Exploring Attitudes Toward "Sugar Relationships" Across 87 Countries: A Global Perspective on Exchanges of Resources for Sex and Companionship

The current study investigates attitudes toward one form of sex for resources: the so-called sugar relationships, which often involve exchanges of resources for sex and/or companionship. The present study examined associations among attitudes toward sugar relationships and relevant variables (e.g., sex, sociosexuality, gender inequality, parasitic exposure) in 69,924 participants across 87 countries. Two self-report measures of Acceptance of Sugar Relationships (ASR) developed for younger companion providers (ASR-YWMS) and older resource providers (ASR-OMWS) were translated into 37 languages. We tested cross-sex and cross-linguistic construct equivalence, cross-cultural invariance in sex differences, and the importance of the hypothetical predictors of ASR. Both measures showed adequate psychometric properties in all languages (except the Persian version of ASR-YWMS). Results partially supported our hypotheses and were consistent with previous theoretical considerations and empirical evidence on human mating. For example, at the individual level, sociosexual orientation, traditional gender roles, and pathogen prevalence were significant predictors of both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS. At the country level, gender inequality and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. However, being a woman negatively predicted the ASR-OMWS, but positively predicted the ASR-YWMS. At country-level, ingroup favoritism and parasite stress positively predicted the ASR-OMWS. Furthermore, significant cross-subregional differences were found in the openness to sugar relationships (both ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS scores) across subregions. Finally, significant differences were found between ASR-YWMS and ASR-OMWS when compared in each subregion. The ASR-YWMS was significantly higher than the ASR-OMWS in all subregions, except for Northern Africa and Western Asia.

Task-irrelevant threatening information is harder to ignore than other valences

Emotionally salient objects activate the survival circuits of the brain and are given priority in cognitive processing, even at the cost of inhibiting ongoing activities. These circuits arouse and prepare the organism to take swift action when needed. Previous studies have suggested, however, that not all emotional dimensions are equally prioritized. Threatening stimuli may have greater prominence than other emotional categories. Thus, we sought to compare the effects that stimuli of varying emotions would have on orienting and executive attentional processing. We performed two experiments to broaden our understanding of the attentional consequences of threats through the monitoring of participants' eye movements. Participants were exposed to emotionally charged (threatening, nonthreatening negative, positive) and neutral pictures as task-irrelevant distractors while performing a primary visual search task (under conditions of varying cognitive load). Behavioural results showed that participants found the first target number more slowly when the distractor image was threatening, but overall task completion times were actually speeded in this condition (relative to other valences). Further, participants fixated on threatening distractor images earlier and observed them longer than other valences. Results were more pronounced when the primary task was harder. These biases were not evident for positive and nonthreatening images, presumably because participants were able to ignore them, providing further support to the contention that threatening stimuli hold greater prominence than other emotional categories. Together, our results are in line with previous studies suggesting that the processing of threatening stimuli is speeded, potentially because of differences in the brain circuits involved. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Physical exercise induces mental flow related to catecholamine levels in noncompetitive, but not competitive conditions in men

The study aimed to reveal physical exercise conditions and catecholamine response-dependent differences while an individual experiences a flow state (FS) following noncompetitive and competitive running drills. Urine laboratory catecholamine levels were measured using a standard clinical method during pre- and post-physical exercises. The noncompetitive task involved intermittent running drills, from an absolute beginning up through exhaustion. Initially, the drill is performed individually then later competing alongside other runners. Twenty-two males (mean age: 40.27; SD: 5.4; min-max: 31-49 years) were selected in accordance to the following criterion: healthy status without using medication, routine forms of training (running, cycling or swimming) ideally performed with regularity, at least three times per week, 45 min per session. During the noncompetitive task, a high FS experience was associated with a low level of catecholamines, (noradrenaline and adrenaline) while in parallel, the high FS was associated with a low concentration of homovallinic acid. During competitive conditions, the FS-related catecholamine level changes have not yet been found. In conclusion, the low concentration of the circulating catecholamines supports the transient hypofrontality hypothesis regarding the FS experiences. Furthermore, synchronized noradrenaline and adrenaline neurosecretion play an essential role in the manifestation and the prolongation of FS in noncompetitive exercise conditions.

