncertain over female fidelity (Lu & Chang, 2012). Appearance of the female can provide cues relating to female fecundity information, such as age, health, and hormonal status (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008; Thornhill & Grammer, 1999), and their facial features and expressions can also provide cues to the assessment of loyalty and honesty (Grammer, Honda, Juette, & Schmitt, 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008). For example, facial features, such as babyfaceness, attractiveness, facial symmetry, and large eyes had positive effects on perceived honesty (Berry & McArthur, 1985; Berry & Mcarthur, 1986; Hager & Ekman, 1985; Mcarthur & Apatow, 1983; Zebrowitz & ⁎
Montepare, 1992; Zebrowitz, Voinescu, & Collins, 1996). Moreover, gaze and smiling are two facial expressions associated with perceived truthfulness (Zebrowitz et al., 1996; Zuckerman, Depaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). Therefore, in order to improve reproductive possibility, male values female physical appearance in mate selection and prefers those females who have high attractiveness (Chang, Wang, Shackelford, & Buss, 2011). In fact, the physical appearance consists of two sections: face and body. Although both sections convey information about female fecundity, each section conveys a subset of cues that are not conveyed by the other section (Confer et al., 2010; Peters, Rhodes, & Simmons, 2007). Face can indicate reproductive information of youth and health mainly through facial color, luster, and volume (Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005), and the characteristics of face are not easy to change except for plastic surgery procedures. In other words, face may be a better and more reliable cue to reproductive value than body (Thornhill & Møller, 1997). However, body can provide female fecundity information mainly through the size of the chest, the length of the legs, and the waist-to-hip ratio (Buss, 1994; Symons, 1979; Williams, 1975), and body shape may be more easily changed via pregnancy, diet, or exercise. Stated in another way, body may be a better cue to current fertility. For example, a young pregnant woman may be judged with a
Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Yang).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109524 Received 19 March 2019; Received in revised form 15 July 2019; Accepted 16 July 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
high reproductive value according to the information of the face, but with very low current fertility according to the body. In addition, facial features and expressions can also provide cues such as honest or dishonest, and sexually reserved or flirtatious to the assessment of loyalty (Grammer et al., 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008), whereas such information cannot be presented on the body. Previous studies have found that men's preference for women's face or body depending on the context. Men in the long-term context (e.g., a committed relationship partner) need cues relating to stable reproductive value and to female fidelity, and the face is more predictive of women's overall attractiveness than the body (Currie & Little, 2009), while they only need information about female current fertility in the short-term mating context (e.g., one-night stand). Therefore, it was found that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context, while they prefer women's body in short-term mating context (Confer et al., 2010). Research of men's visual attention was consistent with this finding showing that men's attention was captured by facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but by bodily cues in short-term mating context (Lu & Chang, 2012). As the above conclusions were drawn from the loose culture (e.g., United States), researchers started to explore the cross-cultural differences or similarities of mating preferences of men. All human cultures have social norms-rules for acceptable or appropriate behavior (Gelfand, 2012). Loose cultures have weak social norms, a wide range of permissible behaviors, while tight cultures have strong social norms, a narrow range of permissible behaviors (Gelfand et al., 2011; Hinkin, 1995). Sexual attitudes are influenced by social norms, with open sexual attitudes in loose cultures (e.g., United States), and conservative sexual attitudes in tight cultures (e.g., China). Affected by the traditional cultural tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011), sexual issues have always been a very sensitive topic in China and many Chinese are ashamed to talk about sex. Although the sexual attitudes of college students are becoming more open, and the pre-marital sexual behavior and the proportion of one-night stands are rising (Jiang, Jiang, Yang, & Wu, 2018), compared with the West of cultural looseness, the sexual attitudes of Chinese young people are generally more conservative, and most of Chinese disagree with the one-night stand behavior (Liu, 2011). Due to this, very few studies have examined the mate preference of Chinese men in one-night stand context (short-term mating context) except one study suggesting that Chinese men's visual attention was captured by body in short-term mating context (Lu & Chang, 2012). However, in Lu’ study, the stimuli size of the face doesn't match the size of the body, which may confound the results. Therefore, in the current study, participants' subjective reports (such as importance rating for female face and body) were used as the dependent variable to test Chinese men's preference in short-term mating context, and we would like to hypothesize that due to men need information about female current fertility in the short-term mating context, they will prefer women's body in the context of one-night stand in tight culture. Moreover, consistent with previous studies, we would like to hypothesize that men in the tight culture also value women's face more than body in longterm mating context (Le, Chen, & Zhang, 2005). Individual mate selection is not only affected by the social-cultural context, but also by their own state (e.g., relax or anxiety). The theory of terror management (TMT) proposes that, on one hand, like all other species, human beings have the instinct to survive; On the other hand, unlike other creatures, human beings have the cognitive ability to realize that ultimately, they must die (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). The instinct to survive coupling with the realization of inevitable death would cause deep anxiety (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, & Maxfield, 2006), and thus have influenced human behavior. However, individuals can reduce death anxiety by increasing reproduction (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Rodgers, John, & Coleman, 2005; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005). For example, participants in mortality salience condition had a stronger desire for having children (Wisman &
Goldenberg, 2005); more willing to name the child in his own name (Vicary, 2011); more willing to watch baby photos than that in control group (Zhou, Lei, Marley, & Chen, 2009). Empirical evidence also showed watching the pictures of newborn animals can reduce the death thoughts of participants in mortality salience group. The study of the relationship between natural disasters and birth rates also supports the view that after natural disasters or social emergencies, the overall birth rate of society will increase significantly (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Rodgers et al., 2005). Even mate preference is closely related to reproductive behavior regardless of contexts (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993) and previous researches have revealed that mortality salience has an influence on human's reproductive behaviors (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Vicary, 2011), it is unclear how mortality salience affects male's mate preferences. Therefore, we aimed to examine the impact of mortality salience on mate preference both in short-term and long-term contexts in Experiment 2. When being primed of the mortality salience, individuals are more aware of the limited nature of life, more aware of the importance of reproduction, and more willing to reap the timely returns (Fritsche et al., 2007; Greenberg et al., 1986; Lam, Rios Morrison, & Smeesters, 2009). The female body is the part that can directly provide cues related to current reproduction. Therefore, we would like to hypothesize that mortality salience induced men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context, in other words, participants in mortality salience group will priority female's body attractiveness than people in control condition. 2. Experiment 1 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants 75 healthy Chinese male undergraduate students (mean age = 20.23 year, SD = 1.48) who identified themselves as heterosexual took part in the experiment. According to previous research (Confer et al., 2010; Lu & Chang, 2012), this sample size (N = 75) was adequate for testing the effects of mating context on men's preference. Post-hoc tests also revealed that our observed power was ≥0.90 for all key tests. Participants were recruited by fliers or advertisements on the campus. 2.1.2. Materials and procedure In previous studies, the short-term mating was specified as a onenight stand and the long-term mating was specified as a committed relationship partner (e.g., wife) (Confer et al., 2010). However, since it is more popular for male college students to have a girlfriend as a committed relationship partner in their current state, we also specified ‘girlfriend’ as a committed relationship partner, therefore, three mate scenarios (one-night stand, girlfriend, and wife) were included in the current study. Participants viewed an image of a female whose face was occluded by a ‘face box’ and whose body was occluded by a ‘body box’. A stick figure was superimposed over the face and body boxes to indicate which part of the photographed individual lied underneath (Fig. 1). Participants were instructed to first imagine themselves as single and that they have an opportunity to date the individual behind the boxes as either a short-term mate (e.g., one-night stand) or long-term mates (e.g., girlfriend/wife). To experimentally test the importance of facial and bodily attractiveness, participants were instructed to indicate the possibility of removing the ‘face box’ and the ‘body box’ separately on a 9-point scale (e.g. ‘What's the probability of removing the face box?’; What's the probability of removing the body box?’) wherein a score of 1 indicated that it is totally unlikely to remove that box and a score of 9 indicated that it is extremely likely to remove that box. The order of both questions and scenarios were counterbalanced between the subjects. 2
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
Fig. 2. Possibility of removing boxes in either a short-term context or long-term mating contexts. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
2.2. Results and discussion 2.2.1. Possibility of removal We analyzed the data with a 2 (section: face, body) × 3 (scenario: one-night stand, girlfriend, wife) repeated measurement ANOVA. As shown in Fig. 2 and Table 1, there was a main effect of section, suggesting the higher possibility of removing face box compared to body box, F (1, 74) = 11.39, p = 0.001, ηp2 = 0.133. There was also an interaction effect between section and scenario, F (2, 148) = 9.66, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.115. Follow-up tests revealed that participants were more likely to remove face box both in girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.51) and in wife scenario (p = 0.004, Cohen's d = 0.43) than that in one-night stand scenario, while there were no significant differences between girlfriend scenario and wife scenario (p = 1.00, Cohen's d = 0.07). We also found the higher possibility of removing face box compared to body box both in girlfriend scenario (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.74) and in wife scenario (p = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.56), but this pattern was not present in the one-night stand scenario (p = 0.584, Cohen's d = 0.08). Moreover, results showed there's no main effects of scenario, F (2, 148) = 0.61, p = 0.547, ηp2 = 0.008. 2.2.2. Rated importance of facial and bodily information As shown in Fig. 3 and Table 1, a repeated measurement ANOVA of importance rating showed a significant interaction of section × scenario, F (2, 148) = 8.65, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.105, however, there was neither a significant main effect of section (F (1, 74) = 3.38, p = 0.07, ηp2 = 0.044) nor scenario (F (2, 148) = 2.15, p = 0.12, ηp2 = 0.028). Further tests on the interaction suggested that the importance rating of the body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that both in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.44)
Fig. 1. Stick figure.
