Men's strategic preferences for femininity in female faces

Several evolutionarily relevant sources of individual differences in face preference have been documented for women. Here, we examine three such sources of individual variation in men's preference for female facial femininity: term of relationship, partnership status and self‐perceived attractiveness. We show that men prefer more feminine female faces when rating for a short‐term relationship and when they have a partner (Study 1). These variables were found to interact in a follow‐up study (Study 2). Men who thought themselves attractive also preferred more feminized female faces for short‐term relationships than men who thought themselves less attractive (Study 1 and Study 2). In women, similar findings for masculine preferences in male faces have been interpreted as adaptive. In men, such preferences potentially reflect that attractive males are able to compete for high‐quality female partners in short‐term contexts. When a man has secured a mate, the potential cost of being discovered may increase his choosiness regarding short‐term partners relative to unpartnered men, who can better increase their short‐term mating success by relaxing their standards. Such potentially strategic preferences imply that men also face trade‐offs when choosing relatively masculine or feminine faced partners. In line with a trade‐off, women with feminine faces were seen as more likely to be unfaithful and more likely to pursue short‐term relationships (Study 3), suggesting that risk of cuckoldry is one factor that may limit men's preferences for femininity in women and could additionally lead to preferences for femininity in short‐term mates.     

Reproductive‐age women are overrepresented among perpetrators of husband killing

When a woman kills her husband, it is almost always an unplanned action of self‐defense against a battering husband or a last‐ditch attempt to survive a batterer's tyranny. Younger, reproductive‐age women are battered and killed by husbands at higher rates than are older, postreproductive‐age women. Because husband killing occurs in the context of self‐defense or as a last‐ditch effort to survive, reproductive‐age women should kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive‐age women. I used a sample of 8,077 husband killings to test this hypothesis. Results support the hypothesis and document that (1) the highest rates of husband killing are for the youngest women, (2) the youngest husbands are at greatest risk of being killed by their wives, (3) women married to older men kill their husbands at higher rates than do women married to same‐age men and women married to younger men, and (4) reproductive‐age women kill their husbands at higher rates than do postreproductive‐age women across two groups: women married to younger men and women married to older men. Discussion suggests directions for future work that can improve the identification of women at greatest risk for husband killing. Aggr. Behav. 26:309–317, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Body Esteem: An Exception to Self‐Enhancing Illusions?1

Participants were 192 university students (96 males, 96 females) who completed the Body Esteem scale (Franzoi & Shields, 1984) under instructions to rate their feelings about their own bodies, rate their feelings about a specific or “average” student's body, and rate the importance they and others attached to these feelings. One of the findings is that when individuals perceived themselves as less positive on a particular desirable physical trait, they also rated the trait as less important to possess in the first place. The only exception to this was women's weight concern. It was also found that men generally rated themselves higher on body‐esteem subscales than they rated other men, while women did not exhibit such self‐serving evaluations of their bodies. One implication from these results is that the same self‐enhancement strategies successfully employed by individuals in other areas of self‐evaluations were not successful in enhancing one's body esteem, especially women's weight concern.     

Resource availability hypothesis: Perceived financial and caloric status affect individuals' height preferences for potential partners

Height is an important concern in human mate choices. Prior research indicates that people who live in areas with abundant resources differ from those who live in areas with scarce resources regarding height preferences. Based on a health‐maximizing principle, we propose a resource availability account for such differences. Compared with women's height preferences, men's height preferences are hypothesized to be more dependent on either financial or caloric resource availability. Specifically, taller females would be more preferred by males who are poor in resources than those who are rich in resources. Results from three studies supported these hypotheses. In Study 1, men from remote areas of China who had lower family income preferred taller women more than those from eastern China who had higher family income. In Study 2, men who were financially dissatisfied preferred taller women more than those who were financially satisfied. In Study 3, men with low caloric status preferred taller women more than men with high caloric status. In addition, women's height preferences in Studies 1, 2 and 3 were less determined by resource availability. These findings suggest that height preferences are changeable, depending on financial or caloric status.     

