Confirming preferences or collecting data? Information search strategies and romantic partner selection (original) (raw)
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Evaluating the Risk and Attractiveness of Romantic Partners When Confronted with Contradictory Cues
AIDS and Behavior, 2007
Research shows that people engage in "risky" sex with "safe" partners and in "safer" sex with "riskier" partners. How is the determination of "risky" or "safe" status made? Factorial survey methodology was used to randomly construct descriptions of romantic partners based on attractive and/or risky characteristics. Respondents evaluated 20 descriptions for attractiveness, health risk, likelihood of going on a date, likelihood of unprotected sex, and likelihood of STD/HIV infection. Respondents were most attracted to and perceived the least risk from attractive descriptions and were least attracted to and perceived the most risk from the risky descriptions. The differences between the "conflicting information" descriptions are attributable to a primacy effect: descriptions that began with attractiveness information but end with risk information were evaluated more positively than those that began with risk and ended with attractive information.
When risky is attractive: sensation seeking and romantic partner selection
Personality and Individual Differences, 2005
This study examined the relationship between sensation seeking and evaluations of risk and attractiveness of potential romantic partners. We presented respondents with a series of computer-generated descriptions of potential romantic partners. The valence of the descriptions varied: some were composed only of positive attributes, some only negative, and others a mixture of positive and negative. Compared to low sensation seekers, high sensation seekers rated potential partners as more attractive, less risky and were more likely to want to date the individual described. However, they rated their likelihood of acquiring an STD infection after unprotected sex with the potential partner as lower than did the low sensation seekers. These differences between high and low sensation seekers were largest when the descriptions of potential partners contained only negative attributes and smallest when they contained only positive attributes. The findings demonstrate the importance of the sensation seeking trait in judgments of sexual risk and attractiveness in a romantic context and have implications for the development of effective health messages.
Romance and risk: romantic attraction and health risks in the process of relationship formation
Psychology, Health & Medicine, 2004
This paper reports on a study that identified which of 36 possible attributes of potential romantic partners were perceived as most important for selecting a romantic partner. It also quantified perceived risk and perceived attractiveness judgments for 159 partner characteristics ('aspects'). Thus, it directly investigated the partner characteristics that reflect both risk and attractiveness as well as the correlation between these two concepts. Every one of the 36 attributes were viewed as important by at least some respondents and there was wide variance in the frequency with which they were chosen. While almost 80% of the respondents felt it was important to know something about the potential partner's 'appearance', less than 4% felt it was important to know about 'accessories'. In addition to 'appearance', only 3 other attributes were selected as one of the 15 most important by at least 60% of respondents. The gamma association across aspects between average risk and average attractiveness was 7 0.61, suggesting that the more one is attracted to some aspect of a potential partner, the less likely is one to view that aspect as 'risky'. This may help explain why it sometimes appears that risk information is ignored when it concerns a partner to whom one is attracted. Somewhat surprisingly, there were remarkable similarities between gender and among ethnicities with respect to both selecting attributes that are important in partner selection and in identifying both attractive and risky aspects.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008
In paradigms in which participants state their ideal romantic-partner preferences or examine vignettes and photographs, men value physical attractiveness more than women do, and women value earning prospects more than men do. Yet it remains unclear if these preferences remain sex differentiated in predicting desire for real-life potential partners (i.e., individuals whom one has actually met). In the present study, the authors explored this possibility using speed dating and longitudinal follow-up procedures. Replicating previous research, participants exhibited traditional sex differences when stating the importance of physical attractiveness and earning prospects in an ideal partner and ideal speed date. However, data revealed no sex differences in the associations between participants' romantic interest in real-life potential partners (met during and outside of speed dating) and the attractiveness and earning prospects of those partners. Furthermore, participants' ideal preferences, assessed before the speed-dating event, failed to predict what inspired their actual desire at the event. Results are discussed within the context of R. E. Nisbett and T. D. seminal article: Even regarding such a consequential aspect of mental life as romantic-partner preferences, people may lack introspective awareness of what influences their judgments and behavior.
Computers in Human Behavior, 2010
This study explored online personal ads of 294 heterosexual and homosexual men and women in the United States through a qualitative analysis and comparison of participant-generated "personal" and "preferred partner" narratives. Nine characteristics were identified and combined into three overarching categories: physical, lifestyle, and personality characteristics. These three personal and preferred partner characteristics were examined for difference by gender, sexual orientation, age and desired relationship type of the advertisers. Main effects emerged for all four predictors, most notably for age and desired relationship type. Additionally, this study explored the possibility that personal and preferred partner narratives contained similar constellations of characteristics, finding significant correlations on all three variables, lending support for the matching hypothesis in dating partner characteristics.
Psychological Reports, 2013
This study used the biological market perspective and influential statistical models from the marketing field to investigate males' and females' expectations regarding which combination of characteristics are most relevant in ensuring desirable partnerships for same-sex individuals. Thus, 358 Brazilian undergraduates assessed eight descriptions of same-gender stimulus targets (formulated with different levels of physical attractiveness, social skills, and current or prospective social status) and evaluated the overall desirability of the targets' expected or probable partners. From the possible combinations, three groups emerged: for one group, mainly composed of men, status characteristics were the most important attributes; for the others, mostly composed of women, social skills or physical characteristics were identified as most important in appealing to a desirable partner. This work expands the understanding of variability in male and female romantic expectations, a...