After participants indicated the possibility of removing boxes, they were then asked, “when you made your decision, how did you evaluate the importance of face and body information gathered from the face and the body?” in different scenarios, on a scale from 1 (totally less important) to 9 (extremely important). We also counterbalanced the order of both questions and scenarios between the participants.
Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations of participants' choice in experiment 1.
Possibility of removing boxes Rated importance
3
Face Body Face Body
One-night stand
Girlfriend
Wife
5.75(2.14) 5.93(2.24) 6.11(2.20) 6.51(2.02)
6.77(1.87) 5.25(2.21) 6.40(2.03) 5.64(1.93)
6.64(1.96) 5.44(2.32) 6.37(2.01) 5.49(2.06)
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
3.1.2. Materials and procedure On arriving at the laboratory, participants filled in a packet of personality questionnaires to disguise the true purpose of the study. They were then randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Participants in mortality salience group responded to two openended questions: “Briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and “Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you physically as you die and once you are physically dead.” The control condition consisted of two parallel items regarding the experience of dental pain in order to compare mortality salience with the salience of negative events. Following the priming task, participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) in order to examine the immediate effects of mortality salience on mood. Moreover, as previous research has suggested that mortality salience would exert its effects when the death concerns have been shown to be outside of conscious awareness (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010; Greenberg, Arndt, & Alison, 2002), each participant was then asked to perform 40 calculations in 5 min, which served as a delay to allow thoughts of death to fade from focal attention (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). In this task, participants had to estimate whether each calculation would give an odd or even number by a button press. Each calculation lasted for 7 s and two consecutive calculations were intervened with 0.5 s. Finally, participants performed the box removal procedure and rated importance task, the instructions and procedures were identical to those of Experiment 1 except we only specified ‘girlfriend’ as the longterm mate.
Fig. 3. Rated importance in short-term or long-term mating context. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
and in wife scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.50), while there were no significant differences between the girlfriend scenario and the wife scenario (p = 1.00, Cohen's d = 0.08). Moreover, there also was no significant difference for face rating among the three scenarios (ps > 0.81). Results also showed the importance rating of face was higher than that of the body both in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.021, Cohen's d = 0.38) and wife scenario (p = 0.005, Cohen's d = 0.43), while there was no difference between face importance rating and body importance rating in the one-night stand scenario (p = 0.14, Cohen's d = 0.19). Our data partly replicated the previous findings, i.e., participants both in the girlfriend scenario and wife scenario were more likely to remove face box than that in the one-night stand scenario, and the rated importance of body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that both in the girlfriend scenario and wife scenario, indicating that men have a condition-dependent adaptive proclivity to prioritize facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but shift their priorities toward bodily cues in short-term mating context. Mate preference is closely related to reproductive behavior regardless of contexts, in other words, the essence of mate preference is to improve reproductive possibility (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Recent research has shown that death reminders also can influence human reproductive behaviors. However, it is unclear how death reminders affect male mate preferences. In Experiment 2, we examined the impact of death reminders on mate preference in different contexts.
3.2. Result and discussion 3.2.1. Manipulation check of mortality salience Participants' PANAS scores were shown in Table 2. One-way ANOVA with the priming (mortality salience vs. control) as a betweensubject factor showed neither a significant effect of priming for the positive affect score, F (1,81) = 3.63, p = 0.06, ηp2 = 0.043, nor for the negative affect score, F (1,81) = 0.08, p = 0.774, ηp2 = 0.001. 3.2.2. Possibility of removal As shown in Fig. 4 and Table 3, a 2 (priming: mortality salience, control) × 2 (section: face, body) × 2 (scenario: one-night stand, girlfriend) mixed ANOVA showed a significant main effect of section, F (1,80) = 18.93, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.191, an interaction effect between priming and section, F (1,80) = 8.14, p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.092, and an interaction effect between scenario and section, F (1,80) = 8.70, p = 0.004, ηp2 = 0.098. More importantly, we found a three-way interaction effect among priming, section, and scenario, F (1,80) = 5.73, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067. Follow-up tests of control priming group revealed that participants in the girlfriend scenario were more likely to remove face box than that in the one-night stand scenario (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.71), while participants in the one-night stand scenario more likely to remove body box than that in girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.60). For mortality salience priming group, there were neither significant main effects nor interactions, ps > 0.122. Most importantly, for the girlfriend scenario, participants in the mortality salience group were more likely to remove body box than that in control group (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.03), and they were less
3. Experiment 2 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants According to effect size in study 1, we conducted a power analysis with d = 0.43 and a power of 0.80, the analysis indicated that our study would need thirty-five participants for each group (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). Finally, eighty-four healthy Chinese male college students who identified themselves as heterosexual participated in this study as paid volunteers. Two participants were excluded due to missing data, leaving 82 for data analysis. Forty-one participants were randomly assigned to the mortality salience group (mean age = 19.29, SD = 1.47) and Forty-one participants were randomly assigned to the control group (mean age = 19.24, SD = 1.36). Post hoc tests revealed that our observed power was ≥0.91 for all key tests.
Table 2 Means and Standard Deviations of PANAS scores in experiment 2.
Positive affect Negative affect
4
Mortality salience
Negative affect
3.17(0.84) 2.47(0.96)
3.49(0.66) 2.53(0.96)
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
Fig. 5. Rated importance in short-term or long-term mating context after priming. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
Fig. 4. Possibility of removing boxes in either a short-term or long-term mating contexts after priming. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
significant interactions or main effects, ps > 0.733. Thus, results of control group replicated the previous findings both in terms of removal possibility and rated importance, indicating that men prioritize facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but prioritize bodily cues in short-term mating contexts. Most important, we found death reminder had an influence on mate preference, suggesting that death reminder increases male's body preference in long-term mate selection.
Table 3 Means and Standard Deviations of participants' choice in experiment 2.
