Do Deaf Individuals’ Dating Scripts Follow the Traditional Sexual Script?

The current study investigated Deaf individuals’ dating expectations. Prior research on dating expectations has identified three common scenes: initiation/meeting, activities, and outcomes/conclusions. Participants were asked to report their expectations for each scene on a typical date. Talking was the most frequently occurring initiation activity. Dinner and a movie were among the top date activities in the activities scene. Activities were often reported as group gatherings. Dating outcomes included a good night kiss and making plans for another date. These expectations do not match prior research with hearing participants where the Traditional Sexual Script could be identified. Comparisons and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Niceness and Dating Success: A Further Test of the Nice Guy Stereotype

Proponents of the nice guy stereotype argue that women often say they wish to date kind, sensitive men, but, in reality, still choose to date macho men over nice guys, especially if the macho men are more physically attractive. We investigated the relationship between men’s agreeableness, physical attractiveness, and their dating success across different relationship contexts. One hundred and ninety-one male college students completed a computerized questionnaire to assess their levels of agreeableness and aspects of their dating history. Twenty college-aged women rated the men’s photographs for attractiveness. Results supported the nice guy stereotype. Lower levels of agreeableness predicted more less-committed, casual, sexual relationships.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association in Nashville, TN, April 8, 2005.     

Perceived Physical Attractiveness, Sexual History, and Sexual Intentions: An Internet Study

This study was designed to examine the influence a potential date’s physical attractiveness and sexual history has on an individual’s intentions to engage in safer sex. Over 1,200 participants completed an Internet survey. The questionnaire presented a randomized biography and photograph and asked participants to rate their interest in dating and having a sexual relationship with the target. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions based on the target’s physical attractiveness (low vs. high) and sexual experience (low, medium, or high). Results indicated that men reported greater intentions to have sex than women did, and all participants reported greater likelihood of having sex when the potential partner was highly attractive. Participants rated men and more experienced targets as more risky sexual partners, and the level of a target’s sexual experience was directly related to participants’ willingness to discuss sexual risks. Results indicate a continuing need to include discussion of cognitive factors in all HIV prevention efforts.     

Finding your Soulmate: Homosexual and heterosexual age preferences in online dating

Heterosexual age preferences have been extensively studied by evolutionary psychologists, social psychologists, and demographers. Much less is known about such preferences in homosexual men and women. Around two decades ago, D. T. Kenrick, R. C. Keefe, A. Bryan, A. Barr, and S. Brown (1995) examined heterosexual and homosexual mating preferences for age in men and women. Our study aimed to replicate these findings by examining age preferences in a larger UK online dating sample. Dating advertisements of 996 male and female heterosexuals and homosexuals were coded. Age preferences were assessed via generalized linear models with robust standard errors and bootstrapping. Results showed that the relation between own age and preferred age differed substantially between the groups. With increasing age, heterosexual men preferred younger partners. Older heterosexual men (> 50 years) exclusively sought (much) younger women than themselves, whereas younger heterosexual men sought both older and younger women. Male and female homosexuals followed this general trend of preferring increasingly younger mates with increasing age. However, they displayed a higher upper age tolerance and greater range of acceptable ages than both heterosexual men and women. Female heterosexuals' age preferences were distinct from the other groups, in that they displayed a male older norm with no substantial interest expressed in males younger than themselves. Our findings thus largely corroborate those of Kenrick et al. with some exceptions, such as a larger tolerance of age ranges in homosexual men and women compared to heterosexual men and women. Results are discussed with reference to the current literature on similarities and differences in heterosexual and homosexual mate preferences.     

Retrospective Analysis of Gender Differences in Reaction to Media Coverage of Crisis Events: New Insights on the Justice and Care Orientations

We surveyed 2,125 men and 3,735 women (N = 5,860) across the USA to test hypothesized relationships regarding women’s and men’s use of justice and care orientations when they confront crisis events with moral implications. Consistent with previous research, we found that women were more likely than men to adopt a care orientation. Contrary to expectations, however, women also adopted a justice response to a greater degree than did men. We found that, in response to a crisis, women, unlike men, were more likely to believe they would connect with others and take action. Implications for explaining inconsistencies in prior research findings on the justice and care orientations, and for conceptualizing these important constructs in a new way, are discussed.     

