evolution Flashcards
(12 cards)
buss aim
Investigates both gender and cultural difference in mate preferences
1. As men are searching for women with high reproductive value, they will favor youth and physical appearance;
2. As women are searching for men who will invest in their offspring, they will favor a man with the resources he can provide;
3. As men do not want to invest in another man’s child, chastity will be highly valued.
buss participants an experimental style
10,000 participants across 37 different cultures
survey - correlation study
procedure buss
The survey data questioned; age preferences, desired children, characteristics from a scale of 0 - 3 used to rate 18 characteristics.
Main aim was to find out about these variables:
Financial prospects
Looks
Chastity
Ambition and industriousness
Then they were asked to rank 13 characteristics from 1, most desirable to 13 least.
Main goal was to find:
Earning capacity
Physically attractive
Instructions were given when translating forms to make the terms sex neutral, eg not saying beautiful
results buss
- in 36 out of 37 samples, women valued “good financial prospects” in a potential mate more than males did.
- in all of the samples, men preferred younger mates, with an average of 24.83. This age preference is close to the age of peak female fertility.
- Females preferred mates who are older than they are.
34 of the 37 samples showed that males value physical attractiveness in potential mates more than females do. This was the trend in the remaining three samples, but it was not statistically significant. - Only 23 of the 37 samples valued chastity
However these do show evolutionary influence on relations, these were also found:
USA: Love ranked first.
Iran: Love ranked third. Ranked high: education, intelligence, ambition, chastity.
Nigeria: Love ranked fourth. Ranked high: good health, neatness, desire for home and children.
China: Love ranked sixth. Ranked high: good health, chastity, domestic skills.
South Africa (Zulu): Love ranked seventh. Ranked high: emotional stability and maturity, dependability
strengths buss
The sample is large and represents a wide diversity of cultural and economic groups
The sample was highly diverse with regard to geography, culture, and religion. The wide variety of sampling techniques used increases the generalizability as the findings were consistent between groups, regardless of the sampling technique employed.
Two questionnaire with different techniques in different ways - parallel forms reliability
Supported by the findings of other studies
Quantitative data collected
The researchers carried out the survey in the language of the participants. They used back-translation methods to control that the meanings of the questions were the same in all languages.
weakness buss
Limited external validity; does not truly represent how ppl will pick a mate
There were difficulties with construct validity. For example, questions about marriage were problematic in Sweden where many couples live together but do not get married. In Nigeria, polygyny is common; therefore, it is questionable how the questions reflected the possibility of having many wives.
Representations from each country varied, diff sample sizes so generalizations of a whole country cannot be made from small sample
Self reported, may not be fully true to their beliefs
Demand characteristics to fit norms and shit like the media
Individual differences; eg homosexuality
- Internal validity lowered, as original data was not always sent from each country, instead the raw results were put onto coding sheets and then sent to the U.S.A., and so there could be problems with the
transfer of data from one sheet to another.
There is a question of the temporal validity of the study. Zhang, Lingshan, et al (2019) carried out a replication with 3073 participants from 36 countries and found that although women preferred mates with good earning capacity more than men did and men preferred physically attractive mates more than women did, they found little evidence that these sex differences were smaller in countries with greater gender equality.
wedkekind aim
It is believed that mhc is dictated by smell, so this study aims to see if women are attracted to men based on mhc
wedekind participants
49 women 44 male were categorise their MHC from university in switzerland a sample with a wide variety of mhc
- true experiment
wedekind procedure
Men were asked to wear a t shirt for 2 nights
Keep shirt in open plastic during the day
Use perfume free detergent on clothes and bedding
Perfume free soap
No:
smoking
Drinking
Spicy foods
Sex
Women asked to rank the small of 7 shirts in boxes with a smelling hole after 2nd week of menstruation as that is when smell is most sentitive
They were also asked to use a nosespray for the 14 days before the experiment
They were also given a book about the power od smell;Süskind’s novel Perfume which helped them understand their perception of smell
3 boxes had t shirts with mhc similarity to the women smelling, 3 different mhc, one control
Asked to rate intensity and pleasantness and sexiness 1-10
It was noted if women were on birth control which caused preferability similar to their own
wedekend results
Women rated more pleasant mhc when they were different to their own, this suggested mhc inflcues mate choice
The women who took oral contraceptivenes rated the opposite way round
wedekind results
Supports evolutionary argument for human mate selection, and has been successfully replicated nu jacob and yamazaki
Double blind experiment to minimize demand characteristics
This study has been successfully
replicated by Jacob et al (2002). Yamazaki et al. (1976) showed this to be the case for male mice, which show a preference for females of different MHC.
Evidence shows that women and men who have similar mhc and reproduce are more likely to have mischarridges and babies of smaller mass. Therefore showing the influence of mhc in mate choosing though it is not a conscious choice
weakness wedkind
Supports evolutionary argument for human mate selection, and has been successfully replicated nu jacob and yamazaki
Double blind experiment to minimize demand characteristics
This study has been successfully
replicated by Jacob et al (2002). Yamazaki et al. (1976) showed this to be the case for male mice, which show a preference for females of different MHC.
Evidence shows that women and men who have similar mhc and reproduce are more likely to have mischarridges and babies of smaller mass. Therefore showing the influence of mhc in mate choosing though it is not a conscious choice