Possibility of removing boxes Rated importance
Mortality salience group
Control group
One-night stand
Girlfriend
One-night stand
Girlfriend
Face Body
6.00(2.38) 5.68(2.21)
6.44(1.90) 5.85(2.08)
6.00(2.13) 5.12(2.41)
7.29(1.42) 3.83(1.84)
Face Body
6.12(2.09) 6.20(1.89)
6.49(1.78) 6.41(1.83)
6.17(1.97) 6.00(2.20)
6.90(1.59) 4.88(1.95)
4. General discussion In the current study, we designed two experiments to explore how mortality salience affects male's mate preference. In doing so, firstly, we replicated the previous findings of men's preference for women's face or body i.e., men in long-term context prefer women's face more than body, indicating that men will pay more attention women's face in longterm context. Moreover, we found that after priming with death, men in the long-term context prefer women's body more than that in control priming group, and they also rated higher importance of body in mating selection than that in control group. Our results suggested that mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context. Results of experiment 1 showed that men in long-term context prefer women's face more than body, and they prefer body more than face in short-term context in tight culture, which is consistent with previous findings in loose culture (Confer et al., 2010; Lu & Chang, 2012). Males spend very little time with short-term partner, so they prefer the most direct and obvious indicator of current fertility in shortterm context (Lu & Chang, 2012). On the contrary, males live with longterm partner (e.g., wife) for a long period, even for the whole life, due to this, they prefer cues relating to females' fecundity and fidelity in long-term context (Berry & McArthur, 1985; Berry & Mcarthur, 1986; Hager & Ekman, 1985; Lu & Chang, 2012; Mcarthur & Apatow, 1983; Zebrowitz et al., 1996; Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992; Zuckerman et al., 1981). Results of Experiment 1 also extended our understanding of this filed, by suggesting that human beings have a propensity to choose the most suitable reproductive partner regardless of cultural differences of
likely to remove face box than that in control group (p = 0.024, Cohen's d = 0.51). However, for one-night stand scenario, there were no significant interactions or main effects, ps > 0.18. 3.2.3. Rated importance of facial and bodily information As shown in Fig. 5 and Table 3, a three-way mixed model ANOVA of importance rating suggested a significant main effect of section, F (1,80) = 4.48, p = 0.037, ηp2 = 0.053, an interaction effect between priming and scenario, F (1,80) = 5.70, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067, an interaction effect between priming and section, F (1,80) = 4.48, p = 0.037, ηp2 = 0.053, and an interaction effect between scenario and section, F (1,80) = 5.75, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067. More importantly, we found a three-way interaction effect, F (1,80) = 4.19, p = 0.044, ηp2 = 0.05. Further tests of control priming group showed that the importance rating of the body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.54), while the importance rating of the face in the one-night stand scenario was lower than that in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.026, Cohen's d = 0.41). Moreover, for the girlfriend scenario, the importance rating of the body in the mortality salience group was higher than that in control group (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.81), while there was no group difference for face importance rating (p = 0.269, Cohen's d = 0.24), while for one-night stand scenario, there were no 5
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
looseness/tightness. According to TMT, offspring may be perceived as a buffer against death anxiety, therefore, the desire for reproduction would be increased after mortality salience (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Rodgers et al., 2005; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005). Although both face and body can convey information about female fecundity, female body is a better cue to current fertility (Lu & Chang, 2012). After death priming, even in pursuing the long-term relationship, human beings will prefer options to the current cues, that is, males prefer female body more than female face. A different possibility of mortality salience inducing men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context is that mortality salience may increase the pursuit of pleasure behaviors, especially for male individuals. For example, participants after mortality salience priming are more likely to engage in reckless driving (Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer, 1999; Taubman-BenAri & Findler, 2003) substance abuse (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004) and mortality salience also caused the male to be more likely to endorse unprotected sex and to have more sexual partners (Hirschberger, Florian, & Mikulincer, 2002). Researchers believed that the decision to pursue a risky activity depends on whether the benefits are greater than the costs. When mortality salience is primed, shortterm interests of individuals overcome long-term interests (Hirschberger et al., 2002). Stated in another way, people are more focused on the present pleasure than the future interest after mortality salience (Lam et al., 2009). The current findings also suggested that the rating paradigm may be a better way to investigate men's mating preference than the forcedchoice paradigm. The previous study used a forced-choice paradigm to test the mating preference for different section, in which participants were instructed that they could only remove either face or body to inform their decision (Confer et al., 2010). When compared face with body, obviously face is a better predictor of overall attractive than the body, and it can also convey more social signals, such as reciprocal romantic interest than the body (Currie & Little, 2009; Furnham & Reeves, 2006; Peters et al., 2007). Therefore, face may be weighted more than body in mate selection regardless of context, which is also shown in the current results. Due to the preference for body may be covered by face priority in the forced-choice paradigm, the rating paradigm rather than the forced-choice paradigm was used in the current study. There are several limitations to be confirmed. First of all, measures in the current study were dependent on the participants' subjective reports, rather than an indirect measure. Although this method has been applied and verified reliably in previous studies (Confer et al., 2010; Wagstaff, Sulikowski, & Burke, 2015), compared with participants' subjective reports, eye-tracking technology would be a more indirect and accurate measure of male's mate preference. Future research should try to incorporate other technology (e.g., eye-tracking) to obtain more evidence; Second, relationship status have an influence on male's mating preference, for example, males in long-term relationship judge alternative women as being less attractive than single people do (Lydon, Meana, Sepinwall, Richards, & Mayman, 1999; Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma, 1990). Moreover, close romantic relationships can effectively buffer death anxiety (Mikulincer & Florian, 2000). Future research may survey whether or not a man is currently engaged in a long-term relationship, and whether or not he is secure about the relationship to exclude the confounding. Third, male values female appearance, while female values male resources (such as social status) in mate selection, their preference is closely related to reproduction. Our results showed mortality salience has an influence on mate selection, future study should test the effect of mortality salience on women's mate preference. Finally, a relatively young sample was used in our study, future studies may replicate these results using a more diverse sample.
Author contribution Xiaolin Zhao and Juan Yang designed the experiment. Xiaolin Zhao and Xuehan Zhang conducted the experiment. Xiaolin Zhao analyzed the data by supervision of Juan Yang. Xiaolin Zhao and Juan Yang wrote the manuscript. Declaration of Competing Interest None. Acknowledgement We are grateful to Jiwen Li, Mei Zeng, Huixiang Li, Xi Ren for data collection and to all college students for their participation. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1709224, SWU1709106), China. References Ben-Ari, O. T., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1999). The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.76.1.35. Berry, D. S., & McArthur, L. Z. (1985). Some components and consequences of a babyface. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 48(2), 312–323. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.48.2.312. Berry, D. S., & Mcarthur, L. Z. (1986). Perceiving character in faces: The impact of agerelated craniofacial changes on social perception. Psychological Bulletin, 100(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.100.1.3. Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352321. Buss, D. M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10. 1017/s0140525x00023992. Buss, D. M. (1994). The strategies of human mating. American Scientist, 82(3), 238–249. Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-295X.100.2.204. Chang, L., Wang, Y., Shackelford, T. K., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Chinese mate preferences: Cultural evolution and continuity across a quarter of a century. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 678–683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.12.016. Cohan, C. L., & Cole, S. W. (2002). Life course transitions and natural disaster: Marriage, birth, and divorce following Hurricane Hugo. Journal of Family Psychology, 16(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.16.1.14. Confer, J. C., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). More than just a pretty face: men's priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term versus long-term mating contexts. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 348–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. evolhumbehav.2010.04.002. Currie, T. E., & Little, A. C. (2009). The relative importance of the face and body in judgments of human physical attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(6), 409–416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.06.005. Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A.-G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41(4), 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149. Fritsche, I., Jonas, E., Fischer, P., Koranyi, N., Berger, N., & Fleischmann, B. (2007). Mortality salience and the desire for offspring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(5), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.003. Furnham, A., & Reeves, E. (2006). The relative influence of facial neoteny and waist-tohip ratio on judgements of female attractiveness and fecundity. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11(2), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548500500155982. Gangestad, S. W., & Scheyd, G. J. (2005). The evolution of human physical attractiveness. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 523–548. d doi:https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev.anthro.33.070203.143733. Gelfand, M. J. (2012). Culture's constraints international differences in the strength of social norms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(6), 420–424. https://doi. org/10.1177/0963721412460048. Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., ... Arnadottir, J. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. science, 332(6033), 1100–1104. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1197754. Grammer, K., Honda, M., Juette, A., & Schmitt, A. (1999). Fuzziness of nonverbal courtship communication unblurred by motion energy detection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(3), 487. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77. 3.487. Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., & Alison, C. (2002). Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs: Exploring the cognitive architecture of terror management. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 131(3), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.131.3.307. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. New York: Springerhttps://doi.org/10.
