Lecture 4.5 (Intrasexual Competition 2) - Midterm 2 Begins

Question 1

Female-Female Intrasexual Competition

2 main ways

Answer 1

• Most often seen in:
  1) accentuating mate-quality relevant traits
  2) through derogation of competition
• Compete with each other in order to BE competed over
• Females less likely to compete directly because 1) higher fitness costs (due to minimal biological investment and usually infant care), 2) lower potential payoff (successfully winning risky competitions doesn’t influence access to males that much)

Question 2

Derogation of Competition

Answer 2

• Form of indirect aggression designed to stigmatize, exclude and stress
• Like gossip. Gossip damages social status in the group potentially lowering mate value.
• Usually about appearance/promiscuity

Question 3

Vaillancourt & Sharma, 2011

Answer 3

• Pairs of subjects came into the lab (pairs were either friends or strangers)
• Thought they were there to talk about conflict resolution scenarios
• Confederate experimenter came in dressed either sexy or conservative
• Videotaped and coded reactions once she left. Coded by recording frequency to exhibit “bitchy” behaviour and how intense
• Asked: Does dress influence derogation of competition and is it different among friends/strangers?
• Didn’t matter if they were friends of strangers, derogation frequency much higher for sexy condition.
• Her dress was perceived as attracting mates and perceived as negative by other women.
• A once-over is an insult without insulting outright and it occurs a lot in women.

Question 4

Massar, Buunk & Rempt, 2012

Answer 4

• Self rated attractiveness (SRatt correlated with overall mate value and may be more important in predicting behaviour than other people’s perceptions)
• Read a scenario about a woman moving nearby and taking
• Measured tendency to gossip scale with 16 questions
• Gossip positively related to mate value and youth.
• Younger women gossip more (age is a part of mate value). The higher the mate value, the more likely they are to gossip.

Question 5

Accentuating Mate-Quality Relevant Traits

Answer 5

• By emphasizing physical qualities: cosmetics, push up bras, etc.
• Hair dye: younger women have lighter hair and most women dye their hair lighter
• How do human ornaments influence intrasexual competition? O’Connor and Feinberg, 2012

Question 6

O’Connor & Feinberg, 2012

Answer 6

• masc./fem. faces and asked same sex raters:
  1) who is more attractive
  2) who would make you more jealous if flirting with your partner
  3) who would you prefer accompany your romantic partner on a weekend trip?
• Females were more jealous of feminized faces/voices, found them more attractive, and don’t want their partners around them for a weekend trip
• Males were more jealous of men with a masculinized voice for all conditions but not higher than chance for faces
• Women’s face preferences are so variable, but not for voices (they like low voices no matter what)

Question 7

Buunk & Dijkstra, 2005

Answer 7

• Variance of jealousy is also depended on dress, f/v and whr
• Got married couples to: look at line drawings of 3 figures and rated them on: how close to own body, how jealous they would be of this person, and salience (where they paid most attention to)
• Salience: women pay more attention to whr, hair, face. men look at shr and posture
• Jealousy: women are more jealous for WHR and depends on their own WHR. For men, SHR jealousy.
• Women are jealous of low WHR rivals no matter if their WHR is high/low
• Low WHR raters are more jealous with other women with low WHR
• Competition among rivals with similar features.
• Women may calibrate who is likely to be worth it to compete with (adaptive allocation in the attempt to attract mates)

Question 8

Midterm 2 Intrasexual Selection Summary

Answer 8

• Sex differences in instrasexual competition arise from differences in reproductive constraints.
• Men compete with direct aggression, status seeking, sperm competition.
• Women compete with indirect aggression, mate attraction