No More Mr. Nice Guy: Effects of Salient Motives on Women’S Mate
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NO MORE MR. NICE GUY: EFFECTS OF SALIENT MOTIVES ON WOMEN’S MATE PREFERENCES by CHRISTOPER JAMES HOLLAND Bachelor of Arts, 2013 Knox College Galesburg, Illinois Masters of Science, 2016 Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the College of Science and Engineering Texas Christian University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2018 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research is the culmination of years of hard work and dedication on the part of many people. Many thanks to my advisor, Dr. Charles G. Lord, who’s continued feedback and advice was invaluable throughout the life of this research, from the start with ideas and hypotheses, to the end with paper drafts and editing. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Charles Lord, Dr. Sarah Hill, Dr. Uma Tauber, Dr. Timothy Barth, and Dr. David Cross for their valuable input and support throughout the dissertation process. An especially deserving commendation goes out to Dr. Gary Bohem who agreed to sit on my committee on short notice to ensure my committee was adequately staffed for the defense. Lastly, thanks to my research assistants, Leslie Nolan, Tori Ludvigaria, Jacqui Faber, Ashley Mcfeeley, Serena V., Murphy Marx, Raylee Starnes, Nicholas Jones, and Elyssa Johnson for helping organize and run countless study sessions to collect the necessary data. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….ii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………………..v List of Tables…………………………………………………….…………………………...…...v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Traditional Models of Attitudes…………………………………………………………...1 Construal Models of Attitudes……………………………………………………….........3 Evaluation in Human Mating………..…………………………………………………….5 Motivation is Subject to Context………………………………………………………….9 Detecting Motive Influences on Associations…………………………………………...12 The Present Experiments………………………………………………………………...14 Experiment 1……………………………………………………………………..………...…….16 Partner Preference……………………………………………………………………......16 Method…………………………………………………………………………………...18 Results……………………………………………………………………………………22 Discussion………………………………………………………………………………..24 Experiment 2………………………………………………………………………………..........26 Method…………………………………………………………………………………...26 Results………………………………………………………………………….………...31 Discussion……………………………………………………………….…………….....35 Experiment 3……..………………………………………………………………....……………37 Method…………………..………………………………………………….…………....37 iv Results…………………..…………………………………………………….……….....44 Discussion……………………………………………………………………….…….....55 Experiment 4…..……………………………………………………………..……..……………56 Method…………………..…………………………………………………………..…...56 Results…………………..…………………………………………………………….….61 Discussion…………………………………………………………………………..…....72 Experiment 5....………………………………………………..………….…….……………..…73 Method…………………..………………………………………………………….…....74 Results…………………..…………………………………………………………….....77 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………......91 General Discussion………………………………….………………….…………………….….91 Mediation…………………………………………………………………………...…....96 Limitations…………………………………………………………………………….....97 Future Research……………………………………………………………………….....99 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..,…100 References………………………………………………………………………………............102 Vita Abstract v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Effect of Scarcity on Attitude of Men as Long-Term Partners…….…………24 Figure 2. Effect of Disease Threat on Preference for Warm vs Cold Man as Long Term Partner…………………………………………..……………………………………….33 Figure 3. Effect of Disease and PVD on Preference for Warm vs Cold Man as Long Term Partner…………………………………………………………………………….34 Figure 4. Effect of Scarcity on Attitude of Men as Long-Term Partners ………………47 Figure 5. Effect of Scarcity on Attitude of Men as Long-Term Partners……………….64 Figure 6. Effect of Safety Threat and Ostracism on Attitude of Men as Long Term Partners…………………………………………………………………………………..81 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Likeability of Traits Ascribed to Mating Targets ………………...……...……20 Table 2. Mean and Standard Deviation of Women’s Wanting a Short- and Long-Term Relationship with Each of Two Men…………………………………………….……....24 Table 3. Likeability of Traits Ascribed to Mating Targets ...……………….…….......…29 Table 4. Mean and Standard Deviation of Women’s Wanting a Short- and Long-Term Relationship with Each of Two Men……………………….……………………..…..…33 Table 5. Likeability of Traits Ascribed to Mating Targets..…………………..……..…40 Table 6. Mean and Standard Deviation of Women’s Wanting a Short- and Long-Term Relationship with Each of Two Men ……………………….………………….