Formation of personal relationships ERQ

Johnston et al + Ronay et al

Evolutionary theory of attraction

• suggests that one way personal relationships can be formed is through sexual selection

sexual selection

• how the best mate is chosen to produce and protect the most healthy offspring

• key for successful reproduction and passing along strong genes

Female choosiness

• females choose mate for ability to support and protect children

• they want males who take more risks which convey strength and higher social status which convey more resources

• females also like secondary sex characteristics as they signify higher tesotsterone

secondary sex characteristics

• characteristics that don’t include sexual body part directly involved in reproduction

• ex: strong jawline, sharp eyebrows, defined adams apple

high testosterone and immune function

• high testosterone signifies better health in the men because more testosterone is bad for your immune system so having more and still surviving shows the strength and that the males have good genes to pass down.

Male choosiness

• chose mate for ability to have children

• prefer females with chastity to ensure the future offspring will be related to himself

Critical thinking of evolutionary theory of attraction

• Animal study support however no human studies to back animals up

• reductionist 

• underestimates role of culture in relationships

Aim of Ronay et al

 to determine if men would take greater risk in the presence of an attractive female, than in the presence of a male.

method of ronay et al

• 96 australian male skateboarders with mean age of 21.58

• 43 pp in male researcher condition and 53 in female researcher condition

• pp asked to do one easy trick and one hard trick which they could do 50% of the time

• each trick done 10 times then with a break and ten more times in-front of other condition

• attempts classified as either success, crash landing, aborted attempt

results of ronay et al

• pp took greater risk on difficult tricks while female researcher watched them, meaning they aborted fewer hard tricks which showed higher risk taking

evaluation of ronay et al

• large sample size

• sample not culturally generlisable

• how was each skill categorised was a limitation

aim of Johnston et al

examine if females had a stronger preference for masculine faces while ovulating.

method of johnston et al

• 42 female participants from new mexico state university

• pp viewed male and female faces on screen and asked to choose/create different faces until they found attractive male face

• pp asked to manipulate face until it best met that description so a more masculine or feminine face

results of johnston et al

• during ovulation, females had a stronger preference for more masculine looking male faces

evaluation of johnston et al

• high ecological validity

• cultural generalisability 

• reductionist approach