Jose C. Yong

Mate Preferences do Predict Attraction and Choices in the Early Stages of Mate Selection

Although mate preference research has firmly established that men value physical attractiveness more than women do and women value social status more than men do, recent speed-dating studies have indicated mixed evidence (at best) for whether peoples sex-differentiated mate preferences predict actual mate choices. According to an evolutionary, mate preference priority model (Li, Bailey, Kenrick, & Linsenmeier, 2002; Li & Kenrick, 2006; Li, Valentine, & Patel, 2011), the sexes are largely similar in what they ideally like, but for long-term mates, they should differ on what they most want to avoid in early selection contexts. Following this model, we conducted experiments using online messaging and modified speed-dating platforms. Results indicate that when a mating pool includes people at the low end of social status and physical attractiveness, mate choice criteria are sex-differentiated: Men, more than women, chose mates based on physical attractiveness, whereas women, more than men, chose mates based on social status. In addition, individuals who more greatly valued social status or physical attractiveness on paper valued these traits more in their actual choices. In particular, mate choices were sex-differentiated when considering long-term relationships but not short-term ones, where both sexes shunned partners with low physical attractiveness. The findings validate a large body of mate preferences research and an evolutionary perspective on mating, and they have implications for research using speed-dating and other interactive contexts.

Parasite stress and pathogen avoidance relate to distinct dimensions of political ideology across 30 nations

Significance Pathogens, and antipathogen behavioral strategies, affect myriad aspects of human behavior. Recent findings suggest that antipathogen strategies relate to political attitudes, with more ideologically conservative individuals reporting more disgust toward pathogen cues, and with higher parasite stress nations being, on average, more conservative. However, no research has yet adjudicated between two theoretical accounts proposed to explain these relationships between pathogens and politics. We find that national parasite stress and individual disgust sensitivity relate more strongly to adherence to traditional norms than they relate to support for barriers between social groups. These results suggest that the relationship between pathogens and politics reflects intragroup motivations more than intergroup motivations. People who are more avoidant of pathogens are more politically conservative, as are nations with greater parasite stress. In the current research, we test two prominent hypotheses that have been proposed as explanations for these relationships. The first, which is an intragroup account, holds that these relationships between pathogens and politics are based on motivations to adhere to local norms, which are sometimes shaped by cultural evolution to have pathogen-neutralizing properties. The second, which is an intergroup account, holds that these same relationships are based on motivations to avoid contact with outgroups, who might pose greater infectious disease threats than ingroup members. Results from a study surveying 11,501 participants across 30 nations are more consistent with the intragroup account than with the intergroup account. National parasite stress relates to traditionalism (an aspect of conservatism especially related to adherence to group norms) but not to social dominance orientation (SDO; an aspect of conservatism especially related to endorsements of intergroup barriers and negativity toward ethnic and racial outgroups). Further, individual differences in pathogen-avoidance motives (i.e., disgust sensitivity) relate more strongly to traditionalism than to SDO within the 30 nations.

Cross cultural variation in men's preference for sexual dimorphism in women's faces

Both attractiveness judgements and mate preferences vary considerably cross-culturally. We investigated whether mens preference for femininity in womens faces varies between 28 countries with diverse health conditions by analysing responses of 1972 heterosexual participants. Although men in all countries preferred feminized over masculinized female faces, we found substantial differences between countries in the magnitude of mens preferences. Using an average femininity preference for each country, we found mens facial femininity preferences correlated positively with the health of the nation, which explained 50.4% of the variation among countries. The weakest preferences for femininity were found in Nepal and strongest in Japan. As high femininity in women is associated with lower success in competition for resources and lower dominance, it is possible that in harsher environments, men prefer cues to resource holding potential over high fecundity.

Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies

Significance Human cooperation requires reliable communication about social intentions and alliances. Although laughter is a phylogenetically conserved vocalization linked to affiliative behavior in nonhuman primates, its functions in modern humans are not well understood. We show that judges all around the world, hearing only brief instances of colaughter produced by pairs of American English speakers in real conversations, are able to reliably identify friends and strangers. Participants’ judgments of friendship status were linked to acoustic features of laughs known to be associated with spontaneous production and high arousal. These findings strongly suggest that colaughter is universally perceivable as a reliable indicator of relationship quality, and contribute to our understanding of how nonverbal communicative behavior might have facilitated the evolution of cooperation. Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that often communicates positive affect and cooperative intent in humans. Temporally coincident laughter occurring within groups is a potentially rich cue of affiliation to overhearers. We examined listeners’ judgments of affiliation based on brief, decontextualized instances of colaughter between either established friends or recently acquainted strangers. In a sample of 966 participants from 24 societies, people reliably distinguished friends from strangers with an accuracy of 53–67%. Acoustic analyses of the individual laughter segments revealed that, across cultures, listeners’ judgments were consistently predicted by voicing dynamics, suggesting perceptual sensitivity to emotionally triggered spontaneous production. Colaughter affords rapid and accurate appraisals of affiliation that transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, and may constitute a universal means of signaling cooperative relationships.

The Adaptive Functions of Jealousy

Jealousy is a troublesome emotional experience for those afflicted by its onset. The grip of the “green-eyed monster” has been known to cause misery and produce some drastic coping behaviors ranging from paranoid stalking to violent aggression. But rather than a product of civilized culture gone wrong or a mental disorder as some thinkers have claimed jealousy to be, the current chapter proposes from an evolutionary perspective that jealousy plays an important role in our lives by serving a critical adaptive function for humans—the vigilance over and protection of relationships that are valuable to us.

Intrasexual Competition and Other Theories of Eating Restriction

Various forms of disordered eating and unhealthy eating practices, including excessive dieting, vomiting, binging and purging, and diet-motivated drug use, negatively affect and are potentially fatal to millions of individuals. We describe the etiology of disordered eating as well as various hypotheses on this phenomenon, both from traditional, non-evolutionary perspectives and from evolutionary perspectives. In particular, we explore in detail the intrasexual competition hypothesis, which draws on a broad evolutionary theory: intrasexual selection. From this perspective, women are thought to have evolved to compete intrasexually on thinness, which would have indicated youth and nubility in the ancestral past (Abed, 1998). In modern societies, however, an oversaturation of nubile-looking females, both real and virtual, may overstimulate this competitive mechanism, leading to unresolved body image dissatisfaction and eating restriction to the point of ill health. We discuss the theory, research, and implications of intrasexual competition and then provide a consideration of future directions for research on disordered eating.

The Perception of Spontaneous and Volitional Laughter Across 21 Societies

Laughter is a nonverbal vocalization occurring in every known culture, ubiquitous across all forms of human social interaction. Here, we examined whether listeners around the world, irrespective of their own native language and culture, can distinguish between spontaneous laughter and volitional laughter—laugh types likely generated by different vocal-production systems. Using a set of 36 recorded laughs produced by female English speakers in tests involving 884 participants from 21 societies across six regions of the world, we asked listeners to determine whether each laugh was real or fake, and listeners differentiated between the two laugh types with an accuracy of 56% to 69%. Acoustic analysis revealed that sound features associated with arousal in vocal production predicted listeners’ judgments fairly uniformly across societies. These results demonstrate high consistency across cultures in laughter judgments, underscoring the potential importance of nonverbal vocal communicative phenomena in human affiliation and cooperation.