Priming concerns about pathogen threat versus resource scarcity: dissociable effects on women’s perceptions of men’s attractiveness and dominance

Navigating an unpredictable environment: the moderating role of perceived environmental unpredictability in the effectiveness of ecological resource scarcity information on pro-environmental behavior

BACKGROUND

The global issue of ecological resource scarcity, worsened by climate change, necessitates effective methods to promote resource conservation. One commonly used approach is presenting ecological resource scarcity information. However, the effectiveness of this method remains uncertain, particularly in an unpredictable world. This research aims to examine the role of perceived environmental unpredictability in moderating the impact of ecological resource scarcity information on pro-environmental behavior (PEB).

METHODS

We conducted three studies to test our hypothesis on moderation. Study 1 (N = 256) measured perceived general environmental unpredictability, perceived resource scarcity and daily PEB frequencies in a cross-sectional survey. Study 2 (N = 107) took it a step further by manipulating resource scarcity. Importantly, to increase ecological validity, Study 3 (N = 135) manipulated the information on both ecological resource scarcity and nature-related environmental unpredictability, and measured real water and paper consumption using a newly developed washing-hands paradigm.

RESULTS

In Study 1, we discovered that perceived resource scarcity positively predicted PEB, but only when individuals perceive the environment as less unpredictable (interaction effect: 95% CI = [-0.09, -0.01], ΔR2 = 0.018). Furthermore, by manipulating scarcity information, Study 2 revealed that only for individuals with lower levels of environmental unpredictability presenting ecological resource scarcity information could decrease forest resource consumption intention (interaction effect: 95%CI = [-0.025, -0.031], ΔR2 = .04). Moreover, Study 3 found that the negative effect of water resource scarcity information on actual water and (interaction effect: 95%CI = [3.037, 22.097], ηp2 = .050) paper saving behaviors (interaction effect: 95%CI = [0.021, 0.275], ηp2 = .040), as well as hypothetical forest resource consumption (interaction effect: 95%CI = [-0.053, 0.849], ηp2 = .023) emerged only for people who receiving weaker environmental unpredictability information.

CONCLUSION

Across three studies, we provide evidence to support the moderation hypothesis that environmental unpredictability weakens the positive effect of ecological resource scarcity information on PEB, offering important theoretical and practical implications on the optimal use of resource scarcity to enhance PEB.

Women's Preferences for Masculinity in Male Faces Are Predicted by Material Scarcity, But Not Time or Psychological Scarcity

Facial femininity in men is purportedly used as a cue by women as a signal of parental quality and willingness to provide resources. Accordingly, in contexts where choosing a partner that will provide resources is more beneficial (e.g., when resources are scarce), women have shown an increase preference for facial femininity in male faces. However, domains of scarcity often covary, and it is, therefore, unclear whether these contextual shifts in facial masculinity/femininity preferences are specific to material scarcity (as implied by previous theory), or due to an unrelated domain of scarcity (e.g., time or psychological scarcity). Here, a sample of 823 women completed the Perceived Scarcity Scale, which measures three separate domains of scarcity: material scarcity, time scarcity, and psychological scarcity. Participants also rated the attractiveness of 42 male faces, which were measured on objective sexual dimorphism and perceived masculinity. Consistent with theory, material scarcity, and not time or psychological scarcity, was associated with a decreased preference for objective sexual dimorphism (i.e., an increased preference for facial femininity). This study provides evidence that women use sexual dimorphism as a cue to material resource provisioning potential when assessing men as a mate.

Facial Attractiveness, but not Facial Masculinity, is Used as a Cue to Paternal Involvement in Fathers

Purpose

Facial femininity in men is purportedly used as a cue by women as a signal of paternal involvement. However, evidence for this claim is questionable. Previous findings have shown that paternal involvement is linked to testosterone, but have not investigated facial masculinity directly, while other studies have found that facial masculinity is negatively associated with perceptions of paternal involvement but do not assess the accuracy of this judgement. Here, we assess whether facial masculinity in men is used as a cue to paternal involvement, and whether this cue is accurate.

Methods

We collected facial photographs of 259 men (156 of which were fathers) who also completed self-report measures of paternal involvement. Facial images were then rated by a separate group of raters on facial masculinity, attractiveness, and perceived paternal involvement. Shape sexual dimorphism was also calculated from the images using geometric morphometrics.

Results

We found that facial masculinity was not associated with perceptions of paternal involvement, nor was it related with self-reported paternal involvement. Interestingly, facial attractiveness was negatively associated with perceptions of paternal involvement, and we found partial evidence that facial attractiveness was also negatively associated with self-reported paternal involvement.

