bims-chumac 2022-06-19 papers

Issue of 2022–06–19
four papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society

Front Psychol. 2022 ;13 884888

Gender Biases in the Accuracy of Facial Judgments: Facial Attractiveness and Perceived Socioeconomic Status.

Many studies demonstrate that people form their first impression of a stranger based on facial appearance, and these impressions influence their subsequent decisions and behaviors. However, much less research has examined the factors that moderate the accuracy of first impressions based on a photo of face. The present study included three experiments to explore gender differences in the accuracy of impressions based on faces. The results showed that people judge facial attractiveness more accurately for female faces than for male faces while giving more accurate wealth judgments for male faces than for female faces. Interestingly, although we did not find a significant correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of wealth rating, we recognized a significant moderate correlation between confidence ratings and the accuracy of attractiveness ratings when female participants rated male faces. To our knowledge, the present study is the first to reveal gender biases in the accuracy of impression judgments based on facial appearance. These findings imply a significant influence of traditional gender roles on accurate facial judgments.

Keywords: facial attractiveness; facial judgment; gender bias; impression; socioeconomic status

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.884888

Arch Sex Behav. 2022 Jun 13.

Is Sexual Racism Still Really Racism? Revisiting Callander et al. (2015) in the USA.

Jesús Gregorio Smith, Andrew J Sage, Maggie McGlenn, Janai' Robbins, Sheldon L Garmon.

As research on race and racism in the USA has suggested that it now takes a more subtle and neoliberal form, one of the areas in which race and racism are most explicit is in dating and sex. When finding dating and sexual partners, people tend to be explicit about their rejection of potential mates along racial lines while claiming that these preferences have no connection with racism. Callander et al.'s (2015) study was the first to provide the evidence that these expressions of sexual racism, or race-based rejections of partners in sexual contexts, were in fact related to cultural racism perpetuated in society at large. Despite all of this, the study has never been replicated. We aimed to partially replicate the study in the USA, using a sample of 616 gay, bisexual, and heterosexual men. Using the Quick Discrimination Index and online sexual racism surveys referenced in the original paper, we find a correlation of - 0.129, between the two measures. This suggests that respondents who demonstrate more openness and less racist beliefs in general are also less likely to be accepting of forms of online sexual racism, a finding that is consistent with prior research. Still, the correlation between these measures is not nearly as strong as that observed in Australia in the original paper (- 0.56), raising questions that require further exploration.

Keywords: Partner preferences; Racial desire; Racial fetishism; Racial rejection; Sexual racism; Societal racism

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02351-2

Front Psychol. 2022 ;13 877530

Vocal Attractiveness Matters: Social Preferences in Cooperative Behavior.

Junchen Shang, Zhihui Liu.

Research has shown the phenomenon that "what sounds beautiful is good" is a stereotype. It is not clear whether vocal attractiveness affects social decision-making in economic games. Using a modified trust game task, we investigated the neural mechanism of the influence of vocal attractiveness on cooperative decision-making. Participants first heard the voice (attractive or unattractive) of the partner. They had enough time to decide whether to cooperate with the partner for a chance to earn monetary rewards. The behavioral results showed that participants made more invest choices in the attractive partner condition, and they were more likely to cooperate with the female partners in the unattractive voice condition. The event-related potential (ERP) analysis for voice stimuli showed that attractive voices induced larger N1 amplitude than unattractive voices only in the male voice condition. And female voices elicited smaller N1 and larger P2 amplitudes than male voices in both the attractive and unattractive voices condition. A larger P3 amplitude was evoked by female voices and attractive voices. In addition, a more positive late positive complex (LPC) was induced by male voices and attractive voices. This study suggested that attractive voices facilitated cooperative behavior, providing evidence for the "beauty premium" effect of the attractive voices. Moreover, participants were more likely to cooperate with female partners. In the early stage, gender information and male vocal attractiveness were processed automatically, suggesting that male vocal attractiveness was processed preferentially than the female voice. In the late stage, participants allocated attention to both male and female vocal attractiveness.

Keywords: ERPs; beauty premium; cooperative behavior; trust game; vocal attractiveness

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.877530

Front Psychol. 2022 ;13 862385

Darwin Versus Wallace: Esthetic Evolution and Preferential Mate Choice.

Adam C Davis, Steven Arnocky.

Dominant theorizing and research surrounding the operation of intersexual selection in evolutionary psychology tends to be guided by an adaptationist framework and aligned with models of sexual selection involving direct benefits (e.g., parental care) and indirect "good gene" and condition-dependent benefits. In this way, evolutionary psychologists more often espouse Alfred Russel Wallaces' utilitarian viewpoint that traits become attractive because they honestly signal vigor and vitality, which gives priority to natural selection. In doing so, Darwin's esthetic perspective originally articulated in The Descent of Man and alternative models of sexual selection (e.g., Fisherian runaway), are given less consideration. This is despite some informative reviews on the topic in evolutionary psychology. In the current conceptual analysis, we discuss the potential of Prum's Lande-Kirkpatrick (LK) null model of sexual selection to help make sense of some of the mixed evidence regarding the links between attractive traits and purported markers of phenotypic and genetic condition. We then consider how the implications of the LK null model can help to shift theoretical assumptions and guide future work in evolutionary psychology on intersexual selection.

Keywords: Lande–Kirkpatrick null model; costly signaling; evolutionary psychology; good genes; intersexual selection; mate choice

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.862385