Integrating social knowledge and physical cues when judging the attractiveness of potential mates

Although many women find masculine men physically attractive, the perception that such men are prone to infidelity may limit their appeal as romantic partners. To explore this issue, we first investigated the interplay between the effects of men's face shape (masculinity versus femininity) and social knowledge of men's behavior in previous romantic relationships (faithful versus unfaithful) on women's judgments of men's attractiveness. Analyses suggested that the extent to which women rated masculine men to be more attractive than feminine men was significantly greater when judging men labeled as faithful than when judging men labeled as unfaithful. In a second experiment, we obtained similar results when the women in our study were instructed to imagine they were on a date with each of the men and that, while on the date, they observed him either flirting or not flirting with another woman. These interactions suggest that social knowledge about men's behavior in romantic relationships can offset one of the costs that women associate with choosing a masculine mate, increasing the appeal of masculine men. More fundamentally, these findings suggest integration of social knowledge and information from facial cues in women's attractiveness judgments.     

Market mavenism and consumer self‐confidence

• The purpose of this study was to test hypothesized associations between market mavenism and consumer self‐confidence (CSC). A survey of 190 US consumers provided the data. The results showed significant relationships between mavenism and several dimensions of CSC, and regression analysis emphasized the relationships with two of these: information acquisition (confidence in the ability to obtain and use marketplace information) and social outcomes decision making (confidence in obtaining positive reactions from others). These findings both enrich our knowledge of the psychology of market mavenism by suggesting some motivations for these behaviors and suggest marketing strategies can be fine‐tuned to appeal more effectively to this important segment of consumers.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal confidence,knowledge, and quality of mother-toddler interactions: A preliminary study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among maternal confidence, knowledge of child development, and quality of mother-toddler interactions using self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1989) as the theoretical framework. Using the Toddler Care Questionnaire, 50 mothers of toddlers were asked to estimate their confidence in their ability to parent their toddlers. Mothers also completed the Knowledge of Infant Development Questionnaire and were videotaped in their homes during a structured interaction with their toddlers. Maternal confidence was positively correlated with maternal knowledge of child development and parenting. The relationships among mother's knowledge of child development, maternal confidence, and quality of mother-toddler interactions were examined by a 2 × 3 analysis of variance with quality of interactions as the dependent variable. There were no significant main effects for maternal knowledge or confidence on quality of mother-toddler interactions, but there was a significant interaction effect. That is, the combined effects of maternal knowledge and confidence were related to quality of mother-toddler interactions. These results may explain previous inconsistencies in the literature regarding the significance of maternal confidence for mother-child interactions and are congruent with self-efficacy theory. Implications for interventions are discussed.     

Market entry decisions: effects of absolute and relative confidence

In a market entry game, the number of entrants usually approaches game-theoretic equilibrium quickly, but in real-world markets business start-ups typically exceed market capacity, resulting in chronically high failure rates and suboptimal industry profits. Excessive entry has been attributed to overconfidence arising when expected payoffs depend partly on skill. In an experimental test of this hypothesis, 96 participants played 24 rounds of a market entry game, with expected payoffs dependent partly on skill on half the rounds, after their confidence was manipulated and measured. The results provide direct support for the hypothesis that high levels of confidence are largely responsible for excessive entry, and they suggest that absolute confidence, independent of interpersonal comparison, rather than confidence about one's abilities relative to others, drives excessive entry decisions when skill is involved.     

Individuals in mind,mates by heart: Individualistic self-construal and collective value orientation as predictors of group creativity

It has been argued that groups with individualistic norms are more creative than groups with collectivistic norms (Goncalo & Staw, 2006). This conclusion, however, may be too unspecific, as individualism–collectivism denotes a multidimensional continuum and may affect people's self-construal and values. This study analyzed to what extent these dimensions differentially impact upon group creativity. After manipulating self-construal and value orientation, 58 triads engaged in a brainstorming task. Groups with collectivistic value orientation generated more ideas than groups with individualistic value orientation. Furthermore, there was an interaction between value orientation and self-construal on originality: ideas were more original when group members combined collectivistic value orientation with individualistic self-construal. Thus, groups should integrate elements of both individualism and collectivism to ensure high creativity.     

Assessment of distance to potential mates by female barking treefrogs (Hyla gratiosa)

This study investigated the cues used by female barking treefrogs, Hyla gratiosa, to assess distances to potential mates. Eight-speaker playback experiments were used to demonstrate that distance affects female choice in complex acoustic environments and to test 3 possible cues that females might use to assess distance: (a) degradation in spectral and temporal cues of calls, (b) relative call amplitude at the female's location, and (c) the rate at which the amplitude of calls increases as a female approaches a calling male. All 3 hypotheses were refuted, suggesting that females use a more complex mechanism, such as triangulation, to assess distance. Females preferred speakers with greater source amplitudes even when they had to travel further to reach those speakers. Determination of source amplitude is possible only if females can assess independently both the distance to sound sources and the amplitude of calls at the females' location. Hence, anuran amphibians may possess greater cognitive abilities than are generally attributed to them.     

Diagnosticity,confidence, and the need for information

Recent research has suggested that people prefer to use the most diagnostic available information as the basis for their choices and decisions, and are most confident in those decisions when information is highly diagnostic. However, the effect of information diagnosticity on the need for additional information has yet to be investigated; that is, in an optional stopping task, will the amount of information requested depend upon information diagnosticity? Three models of the role of diagnosticity in information use were examined; expected value, a confidence criterion, and information cost. Subjects attempted to categorize stimuli with the aid of information of varying costs and diagnosticity levels. They requested more information when it was obtained at a low cost. More importantly, across cost conditions, subjects consistently requested greater amounts of information when that information was of a low diagnosticity. These data seem most consistent with use of a confidence criterion that is adjusted for information costs.     

It is not all about the Benjamins: Understanding preferences for mates with resources

We contend that preferences for mates with resources or money might be calibrated on where a potential mate gets her/his money. In three studies (N = 668) we examined the nature of individuals’ preferences for mates who have resources or money. Both sexes preferred a long-term mate who has earned her/his money over other sources. In particular, women preferred mates who earned their money over other potential means of getting resources (i.e., inheritance, embezzlement, and windfall). Women maintained a high level of interest in mates who earned their money regardless of duration of the mateship whereas men became less interested in a mate who earned her money in the context of short-term relationships. Overall, the sexes preferred a mate who earned their money more strongly in the long-term than the short-term context. Results are discussed from evolutionary and sociocultural models of mate preferences.     

Decisions,actions, and the appropriateness of confidence in knowledge

This research examines the appropriateness of confidence (i.e., subjective probability judgments) in knowledge associated with decisions and actions of social importance. One hundred and thirty seven participants completed a 50 item questionnaire assessing their knowledge of the two leading candidates in the 1988 presidential election in the U.S.A. Ninety one of the respondents completed the questionnaire one week prior to the election, whereas the other 46 completed the questionnaire on election day shortly after voting. After each item in the questionnaire, all respondents indicated whether or not the item content represented a reason why they voted (or intended to vote) for or against the candidate to whom the item referred. Within-person results indicated that, in comparison to items that were not cited as reasons for voting intentions or voting behavior, items endorsed as reasons were characterized by better accuracy and resolution, but worse overconfidence. Between groups, decision makers were significantly more accurate and better calibrated than those who had not made a decision between the candidates. Implications of inappropriate confidence on decision making effectiveness are discussed.     

Routine and feelings of safety, confidence, and well-being

An examination of the influence of routine behaviour on people's feelings of safety, confidence, and well-being shows, as hypothesized, that these positive emotions increase with routine behaviour. Five studies were conducted on flights, in different neighbourhoods of the city, in the laboratory performing a routine or a non-routine task, and in seating behaviour in university classrooms. In all studies, participants reported more feelings of safety, confidence, and well-being in routine situations. Thus, routine enhances feelings of safety, confidence, and well-being in many aspects of everyday life.     

Emotion as a boost to metacognition: How worry enhances the quality of confidence

Emotion and cognition are known to interact during human decision processes. In this study we focus on a specific kind of cognition, namely metacognition. Our experiment induces a negative emotion, worry, during a perceptual task. In a numerosity task subjects have to make a two alternative forced choice and then reveal their confidence in this decision. We measure metacognition in terms of discrimination and calibration abilities. Our results show that metacognition, but not choice, is affected by the level of worry anticipated before the decision. Under worry individuals tend to have better metacognition in terms of the two measures. Furthermore understanding the formation of confidence is better explained with taking into account the level of worry in the model. This study shows the importance of an emotional component in the formation and the quality of the subjective probabilities.     

