sociocultural factors n relationships Flashcards
(14 cards)
zajonc aim
The aim of the study was to investigate whether exposure to a certain person caused attraction
zajonc procedure
Lab experiment
Michigan state university seniors, women
They were told it was a study about visual memory
Shown a set of faces for 2 seconds
Each group was shown the face a different frequency of time s
Each time they saw it they were asked to rate it on a 7 point scale: attraction
zajonc results
When the participants were shown the photo more frequently, they rated the man n the photo higher than those in the low frequency groups
weakness zajonc
- Ethical considerations, as they were told it was a visual memory test, deception was used
- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic , weird sample used
- Does accurately represent attraction and how relationships form, likeability not equal; to attraction
- Faulty iv and dv
- Definition of attraction is ambiguous
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.
ye at al
Content analysis of online dating ads for chinese and americans
More chinese profiles provided information on their physical appearances, health conditions, financial status, education, morality
American profiles focused on personality and hobbies
Chinese stated more physical characteristics, finance, and morality when looking for mate preferences
Americans made more statements about personalities and hobbies,
It appears that there are cultural differences in how we present yourself for mates
ye et al
content anlysis of dating profiles
ye evaluation
the Ye study is less open to demand characteristics, such as the social desirability effect. Ye also used researcher triangulation to limit bias in the interpretation of the profiles. That being said, it could be a concern as to how these particular profiles were chosen. There could be a sampling bias in the sample as it may be only younger people of a certain class or education that would use online dating sites. In addition, Ye’s study is limited to Chinese and American participants. It is not possible to generalize to all individualistic or collectivistic cultures based on this study
