Browsing by Subject "Physical attractiveness"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Open Access
Behavioral display of lumbar curvature in response to the opposite sex
(2017-06) Şenveli, Zeynep
The aim of this thesis was to investigate the hypothesis that women adjust their lumbar curvature to approach the suggested biomechanical optimum of 45.5 degrees in response to the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex. The experiment was designed to examine the relationship between a) participants’ ratings of an attractive male confederate and the displayed change in deviation from the optimum displayed by women, and b) participants’ ratings of the attractive male confederate and the displayed change in the absolute degree of lumbar curvature, both while controlling for potential confounds such as participants’ self-perceived physical attractiveness, self-esteem, personality traits, and sociosexual orientation. Initial statistical analyses revealed a significant change in participants’ lumbar curvature pre- to post-exposure to the attractive male confederate. Subsequent analyses to examine the nature of the change indicated that socio-sexual orientation reliably predicted the change in lumbar curvature, but not the change in deviation from the optimum. The remaining variables predicted neither the change in lumbar curvature nor the change in deviation from the optimum significantly. This study is aimed at increasing our understanding of the behavioral display of lumbar curvature for self-promotion purposes in response to the presence of opposite sex.
Open Access
Disgust and mating strategy
(Elsevier Inc., 2015-05) Al-Shawaf, L.; Lewis, D. M. G.; Buss, D. M.
An evolutionary task analysis predicts a connection between disgust and human mating, two important but currently disconnected areas of psychology. Because short-term mating strategies involve sex with multiple partners after brief temporal durations, such a strategy should be difficult to pursue in conjunction with high levels of sexual disgust. On this basis, we hypothesized that individuals with a stronger proclivity for short-term mating would exhibit dispositionally lower levels of sexual disgust. Two independent studies provided strong support for this hypothesis: among both men and women, an orientation toward short-term mating was associated with reduced levels of sexual disgust, but not with suppressed moral or pathogen disgust. Our discussion highlights an unexpected finding and suggests important questions for future research.
Open Access
Lumbar curvature: a previously undiscovered standard of attractiveness
(Elsevier, 2015) Lewis, D. M. G.; Russell, E. M.; Al-Shawaf, L.; Buss, D. M.
This paper reports independent studies supporting the proposal that human standards of attractiveness reflect the output of psychological adaptations to detect fitness-relevant traits. We tested novel a priori hypotheses based on an adaptive problem uniquely faced by ancestral hominin females: a forward-shifted center of mass during pregnancy. The hominin female spine possesses evolved morphology to deal with this adaptive challenge: wedging in the third-to-last lumbar vertebra. Among ancestral women, vertebral wedging would have minimized the net fitness threats posed by hypolordosis and hyperlordosis, thereby creating selective pressures on men to prefer such women as mates. On this basis, we hypothesized that men possess evolved mate preferences for women with this theoretically optimal angle of lumbar curvature. In Study 1, as hypothesized, men's attraction toward women increased as women's lumbar curvature approached this angle. However, vertebral wedging and buttock mass can both influence lumbar curvature. Study 2 thus employed a forced-choice paradigm in which men selected the most attractive woman among models exhibiting the same lumbar curvature, but for different morphological reasons. Men again tended to prefer women exhibiting cues to a degree of vertebral wedging closer to optimum. This included preferring women whose lumbar curvature specifically reflected vertebral wedging rather than buttock mass. These findings reveal novel, theoretically anchored, and previously undiscovered standards of attractiveness.
Open Access
The openness-calibration hypothesis
(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Lewis, D. M. G.; Al-Shawaf, L.; Yilmaz, C.
The current study tested the hypotheses that (1) psychological adaptations calibrate Openness to Experience to facilitate or deter pursuit of short-term mating, and (2) this calibration varies as a function of mating strategy, physical attractiveness, and sex—individual differences that shift the costs and benefits of alternative personality strategies. Participants completed a personality inventory before and after reading vignettes describing mating opportunities of different durations (short- and long-term) with individuals of differing levels of attractiveness. Among study findings, participants presented with short-term mating opportunities with individuals of average attractiveness exhibited down-regulated Openness relative to those presented with highly attractive mates. Moreover, these effects varied as a function of the interaction between participants’ sex, mating strategy, and attractiveness. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that evolved psychological mechanisms adaptively calibrate Openness levels in response to short-term mating opportunities. More broadly, they highlight the heuristic value of an evolutionary framework for the study of personality and individual differences.
Open Access
The origins of individual differences in romantic attachment: evolutionary psychological insights
(2016-05) Yılmaz, Cansu
The current thesis investigated the hypothesis that evolved psychological mechanisms producing adult attachment strategies are sensitive to personal and contextual inputs linked to costs and benefits of alternative attachment strategies. Three studies were designed to 1) identify the link between the inputs “early parental environment, speed of life, and mate value” and attachment strategies; 2) examine temporary activation of adult attachment mechanisms in response to a blind date opportunity with individuals varying in physical attractiveness; and 3) test the relationship between physical attractiveness and secure base use behavior in couples experimentally manipulating physical attractiveness. Study 1 results showed adult attachment mechanisms up-regulated both men’s and women’s attachment anxiety in response to low mate value and low quality early parental environment; men’s attachment avoidance in response to fast life speed and low quality early parental environment; women’s attachment avoidance in response to fast life speed and low mate value. Study 2 results showed both men and women exhibited an anxious attachment strategy in response to a blind date opportunity with an individual of high physical attractiveness whereas only women exhibited an avoidant strategy in response to a blind date opportunity with an individual of average physical attractiveness. Study 3 results revealed a positive correlation between women’s ratings of facial attractiveness and secure base use scores; between individuals’ physical attractiveness and their secure base scores specifically among individuals who compared themselves to attractive others. These results enhance the understanding of the origins of individual differences in adult romantic attachment.