Explanation, imagination, and confidence in judgment.

This article concerns a class of experimental manipulations that require people to generate explanations or imagine scenarios. A review of studies using such manipulations indicates that people who explain or imagine a possibility then express greater confidence in the truth of that possibility. It is argued that this effect results from the approach people take in the explanation or imagination task: They temporarily assume that the hypothesis is true and assess how plausibly it can account for the relevant evidence. From this view, any task that requires that a hypothesis be treated as if it were true is sufficient to increase confidence in the truth of that hypothesis. Such tasks cause increased confidence in the hypothesis at the expense of viable alternatives because of changes in problem representation, evidence evaluation, and information search that take place when the hypothesis is temporarily treated as if it were true.     

Consciousness, control, and confidence: the 3 Cs of recognition memory

The contributions of recollection and familiarity to recognition memory performance were examined using the process dissociation, remember-know, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) procedures. Under standard test conditions the 3 measurement procedures led to process estimates that were almost identical and to similar conclusions regarding the effects of different encoding manipulations. Dividing attention led to a large decrease in recollection and a smaller, sometimes nonsignificant, decrease in familiarity. Semantic compared with perceptual processing led to a large increase in recollection and a moderate increase in familiarity. Moreover, the results showed that familiarity was well described by classical signal-detection theory but that recollection reflected a threshold process. The convergence observed across the 3 measurement procedures shows that the 3 procedures tap similar underlying processes and that recollection and familiarity differ in terms of conscious awareness, intentional control, and the manner in which they contribute to the shape of response confidence ROCs.     

Sample size, confidence, and contingency judgement.

According to statistical models, the acquisition function of contingency judgement is due to confidence increasing with sample size. According to associative models, the function reflects the accumulation of associative strength on which the judgement is based. Which view is right? Thirty university students assessed the relation between a fictitious medication and a symptom of skin discoloration in conditions that varied sample size (4, 6, 8 or 40 trials) and contingency (delta P = .20, .40, .60 or .80). Confidence was also collected. Contingency judgement was lower for smaller samples, while confidence level correlated inversely with sample size. This dissociation between contingency judgement and confidence contradicts the statistical perspective.     

Fatigue, sleep loss, and confidence in judgment

Sixty-four adults participated in a study examining the accuracy of metacognitive judgments during 28 hr of sleep deprivation (SD) and continuous cognitive work. Three tasks were studied (perceptual comparison, general knowledge, and mental addition), collectively spanning a range of cognitive abilities and levels of susceptibility to SD. Subjective and objective measures of sleepiness confirmed the expected patterns of increasing fatigue with SD. Participants displayed differing levels of metacognitive abilities across tasks, but traditional indices of the confidence-accuracy relation (i.e., calibration, resolution, over- and underconfidence), as well as the accuracy of pre- and posttask estimates of performance, remained stable over the SD period. The findings suggest that people can accurately assess their own cognitive performance when deprived of 1 night of sleep and that this ability need not be based on subjective estimates of sleepiness. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed and directions for future research are proposed.     

Gambling decisions and information about expected value

Four experiments were conducted to study the effects of information about expected value (EV) on choices among gambles. The subjects were presented with one or more sets of 17 gambles and were asked to select the one gamble they would prefer from each of these sets. In all experiments the EV concept was explained to the subjects and after this EV was displayed for each choice alternative. The experiments varied with respect to (a) the structure of the gambling alternatives, (b) the type of experimental design (within- or between-subjects design), and (c) whether repeated gambles were allowed or not. The EV information had marginal effects on the subjects choice behavior except when repeated gambles were allowed. It is suggested that subjects, rather than being guided by an abstract composite measure, such as EV, attempted to find a gamble having some concrete pattern of features.     

Perceptions of self and of ideal mates: Similarities and differences across the sexes

For 19 mating-relevant traits, single males (N= 53) and single females (N= 86) rated (a) themselves relative to their same-sex peers, (b) their perceptions of the qualities desired by members of the opposite sex in an ideal partner, and (c) the qualities desired in their own ideal romantic partner. Several themes emerged from the data. First, males’ and females’ judgments of what members of the opposite-sex seek were generally accurate. Second, males and females both feel that they fall short of perceived opposite-sex expectations in a few areas. Third, both males and females desire an ideal partner better than themselves, but this is especially true for females. These findings are discussed in terms of evolutionary social psychological principles.