6
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al. 1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10. Hager, J. C., & Ekman, P. (1985). The asymmetry of facial actions is inconsistent with models of hemispheric specialization. Psychophysiology, 22(3), 307–318. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1985.tb01605.x. Hinkin, T. R. (1995). A review of scale development practices in the study of organizations. Journal of Management, 21(5), 967–988. https://doi.org/10.1016/01492063(95)90050-0. Hirschberger, G., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (2002). The anxiety buffering function of close relationships: Mortality salience effects on the readiness to compromise mate selection standards. European Journal of Social Psychology, 32(5), 609–625. https:// doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.110. Jiang, J., jiang, F., Yang, X., & Wu, W. (2018). The difference of gender and sexual experience on the knowledge and attitude of one-night stand among university students. Health Medicine Research and Practice, 15(1), 10–17 (in Chinese). Lam, S. R., Rios Morrison, K., & Smeesters, D. (2009). Gender, intimacy, and risky sex: A terror management account. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8), 1046–1056. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209336607. Le, G., Chen, H., & Zhang, Y. (2005). Verification of evolutionary hypothesis on human mate selection mechanism in cross-culture context. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 37(4), 561–568 (in Chinese). Liu, W. (2011). Comparison of sexual attitudes and trends between Chinese and American youth. Contemporary Youth Research, (9), 38–45 (in Chinese). Lu, H. J., & Chang, L. (2012). Automatic attention towards face or body as a function of mating motivation. Evolutionary Psychology, 10(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/ 147470491201000113. Lydon, J. E., Meana, M., Sepinwall, D., Richards, N., & Mayman, S. (1999). The commitment calibration hypothesis: When do people devalue attractive alternatives? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(2), 152–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0146167299025002002. Mcarthur, L. Z., & Apatow, K. (1983). Impressions of baby-faced adults. Social Cognition, 2(4), 315–342. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1984.2.4.315. Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (2000). Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 260. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.79.2.260. Peters, M., Rhodes, G., & Simmons, L. W. (2007). Contributions of the face and body to overall attractiveness. Animal Behaviour, 73(6), 937–942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. anbehav.2006.07.012. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (1999). A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts an extension of terror management theory. Psychological Review, 106(4), 835–845. https://doi.org/10. 1037/0033-295x.106.4.835. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Maxfield, M. (2006). On the unique psychological import of the human awareness of mortality: Theme and variations. Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 328–356. https://doi.org/10.2307/20447344. Rodgers, J. L., John, C. A. S., & Coleman, R. (2005). Did fertility go up after the Oklahoma City bombing? An analysis of births in metropolitan counties in Oklahoma, 1990–1999. Demography, 42(4), 675–692. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2005.0034. Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence
for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality Social Psychology, 57(4), 681–690. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.681. Routledge, C., Arndt, J., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2004). A time to tan: Proximal and distal effects of mortality salience on sun exposure intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(10), 1347–1358. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0146167204264056. Simpson, J. A., Gangestad, S. W., & Lerma, M. (1990). Perception of physical attractiveness: Mechanisms involved in the maintenance of romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1192. https://doi.org/10.1037/00223514.59.6.1192. Symons, D. (1979). The evolution of human sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. Taubman-Ben-Ari, O., & Findler, L. (2003). Reckless driving and gender: An examination of a terror management theory explanation. Death Studies, 27(7), 603–618. https:// doi.org/10.1080/07481180302898. Thornhill, R., & Gangestad, S. W. (2008). The evolutionary biology of human female sexuality. Oxford University Press. Thornhill, R., & Grammer, K. (1999). The body and face of woman: One ornament that signals quality? Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(2), 105–120. https://doi.org/10. 1016/S1090-5138(98)00044-0. Thornhill, R., & Møller, A. P. (1997). Developmental stability, disease and medicine. Biological Reviews, 72(4), 497–548. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185x.1997. tb00022.x. Vicary, A. M. (2011). Mortality salience and namesaking: Does thinking about death make people want to name their children after themselves? Journal of Research in Personality, 45(1), 138–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.11.016. Wagstaff, D. L., Sulikowski, D., & Burke, D. (2015). Sex-differences in preference for looking at the face or body in short-term and long-term mating contexts. Evolution, Mind and Behaviour, 13(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1556/2050.2015.0003. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063. Williams, G. C. (1975). Sex and evolution. Princeton University Press. Wisman, A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2005). From the grave to the cradle: Evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 89(1), 46–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.1.46. Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (1992). Impressions of babyfaced individuals across the life span. Developmental Psychology, 28(6), 1143–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0012-1649.28.6.1143. Zebrowitz, L. A., Voinescu, L., & Collins, M. A. (1996). “Wide-eyed” and “crooked-faced”: Determinants of perceived and real honesty across the life span. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(12), 1258–1269. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 01461672962212006. Zhou, X., Lei, Q., Marley, S. C., & Chen, J. (2009). Existential function of babies: Babies as a buffer of death-related anxiety. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(1), 40–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-839x.2008.01268.x. Zuckerman, M., Depaulo, B. M., & Rosenthal, R. (1981). Verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 1–59. https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60369-X.
7
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context Xiaolin Zhao, Xuehan Zhang, Juan Yang
T
⁎
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality, Ministry of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
ARTICLE INFO
ABSTRACT
Keywords: Mating preference Mortality salience Loose/tight culture Long/short term context
Sexual attitudes are influenced by social norms, with an open sexual attitude in loose cultures (e.g., United States), and a conservative sexual attitude in tight cultures (e.g., China). Previous studies have found that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context and prefer women's body in short-term mating context in loose culture. However, whether men in tight culture prefer women's body in one-night stand mating context is unknown. Moreover, previous studies have shown that mortality salience has an influence on human's reproductive behaviors, however, it is unclear how mortality salience affects men's mating preferences. Experiment 1 replicated the previous findings showing that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context (girlfriend), and prefer women's body in short-term mating context (one-night stand) in tight culture. Moreover, experiment 2 found that after priming with death, men in the long-term context prefer women's body more than that in control priming group, and they also rated higher importance of body in mating selection than that in control group. Our results suggested that mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context.