The relation between remembered parental acceptance in childhood and self‐acceptance among young Turkish adults

This study examined the relation between young adults' age and remembrances of parental acceptance in childhood, and their current self‐acceptance. The study was based on a sample of 236 young adults in Turkey (139 women and 97 men). The adult version of the Parental Acceptance‐Rejection/Control Questionnaire for mothers and fathers along with the Self‐Acceptance subscale of the Psychological Well‐Being Scale, and the Personal Information Form were used as measures. Results showed that both men and women tended to remember having been accepted in childhood by both their mothers and fathers. Women, however, reported more maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood than did men. Similarly, the level of self‐acceptance was high among both men and women. However, women's self‐acceptance was higher than men's. Correlational analyses showed that self‐acceptance was positively related to remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance among both women and men. Results indicated that age and remembered paternal acceptance significantly predicted women's self‐acceptance. Age and remembered maternal acceptance made significant and independent contributions to men's self‐acceptance. Men's remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood did not make significant contribution to their self‐acceptance. Finally, the relation between women's age and self‐acceptance was significantly moderated by remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood.     

Are sexualized women complete human beings? Why men and women dehumanize sexually objectified women

Focusing on the dehumanization of sexually objectified targets, study 1 tested the extent to which objectified and non‐objectified male and female publicity photos were associated with human compared to animal concepts. Results confirmed the hypothesis that, among all targets, only objectified women were associated with less human concepts. This pattern of results emerged for both male and female participants but likely for different reasons. Study 2 directly looked at female and male participants' affinity with sexually objectified women. Results indicated that the more women distanced themselves from sexually objectified women the more they dehumanized them, whereas men's sexual attraction moderated their tendency to dehumanize female targets. In study 3, this latter motivation was operationalized as the activation of a sex goal and showed to trigger man's but not woman's dehumanization of female targets. Overall, the present set of studies show that only sexually objectified women are dehumanized by both men and women but for different reasons. Whereas sexual attraction shifts a men's focus of a female target away from her personality onto her body triggering a dehumanization process, women are more inclined to dehumanize their sexually objectified counterparts the more they distance themselves from these sexualized representations of their gender category. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Whose personality is better,mine or my partner's? Self‐enhancement bias in relationships

Previous research has documented self‐enhancement and relationship partner‐enhancement motivations, but not examined whether individuals view themselves or their partners more favorably, overall. The authors conducted three studies that revealed a general tendency to favor oneself over one's partner in direct self–partner personality comparisons. This illustrated a motivational precedence of self‐enhancement over partner‐enhancement goals. In Study 1, participants rated self‐only traits more favorably than partner‐only traits. In Studies 2 and 3, participants rated desirable traits as more characteristic of themselves than their partner, particularly when traits were more relevant to personal than relationship success. The authors also found that this self‐favoring bias was weaker (typically nonexistent) among those with higher relationship satisfaction, lower self‐esteem, or lower self‐deceptive tendencies. The authors discuss practical, theoretical, and methodological implications.     

Parental interest in children's education,children's self‐esteem and locus of control,and later educational attainment: Twenty‐six year follow‐up of the 1970 British Birth Cohort

Background. Few studies have investigated if mother's interest and father's interest in child's education are linked to educational attainment via their impact on child's self‐esteem and locus of control. Aims. (1) To investigate (after controlling for known confounding factors) the long‐term effect of mother's and father's interest in child's education at age 10 and child's locus of control and self‐esteem at age 10 in educational attainment at age 26; and (2) to explore if mother's interest and father's interest in child's education are linked to child's educational attainment via their effect in increasing child's self‐esteem and internal locus of control. Sample. The study used longitudinal data from sweeps of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). The initial sample was those 1,737 men and 2,033 women with valid data on age 10 self‐esteem, locus of control, father's interest, mother's interest, and age 26 educational attainment. Of these, 1,326 men and 1,578 women were included in the final analysis. Method. The birth to age 10 factors that were controlled for were birth weight, parental social class, socio‐economic disadvantage, emotional/behavioural problems, cognitive ability, and mother's educational attainment. Results. At the multivariate level, internal locus of control and mother's interest (but not self‐esteem) were significantly related to educational attainment in both men and women. Father's interest was a significant predictor of educational attainment only in women. Parent's interest was not linked to educational attainment via its impact on child's self‐esteem or locus of control. Self‐esteem predicted educational attainment in both genders by increasing internal locus of control, and fathers' interest predicted educational attainment in men by increasing mother's involvement. Conclusion. Although mothers' and fathers' interest in their children's education were not linked to educational attainment via their impact on children's self‐esteem or locus of control, they were significant predictors of educational attainment especially in daughters.     