Computers in Human Behavior, 2014
ABSTRACT This study was the first-ever experiment to test how ideal expressions in hypothetical online dating profiles and exposure to romantic media are related to profile attractiveness, romantic beliefs, and endorsement of ideal partner characteristics. The sample contained 249 undergraduate students from a small, southwestern university. The study is a one-way experiment, with five manipulations and one control group. Results revealed that exposure to the conditions featuring any ideal content produced stronger endorsement of romantic beliefs, but not ideal partner characteristics. Consuming romantic media predicted stronger endorsement of romantic beliefs and higher ratings of profile attractiveness. Results support the heuristic processing model of cultivation.
Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 1994
The literature suggests that subjects tend to underreport the impact of physical attractiveness on their dating preferences. It was investigated whether this is due to subjects' inability to achieve accurate introspective reports or to a tendency to intentionally provide distorted reports of the role of physical attractiveness in such preferences. Female subjects were shown profiles containing photographs and information about the personalities of potential male dating partners and were asked to state the dating desirability of each target person. Subsequently, they were asked to introspect about the factors that affected their dating preferences. The findings suggested that subjects are capable of accurate introspection. The subjects tended to intentionally underreport the impact of physical attractiveness on their preferences. More specifically, when subjects thought that they were connected to a lie-detectorlike apparatus, they produced more accurate overall introspective reports, admitted a more extreme influence by the physical attractiveness of the targets, and endorsed more extreme dating desirability ratings for physically unattractive men. Attractive men were consistently preferred and physical attractiveness was found to be the single most influential target variable on the subject's preferences. Resume D'apres la litterature, les sujets auraient tendance h ne pas signaler toute l'influence de l'attrait physique sur leurs preferences concernant le choix d'un partenaire. Des recherches ont ete menees pour determiner si cela etait attribuable a l'incapacite des sujets a effectuer une introspection exacte ou a une tendance a volontairement fausser leurs rapports sur Je r61e de l'attrait physique a l'egard de telles preferences. On a montr6 a des sujets feminins des profils contenant des photos et de 1'information sur la personnalite d'eventuels partenaires du sexe oppose et on leur a demande d'indiquer le caractere desirable de chacun. On leur a ensuite demande de s'interroger sur les facteurs qui influaient sur leurs preferences. Les conclusions nous portent a croire que les sujets sont capables d'effectuer une introspection exacte. C'est volontairement qu'ils avaient tendance a ne pas signaler toute l'influence de l'attrait physique sur leurs preferences. Plus pr£cisement, quand ils se
A great deal of research on interpersonal attraction implicitly assumes that stated ideal partner preferences guide the mate selection, and therefore relationship formation, process. Nevertheless, recent research has yielded contradictory results. Whereas some research has failed to demonstrate that ideal partner preferences influence attraction to actual potential romantic partners, other studies have provided empirical evidence for the predictive validity of ideal partner preferences following interactions with potential romantic partners. A new meta-analysis on the predictive validity of ideal partner preferences concluded that people may not preferentially pursue potential partners that more closely match their stated preferences. This conclusion has significant implications for several empirical literatures that have relied on self-reported ideal partner preferences to test hypotheses. We demonstrate, however, that the majority of the research on the predictive validity of ideal partner preferences, and thus research included in this meta-analysis, focuses on interpersonal attraction or later relationship processes and not on individuals transitioning into actual new relationships. We suggest that research that directly focuses on the transition into actual relationships is needed before firm conclusions can be made regarding the predictive validity of ideal partner preferences in the formation of new relationships.
Negligible evidence that people desire partners who uniquely fit their ideals
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2020
Laypersons and scholars often presume that people positively evaluate partners who match their ideal partner preferences: If Faye prefers kindness in a partner and Sonia prefers ambition, Faye should be especially attracted to kind partners and Sonia should be especially attracted to ambitious ones. However, to date, most published tests of this idea are imprecise and permit multiple interpretations of the data. The current studies improve upon prior tests by (a) having participants self-generate the ideal attributes that matter most to them and (b) using a yoked design to isolate the predictive power of self-generated (vs. other-generated) ideal attributes. Overall, participants were more romantically interested in blind-date partners (Study 1) and acquaintances/friends/romantic partners (Study 2) to the extent that they thought those individuals possessed the ideal attributes. But the positive association of these attributes with romantic interest was identical regardless of whether the attributes represented the participant's self-generated ideals or someone else's ideals. We also used a novel coding scheme to organize participants' 1,011 self-generated ideal attributes into 95 different attribute-categories; we then implemented three exclusion strategies (that differed in breadth vs. precision) using this scheme in order to maximize idiosyncratic variability between self-and other-generated ideals. All approaches revealed identical conclusions. Focused tests of ideal partner preference-matching may reveal that individual differences in ideal partner preferences poorly correspond to the attributes that uniquely inspire romantic interest.