From dating to mating and relating: Predictors of initial and long‐term outcomes of speed‐dating in a community sample

We studied initial and long‐term outcomes of speed‐dating over a period of 1 year in a community sample involving 382 participants aged 18–54 years. They were followed from their initial choices of dating partners up to later mating (sexual intercourse) and relating (romantic relationship). Using Social Relations Model analyses, we examined evolutionarily informed hypotheses on both individual and dyadic effects of participants' physical characteristics, personality, education and income on their dating, mating and relating. Both men and women based their choices mainly on the dating partners' physical attractiveness, and women additionally on men's sociosexuality, openness to experience, shyness, education and income. Choosiness increased with age in men, decreased with age in women and was positively related to popularity among the other sex, but mainly for men. Partner similarity had only weak effects on dating success. The chance for mating with a speed‐dating partner was 6%, and was increased by men's short‐term mating interest; the chance for relating was 4%, and was increased by women's long‐term mating interest. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Looking deeper: Extradyadic behaviors,jealousy, and perceived unfaithfulness in hypothetical dating relationships

This report expands on past research dealing with extradyadic (ED) relations in dating relationships by examining behaviors beyond those of a strictly sexual or romantic nature that college-age men and women consider to be unfaithful. Undergraduates (N= 219) from a U.S. university rated a hypothetical partner's ED sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, romantic attachments, flirting, group, and dyadic social activities including a member of the other gender outside the primary dating relationship as a function of relationship stage. Men and women rated all the ED behaviors as jealousy provoking except group social activities, and rated all the behaviors as unfaithful except dyadic and group social activities. Women reported greater jealousy than did men in response to a hypothetical partner's sexual fantasies, romantic attachments, and flirting behavior. Women also reported a hypothetical partner's romantic attachments and flirting behavior as more unfaithful than did men. Results are discussed in terms of support for evolutionary theory and the need to acknowledge environmental factors in examining gender differences.     

Work and Women’s Well-being: Religion and Age as Moderators

Religion has been found to moderate the stress–strain relationship. This moderator role, however, may be dependent on age. The present study tested for the three-way interaction between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of women’s well-being, and predicted that work experience and religiosity will combine additively in older women, while in younger women religiosity is predicted to moderate the relationship between work experience and well-being. In a sample of 389 married Malay Muslim women, results of the regression analyses showed significant three-way interactions between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of well-being (measured by distress symptoms and life satisfaction). While in younger women the results were in line with the predictions made, in the older women, both additive and moderator effects of religiosity were observed, depending on the well-being measures used. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on work and family, with specific reference to women’s age, religion, as well as the issue of stress–strain specificity.     

Autobiographical Memories for Seeing Romantic Movies on a Date: Romance Is Not Just for Women

Two autobiographical memory studies were conducted to better understand the social experience and memory for watching romantic movies on a date. In both studies, participants were primarily middle-class, White, young adults, who (a) recalled the experience of watching a romantic movie they had seen on a date and (b) were assessed for levels of sex-role traditionality and 4 kinds of dispositional empathy. Participants also reported with whom they watched the movie, who chose it, and the cognitions and emotions experienced during viewing. Finally, a fantasy measure asked participants to choose the types of scenes in which they and their dates might like to "stand in" for a character in the film. Results indicated that women more often than men selected the movie and liked it more, but, despite common stereotypes, men also reported favorable ratings for romantic movies seen on a date. However, both men and women thought that "most men" would not like the movie. On the fantasy measure, women underestimated men's preference for appearing in scenes of romance. For multiple measures, participants fell back on gender stereotyping when estimating what people in general, especially men, would like. Study 2 replicated Study 1 (N = 265) with a sample of 45 dating couples.     

Gender and the prerogatives of dating and marriage: An experimental assessment of a sample of college students

Experimental data were used to study the amount of support men and women have to pursue nonsexual and sexual activities without their partner in the contexts of dating and marriage. Attention was also focused on whether a partner's independent behavior would be seen as less acceptable in marriage than in dating. The results showed that marriage did reduce a partner's right to engage in outside involvements. However, only males saw marriage as more restrictive than dating. Moreover, these restrictions were not directed at women primarily, but were directed at both male and female target persons. Where differences were found between male and female prerogatives in marriage and dating, they appeared to favor females, providing evidence that among college students some of the structures associated with intimate relationships supported women's interests over men's.Thanks go to Barry Markovsky and Lorraine Dorfman for their helpful comments.     

Gender differences in power and self-disclosure in dating and married couples

The relationship between power and self-disclosure was studied for 20 dating and 20 married couples. Power and self-disclosure scales (of feelings and of accomplishments) were constructed and administered individually. We hypothesized that: (1) Women disclose more about feelings than men. (2) Men disclose more about accomplishments than women. (3) Power is positively correlated with disclosure of accomplishments. (4) Power is negatively correlated with disclosure of feelings and weaknesses. (5) Dating men are more powerful than dating women, but there are no gender differences in power in marriage. Hypotheses 1,3, and 5 were supported. Hypotheses 2 and 4 were rejected. Our findings revealed that there were no differences in power or disclosure of accomplishments between men and women for the total group. However, a significant interaction was found between gender and marital status for power. Dating men had more power than dating women, but married women had more power than married men. Last, women disclosed more feelings than men across both groups.     