…….....46 Table 7. Results of Linear Regression Examining Potential Moderator Variables Influencing Condition’s Relationship On Women’s Evaluations of a Potential Short-term and Long-term Mate……………………………………………………….……………48 vi Table 8. Independent Samples t-test Examining the Effect of Resource Scarcity on Lexical Decision Task Performance…………………………………………..…………50 Table 9. Results of Linear Regression Examining SPMV Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task………………………………………….52 Table 10. Results of Linear Regression Examining Child SES Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task…………………………………...53 Table 11. Results of Linear Regression Examining SOI Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task………………………………………….54 Table 12. Likeability of Traits Ascribed to Mating Targets…………………………….59 Table 13. Mean and Standard Deviation of Women’s Wanting a Short- and Long-Term Relationship with Each of Two Men…………………………………………………….63 Table 14. Results of Linear Regression Examining Potential Moderator Variables Influencing Condition’s Relationship On Women’s Evaluations of a Potential Short-term and Long-term Mate…………………………………………………………………….65 Table 15. Independent Samples t-test Examining the Effect of Disease Threat on Lexical Decision Task Performance…………………………………………………………….67 Table 16. Results of Linear Regression Examining PVD-PI Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task…………………………………69 Table 17. Results of Linear Regression Examining Child SES Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task………………………………….70 Table 18. Results of Linear Regression Examining SOI Influencing Condition’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task………………………………………….71 vii Table 19. Means and Standard Deviation of Women’s Wanting a Short- and Long-Term Relationship with Each of Two Men…………………………………………………….80 Table 20. Results of Linear Regression Examining Potential Moderator Variables Influencing Condition’s Relationship On Women’s Evaluations of a Potential Short-term and Long-term Mate……………………………………………………………………..83 Table 21. Univariate ANOVA Examining the Effect of Disease Threat on Lexical Decision Task Performance……………………………………………………………..85 Table 22. Results of Linear Regressions Examining VVIQ Influencing Priming’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task…………………………………………87 Table 23. Results of Linear Regressions Examining BDW Influencing Priming’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task…………………………………………88 Table 24. Results of Linear Regressions Examining SDS Influencing Priming’s Effect On Performance on the Lexical Decision Task……………………………………………..90 EFFECTS OF SALIENT MOTIVES ON WOMEN’S MATE PREFERENCES 1 No More Mr. Nice Guy: Effects of Salient Motives on Women’s Mate Preferences Attitudes are a complex behavior. They can be incredibly resilient (Anderson & Kellam, 1992; Eagly & Chaiken, 1995), or seemingly flimsy (Wallace, Paulson, Lord & Bond, 2005). People express attitudes all the time: when they select restaurants to eat at, pick their friends, and even when they choose which brand of toilet paper to buy. Like any seemingly complex psychological phenomenon, attitudes, also termed the evaluation, operate in systematic ways despite sometimes being confusing to the casual observer (Lord & Lepper, 1999). One of the ways that we understand attitudes to work is that they are flexible and responsive to local conditions that exist separate from the object being evaluated (Schwarz, 2007). Simply put, attitudes can adapt, helping to produce behaviors that deal with problems as they arise. A consequence of this flexibility is that things that are evaluated as one way may not stay that way, and evaluative dimensions might shift depending on recent events, experiences or thoughts (Lord, Desforges, Fein, Pugh & Lepper, 1994; Sia, Lord, Blessum, Thomas & Lepper, 1999). In some situations, information that was once relevant may become irrelevant without the evaluator being aware of any changes in their thinking (e.g. La Pierre, 1934). In other situations, people may simply ignore or otherwise be unable to consider more than basic or superficial impressions when forming attitudes. These intricate effects on our evaluations are the broad topic of this proposal, which reviews research relevant to our adaptive attitudes and proposes novel experiments to determine, in the specific domain of mate preferences, when conflicting characteristics of attitude objects are or are not used in our evaluations. Traditional Models of Attitudes The traditional definition for attitudes was “a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual's EFFECTS OF SALIENT MOTIVES ON WOMEN’S MATE PREFERENCES 2 response to all objects and situations with which it is related.” (Allport, 1935, pg. 803). In this original formulation,