1. Introduction Evolutionary psychologists proposed that human beings would select those mating partners who enable them to improve their reproductive possibility, in other words, the essence of mate preference is to enhance reproductive success (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993; Symons, 1979). Actually, males face the challenge of assessing two mating-related uncertainties within the same female individual. On one hand, males are uncertain over female fecundity, including reproductive value which is defined as future reproductive potential and current fertility which is defined as the probability of present reproduction (Buss, 1989; Confer, Perilloux, & Buss, 2010); on the other hand, males are uncertain over female fidelity (Lu & Chang, 2012). Appearance of the female can provide cues relating to female fecundity information, such as age, health, and hormonal status (Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008; Thornhill & Grammer, 1999), and their facial features and expressions can also provide cues to the assessment of loyalty and honesty (Grammer, Honda, Juette, & Schmitt, 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008). For example, facial features, such as babyfaceness, attractiveness, facial symmetry, and large eyes had positive effects on perceived honesty (Berry & McArthur, 1985; Berry & Mcarthur, 1986; Hager & Ekman, 1985; Mcarthur & Apatow, 1983; Zebrowitz & ⁎
Montepare, 1992; Zebrowitz, Voinescu, & Collins, 1996). Moreover, gaze and smiling are two facial expressions associated with perceived truthfulness (Zebrowitz et al., 1996; Zuckerman, Depaulo, & Rosenthal, 1981). Therefore, in order to improve reproductive possibility, male values female physical appearance in mate selection and prefers those females who have high attractiveness (Chang, Wang, Shackelford, & Buss, 2011). In fact, the physical appearance consists of two sections: face and body. Although both sections convey information about female fecundity, each section conveys a subset of cues that are not conveyed by the other section (Confer et al., 2010; Peters, Rhodes, & Simmons, 2007). Face can indicate reproductive information of youth and health mainly through facial color, luster, and volume (Gangestad & Scheyd, 2005), and the characteristics of face are not easy to change except for plastic surgery procedures. In other words, face may be a better and more reliable cue to reproductive value than body (Thornhill & Møller, 1997). However, body can provide female fecundity information mainly through the size of the chest, the length of the legs, and the waist-to-hip ratio (Buss, 1994; Symons, 1979; Williams, 1975), and body shape may be more easily changed via pregnancy, diet, or exercise. Stated in another way, body may be a better cue to current fertility. For example, a young pregnant woman may be judged with a
Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Yang).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109524 Received 19 March 2019; Received in revised form 15 July 2019; Accepted 16 July 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
high reproductive value according to the information of the face, but with very low current fertility according to the body. In addition, facial features and expressions can also provide cues such as honest or dishonest, and sexually reserved or flirtatious to the assessment of loyalty (Grammer et al., 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 2008), whereas such information cannot be presented on the body. Previous studies have found that men's preference for women's face or body depending on the context. Men in the long-term context (e.g., a committed relationship partner) need cues relating to stable reproductive value and to female fidelity, and the face is more predictive of women's overall attractiveness than the body (Currie & Little, 2009), while they only need information about female current fertility in the short-term mating context (e.g., one-night stand). Therefore, it was found that men prefer women's face in long-term mating context, while they prefer women's body in short-term mating context (Confer et al., 2010). Research of men's visual attention was consistent with this finding showing that men's attention was captured by facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but by bodily cues in short-term mating context (Lu & Chang, 2012). As the above conclusions were drawn from the loose culture (e.g., United States), researchers started to explore the cross-cultural differences or similarities of mating preferences of men. All human cultures have social norms-rules for acceptable or appropriate behavior (Gelfand, 2012). Loose cultures have weak social norms, a wide range of permissible behaviors, while tight cultures have strong social norms, a narrow range of permissible behaviors (Gelfand et al., 2011; Hinkin, 1995). Sexual attitudes are influenced by social norms, with open sexual attitudes in loose cultures (e.g., United States), and conservative sexual attitudes in tight cultures (e.g., China). Affected by the traditional cultural tightness (Gelfand et al., 2011), sexual issues have always been a very sensitive topic in China and many Chinese are ashamed to talk about sex. Although the sexual attitudes of college students are becoming more open, and the pre-marital sexual behavior and the proportion of one-night stands are rising (Jiang, Jiang, Yang, & Wu, 2018), compared with the West of cultural looseness, the sexual attitudes of Chinese young people are generally more conservative, and most of Chinese disagree with the one-night stand behavior (Liu, 2011). Due to this, very few studies have examined the mate preference of Chinese men in one-night stand context (short-term mating context) except one study suggesting that Chinese men's visual attention was captured by body in short-term mating context (Lu & Chang, 2012). However, in Lu’ study, the stimuli size of the face doesn't match the size of the body, which may confound the results. Therefore, in the current study, participants' subjective reports (such as importance rating for female face and body) were used as the dependent variable to test Chinese men's preference in short-term mating context, and we would like to hypothesize that due to men need information about female current fertility in the short-term mating context, they will prefer women's body in the context of one-night stand in tight culture. Moreover, consistent with previous studies, we would like to hypothesize that men in the tight culture also value women's face more than body in longterm mating context (Le, Chen, & Zhang, 2005). Individual mate selection is not only affected by the social-cultural context, but also by their own state (e.g., relax or anxiety). The theory of terror management (TMT) proposes that, on one hand, like all other species, human beings have the instinct to survive; On the other hand, unlike other creatures, human beings have the cognitive ability to realize that ultimately, they must die (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999). The instinct to survive coupling with the realization of inevitable death would cause deep anxiety (Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, & Maxfield, 2006), and thus have influenced human behavior. However, individuals can reduce death anxiety by increasing reproduction (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Rodgers, John, & Coleman, 2005; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005). For example, participants in mortality salience condition had a stronger desire for having children (Wisman &
Goldenberg, 2005); more willing to name the child in his own name (Vicary, 2011); more willing to watch baby photos than that in control group (Zhou, Lei, Marley, & Chen, 2009). Empirical evidence also showed watching the pictures of newborn animals can reduce the death thoughts of participants in mortality salience group. The study of the relationship between natural disasters and birth rates also supports the view that after natural disasters or social emergencies, the overall birth rate of society will increase significantly (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Rodgers et al., 2005). Even mate preference is closely related to reproductive behavior regardless of contexts (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993) and previous researches have revealed that mortality salience has an influence on human's reproductive behaviors (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Vicary, 2011), it is unclear how mortality salience affects male's mate preferences. Therefore, we aimed to examine the impact of mortality salience on mate preference both in short-term and long-term contexts in Experiment 2. When being primed of the mortality salience, individuals are more aware of the limited nature of life, more aware of the importance of reproduction, and more willing to reap the timely returns (Fritsche et al., 2007; Greenberg et al., 1986; Lam, Rios Morrison, & Smeesters, 2009). The female body is the part that can directly provide cues related to current reproduction. Therefore, we would like to hypothesize that mortality salience induced men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context, in other words, participants in mortality salience group will priority female's body attractiveness than people in control condition. 2. Experiment 1 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants 75 healthy Chinese male undergraduate students (mean age = 20.23 year, SD = 1.48) who identified themselves as heterosexual took part in the experiment. According to previous research (Confer et al., 2010; Lu & Chang, 2012), this sample size (N = 75) was adequate for testing the effects of mating context on men's preference. Post-hoc tests also revealed that our observed power was ≥0.90 for all key tests. Participants were recruited by fliers or advertisements on the campus. 2.1.2. Materials and procedure In previous studies, the short-term mating was specified as a onenight stand and the long-term mating was specified as a committed relationship partner (e.g., wife) (Confer et al., 2010). However, since it is more popular for male college students to have a girlfriend as a committed relationship partner in their current state, we also specified ‘girlfriend’ as a committed relationship partner, therefore, three mate scenarios (one-night stand, girlfriend, and wife) were included in the current study. Participants viewed an image of a female whose face was occluded by a ‘face box’ and whose body was occluded by a ‘body box’. A stick figure was superimposed over the face and body boxes to indicate which part of the photographed individual lied underneath (Fig. 1). Participants were instructed to first imagine themselves as single and that they have an opportunity to date the individual behind the boxes as either a short-term mate (e.g., one-night stand) or long-term mates (e.g., girlfriend/wife). To experimentally test the importance of facial and bodily attractiveness, participants were instructed to indicate the possibility of removing the ‘face box’ and the ‘body box’ separately on a 9-point scale (e.g. ‘What's the probability of removing the face box?’; What's the probability of removing the body box?’) wherein a score of 1 indicated that it is totally unlikely to remove that box and a score of 9 indicated that it is extremely likely to remove that box. The order of both questions and scenarios were counterbalanced between the subjects. 2
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
Fig. 2. Possibility of removing boxes in either a short-term context or long-term mating contexts. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
2.2. Results and discussion 2.2.1. Possibility of removal We analyzed the data with a 2 (section: face, body) × 3 (scenario: one-night stand, girlfriend, wife) repeated measurement ANOVA. As shown in Fig. 2 and Table 1, there was a main effect of section, suggesting the higher possibility of removing face box compared to body box, F (1, 74) = 11.39, p = 0.001, ηp2 = 0.133. There was also an interaction effect between section and scenario, F (2, 148) = 9.66, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.115. Follow-up tests revealed that participants were more likely to remove face box both in girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.51) and in wife scenario (p = 0.004, Cohen's d = 0.43) than that in one-night stand scenario, while there were no significant differences between girlfriend scenario and wife scenario (p = 1.00, Cohen's d = 0.07). We also found the higher possibility of removing face box compared to body box both in girlfriend scenario (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.74) and in wife scenario (p = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.56), but this pattern was not present in the one-night stand scenario (p = 0.584, Cohen's d = 0.08). Moreover, results showed there's no main effects of scenario, F (2, 148) = 0.61, p = 0.547, ηp2 = 0.008. 2.2.2. Rated importance of facial and bodily information As shown in Fig. 3 and Table 1, a repeated measurement ANOVA of importance rating showed a significant interaction of section × scenario, F (2, 148) = 8.65, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.105, however, there was neither a significant main effect of section (F (1, 74) = 3.38, p = 0.07, ηp2 = 0.044) nor scenario (F (2, 148) = 2.15, p = 0.12, ηp2 = 0.028). Further tests on the interaction suggested that the importance rating of the body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that both in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.44)
Fig. 1. Stick figure.
