Social Psychology Research Project: Mate Selection - Coursework Example

Social Psychology Research Project: Mate Selection Abstract Mate selection process shows uniformity in all cultures and all genders. This is a unique phenomenon. The following study has been done to understand the criteria men and women have for mate selection and also to see whether they have the same criteria or not. The study is based on the personal advertisements. The ads have been studied carefully regarding their preferences. Tabulation of the results in the Chi Square confirms that the theory is valid and there is a common set of parameters for mate selection regardless of the gender. But there are certain factors that women rate higher than men do, like, status or resources, are ranked higher by women and attractiveness and vitality is ranked higher by men. This study is had a total of 65 students of social psychology laboratory comprising of 20 males and 45 females. They did this study based on ads given by individual looking for an individual mate. Introduction Selection of mates is a unique feature of the human race. Although there are many differences among various cultures, when it comes to mate selection, a remarkable uniformity is noticed. It cuts across the gender boundaries as well and both men and women display the same preferences.(Fletcher, 2002) Evolutionary hypothesis developed by Buss(1987, 1994) has discussed the sex differences in mate selection criteria as seen in humans. He says that since a female can reproduce a limited number of offspring, the evolution theory would encourage her to find such mates who have sufficient resources for rearing her offspring. That is why women will look for men with resources. He also adds that other associated traits that indicate control over resources and show similar personality traits like ambition, and dominance, find a place of priority in the mate selection process of women. Similarly, for men the reproductive success is not too much associated with resources as they do not have much parental investment. For them the point of concern is the limited reproductive value of the female in terms of health and age.(Buss, 1987). Since they cannot directly judge their health and age, they go for physical beauty. According to Buss and Symons, the physical appearance of the female is an indicator to the man regarding her reproductive capabilities. Like a clear unblemished skin, long lustrous hair, white teeth, big eyes and full lips are proof of good health and reproductive age.(Buss, 1987,p.341; Symns,1979) According to the socio-structural theory, the difference in mate selection criteria is the outcome of class and gender inequalities, patriarchal system and sexual powers.( Eagly and Wood, 1999, Jackson,1992) According to Eagly and Wood, the social roles of men and women influences their choice in mate selection. Since a typical social role of men is associated with power and prestige, women tend to look for those criteria in men and in a way they exchange their role for beauty and nurturing for the power and status offered by men.(Hamermesh & Biddle, 1994) There seems to be a never-ending debate on which theory is more appropriate. As more and more studied are taking place, we have more data to judge the inferences. It has been found in the researches that warmth and trustworthiness are most desirable features that men and women both look for in their prospective mates. The other criteria are like physical fitness and attractiveness, wealth, status and ambition( Weiderman,1993). This was a correlation study to look for relationship between variables and to find out whether there is a positive correlation( with a correlation coefficient close to +1.00); or a negative correlation( correlation coefficient close to –1.00) or no correlation( correlation coefficient of 0). (Prof. Jeff Connor-Linton, Chi-Square Tutorial) This study tries to find out which one the following hypotheses is correct. Research Hypotheses:- (1) Men and Women both attach more importance to Warmth/Trustworthiness as compared to Attractiveness/Vitality or Status/Resources when seeking and offering for mate selection. (2) The Following differences in both the sexes should be found : (i) women should seek Status/Resources in their mate more than men, whereas men should seek vitality/attractiveness in their mates more than women. (ii) women should offer vitality/attractiveness more than men and men should offer status/resources more than women. (iii) Since both men and women rate warmth and/trustworthiness very high in long term relationships, it is not clear what sex differences will be found in this area. There are various methods for doing this type of study like Naturalistic observation, Survey or Archival research. For examining these hypotheses the participants studied the criteria mentioned in the personal advertisements for a prospective mate. The research was divided in two sessions. In the first session, students collected the data and in the second session they collated the data and worked out the inter-rater reliability. Then they tabulated all the data collected and found out the totals for each category. Using Chi Square they found out that that attractiveness/vitality is more important for men when seeking mate, and trustworthiness/warmth and resources/status is more important for women when seeking mate. They used the Chi Square method because it is a non-parametric test of statistical significance for bivariate tabular analysis. By this they could test the hypothesis to find out whether the two different samples of men and women, are different or similar to each other and if there is any relation between the two variables, the strength, direction and shape of the relationship (Linton, 2003) That is why they selected the Chi Square method in this study. Method There are different methods to study mate selection criteria. This research studied the mate selection preferences as depicted in the advertisements. Participants: The participants in this research were entire of social psychology laboratory class with a total of 65 students, comprising of 20 males and 45 females. The following were the number of participants for each lab. Monday: n=15 (6 pairs and one group of 3), Tuesday : n=23 (10 pairs and one group of 3), Tuesday : n=7 (2 pairs and one group of 3), Wednesday : n=20 (10 pairs). 