Conclusion

These findings challenge the hypothesis that sexual dimorphism is used as a cue to paternal involvement, and perhaps indicate that facial attractiveness is more important for this judgement instead.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40750-023-00217-y.

Women's Preferences for Strong Men Under Perceived Harsh Versus Safe Ecological Conditions

Ecological conditions provide information about available resources for one's environment. In humans, this has been shown to influence reproductive behavior, as individuals may engage in trade-offs between partner quality and investment. For instance, many women may trade-off preferences for men with physical features indicative of social dominance and health over physical features indicative of commitment and investment. The current study explored women's preferences for formidable men under safe vs. harsh ecological conditions. Across three studies, U.S. university women (N = 1,098) were randomly assigned to a perceived harsh or safe ecological condition. They were asked to rate the attractiveness of men's body types (i.e., muscular vs. less muscular). Findings revealed that in general, women rated stronger men as more attractive than weaker men irrespective of the ecological condition. Evidence for preference as a function of ecology appeared only when a two-alternative forced-choice task was used (Study 3), but not in rating tasks (Studies 1 and 2). Study 3 showed that women had a relatively stronger preference for stronger men for short-term relationships in a resource scarce ecological condition. This research provides some evidence that perceived ecological conditions can drive women's preferences for men with enhanced secondary sex characteristics as a function of mating context. These findings are consistent with previous research indicating the importance of physical characteristics in men's attractiveness, and it adds to the existing literature on ecological factors and mating preferences.

Resource demands reduce partner discrimination in Himba women

Where autonomy for partner choice is high, partner preferences may be shaped by both social and ecological conditions. In particular, women's access to resources can influence both the type and number of partnerships she engages in. However, most existing data linking resources and partner choice rely on either priming effects or large demographic databases, rather than preferences for specific individuals. Here we leverage a combination of demographic data, food insecurity scores and trait and partner preference ratings to determine whether resource security modulates partner preferences among Himba pastoralists. We find that while food insecurity alone has a weak effect on women's openness to new partners, the interaction of food insecurity and number of dependent children strongly predicts women's openness to potential partners. Further, we show that women who have more dependants have stronger preferences for wealthy and influential men. An alternative hypothesis derived from mating-market dynamics, that female desirability affects female preferences, had no effect. Our data show that women who face greater resource constraints are less discriminating in the number of partners they are open to, and have stronger preferences for resource-related traits. These findings highlight the importance of ecological signals in explaining the plasticity of mate preferences.

What people believe about detecting infectious disease using the senses

Do you believe you can tell if people are sick with infectious diseases by looking at, listening to, or smelling them? Research on pathogen detection and avoidance suggests that perceivers respond with caution both to true signs of infection and to cues only heuristically associated with infection threat. But what do perceivers actually believe about the effectiveness and use of specific sensory modalities for infection detection? In several studies, U.S. participants reported perceptions of effectiveness and likelihood of using each of the major senses to identify infection threat in two types of targets: people and food. Results revealed prioritization of sight and sound with person targets and prioritization of sight and smell with food targets. These patterns appear consistent with the use of "safe senses" (avoidance of cues involving high perceived transmission risk). Beliefs about sensory use also varied depending on the specific feature being examined, with different patterns of sensory beliefs associated with evaluation of pathogenic danger than with evaluation of desirability and fit with normative standards. We discuss these lay beliefs in the context of recent calls for descriptive research in psychology as well as their implications for current and future work on the behavioral immune system.

Does Adult Sex Ratio Predict Regional Variation in Facial Dominance Perceptions? Evidence From an Analysis of U.S. States

When the adult sex ratio of the local population is biased toward women, men face greater costs due to increased direct intrasexual competition. In order to mitigate these costs, men may be more attuned to cues of other men's physical dominance under these conditions. Consequently, we investigated the relationships between the extent to which people ( N = 3,586) ascribed high dominance to masculinized versus feminized faces and variation in adult sex ratio across U.S. states. Linear mixed models showed that masculinized faces were perceived as more dominant than feminized faces, particularly for judgments of men's facial dominance. Dominance perceptions were weakly related to adult sex ratio, and this relationship was not moderated by face sex, participant sex, or their interaction. Thus, our results suggest that dominance perceptions are relatively unaffected by broad geographical differences in adult sex ratios.

Microbes and masculinity: Does exposure to pathogenic cues alter women's preferences for male facial masculinity and beardedness?

