HL - Biological factor on personal relationships

Question 1

Buss (1989)

Answer 1

aim -> To test the evolutionary hypothesis
Method -> Evolutionary hypothesis: attractiveness has a biological basis that has been built by evolution. Buss used questionnaires with over 10,000 people from across the world, to determine whether there were any biologically determined preferences in either sex. Through the use of ranking and rating surveys, he
Results -> found that women were much more likely than men to prefer a spouse who was resourceful and ambitious (making them good providers for a family). Men, on the other hand, preferred women with physical attractiveness and youth
Conclusion -> Study supports the evolutionary hypothesis of mate selection for both genders as patterns that are strongly supported across all countries point to biological mechanisms rather than cultural ones.

Evaluation ->

✔ High validity -> Lab experiment, huge sample size, and the collection of data from many different cultures gives good reliability to the findings. these factors combined with using both rating and ranking exercises is called triangulation of methods allows us to have high trust in the results
✔ Supported by Singh (1993) and Wedekind (1995)

❌ The trustworthiness of data gathered through questionnaires is only as good as the trustworthiness of the ppts. There are various biases that could be built into ppts’ responses, including the social desirability bias.
❌ Cognitive explanation (Walster et al (1973), Byrne and Nelson (1965) and/or Aronson and Linder (1965)) and Sociocultural explanation (Zajonc (1968) and/or Kenrick and Gutierres (1980))

Question 2

Singh (1993)

Answer 2

aim ->
To explore the role of the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) in female attractiveness

Method -> Participants were shown twelve line drawings of women and asked to rank them in terms of attractiveness and then to give their top/bottom three in terms of good health, youthful-looking, attractive, sexy, desire for children, and capability for having children. The drawings represented underweight, normal, and overweight women with WHRs of 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0.

Results -> Ratings for attractiveness (regardless of apparent weight) were highest for the lowest WHR.

Conclusion -> WHR does affect attractiveness. This may be because a high WHR is associated with a reduced reproductive capability and increased risks to health, including diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disorders.

Evaluation ->

✔ High validity -> The use of different ages and two ethnicities adds to the reliability of the findings. Triangulating methods (using content analysis and correlational analysis) helps to improve the credibility of the conclusions.
✔ Supported by Buss (1989) and Wedekind (1995)

❌ Low mundane realism and ecological validity -> we don’t rate line drawings on attractiveness/done in a lab
❌ Cognitive explanation (Walster et al (1973), Byrne and Nelson (1965) and/or Aronson and Linder (1965)) and Sociocultural explanation (Zajonc (1968) and/or Kenrick and Gutierres (1980))

Question 3

Wedekind (1995)

Answer 3

aim ->
To investigate whether male attractiveness is MHC-dependent.

Method ->
(Context: MHC -> major histocompatibility complex - is a collection of genes that code for proteins that have a role within the immune response of an organism).
Each male student wore a T-shirt for two consecutive nights, having lived an ‘odour-neutral’ lifestyle for the duration of their part of the study. The T-shirts were then put into cardboard boxes with holes to allow the women to sniff the contents. The women, once they’d sniffed each of six boxes (three from MHC-similar men, three from MHC-dissimilar men), they rated the odours for intensity, pleasantness, and sexiness.

Results -> Odours of MHC-dissimilar men were rated as more pleasant than the odours of MHC-similar men.

Conclusion -> MHC does affect attractiveness. MHC dissimilar parents will cause a more mixed immune system which might improve the offspring’s chance of resisting infection and illness.

Evaluation ->

✔ High validity -> Lab experiment - high control - high validity and a confounding variable was recognised and addressed in the study: Clarified which ppts were on the pill as that affected the results.
✔ Supported by Buss (1989) and Singh (1993)

❌ Low mundane realism and ecological validity -> as well as sniffing random peoples shirts, sniffing shirts of people who have not washed or put on any smell-altering substances is not an everyday task. In addition, issa lab experiment.
❌ Cognitive explanation (Walster et al (1973), Byrne and Nelson (1965) and/or Aronson and Linder (1965)) and Sociocultural explanation (Zajonc (1968) and/or Kenrick and Gutierres (1980))