20 men 45 women Total n = 65. Materials: Personal advertisements provide a wider sample with good ecological validity. They used personal advertisements from issues of the NZ Herald published during 2004 to replicate and test further questions concerned with mate selection criteria. Since these ads were given in an honest manner looking or offering for mates, the data was genuine. They studied 50 advertisements and short-listed 40 ads. In selecting these ads they had taken care not to include repeated ads. They had also screened the advertisements placed by more than one individual and also those that were placed for more than one individual. Of all the short listed advertisements, we had segmented them as ads by men who are looking for female partners and ads by women looking for male partners. All these ads were coded and studied for the categories mentioned. They were rated for the categories offered and categories sought. The major categories taken into consideration were warmth or trustworthiness, attractiveness or vitality and status or resources. Procedure: They worked in pairs to code the characteristics mentioned into categories. Each pair had to study 40 ads. The ads were numbered from 1 to 40. Both the members of a pair coded the same ads. Different pairs coded different ads, so that the final data collated from the lab will be from different ads. They studied each advertisement to determine whether the ideal dimensions described above were present or absent for both the qualities offered to a potential mate while describing self and also the qualities sought in a potential mate. They had to follow the descriptions of each category and record on the coding sheets provided, whether each of the categories were present in each ad for both the characteristics offered and the characteristics sought. For example, they had to put ‘1’ if characteristics are advertised and ‘0’ if not. Care was taken to work independently even when working in a pair and not to discuss the responses with their partners. Then they collated the data and worked out the reliability of their coding across their pair. They compared the results and if there was any discrepancy, they discussed it and reached an agreement. They also recorded the discrepancies and the outcomes of the discussions and then calculated inter-rater reliability. Then they tabulated all the data and with the help of the lab tutors, collated the total coded data to get frequencies across categories for traits offered and traits sought. This was done separately for males and females. These methods were tabulated in Chi Square. The results are as follows:- Results The data of criteria offered by man and women was thus collected and the observations were tabulated into following tables:- Table 1 * This table shows Total number of males and females offering warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. Warmth/Trustworthiness Attractiveness/Vitality Status/Resources Row Total Female observed frequency 98 (expected frequency 105.63) 141 (125.83) 64 (71.54) 303 Male 153 (145.3) 158 (173.2) 106 (98.5) 417 Column Total 251 299 170 Total/Total 720 Table 1 had the readings of how men and women present themselves as a prospective mate. Men had a higher score for warmth and trustworthiness as per table 1 where the men score 153 against women’s 98. Table 2 *This table shows Percentage of males and females offering warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. The above table showed that females rated attractiveness/vitality at 47%, warmth/ trustworthiness at 32% and status/resources at 21% while OFFERING themselves. Males show a 37% in warmth/trustworthiness, 38% in attractiveness/vitality and 25% in status/resources. Table 3 This table shows Result of Chi square testing of the total number of males and females offering warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. df cutoff p x2 Result 2 5.992 .05 5.49 Not significant The above Chi square result showed df =2; cut-off =5.992; p= .05 and x2 =5.49, it shows there in no significant difference in the categories offered by men and women. Table 4 * This table shows Total number of males and females seeking warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. Warmth/Trustworthiness Attractiveness/Vitality Status/Resources Row Total Female 140 (150) 81 (96.7) 73 (47.3) 294 Male 133 (123) 95 (79.3) 13 (38.7) 241 Column Total 273 176 86 Total/Total 535 In the table above, the traits mentioned in the ads while looking for the mates are compared. Females had a score of 140 where as men had a score of 133 for the same. They were quite close in looking for attractiveness and vitality. Here women scored 81 and men 95. But when it comes to status and resources women were very particular about it with a score of 73 and men have a mere 13. Table 5 * This Table shows the Percentage of males and females seeking warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. This showed that while SEEKING mates, females seek warmth/trustworthiness at 48%, attractiveness/vitality at 28% and status/resources at 25%. Males seek 55% for warmth/trustworthiness, 39% attractiveness/vitality and only 5% for status/resources. Table 6 * Result of Chi square testing of the total number of males and females seeking warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. df cutoff p x2 Result 2 5.992 .05 38.1 Significant This gave us Chi square test results for males and females offering / seeking warmth/ trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements. The results showed df 2, cutoff 5.992, p .05 and x2 38.1 depicting a significant correlation. Our aim was to find whether men and women both attached same percentage of importance to resources, warmth and attractiveness or was there any difference in their priorities while looking for or offering for mate selection. The results indicated that there was a difference. The results showed that according to the percentage and as per the NZ herald statistics, women seek resources more and men seek attractiveness more. The Chi Square results confirmed that there was a significant demarcation here. Discussion This study was done to find out whether Men and Women both attach equal importance to Warmth/Trustworthiness as compared to Attractiveness/Vitality or Status/Resources when seeking and offering for mate selection, as it is normally perceived, which was the first hypothesis. The second hypothesis was to see whether women seek Status/Resources in their mate more than men, and do men seek vitality/attractiveness in their mates more than women. This hypothesis also wanted to check whether women should offer vitality/attractiveness more than men and do men offer status/resources more than women. And also it needed to check the differences in men and women regarding warmth and/trustworthiness. The above results indicated that although women offer warmth/trustworthiness but men do not offer it in the same ratio. Table 1 had the readings of how men and women present themselves as a prospective mate. Men had a higher score for warmth and trustworthiness (men 153 ; women 98), which means that men think warmth and trustworthiness is what women want. But women seem to think that men may not count it as a major point of selection. They were much closer to each other in attractiveness and vitality (men 158; women 141). This showed that both think the other sex wants to select the mate on this point and since the scores were close to each other it may be quite true. Status was supposed to be more important with women and here it is seen that women scored 64 and men 106. This meant that men project their status as a criteria making them eligible for selection. Women did not offer it as much as the men. So it contradicted the hypothesis that Men and Women both attach equal importance to Warmth/Trustworthiness as compared to Attractiveness/Vitality or Status/Resources when seeking and offering for mate selection. Table 2 also showed that attractiveness was the highest factor with both men and women while offering for mate selection (men 38%, women 47%) . And warmth/ trustworthiness was the second most important criteria for both although there was a difference in percentage(me 37%, women 32%) and status/resources were the third criteria (men 25%, women 21%) while OFFERING themselves. As per table 3, where df =2; cut-off =5.992; p= .05 and x2 =5.49, it showed that there was no significant difference in the categories offered by men and women. It again contradicted hypothesis 1. It is supported by Buss et al that women give more importance to status and resources while looking for mates while men attach more importance to physical attractiveness and vitality.( Buss,1998, 1989; Buss and Schmitt, 1993; Townsend and Levy, 1990) As per table 4, Females seek more warmth and trustworthiness in their male mates and they had a score of 140 where as men had a score of 133 for the same. For attractiveness and vitality men are keener than women. Here women had scored 81 and men 95. But when it comes to status and resources women were very particular about it with a score of 73 and men had a mere 13. This means that attractiveness/vitality is more important for men when seeking mate, and trustworthiness/warmth and resources/status is more important for women when seeking mate. Table 5 depicted the percentage of males and females seeking warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources in personal advertisements This showed that females seek warmth/trustworthiness lesser then men(women 48%, Men 55%); attractiveness/vitality were the second important criteria but again lesser than men(women 28%; men 39%). Women attached much higher importance to status/resources at 25% where men had only 5%. The Chi Square results also confirmed that there is a significant demarcation here. And this confirmed the 2nd hypotheses. This is supported by Fletcher et al also that men prefer physical attractiveness much higher when looking for a female mate than women do for men. For women, status and resources, followed by warmth and kindness are much more important in a mate than it is for men when they are looking for a mate.(Fletcher, Tither, O’Loughlin, Friesen & Overall, 2004) These findings had a point of convergence and a point of divergence. Mostly two approaches were seen in this context, one is socio-structural and the other is evolutionary psychology. According to the socio-economic theory women look for their mate’s social role as a provider and power. According to the evolution theory, women need to have a mate who can help in their limited reproduction period by his trustworthiness and warmth and also provide for the upbringing of the offspring through his resources and status. That is why it is seen in the study that women have more importance for trustworthiness/warmth and resources/status while looking for a mate. The findings regarding men also supported both the theories. Their preference of physical attractiveness as seen in this study supported the socio-economic theory of female social role as a thing of beauty and reproduction. The same is applicable to the evolution theory where men were supposed to look for females from reproductive point of view. The findings of this study supported the evolution theory. But it cannot be said that it contradicted the socio-economic theory. Role of men as the provider is the socially accepted and perceived role. And the study clearly showed that women had mentioned it as a factor in their advertisements looking for a mate. But men had not done the same in the same ratio. Here both of them had followed the social role patterns. The same has been found in another study done in Serbia. That study hoped to find out some different result as the status of women in the Serbia is supposed to be better than other non-communist countries. But there also we found similar results. This proves that the criteria for mate selection is beyond class and countries. Before it can be claimed that this is the final fact we need to take into consideration that the participants also have an impact on the study. Considering that here