Women's preferences for men's androgen dependent secondary sexual traits are proposed to be phenotypically plastic in response to exposure to pathogens and pathogen disgust. While previous studies report that masculinity in facial shape is more attractive to women who have recently been exposed to pathogenic cues and who are high in self-reported pathogen disgust, facial hair may reduce male attractiveness under conditions of high pathogens as beards are a possible breeding ground for disease carrying ectoparasites. In the present study, we test whether women's preferences for beardedness and facial masculinity vary due to exposure to different pathogenic cues. Participants (N = 688, mean age + 1SD = 31.94 years, SD = 6.69, range = 18-67) rated the attractiveness of facial composite stimuli of men when they were clean-shaven or fully bearded. These stimuli were also manipulated in order to vary sexual dimorphism by ±50%. Ratings were conducted before and after exposure to one of four experimental treatments in which participants were primed to either high pathogens (e.g. infected cuts), ectoparasites (e.g. body lice), a mixture of pathogens and ectoparasites, or a control condition (e.g. innocuous liquids). Participants then completed the three-domain disgust scale measuring attitudes to moral, sexual and pathogen disgust. We predicted that women would prefer facial masculinity following exposure to pathogenic cues, but would show reduced preferences for facial hair following exposure to ectoparasites. Women preferred full beards over clean-shaven faces and masculinised over feminised faces. However, none of the experimental treatments influenced the direction of preferences for facial masculinity or beardedness. We also found no association between women's self-reported pathogen disgust and their preferences for facial masculinity. However, there was a weak positive association between moral disgust scores and preferences for facial masculinity, which might reflect conservatism and preferences for gender typicality in faces. Women's preferences for beards were positively associated with their pathogen disgust, which runs contrary to our predictions and may reflect preferences for high quality individuals who can withstand any costs of beardedness, although further replications are necessary before firm conclusions can be made. We conclude that there is little support for pathogenic exposure being a mechanism that underpins women's directional preferences for masculine traits.

The Putative Son's Attractiveness Alters the Perceived Attractiveness of the Putative Father

A body of literature has investigated female mate choice in the pre-mating context (pre-mating sexual selection). Humans, however, are long-living mammals forming pair-bonds which sequentially produce offspring. Post-mating evaluations of a partner's attractiveness may thus significantly influence the reproductive success of men and women. I tested herein the theory that the attractiveness of putative sons provides extra information about the genetic quality of fathers, thereby influencing fathers' attractiveness across three studies. As predicted, facially attractive boys were more frequently attributed to attractive putative fathers and vice versa (Study 1). Furthermore, priming with an attractive putative son increased the attractiveness of the putative father with the reverse being true for unattractive putative sons. When putative fathers were presented as stepfathers, the effect of the boy's attractiveness on the stepfather's attractiveness was lower and less consistent (Study 2). This suggests that the presence of an attractive boy has the strongest effect on the perceived attractiveness of putative fathers rather than on non-fathers. The generalized effect of priming with beautiful non-human objects also exists, but its effect is much weaker compared with the effects of putative biological sons (Study 3). Overall, this study highlighted the importance of post-mating sexual selection in humans and suggests that the heritable attractive traits of men are also evaluated by females after mating and/or may be used by females in mate poaching.

[Development of a Japanese version of the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Scale]

This study developed a Japanese version of the Perceived Vulnerability to Disease (PVD) scale. Analysis of the data from Japanese university students (N = 435) replicated the two-factor structure of the original scale: one factor that assessed beliefs about one's own susceptibility to infectious diseases (perceived infectability) and the other factor that assessed emotional discomfort in contexts that connoted an especially high potential for pathogen transmission (germ aversion). Tests of reliability and validity for each subscale indicated overall promising results. It would appear that the results reflect at least in part an evolutionary adaptive psychological mechanism for the ancestral environment.

Salivary cortisol and pathogen disgust predict men's preferences for feminine shape cues in women's faces

Recent studies suggest that individuals who are particularly concerned about infectious diseases show stronger preferences for exaggerated sex-typical characteristics in potential mates' faces. However, these studies have generally investigated individual differences in women's mate preferences and relied on questionnaires to assess disease-related concerns. Here we show that men's scores on the pathogen disgust subscale of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale are positively correlated with their preferences for femininity in women's faces and that this relationship is independent of the possible effects of both sexual and moral disgust. We then show that men with higher trait (i.e., average) salivary cortisol, a biomarker for immunosuppression, have stronger preferences for femininity in women's faces. Finally, we show that pathogen disgust is correlated with partnered men's femininity ratings of both their actual and ideal romantic partner. Together, these findings suggest that disease-related factors are important for individual differences in men's mate preferences.