After participants indicated the possibility of removing boxes, they were then asked, “when you made your decision, how did you evaluate the importance of face and body information gathered from the face and the body?” in different scenarios, on a scale from 1 (totally less important) to 9 (extremely important). We also counterbalanced the order of both questions and scenarios between the participants.
Table 1 Means and Standard Deviations of participants' choice in experiment 1.
Possibility of removing boxes Rated importance
3
Face Body Face Body
One-night stand
Girlfriend
Wife
5.75(2.14) 5.93(2.24) 6.11(2.20) 6.51(2.02)
6.77(1.87) 5.25(2.21) 6.40(2.03) 5.64(1.93)
6.64(1.96) 5.44(2.32) 6.37(2.01) 5.49(2.06)
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
3.1.2. Materials and procedure On arriving at the laboratory, participants filled in a packet of personality questionnaires to disguise the true purpose of the study. They were then randomly assigned to a mortality salience or a control condition (Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Participants in mortality salience group responded to two openended questions: “Briefly describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you” and “Jot down, as specifically as you can, what you think will happen to you physically as you die and once you are physically dead.” The control condition consisted of two parallel items regarding the experience of dental pain in order to compare mortality salience with the salience of negative events. Following the priming task, participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) in order to examine the immediate effects of mortality salience on mood. Moreover, as previous research has suggested that mortality salience would exert its effects when the death concerns have been shown to be outside of conscious awareness (Burke, Martens, & Faucher, 2010; Greenberg, Arndt, & Alison, 2002), each participant was then asked to perform 40 calculations in 5 min, which served as a delay to allow thoughts of death to fade from focal attention (Pyszczynski et al., 1999). In this task, participants had to estimate whether each calculation would give an odd or even number by a button press. Each calculation lasted for 7 s and two consecutive calculations were intervened with 0.5 s. Finally, participants performed the box removal procedure and rated importance task, the instructions and procedures were identical to those of Experiment 1 except we only specified ‘girlfriend’ as the longterm mate.
Fig. 3. Rated importance in short-term or long-term mating context. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
and in wife scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.50), while there were no significant differences between the girlfriend scenario and the wife scenario (p = 1.00, Cohen's d = 0.08). Moreover, there also was no significant difference for face rating among the three scenarios (ps > 0.81). Results also showed the importance rating of face was higher than that of the body both in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.021, Cohen's d = 0.38) and wife scenario (p = 0.005, Cohen's d = 0.43), while there was no difference between face importance rating and body importance rating in the one-night stand scenario (p = 0.14, Cohen's d = 0.19). Our data partly replicated the previous findings, i.e., participants both in the girlfriend scenario and wife scenario were more likely to remove face box than that in the one-night stand scenario, and the rated importance of body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that both in the girlfriend scenario and wife scenario, indicating that men have a condition-dependent adaptive proclivity to prioritize facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but shift their priorities toward bodily cues in short-term mating context. Mate preference is closely related to reproductive behavior regardless of contexts, in other words, the essence of mate preference is to improve reproductive possibility (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmitt, 1993). Recent research has shown that death reminders also can influence human reproductive behaviors. However, it is unclear how death reminders affect male mate preferences. In Experiment 2, we examined the impact of death reminders on mate preference in different contexts.
3.2. Result and discussion 3.2.1. Manipulation check of mortality salience Participants' PANAS scores were shown in Table 2. One-way ANOVA with the priming (mortality salience vs. control) as a betweensubject factor showed neither a significant effect of priming for the positive affect score, F (1,81) = 3.63, p = 0.06, ηp2 = 0.043, nor for the negative affect score, F (1,81) = 0.08, p = 0.774, ηp2 = 0.001. 3.2.2. Possibility of removal As shown in Fig. 4 and Table 3, a 2 (priming: mortality salience, control) × 2 (section: face, body) × 2 (scenario: one-night stand, girlfriend) mixed ANOVA showed a significant main effect of section, F (1,80) = 18.93, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.191, an interaction effect between priming and section, F (1,80) = 8.14, p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.092, and an interaction effect between scenario and section, F (1,80) = 8.70, p = 0.004, ηp2 = 0.098. More importantly, we found a three-way interaction effect among priming, section, and scenario, F (1,80) = 5.73, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067. Follow-up tests of control priming group revealed that participants in the girlfriend scenario were more likely to remove face box than that in the one-night stand scenario (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.71), while participants in the one-night stand scenario more likely to remove body box than that in girlfriend scenario (p = 0.002, Cohen's d = 0.60). For mortality salience priming group, there were neither significant main effects nor interactions, ps > 0.122. Most importantly, for the girlfriend scenario, participants in the mortality salience group were more likely to remove body box than that in control group (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 1.03), and they were less
3. Experiment 2 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants According to effect size in study 1, we conducted a power analysis with d = 0.43 and a power of 0.80, the analysis indicated that our study would need thirty-five participants for each group (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). Finally, eighty-four healthy Chinese male college students who identified themselves as heterosexual participated in this study as paid volunteers. Two participants were excluded due to missing data, leaving 82 for data analysis. Forty-one participants were randomly assigned to the mortality salience group (mean age = 19.29, SD = 1.47) and Forty-one participants were randomly assigned to the control group (mean age = 19.24, SD = 1.36). Post hoc tests revealed that our observed power was ≥0.91 for all key tests.
Table 2 Means and Standard Deviations of PANAS scores in experiment 2.
Positive affect Negative affect
4
Mortality salience
Negative affect
3.17(0.84) 2.47(0.96)
3.49(0.66) 2.53(0.96)
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
Fig. 5. Rated importance in short-term or long-term mating context after priming. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
Fig. 4. Possibility of removing boxes in either a short-term or long-term mating contexts after priming. Error bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.
significant interactions or main effects, ps > 0.733. Thus, results of control group replicated the previous findings both in terms of removal possibility and rated importance, indicating that men prioritize facial cues in long-term mating contexts, but prioritize bodily cues in short-term mating contexts. Most important, we found death reminder had an influence on mate preference, suggesting that death reminder increases male's body preference in long-term mate selection.
