Beauty, Dominance, and the Mating Game: Contrast Effects in Self-Assessment Reflect Gender Differences in Mate Selection

An experimental study examined the effects of exposure to physically attractive and dominant same-sex individuals on self-assessments. Consistent with prior findings on mate selection, it was predicted that women’s self-assessments of their mate value would be adversely affected by exposure to highl...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 1999-09, Vol.25 (9), p.1126-1134
Main Authors: Gutierres, Sara E., Kenrick, Douglas T., Partch, Jenifer J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attractiveness
Beauty
Cognition & reasoning
Comparison
Dominance
Exposure
Factors
Gender differences
Mate Selection
Opposite Sex Relations
Personal relationships
Physical Characteristics
Self Concept
Self Evaluation
Selfassessment
Sexes
Social Desirability
Social psychology
Undergraduate Students
Whites
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An experimental study examined the effects of exposure to physically attractive and dominant same-sex individuals on self-assessments. Consistent with prior findings on mate selection, it was predicted that women’s self-assessments of their mate value would be adversely affected by exposure to highly physically attractive women and would be relatively unaffected by exposure to socially dominant women. Conversely, men’s self-assessments of their mate value were expected to be more affected by the social dominance than by the physical attractiveness of the men to whom they were exposed. Findings for self-assessed judgments of desirability as a marriage partner were in line with hypotheses. Results fit with earlier findings suggesting that such effects may be caused by changes in the perceived population of competitors rather than direct changes in self-perceptions of physical appearance or dominance. Overall, findings are supportive of models assuming domain-specific rather than domain-general cognitive processes.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/01461672992512006