Emotional expressivity in men and women: Stereotypes and self-perceptions

Three studies were conducted to assess prevalent stereotypes regarding men's and women's emotional expressivity as well as self-perceptions of their emotional behaviour. Emotion profiles were employed to assess both modal emotional reactions and secondary emotional reactions to hypothetical events and personal experiences. In Study 1 we asked how men and women in general would react to a series of hypothetical emotional events. In Study 2 we asked how participants themselves expected to react to these same situations and in Study 3 we asked participants to report a personal emotional event in narrative form. Two gender differences emerged across all three studies. Specifically, women were expected to be more likely to react with sadness to negative emotion-eliciting events in general. They also expected themselves to be more likely to react with sadness as well as to cry and to withdraw more when experiencing negative emotional events. Finally, women report more sadness when describing personal events. In contrast, men were expected to react with more happiness/serenity during negative emotional situations. Also, they expect themselves to react more frequently this way as well as to laugh and smile more and to be more relaxed in negative situations. Finally, men tend to report more happiness when describing negative personal events. In sum, the present study gives a more detailed portrayal of how men and women are expected and expect themselves to react to specific emotional situations and presents some evidence that these expectations may influence the way they reconstruct emotional events from their past.     

Perceptions of social influence when messages favour ‘us’ versus ‘them’: A closer look at the social distance effect

The third‐person effect (TPE) is the tendency for individuals to assume that persuasive communications have a stronger effect on other people than on themselves. In turn the social distance effect (SDE) is the tendency for this TPE to increase with the psychological distance between self and comparator. Two experiments showed that the SDE is moderated by whether the message favours the ingroup or the outgroup, holding all other content constant. In Study 1, male and female participants read a message arguing that either women were better drivers than men or vice versa, and then indicated how much they thought themselves, ingroup members, outgroup members and society would be influenced. The results indicate that for the pro‐outgroup message the SDE was found. However, for the pro‐ingroup message the SDE was reversed with ingroup members perceived as more influenced than all other targets, including the self. Study 2 replicated this finding using minimal groups, which eliminated the effects of prior stereotypes about male and female drivers. Across both studies the self was perceived as relatively invulnerable to influence regardless of message bias. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Good-in-Bed Effect: College Students’ Tendency to See Themselves as Better Than Others as a Sex Partner

Self-enhancement refers to the finding that people tend to see themselves as better than others. The present research tested whether people display self-enhancement with regard to beliefs about their competency as sexual partners (the good-in-bed effect). Participants were asked to list good and bad sexually related behaviors more frequently performed by the self or by others. Study 1 demonstrated that people selectively associate themselves with good and others with bad sexual behaviors. In Study 2, independent raters judged bad behaviors associated with the self as less negative than bad behaviors associated with others. Study 3 replicated the good-in-bed effect and also found that when the salience of the comparison between good and bad traits is increased, men are more likely than women to demonstrate the effect. Implications of the results for relationship satisfaction are considered.     

Why inconsistent leadership is regarded as procedurally unfair: the importance of social self‐esteem concerns

Three experimental studies examined to what extent leader's consistent use of procedures constitutes an important procedural fairness rule and influences people's reactions as a function of social self‐esteem. In line with a recent claim that more attention should be devoted to different procedural fairness rules (Brockner, Ackerman, & Fairchild, 2001 ), the findings of Study 1 demonstrated that inconsistent leaders were evaluated as less procedurally fair and influenced feelings of uncertainty about oneself in ongoing interpersonal interactions. Study 2 showed that manipulating leader's consistency influenced people's procedural fairness judgments and willingness to replace the leader, but only among those low in social self‐esteem (SSE). Finally, Study 3, using another consistency manipulation, demonstrated that variations in consistency made participants feel bad about themselves, particularly when they were low in SSE. These findings are discussed in light of research on relational models of justice and sociometer theory. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Perceptions of success and life satisfaction: a gender examination in Taiwan

Gender socialization creates an expectation that men should achieve success (regardless of how it is defined), so men are under greater pressure than women when encountering successful persons and, accordingly, experience lower life satisfaction. Two experiments were conducted in Taiwan to test the proposed effects on life satisfaction. Study 1 showed that 149 students were more likely to infer successful targets as male than female. A path model demonstrated that feeling less powerful against ideal same‐sex persons predicted men's (but not women's) lower life satisfaction after they read about successful targets. Study 2 (106 students) showed that reading about successful targets had differential effects for men and women. Implications regarding culture, gender, and life satisfaction were discussed.     

Justice for whom, exactly? Beliefs in justice for the self and various others

The present studies examine why people think the world is more just to themselves than to others generally. Beliefs in justice for the self were uniquely associated with psychological adjustment, consistent with the theoretical motive to believe in justice for the self (Studies 1 and 2). However, this "justice motive" did not appear to affect the relative strength of justice beliefs. Instead, self-other differences in justice beliefs appeared to reflect objective assessments of the justice received by various demographics. Undergraduates believed the world to be more just to themselves than to others but not their undergraduate peers specifically (Study 1). Participants of both genders believed the world to be more just to men, and to themselves, than to women (Study 2). Women did not exempt themselves individually from injustice but believed, similar to men, that undergraduate women receive as much justice as men (Study 3).     