Table 3 Means and Standard Deviations of participants' choice in experiment 2.
Possibility of removing boxes Rated importance
Mortality salience group
Control group
One-night stand
Girlfriend
One-night stand
Girlfriend
Face Body
6.00(2.38) 5.68(2.21)
6.44(1.90) 5.85(2.08)
6.00(2.13) 5.12(2.41)
7.29(1.42) 3.83(1.84)
Face Body
6.12(2.09) 6.20(1.89)
6.49(1.78) 6.41(1.83)
6.17(1.97) 6.00(2.20)
6.90(1.59) 4.88(1.95)
4. General discussion In the current study, we designed two experiments to explore how mortality salience affects male's mate preference. In doing so, firstly, we replicated the previous findings of men's preference for women's face or body i.e., men in long-term context prefer women's face more than body, indicating that men will pay more attention women's face in longterm context. Moreover, we found that after priming with death, men in the long-term context prefer women's body more than that in control priming group, and they also rated higher importance of body in mating selection than that in control group. Our results suggested that mortality salience induces men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context. Results of experiment 1 showed that men in long-term context prefer women's face more than body, and they prefer body more than face in short-term context in tight culture, which is consistent with previous findings in loose culture (Confer et al., 2010; Lu & Chang, 2012). Males spend very little time with short-term partner, so they prefer the most direct and obvious indicator of current fertility in shortterm context (Lu & Chang, 2012). On the contrary, males live with longterm partner (e.g., wife) for a long period, even for the whole life, due to this, they prefer cues relating to females' fecundity and fidelity in long-term context (Berry & McArthur, 1985; Berry & Mcarthur, 1986; Hager & Ekman, 1985; Lu & Chang, 2012; Mcarthur & Apatow, 1983; Zebrowitz et al., 1996; Zebrowitz & Montepare, 1992; Zuckerman et al., 1981). Results of Experiment 1 also extended our understanding of this filed, by suggesting that human beings have a propensity to choose the most suitable reproductive partner regardless of cultural differences of
likely to remove face box than that in control group (p = 0.024, Cohen's d = 0.51). However, for one-night stand scenario, there were no significant interactions or main effects, ps > 0.18. 3.2.3. Rated importance of facial and bodily information As shown in Fig. 5 and Table 3, a three-way mixed model ANOVA of importance rating suggested a significant main effect of section, F (1,80) = 4.48, p = 0.037, ηp2 = 0.053, an interaction effect between priming and scenario, F (1,80) = 5.70, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067, an interaction effect between priming and section, F (1,80) = 4.48, p = 0.037, ηp2 = 0.053, and an interaction effect between scenario and section, F (1,80) = 5.75, p = 0.019, ηp2 = 0.067. More importantly, we found a three-way interaction effect, F (1,80) = 4.19, p = 0.044, ηp2 = 0.05. Further tests of control priming group showed that the importance rating of the body in the one-night stand scenario was higher than that in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.54), while the importance rating of the face in the one-night stand scenario was lower than that in the girlfriend scenario (p = 0.026, Cohen's d = 0.41). Moreover, for the girlfriend scenario, the importance rating of the body in the mortality salience group was higher than that in control group (p < 0.001, Cohen's d = 0.81), while there was no group difference for face importance rating (p = 0.269, Cohen's d = 0.24), while for one-night stand scenario, there were no 5
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al.
looseness/tightness. According to TMT, offspring may be perceived as a buffer against death anxiety, therefore, the desire for reproduction would be increased after mortality salience (Cohan & Cole, 2002; Fritsche et al., 2007; Rodgers et al., 2005; Wisman & Goldenberg, 2005). Although both face and body can convey information about female fecundity, female body is a better cue to current fertility (Lu & Chang, 2012). After death priming, even in pursuing the long-term relationship, human beings will prefer options to the current cues, that is, males prefer female body more than female face. A different possibility of mortality salience inducing men's mating strategy toward body attractiveness in long-term mating context is that mortality salience may increase the pursuit of pleasure behaviors, especially for male individuals. For example, participants after mortality salience priming are more likely to engage in reckless driving (Ben-Ari, Florian, & Mikulincer, 1999; Taubman-BenAri & Findler, 2003) substance abuse (Routledge, Arndt, & Goldenberg, 2004) and mortality salience also caused the male to be more likely to endorse unprotected sex and to have more sexual partners (Hirschberger, Florian, & Mikulincer, 2002). Researchers believed that the decision to pursue a risky activity depends on whether the benefits are greater than the costs. When mortality salience is primed, shortterm interests of individuals overcome long-term interests (Hirschberger et al., 2002). Stated in another way, people are more focused on the present pleasure than the future interest after mortality salience (Lam et al., 2009). The current findings also suggested that the rating paradigm may be a better way to investigate men's mating preference than the forcedchoice paradigm. The previous study used a forced-choice paradigm to test the mating preference for different section, in which participants were instructed that they could only remove either face or body to inform their decision (Confer et al., 2010). When compared face with body, obviously face is a better predictor of overall attractive than the body, and it can also convey more social signals, such as reciprocal romantic interest than the body (Currie & Little, 2009; Furnham & Reeves, 2006; Peters et al., 2007). Therefore, face may be weighted more than body in mate selection regardless of context, which is also shown in the current results. Due to the preference for body may be covered by face priority in the forced-choice paradigm, the rating paradigm rather than the forced-choice paradigm was used in the current study. There are several limitations to be confirmed. First of all, measures in the current study were dependent on the participants' subjective reports, rather than an indirect measure. Although this method has been applied and verified reliably in previous studies (Confer et al., 2010; Wagstaff, Sulikowski, & Burke, 2015), compared with participants' subjective reports, eye-tracking technology would be a more indirect and accurate measure of male's mate preference. Future research should try to incorporate other technology (e.g., eye-tracking) to obtain more evidence; Second, relationship status have an influence on male's mating preference, for example, males in long-term relationship judge alternative women as being less attractive than single people do (Lydon, Meana, Sepinwall, Richards, & Mayman, 1999; Simpson, Gangestad, & Lerma, 1990). Moreover, close romantic relationships can effectively buffer death anxiety (Mikulincer & Florian, 2000). Future research may survey whether or not a man is currently engaged in a long-term relationship, and whether or not he is secure about the relationship to exclude the confounding. Third, male values female appearance, while female values male resources (such as social status) in mate selection, their preference is closely related to reproduction. Our results showed mortality salience has an influence on mate selection, future study should test the effect of mortality salience on women's mate preference. Finally, a relatively young sample was used in our study, future studies may replicate these results using a more diverse sample.
