Michael J. Marks

The evolution and function of adult attachment: a comparative and phylogenetic analysis.

Although the evolutionary functions of attachment in infant-caregiver relationships are undisputed, it is unclear what functions--if any--attachment serves in adult romantic relationships. The objective of this research was to examine the evolution and function of adult attachment (i.e., pair bonding) by applying comparative and phylogenetic methods to archival data collected on 2 diverse samples of mammalian species. The authors found that species exhibiting adult attachment were more likely than others to be characterized by paternal care, developmental immaturity or neoteny, small social groups, and small body sizes. The authors also used phylogenetic techniques to reconstruct the evolution of adult attachment and test alternative evolutionary models of the comparative correlates of pair bonding. Phylogenetic analyses suggested that the relationship between paternal care and adult attachment may be a functional one (i.e., due to convergent evolution) but that the relationship between neoteny and adult attachment may be due to homology (i.e., shared ancestry). Discussion focuses on the potential of comparative and phylogenetic methods for advancing the science of social and personality psychology.

Evaluations of Sexually Active Men and Women Under Divided Attention: A Social Cognitive Approach to the Sexual Double Standard

Past research on the sexual double standard has generally shown that both men and women are evaluated similarly, not differently, for engaging in high levels of sexual activity. However, the settings in which this research has taken place may have allowed participants to devote almost all of their cognitive resources to the task of evaluating sexually active men and women. Devoting ones full attention to person evaluation may lead to individuation instead of stereotyping. This article reports a study designed to test the hypothesis that when attention is divided, people will evaluate men with many partners more favorably than women with many partners. Participants, under conditions of divided or full attention, evaluated male or female target persons with 1, 7, or 19 sexual partners. Participants in the divided attention condition exhibited a sexual double standard, whereas participants in the full attention condition did not.

An empirically derived approach to the latent structure of the Adult Attachment Interview: additional convergent and discriminant validity evidence

Building on studies examining the latent structure of attachment-related individual differences as assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) via Principal Components Analysis, the current report further explores the validity of four AAI dimensions reported by Haydon, Roisman, and Burt (in press): dismissing states of mind, preoccupied states of mind, and inferred negative experience with maternal and paternal caregivers. Study 1 reports evidence of distinctive cognitive correlates of dismissing vs. preoccupied states of mind with reaction time in an attachment Stroop task and the valence of endorsed self-descriptors, respectively. Study 2 replicates prior meta-analytic findings of generally trivial convergence between state of mind dimensions and self-reported avoidance and anxiety (i.e., Roisman, Holland, Fortuna, Fraley, Clausell, & Clarke, 2007). Study 3 contrastively demonstrates moderate empirical overlap between inferred experience (but not state of mind) AAI scales and self-reported avoidance and anxiety when the latter were assessed at the level of specific caregivers. Taken together, these findings add to accumulating evidence that an empirically-driven approach to scaling adults on AAI dimensions (Haydon et al., in press; Roisman, Fraley, & Belsky, 2007) aids in identifying theoretically anticipated and distinctive affective, behavioral, and cognitive correlates of dismissing versus preoccupied states of mind.

Westermarck, Freud, and the Incest Taboo: Does Familial Resemblance Activate Sexual Attraction?

Evolutionary psychological theories assume that sexual aversions toward kin are triggered by a nonconscious mechanism that estimates the genetic relatedness between self and other. This article presents an alternative perspective that assumes that incest avoidance arises from consciously acknowledged taboos and that when awareness of the relationship between self and other is bypassed, people find individuals who resemble their kin more sexually appealing. Three experiments demonstrate that people find others more sexually attractive if they have just been subliminally exposed to an image of their opposite-sex parent (Experiment 1) or if the face being rated is a composite image based on the self (Experiment 2). This finding is reversed when people are aware of the implied genetic relationship (Experiment 3). These findings have implications for a century-old debate between E. Westermarck and S. Freud, as well as contemporary research on evolution, mate choice, and sexual imprinting.

The impact of social interaction on the sexual double standard

It is widely held that a sexual double standard exists such that women are evaluated more harshly than men for engaging in sexual activity. Previous research, however, has failed to document this sexual double standard reliably. We argue that previous research has been unable to identify the double standard because it has focused on the individual rather than the interpersonal dynamics that take place in social settings. The present experiment examines the hypothesis that group dynamics give rise to the sexual double standard. Participants, both individually and in small collaborative groups, evaluated a male or female target that had 1, 7, or 19 sex partners. A double standard did not emerge when individual participants evaluated targets. However, when collaborative groups of participants evaluated the targets, a double standard emerged in some domains. The results highlight the value of studying interpersonal processes in a group context.