System‐justifying behaviors: When feeling dependent on a system triggers gender stereotype‐consistent academic performance

Based on system‐justification theory, we hypothesized that men and women would perform in accordance with gender stereotypes mainly when justification of the system is necessary. In this research, system‐justification motivation was triggered using a system‐dependency manipulation. Study 1 shows that when feeling highly (vs. less) dependent on the system, people endorsed system‐justifying beliefs more. In Study 2, men performed better in math than in verbal domains, while women showed the reverse pattern, but only when they felt highly dependent on the system. Similar results were obtained on performance self‐evaluation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self‐enhancement,crash‐risk optimism and the impact of safety advertisements on young drivers

In Study 1, young drivers (aged between 16 and 29 years, N=314) rated their driving attributes relative to their peers. They also rated their likelihood of being involved in a crash relative to their peers (crash‐risk optimism), their crash history, stereotype of the young driver, and concern over another health issue. A self‐enhancement bias was found for all items in which self/other comparisons were made. These items formed two major factors, perceived relative driving ability and perceived relative driving caution. These factors and perceived luck relative to peers in avoiding crashes significantly predicted crash‐risk optimism. In Study 2, an experimental group of young drivers (N=173) watched safety advertisements that showed drinking and dangerous driving resulting in a crash, and a control group (N=193) watched advertisements showing people choosing not to drive after drinking. Each group then completed the self/other comparisons used in Study 1. The same factors were found, but only driving caution significantly predicted crash‐risk optimism. The experimental group showed more self‐enhancement on driving ability than the control group. In both studies, men showed substantially more self‐enhancement than women about their driving ability. Implications for safety interventions are discussed.     

Do I get better looking each day? Changes in self‐perceptions of attractiveness as a function of temporal perspective

Do people perceive themselves as becoming more attractive across time? The present studies investigated whether individuals (a) judge their previous self as physically less attractive than their current self and (b) judge their future self to be physically more attractive than their current self. The studies also investigated when temporal biasing of attractiveness is most likely to occur. In Study 1, students rated their present and past attractiveness. The results revealed that participants' ratings of past attractiveness were lower than current ratings, but only among individuals for whom attractiveness was important to their self‐concept. In Study 2, participants rated their present attractiveness and their expected attractiveness in 5 years. The results revealed that ratings of future attractiveness were higher than current ratings, but only among individuals who frequently engage in social comparisons. The implications of the results are discussed with respect to self‐appraisals of attractiveness and psychological well‐being. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Critical Test of Self‐Enhancement,Exposure, and Self‐Categorization Explanations for First‐ and Third‐Person Perceptions

The third‐person perception is the tendency for people to believe that others are more influenced by media content than themselves (W. P. Davison, 1983 ). The current study provides a critical test of self‐enhancement, exposure, and self‐categorization explanations for first‐ (i.e., self more influenced than others) and third‐person perceptions. Male and female participants (N = 323) judged the extent to which pornography elicited“aroused and excited” (i.e., male normative) versus“repulsed and offended” (i.e., female normative) reactions in themselves relative to average men and women. Men perceived an average woman to be more repulsed and offended by pornography than themselves, and women perceived an average man to be more aroused and excited than themselves (i.e., large third‐person perceptions). Further, men perceived themselves to be more aroused and excited by pornography than an average woman (independent of the degree to which pornography was judged as antisocial), and women perceived themselves to be more repulsed and offended than an average man (i.e., large first‐person perceptions). There were relatively small effects for same sex comparisons independent of norm. The pattern and magnitude of first‐ and third‐person perceptions are consistent with self‐categorization theory, irreconcilable with the exposure hypothesis, and difficult to reconcile with the self‐enhancement explanation.     

The meaning of tears: Which sex seems emotional depends on the social context

The media coverage sometimes given to crying women points to the importance of understanding whether gender affects interpretations of crying. This article reports two studies that examined whether observers infer different emotions or dispositions from crying men and women. Study 1 showed that, in the absence of information about the social context of crying, participants inferred gender‐stereotypical traits and emotions. Study 2's manipulation of the social context of crying (relationship versus employment) affected participants' interpretations of crying by men and women. In employment contexts, participants perceived crying men as more emotional and sad than crying women as well as less competent. The emotionality inferences mediated the judgments of differing male and female competence. In relationship contexts, interpretations of crying women and men did not differ. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.