Author contribution Xiaolin Zhao and Juan Yang designed the experiment. Xiaolin Zhao and Xuehan Zhang conducted the experiment. Xiaolin Zhao analyzed the data by supervision of Juan Yang. Xiaolin Zhao and Juan Yang wrote the manuscript. Declaration of Competing Interest None. Acknowledgement We are grateful to Jiwen Li, Mei Zeng, Huixiang Li, Xi Ren for data collection and to all college students for their participation. This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1709224, SWU1709106), China. References Ben-Ari, O. T., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (1999). The impact of mortality salience on reckless driving: A test of terror management mechanisms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 35. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.76.1.35. Berry, D. S., & McArthur, L. Z. (1985). Some components and consequences of a babyface. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 48(2), 312–323. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.48.2.312. Berry, D. S., & Mcarthur, L. Z. (1986). Perceiving character in faces: The impact of agerelated craniofacial changes on social perception. Psychological Bulletin, 100(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.100.1.3. Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decades of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(2), 155–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352321. Buss, D. M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10. 1017/s0140525x00023992. Buss, D. M. (1994). The strategies of human mating. American Scientist, 82(3), 238–249. Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, 100(2), 204–232. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0033-295X.100.2.204. Chang, L., Wang, Y., Shackelford, T. K., & Buss, D. M. (2011). Chinese mate preferences: Cultural evolution and continuity across a quarter of a century. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 678–683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.12.016. Cohan, C. L., & Cole, S. W. (2002). Life course transitions and natural disaster: Marriage, birth, and divorce following Hurricane Hugo. Journal of Family Psychology, 16(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.16.1.14. Confer, J. C., Perilloux, C., & Buss, D. M. (2010). More than just a pretty face: men's priority shifts toward bodily attractiveness in short-term versus long-term mating contexts. Evolution and Human Behavior, 31(5), 348–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. evolhumbehav.2010.04.002. Currie, T. E., & Little, A. C. (2009). The relative importance of the face and body in judgments of human physical attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(6), 409–416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.06.005. Faul, F., Erdfelder, E., Buchner, A., & Lang, A.-G. (2009). Statistical power analyses using G* Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41(4), 1149–1160. https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149. Fritsche, I., Jonas, E., Fischer, P., Koranyi, N., Berger, N., & Fleischmann, B. (2007). Mortality salience and the desire for offspring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(5), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.003. Furnham, A., & Reeves, E. (2006). The relative influence of facial neoteny and waist-tohip ratio on judgements of female attractiveness and fecundity. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 11(2), 129–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548500500155982. Gangestad, S. W., & Scheyd, G. J. (2005). The evolution of human physical attractiveness. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 523–548. d doi:https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev.anthro.33.070203.143733. Gelfand, M. J. (2012). Culture's constraints international differences in the strength of social norms. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21(6), 420–424. https://doi. org/10.1177/0963721412460048. Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., ... Arnadottir, J. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. science, 332(6033), 1100–1104. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1197754. Grammer, K., Honda, M., Juette, A., & Schmitt, A. (1999). Fuzziness of nonverbal courtship communication unblurred by motion energy detection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(3), 487. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77. 3.487. Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., & Alison, C. (2002). Mortality salience and the spreading activation of worldview-relevant constructs: Exploring the cognitive architecture of terror management. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 131(3), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.131.3.307. Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. New York: Springerhttps://doi.org/10.
6
Personality and Individual Differences 151 (2019) 109524
X. Zhao, et al. 1007/978-1-4613-9564-5_10. Hager, J. C., & Ekman, P. (1985). The asymmetry of facial actions is inconsistent with models of hemispheric specialization. Psychophysiology, 22(3), 307–318. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1985.tb01605.x. Hinkin, T. R. (1995). A review of scale development practices in the study of organizations. Journal of Management, 21(5), 967–988. https://doi.org/10.1016/01492063(95)90050-0. Hirschberger, G., Florian, V., & Mikulincer, M. (2002). The anxiety buffering function of close relationships: Mortality salience effects on the readiness to compromise mate selection standards. European Journal of Social Psychology, 32(5), 609–625. https:// doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.110. Jiang, J., jiang, F., Yang, X., & Wu, W. (2018). The difference of gender and sexual experience on the knowledge and attitude of one-night stand among university students. Health Medicine Research and Practice, 15(1), 10–17 (in Chinese). Lam, S. R., Rios Morrison, K., & Smeesters, D. (2009). Gender, intimacy, and risky sex: A terror management account. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(8), 1046–1056. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167209336607. Le, G., Chen, H., & Zhang, Y. (2005). Verification of evolutionary hypothesis on human mate selection mechanism in cross-culture context. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 37(4), 561–568 (in Chinese). Liu, W. (2011). Comparison of sexual attitudes and trends between Chinese and American youth. Contemporary Youth Research, (9), 38–45 (in Chinese). Lu, H. J., & Chang, L. (2012). Automatic attention towards face or body as a function of mating motivation. Evolutionary Psychology, 10(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/ 147470491201000113. Lydon, J. E., Meana, M., Sepinwall, D., Richards, N., & Mayman, S. (1999). The commitment calibration hypothesis: When do people devalue attractive alternatives? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(2), 152–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0146167299025002002. Mcarthur, L. Z., & Apatow, K. (1983). Impressions of baby-faced adults. Social Cognition, 2(4), 315–342. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.1984.2.4.315. Mikulincer, M., & Florian, V. (2000). Exploring individual differences in reactions to mortality salience: Does attachment style regulate terror management mechanisms? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(2), 260. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0022-3514.79.2.260. Peters, M., Rhodes, G., & Simmons, L. W. (2007). Contributions of the face and body to overall attractiveness. Animal Behaviour, 73(6), 937–942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. anbehav.2006.07.012. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (1999). A dual-process model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts an extension of terror management theory. Psychological Review, 106(4), 835–845. https://doi.org/10. 1037/0033-295x.106.4.835. Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Maxfield, M. (2006). On the unique psychological import of the human awareness of mortality: Theme and variations. Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 328–356. https://doi.org/10.2307/20447344. Rodgers, J. L., John, C. A. S., & Coleman, R. (2005). Did fertility go up after the Oklahoma City bombing? An analysis of births in metropolitan counties in Oklahoma, 1990–1999. Demography, 42(4), 675–692. https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2005.0034. Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence
for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality Social Psychology, 57(4), 681–690. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.681. Routledge, C., Arndt, J., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2004). A time to tan: Proximal and distal effects of mortality salience on sun exposure intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(10), 1347–1358. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0146167204264056. Simpson, J. A., Gangestad, S. W., & Lerma, M. (1990). Perception of physical attractiveness: Mechanisms involved in the maintenance of romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1192. https://doi.org/10.1037/00223514.59.6.1192. Symons, D. (1979). The evolution of human sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. Taubman-Ben-Ari, O., & Findler, L. (2003). Reckless driving and gender: An examination of a terror management theory explanation. Death Studies, 27(7), 603–618. https:// doi.org/10.1080/07481180302898. Thornhill, R., & Gangestad, S. W. (2008). The evolutionary biology of human female sexuality. Oxford University Press. Thornhill, R., & Grammer, K. (1999). The body and face of woman: One ornament that signals quality? Evolution and Human Behavior, 20(2), 105–120. https://doi.org/10. 1016/S1090-5138(98)00044-0. Thornhill, R., & Møller, A. P. (1997). Developmental stability, disease and medicine. Biological Reviews, 72(4), 497–548. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185x.1997. tb00022.x. Vicary, A. M. (2011). Mortality salience and namesaking: Does thinking about death make people want to name their children after themselves? Journal of Research in Personality, 45(1), 138–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.11.016. Wagstaff, D. L., Sulikowski, D., & Burke, D. (2015). Sex-differences in preference for looking at the face or body in short-term and long-term mating contexts. Evolution, Mind and Behaviour, 13(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1556/2050.2015.0003. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063. Williams, G. C. (1975). Sex and evolution. Princeton University Press. Wisman, A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2005). From the grave to the cradle: Evidence that mortality salience engenders a desire for offspring. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 89(1), 46–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.1.46. Zebrowitz, L. A., & Montepare, J. M. (1992). Impressions of babyfaced individuals across the life span. Developmental Psychology, 28(6), 1143–1152. https://doi.org/10.1037/ 0012-1649.28.6.1143. Zebrowitz, L. A., Voinescu, L., & Collins, M. A. (1996). “Wide-eyed” and “crooked-faced”: Determinants of perceived and real honesty across the life span. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(12), 1258–1269. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 01461672962212006. Zhou, X., Lei, Q., Marley, S. C., & Chen, J. (2009). Existential function of babies: Babies as a buffer of death-related anxiety. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12(1), 40–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-839x.2008.01268.x. Zuckerman, M., Depaulo, B. M., & Rosenthal, R. (1981). Verbal and nonverbal communication of deception. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 1–59. https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60369-X.
7