Adaptive Memory: Evaluating Alternative Forms of Fitness-Relevant Processing in the Survival Processing Paradigm

Memory may have evolved to preserve information processed in terms of its fitness-relevance. Based on the assumption that the human mind comprises different fitness-relevant adaptive mechanisms contributing to survival and reproductive success, we compared alternative fitness-relevant processing scenarios with survival processing. Participants rated words for relevancy to fitness-relevant and control conditions followed by a delay and surprise recall test (Experiment 1a). Participants recalled more words processed for their relevance to a survival situation. We replicated these findings in an online study (Experiment 2) and a study using revised fitness-relevant scenarios (Experiment 3). Across all experiments, we did not find a mnemonic benefit for alternative fitness-relevant processing scenarios, questioning assumptions associated with an evolutionary account of remembering. Based on these results, fitness-relevance seems to be too wide-ranging of a construct to account for the memory findings associated with survival processing. We propose that memory may be hierarchically sensitive to fitness-relevant processing instructions. We encourage future researchers to investigate the underlying mechanisms responsible for survival processing effects and work toward developing a taxonomy of adaptive memory.

Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures

We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion.

The interplay and effectiveness of implicit and explicit avoidant defenses

Individuals high on attachment avoidance are uncomfortable with thoughts of separation and loss. The goal of this research is to answer questions about the efficacy and interplay of the explicit (conscious) and implicit (preconscious) components of mental defenses designed to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. We manipulated the presence of subliminal attachment threat primes and participants’ awareness of those primes. While undergoing condition-specific threat manipulations, participants completed measures designed to measure attachment system activation. Avoidant participants who were aware of genuine attachment threat primes behaved defensively, whereas avoidant participants who were given false warnings of attachment threat primes did not. Results suggest that avoidant defenses operate on both implicit and explicit levels and are resilient to false activation.

Gender Role Violations and the Sexual Double Standard

ABSTRACT The sexual double standard (SDS) suggests that women are evaluated negatively and men positively for engaging in similar sexual behaviors. According to social role theory, the SDS exists due to gender role structures. Consequently, perceived violations of women’s sexual behavior are associated with the SDS. In addition to gender role violations of sexual behavior, two additional violations of gender roles exist: heterosexual sexual orientation norms and gender role characteristics. The current study aims to investigate whether the SDS persists for sexual orientation–violating and gender role characteristic–violating targets, and to examine which of the three gender role violations influence evaluations of others’ sexual behavior. A U.S. sample of 483 participants evaluated target individuals who were either female or male, heterosexual/gay man or lesbian, feminine or masculine, and had 1 or 12 sexual partners. Results indicate that SDS persists for gender role–violating targets but is exhibited differently for targets violating heterosexual sexual orientation norms and gender role characteristics.

Commentary on Locascio

Publication bias, lack of replicability, and issues with null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) are all pressing issues for the field of psychology (particularly social psychology), as noted by Joseph Locascio (2017/this issue) in his article “Results Blind Science Publishing.” Locascio advocates a procedure called results blind manuscript evaluation (RBME), whereby editors strip submissions of their results and discussions before primary review. Should the truncated manuscript receive a positive response, then a conditional acceptance is granted given Results and Discussion sections (which would then be added for a second review) are satisfactory. Although Locascio refutes several criticisms of RBME near the end of the article, there are several issues I see that remain with the procedure that I cover next. First, there is a trend of moving away from evaluating manuscripts based on the statistical significance of results per se, and to more accurate interpretation of results. Open access journals like PLoS and Frontiers are notable examples. Even if results are “statistically significant,” over(or under-) interpretation of results in submissions to these journals will likely result in rejection, or a request to revise the interpretation. This is indicative of a larger realization that there is much more to a paper than the p values. Although action based on this realization is not happening overnight, it is happening. Second, without results known, the authors’ interpretation of the results, their importance, their implications for theory and practice, and explanations for unexpected results cannot immediately be evaluated by reviewers. These are all crucial aspects of the impact and citability of the paper. Locascio assumes that most, if not all, revisions needed will only be minor, but one cannot know that. There may be further revisions needed (or rejection, in egregious cases) if results are overor underinterpreted, or the basic and/or applied implications are absent or lacking. Third, despite claims otherwise, RBME would still make more work for everyone involved. Editors would need to scour every submitted manuscript and edit them on an individual basis. Regarding reviewers, I disagree with the claim that reviewing two halves of a manuscript is the same amount of work as reviewing the entire manuscript at once. Reviewers would certainly need to refresh themselves on the intro and methods, as well as ensure the flow of the entire manuscript in the second go-round (in addition to assessing the implications, interpretations, etc.). To put another perspective on this, in the status quo method of reviewing, a reviewer could hypothetically skip the results and discussion of a full manuscript and recommend rejection, given egregious problems with the methodology. Fourth, Locascio assumes that RBME will largely diminish the pervasiveness of questionable research practices such as p-hacking or hypothesizing after results are known. I think this is an overstatement, given the likelihood that a deep socialization of “finding results” still remains in the present and past generations of psychologists. I am hard-pressed to believe that researchers will lose their inhibitions of reporting null results, given not only the way students are taught that significant p values means one’s experiment “worked” but also the satisfaction of finding results as hypothesized versus the implication that one is a “bad researcher” because one’s predictions did not pan out. As the next generation of researchers is currently being educated (or entering the workforce), they will benefit from the new, contemporary perspectives on questionable research practices and NHST. Fifth, most authors will likely continue using NHST because (a) it is easy and requires very little thought, (b) it provides dichotomous decisions about results, and (c) they are basically forced to. After decades of criticism of and debate surrounding NHST, it is still the primary factor in how psychologists interpret their data. none defined