The mental representation of occupational stereotypes is driven as much by their affective as by their semantic content

BACKGROUND

Studies on person perception showed that stereotypes can be activated by presenting either characteristic traits of group members, or labels associated to these groups. However, it is not clear whether these pieces of semantic information activate negative and positive stereotypes directly, or via an indirect cognitive pathway leading through brain regions responsible for affective responses. Our main objective with this study was to disentangle the effects of semantic and affective contents. To this end, we intended to scrutinize whether the representation of occupational labels is independent of the emotions they evoke.

METHODS

Participants (N = 73, M = 27.0, SD = 9.1, 31 men 42 women,) were asked to complete two tasks presented online. In the first task they had to arrange 20 occupational labels-randomly chosen from a pool of 60 items-in a two-dimensional space, moving the mouse pointer along two undefined axes. In a second task the axes' names were defined a priori. Subjects were asked to arrange the labels according to valence, the extent to which the word evoked pleasant or unpleasant feelings, and arousal, the extent to which the word evoked excitement or calmness.

RESULTS

Based on the final coordinates of the labels, two cluster analyses were carried out separately in the two tasks. The two clusters were compared with Fisher's exact test, which revealed that the cluster structures overlap significantly.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that the spontaneous categorization and the semantic representation of occupations rely largely on the affective state they evoke. We propose that affective content might have a primacy over detailed semantic information in many aspects of person perception, including social categorization.

Sibling relationship quality and parental rearing style influence the development of Dark Triad traits

Currently our understanding of environmental factors that influence the development of dark personality traits (DT) is limited. Therefore, we conducted three studies using online questionnaires, each examining a different aspect of the relation between dark personality traits and family environment. In Study 1, 117 adults (mean age: 30.36 years, SD = 10.19) filled out questionnaires regarding their childhood relationship with siblings and their own DT traits. We found that the amount of conflicts with siblings during adolescence correlated positively with Machiavellianism and psychopathy. The feeling of closeness towards the siblings showed negative correlation with Machiavellianism. Parental partiality towards the other sibling was positively correlated with narcissism. In Study 2, 111 adolescents (mean age: 15.92, SD = 1.24) reported their perceptions of the rearing style of their parents, in addition to their sibling relationships and DT traits. Perceived parental emotional warmth was negatively associated, whereas both rejection and overprotection were positively correlated with psychopathy. Parental warmth was positively, while rejection negatively associated with narcissism. Machiavellianism was positively associated with the amount of conflicts with siblings, but negatively with closeness to siblings. In Study 3, 110 adults (mean age: 32.62 years, SD = 12.25) reported their levels of the Vulnerable Dark Triad that included measures of primary and secondary psychopathy, maladaptive covert narcissism, and borderline personality organization. Results indicated that sibling relation quality had a significant effect on primary psychopathy and borderline traits. Parental rejection and overprotection correlated with borderline traits and vulnerable narcissism. The results of these studies shed some light on how environmental impulses, particularly the quality of relationships between family members, affect the development of personality.

Reward Dependence-Moderated Noradrenergic and Hormonal Responses During Noncompetitive and Competitive Physical Activities

The aim of this study was to reveal whether increased reward dependence (RD) plays a role in the catecholamine neurotransmitter release and testosterone hormone regulation during physical activities among healthy trained participants. Twenty-two male participants (mean age: 40.27 ± 5.4 years) participated in this study. Two conditions were constructed, namely, a noncompetitive and a competitive running task (RT), which were separated by a 2-week interval. Urine and blood samples were collected prior to and following the running tasks. Noradrenaline (NA), adrenaline (A), dopamine (D), and their metabolites, vanillylmandelic acid (VMA) and homovanillic acid (HVA), were measured from urine, while testosterone levels were analyzed from blood samples. RD was assessed using the Cloninger's Personality Inventory (PI). Mental health was evaluated using the WHO Well-Being, Beck Depression, and Perceived Life Stress Questionnaires. According to our findings, levels of NA, A, D, VMA, and testosterone released underwent an increase following physical exertion, independently from the competitive condition of the RT, while HVA levels experienced a decrease. However, we found that testosterone levels showed a significantly lower tendency to elevate in the competitive RT, compared with the noncompetitive condition (p = 0.02). In contrast, HVA values were higher in the competitive compared with the noncompetitive condition (p = 0.031), both before and after the exercise. Considering the factor RD, in noncompetitive RT, its higher values were associated with elevated NA levels (p = 0.007); however, this correlation could not be detected during the competitive condition (p = 0.233). Among male runners, the NA and testosterone levels could be predicted to the degree of RD by analyzing competitive and noncompetitive physical exercises.