What Good is a Feminist Identity?: Women’s Feminist Identification and Role Expectations for Intimate and Sexual Relationships

Women’s feminist identification is associated with a growing list of favorable outcomes, predicting that these correlations will extend to egalitarian and assertive role expectations for committed and sexual partnerships, respectively. Surveying 165 undergraduate US women, nonfeminist passive acceptance was linked to low egalitarian expectations overall and across all seven subscales of the marriage role expectation inventory. It also was related to depressed sexual assertiveness overall and specifically in initiating sexual encounters and engaging in safe sexual practices. These negative associations were nonsignificant or positive for women with stronger feminist identification. When endorsement of passive acceptance was controlled for, the positive correlation between egalitarian and assertive expectations fell to nonsignificance, consistent with regarding nonfeminist attitudes as a confounded third common factor.     

Placing events in time: The role of autobiographical recollection

Episodic experience is argued to be rich in temporal information, but it remains unclear whether temporal information is directly coded in the event memory or is reconstructed at retrieval. The two experiments reported here emphasise the role of reconstructive processes of autobiographical context in establishing the date of memories. Younger and older participants were presented with famous public events, although only the latter had actually lived through them. Participants were asked to make forced-choice judgements about the date of the event and other event-related facts. Overall, while the older group showed better fact knowledge of the events, this did not translate into better dating performance. This older group showed similar dating performance across events with high and low factual knowledge. In contrast, the younger group's dating accuracy was determined by their level of knowledge. This suggests that older individuals who have direct episodic experience of an event may perform the task in a qualitatively different manner, eschewing semantic facts in favour of other sources of information. Crucially, this process does not appear to enhance performance. A second experiment addressed the issue of whether older participants date events based on general qualities of the event memory (e.g., vividness), the availability of other event-related semantic facts, or autobiographical context. It was found that the ability to place an event in autobiographical context is related to dating accuracy, but not to other aspects of memory.     

The effects of alcohol intoxication and sexual interest on men's sexual persistence and hostility in a dating simulation

Perpetrators of sexual assault are often intoxicated; however, few experimental studies evaluate alcohol's “in the moment” effects on sexual aggression. This study extends past theory and research by examining the acute effects of alcohol on men's decisions about how to respond to sexual refusals in a dating simulation. Men (N = 62) ages 21–29 were randomly assigned to consume alcohol (target breath alcohol level 0.080%) or no alcohol. Participants were encouraged to talk to a simulated woman and act as they would on an actual date. They made choices from a list which included nonsexual and sexual options. The female agent was programmed to engage in some sexual activities but refuse others. Refusals became more intense if participants persisted. Negative binomial regression analysis was used to test a path analytic model. As predicted, participants' self‐reported desire to have sex was positively associated with choosing more consensual sexual activities during the simulation (i.e., activities in which the woman willingly engaged). Consensual sexual activities were positively associated with the number of times participants persisted after the woman refused. Alcohol moderated this relationship such that it was stronger for intoxicated men than sober men. The more sexual refusals participants received, the more hostile verbal comments they made to the woman. Contrary to our predictions, this relationship was not moderated by alcohol condition. Because participants had multiple opportunities to escalate their aggression or desist, this paradigm provides new insights into the mechanisms through which intoxication enhances the likelihood of sexual aggression in dating situations.

     

Dating partners' responses to simulated dating conflict: violence chronicity, expectations, and emotional quality of relationship

The focus of this study was couple emotions and expectations underlying chronic dating violence. The author categorized undergraduate partners in dating relationships into chronic violent versus nonchronic or nonviolent relationships based on Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (M. A. Straus, S. L. Hamby, S. Boney-McCoy, & D. B. Sugarman, 1996) scores. Results showed that men and women in chronic violent relationships, versus those who were not in chronic violent relationships, rated their current relationships as lower in positive affective tone and listening and understanding. Women in chronic violent relationships, versus other women, were more likely to expect their postviolent relationships to improve, to remain with their partners, and to experience lower anticipatory negative emotion about violence. Men in chronic violent relationships, versus other men, expected that their postviolent relationship would become increasingly violent and were in relationships of longer duration.     

Placing events in time: the role of autobiographical recollection

Episodic experience is argued to be rich in temporal information, but it remains unclear whether temporal information is directly coded in the event memory or is reconstructed at retrieval. The two experiments reported here emphasise the role of reconstructive processes of autobiographical context in establishing the date of memories. Younger and older participants were presented with famous public events, although only the latter had actually lived through them. Participants were asked to make forced-choice judgements about the date of the event and other event-related facts. Overall, while the older group showed better fact knowledge of the events, this did not translate into better dating performance. This older group showed similar dating performance across events with high and low factual knowledge. In contrast, the younger group's dating accuracy was determined by their level of knowledge. This suggests that older individuals who have direct episodic experience of an event may perform the task in a qualitatively different manner, eschewing semantic facts in favour of other sources of information. Crucially, this process does not appear to enhance performance. A second experiment addressed the issue of whether older participants date events based on general qualities of the event memory (e.g., vividness), the availability of other event-related semantic facts, or autobiographical context. It was found that the ability to place an event in autobiographical context is related to dating accuracy, but not to other aspects of memory.