Relationships

Question 1

Factors affecting attraction:physical attractiveness

Question 2

What did Shakleford and Larsen find?

Answer 2

People with symmetrical faces are more attractive as they have an honest signal of genetic fitness - indicates good health making them attractive

Question 3

What did Shakleford and Larsen say about females faces?

Answer 3

Females with neotenous (child-like) faces are more likely to be viewed as attractive by males because their facial features (large eyes/soft chin) trigger am aggressive/over protective trait in men - gives females an evolutionary advantage increasing her rate of survival & reproduction

Question 4

What is the halo effect?

Answer 4

Psychologists describe it as how one distinguishing feature tends to have a disproportionate influence on our judgments of another persons attributes e.g. personality

Question 5

What does the halo effect suggest we have?

Answer 5

Preconceived ideas about the personality traits that attractive people must have and are almost universally positive

Question 6

What did Dion et al find (rated)? (halo effect)

Answer 6

attractive people are rated as kind, strong, sociable and successful compared to unattractive people

Question 7

What is the matching hypothesis?

Answer 7

Walster - the belief that we do not select the most attractive person as a prospective partner but instead are attracted to people who approximately match us in physical attractiveness

Question 8

What does the matching hypothesis suggest

Answer 8

Our choice of partner is a compromise as we desire the most physically attractive partner possible for evolutionary, social, cultural and psychological reasons. but we balance this to avoid rejection

Question 9

Evaluations

Question 10

Cultural relativism PA (strength)-

Answer 10

PA is not affected by CR- both individualist & collectvist cultures find similar features attractive (Cunningman et al) - these features include large eyes, high eyebrows, sharp cheekbones)- applicable across asian and western males -Wheeler and Kim

Question 11

Practical application politics - halo effect(strength)

Answer 11

Palmer and Peterson - found that when Ps were informed that the images of physically attractive people were those with little knowledge of politics Ps still viewed them as politically skilled - has important implications on the state of politics where success of some politicians may be easily explained as a result of the halo effect

Question 12

Attractiveness and halo effect vary in importance (Towney - MACHO scale)

Answer 12

found that Ps with low scores on the MAHCO scale (measures underlying sexist beliefs) were less likely to be attracted to an individual as a potential partner based on PA

Question 13

What does Towney’s research suggest about physical attractiveness (weakness)?

Answer 13

Physical attractiveness from an evolutionary perspective doesn’t provide the same selection pressure for everyone - explain the cases of couples were one is significantly more attractive than the other

Question 14

Sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour

Question 15

What is sexual selection?

Answer 15

an evolutionary explanation of why certain attributes or behaviours are passed on if they increase reproductive success

Question 16

What is Anisgomy?

Answer 16

refers to the differences between male and female sex cells gametes
male gametes - Small and mobile, created continuously, not a lot of energy required
female gametes- large, only produced once a month + during fertile years, requires a lot of energy

Question 17

What is inter sexual selection?

Answer 17

describes the strategy that each sex uses to attract the other
- preferred by females - quality over quantity
- females have to be very choosy as its a larger investment in terms of time, energy and resources.
- best matching strategy is to choose the most genetically fit partner who can provide resources (sperm, money, intelligence)

Question 18

Example of INTER sexual selection?

Answer 18

fisher’s ‘sexy sons’ hypothesis - suggest s that through a female choosing to mate with an attractive mate, her offspring will also grow up to be attractive or sexy and so they are likely to attract females to mate with

Question 19

What is INTRA sexual selection?

Answer 19

describes the strategies used within sexes to attract males
-preferred by males - quantity over quality
- competition between males to get the high quality female

Question 20

Example of INTRA sexual selection?

Answer 20

Males behaving aggressively and being protective of their female(reducing likelihood of impregnantion by another competing male), being larger(sexually desirable), and possessing certain facial/physical characteristics e.g. strong jawline

Question 21

Evaluations

Question 22

Research support (hip to waist ratio)

Answer 22

Research support has suggested there are sexual selection pressures which are consistent during time periods
- hip to waist ratio - Singh - if the ratio is 0.7, this demonstrates to potential mates that the female is fertile & able to carry children over a long period of time, with birth being easier when the female has larger hips and a narrower waist.
- suggest some evolutionary pressures are still relevant

Question 23

females are more selective (research support)

Answer 23

Clark and Hatfield - 75% of college males, compared to 0% of females, would be willing to sleep with a stranger if this stranger had approached them and complimented them
- supports the idea that men have an evolutionary predisposition to want to impregnate as many women as possible due to high rates of sperm production - also supports INTRA AND INTER sexual selection

Question 24

Social and cultural change (weakness)

Answer 24

Women ni longer depend on men and the resources they provide
- Chang et al compared partner preference in China
- Found that mate preferences are a combination of evolution and culture

Question 25

Alpha bias (weakness)

Answer 25

The evolutionary approach could be criticised as legitimising a gender double standard between men and women. Sexual differences may have been exaggerated suggesting alpha bias

Question 26

Factors affecting attraction: filter theory

Question 27

What is the filter theory according to Kerckhoff and Davis?

Answer 27

We are initially exposed to a ‘field of availables’ but in order to form R/S, we must narrow down this field into ‘field of desirables’, using 3 filters of social demography, similar in attitudes and complementarity

Question 28

What is included in filter 1: Social demography

Answer 28

• variables such as age, social class and ethnic group determine likelihood of individuals meeting in the first place
• Homogamy- idea that you are more likely to form a r/s with someone who is socially/ culturally similar
• Anyone who isn’t may be discounted as a potential partner through filtering