Color and women attractiveness: when red clothed women are perceived to have more intense sexual intent

Research has shown that with some nonhuman primates, red is associated with greater sexual attractiveness of females, and recent studies found that a woman with red clothes increases attraction behavior in men. However, the mechanism that explains such behavior was not studied. In this experiment, we hypothesized that men overestimated women's sexual intent when wearing red clothing. Participants evaluated attractiveness and the sexual intent of a woman presented in a photograph wearing a red, a blue, a green or a white tee-shirt. It was found that men evaluated higher sexual intent in the red clothing condition. It was also found that perception of the woman's sexual intent was not moderated by attractiveness rating.     

Are Secret Relationships Hot,Then Not? Romantic Secrecy as a Function of Relationship Duration

ABSTRACT

Are secret romances alluring or aversive? One theory suggests that romantic secrecy increases obsessive preoccupation with romantic partners and thereby enhances romantic relationships. Another theory suggests that romantic secrecy is burdensome and thereby undermines romantic relationships. We sought to rectify these conflicting perspectives by examining romantic secrecy and relationship duration using a large, Internet-based sample (N = 564). We predicted that romantic secrecy would have a positive influence in newer romantic relationships (obsessive preoccupation theory) and a negative influence in older romantic relationships (burden theory). In contrast, the obtained results indicate that romantic secrecy is a burden to both new and old romantic relationships     

Similarity and Social Interaction: When Similarity Fosters Implicit Behavior Toward a Stranger

ABSTRACT

People interact more readily with someone whom they think they have something in common with. At a pedestrian crossing, confederates asked participants for the time and, in one condition, said she/he had the same watch as the participant. The amount of time that participants lingered near a confederate was used as the dependent variable. Participants in the similarity condition spent significantly more time near the confederate than when no similarity was manipulated. The results showed that similarity fosters implicit behavior, adding to the growing body of data on the positive effects of similarity and its role in social interaction.     

Public Reactions to Unusual Names

Abstract

A sample of lower income Blacks, lower income Whites, higher income Blacks, and higher income Whites in the United States were asked about children's first names, the reasons the names were selected, and the identity of the persons who named the children. The most frequent reason for naming children in all four groups was “I/we just liked it.” The Whites were more likely than the Blacks to have named the child after a family member. Shoppers were then asked to rate the unusual names, along with a random sample of usual names, on six attributes: successful, moral, healthy, warm, cheerful, and gender appropriate. The shoppers were divided into eight groups in a two-income levels, two sexes, and two races design. The ratings were higher for usual names for all six attributes for all eight groups of raters. Although the unusual names had negative connotations for a wide variety of people in the community, name choices were usually the result of parents' current nonrational preferences.     

Making the body (w)hole: A semiotic exploration of body modifications

Abstract

Cultural norms of attraction are dynamic and fluid, and are psychologically intertwined with acts of corporeal modification that use the body as signifier. These norms are expressed in various ways by individuals, but can be seen most plainly when they are worn on the body, such as with body piercing and tattooing. An intertextual understanding of how body modifications play a role in the integration of psyche and soma appears to motivate understanding of how individual choices are reflections of cultural mores. Psychodynamic and semiotic processes from case examples are provided to illustrate how individuals may move between affect and expressiveness as well as how reading the body as text can generate new understandings of an individual's decision to modify, thus allowing clinicians to better work with their modified clients.     

Heterogeneity in generalized reinforcement learning and its relation to cognitive ability

In this paper, we study the connections between working memory capacity (WMC) and learning in the context of economic guessing games. We apply a generalized version of reinforcement learning, popularly known as the experience-weighted attraction (EWA) learning model, which has a connection to specific cognitive constructs, such as memory decay, the depreciation of past experience, counterfactual thinking, and choice intensity. Through the estimates of the model, we examine behavioral differences among individuals due to different levels of WMC. In accordance with ‘Miller’s magic number’, which is the constraint of working memory capacity, we consider two different sizes (granularities) of strategy space: one is larger (finer) and one is smaller (coarser). We find that constraining the EWA models by using levels (granules) within the limits of working memory allows for a better characterization of the data based on individual differences in WMC. Using this level-reinforcement version of EWA learning, also referred to as the EWA rule learning model, we find that working memory capacity can significantly affect learning behavior. Our likelihood ratio test rejects the null that subjects with high WMC and subjects with low WMC follow the same EWA learning model. In addition, the parameter corresponding to ‘counterfactual thinking ability’ is found to be reduced when working memory capacity is low.     

不同胜任力水平下大学生自谦归因对他人评价的影响

从人际吸引力和胜任力评价两个维度探讨大学生自谦归因对他人评价的影响。以120名大学生为样本,采用2*2的组间情景实验设计,让被试观测情景材料中不同胜任力水平个体的自谦归因后作出评价,研究发现,不同胜任力水平下大学生自谦归因对人际吸引力和胜任力评价上存在交互效应,当材料中大学生胜任力水平高时,自谦归因能提高大学生的人际吸引力。然而,当材料中大学生胜任力水平低时,自谦归因不仅不能提高人际吸引力,反而减少了他人对大学生的胜任力评价。     

A closer look at first sight: Social relations lens model analysis of personality and interpersonal attraction at zero acquaintance

Based on a new theoretical framework—the Social Relations Lens Model—this study examined the influence of personality on real‐life attraction at zero acquaintance. A group of psychology freshmen (N = 73) was investigated upon encountering one another for the first time. Personality traits, attraction ratings and metaperceptions were assessed using a large round‐robin design (2628 dyads). In line with our model, personality differentially predicted who was a liker and who expected to be liked (perceiver effects), who was popular and who was seen as a liker (target effects), as well as who liked whom and who expected to be liked by whom (relationship effects). Moreover, the influence of personality on attraction was mediated by observable physical, nonverbal and audible cues. Results allowed a closer look at first sight and underline the importance of combining componential and process approaches in understanding the interplay of personality and social phenomena. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.