the participants had a majority of female participants, 45 females and 20 males, there could be a bias in coding of the ads. Although the method took care to calculate the inter rate reliability, but some feminine bias or absence of equivalent male bias in the study cannot be ruled out. . The participants were PSYC 332 students who coded the adverts. But the real participants are the people who placed the adverts. But there also the number of males and females were not the same. In a study of similarity and differences in preferences of men and women, both of them should have equal representation in the sample as well as in the participants. If a study is done with care taken to have perfect balance of male female ratio, the results could be confirmed with even more conviction. Having a better ratio may not give a radically different result but it can be claimed as the best possible study confirming the same facts. For a broader perspective the participants can also be selected from different backgrounds and not just students of one particular class. Any social psychological research needs a wide cross section of study. Another factor that needs to be pointed out that preferences of men and women may vary according to the cultures also. Since this study was done in New Zealand, it may have a different outcome if it used a data from various countries. The collection of data also can have a broader base. There is section of people that goes for personal ads but there are other segments that may go for dating on internet or self report etc. These could have made this study more authentic. Although this research takes a good attempt in analyzing the preferences of men and women in mate selection, a wide base of participants, with equal gender ratio and varied backgrounds, wider sample from different countries, different cultures, different media like internet and other sites in addition to the personal ads could have made it a more elaborate and authentic research. The research design could also be improved by adding more methods like survey, personal interviews etc. then this could have become an authority on gender related preferences of men and women and could have become a reliable source for any other research that needed similar data or result. It could have given a universal truth regarding mate selection. Even this study reveals the universal truth. The fact is that with time the way of life has changed but the basic preferences of men and women still remain the same. A man may go to a grooming saloon but for mate selection he will still go for physical attractiveness, and women may be earning as good as men today but while selecting a mate they will still go for trustworthiness/warmth and resources/status. It can be said that the recent developments have brought the social roles of men and women closer to each other and hence we find similarity in their parameters for mate selection. Buss sees this phenomenon as men approaching women’s standards.(Buss,et,al, 2001) But women with high socio-economic structure are more keen on men’s status and resources than the women with lesser economic status.(Buss an Barness 1986; Widerman and Allegeier, 1992, Townsend and Levy, 1990) Thus it can be concluded that this is a universal truth. Reference: 1. Botwin, M. D., Buss, D. M. and Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Personality and mate preferences: Five factors in mate selection and marital satisfaction. Journal of Personality, 65: 107-136. 2. Buss, D. M. (1987). Mate selection criteria: An evolutionary perspective. In: Crawford, C., Smith, and D. Krebs, D. (Eds.). Sociobiology and Psychology: Ideas, issues and applications (pp. 335-351). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 3. Buss, D. M. (1989). Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 12: 1-49. 4. Buss, D. M. (1994). The Evolution of Desire. New York: Basic Books. 5. Eagly, A. H., and Wood, W. (1999). The origins of sex differences in human behavior: Evolved dispositions versus social roles. American Psychologist, 54: 408-423. 6. Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 1. 2003. 125Mate selection criteria: A trait desirability assessment study of sex differences in Serbia Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 1. 2003. 126 7. Feingold, A. (1990). Gender differences in effects of physical attractiveness on 8. romantic attraction: A comparison across five research paradigms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59: 981-993. 9. .Fletcher,G.J.O., 2002, The new science of intimate relationships 10. Fletcher,G.J.O., Tither,J.M., O’Loughlin,C., Friesen M., & Overall,N. 2004, Warm and homely or cold and beautiful? Sex differences in Trading off traits in mate selection, Personality and Social psychology Bulletin, 30, 659-672. 11. Goodwin, R. (1990). Sex differences among partner preferences: Are the sexes really very similar? Sex Roles, 23: 501-513. 12. Hamermesh, D. S. and Biddle, J. E. (1994). Beauty and the labor market. American Economic Review, 84: 1174-1194. 13. Prof. Jeff Connor-Linton, Chi-Square Tutorial, Dept of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 2003,http://www.georgetown.edu/ retrieved on 29th May, 2007. 14. Mesnick, S. L. (1997). Sexual alliances: Evidence and evolutionary implications. In Gowaty, P. A. (Ed.), Feminism and Evolutionary Biology (pp. 207-260). New York: Chapman and Hall. 15. Symons, D. (1979). The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press. 16. Townsend, J. M. (1989). Mate selection criteria: A pilot study. Ethology and Sociobiology, 10: 241-253. 17. Townsend, J. M. and Levy, G. D. (1990). Effects of potential partners' physical attractiveness and socioeconomic status on sexuality and partner selection. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 19: 149-164. 18. Wiederman, M. W. and Allgeier, E. R. (1992). Gender differences in mate selection criteria: Sociobiological or socioeconomic explanation? Ethology and Sociobiology, 13: 115-124. 19. Weiderman, M. W. (1993). Evolved gender differences in mate preferences – evidence from personal advertisements. Ethology and Sociobiology., 14, 331-352. Read More