Help Is in Your Blood-Incentive to "Double Altruism" Resolves the Plasma Donation Paradox

Blood donation is considered as one of the purest forms of altruism. Plasma donation, in contrast, despite being a similar process, is mostly a paid activity in which donors are compensated for their contribution to the production of therapeutic preparations. This creates a so-called "plasma paradox:" If remuneration is promised for a socially useful effort, volunteers with altruistic motives might be deterred. At the same time, regular plasma donors who pursue the monetary benefits of donation might drop out if remuneration stops. The same controversy can be caught in the messages of most plasma donation companies as well: They promise a monetary reward (MR), and at the same time, highlight the altruistic component of donation. In this study, we tested the assumption that emphasizing the social significance enhances the willingness to donate blood plasma more effectively than either MR or the combination of these two incentives. This had to be rejected since there was no significant difference between the three scenarios. Furthermore, we also hypothesized that individuals might be more motivated to donate plasma if there is a possibility of offering an MR toward other socially beneficial aims. We found an increased willingness to donate in scenarios enabling "double altruism", that is, when donating plasma for therapeutic use and transferring their remuneration to nongovernmental organizations, is an option. We propose relying on double altruism to resolve the plasma paradox, and suggest that it could serve as a starting point for the development of more optimized means for donor recruitment.

Sibling Relations in Patchwork Families: Co-residence Is More Influential Than Genetic Relatedness

In "patchwork" families, full siblings, maternal and paternal half-siblings, and non-related children are raised together, and sometimes, genetically related children are separated. As their number is steadily growing, the investigation of the factors that influence within-family relations is becoming more important. Our aim was to explore whether people differentiate between half- and full-siblings in their social relations as implied by the theory of inclusive fitness, and to test whether co-residence or genetic relatedness improves sibling relations to a larger extent. We administered the Sibling Relationship Questionnaire to 196 individuals who were in contact with full-, half-, or step-siblings in their childhood. We built Generalized Linear Mixed Models models to test for the effects of relatedness and co-residence on sibling relations. In general, a higher degree of relatedness was associated with better sibling relations, but only among those who did not live together during childhood. Co-resident siblings' overall pattern of relation quality was not influenced by the actual level of genetic relatedness. In contrast to this, full siblings reported having experienced more conflicts during childhood than half-siblings, possibly resulting from enhanced competition for the same parental resources. The results suggest that inclusive fitness drives siblings' relations even in recent industrial societies. However, among individuals who live together, the effect of relatedness might be obscured by fitness interdependence and the subjective feeling of kinship.

The Young Male Syndrome-An Analysis of Sex, Age, Risk Taking and Mortality in Patients With Severe Traumatic Brain Injuries

Higher risk taking is particularly characteristic for males between 15 and 35 years, the age when intrasexual competition is the strongest. This fitness-maximizing strategy, however, also has negative consequences; previous data revealed that males have a significantly higher tendency to die in accidents. This retrospective study aimed to assess whether age-related risk taking, often associated with the reproductive competition between males, and referred to as the Young Male Syndrome (YMS), may play a role in the high incidence of severe traumatic brain injury (sTBI) in young males. Derived from the available evidence and the main assumptions of the YMS, we expected that men, especially when they are in the age when their reproductive potential peaks, are more likely to suffer sTBI from highly risky behaviors that also lead to higher mortality. It was also expected that alcohol intoxication makes the demographic pattern of sTBI even more similar to what previous research on the YMS implies. We analyzed demographic data of patients with sTBI (N = 365) registered in a clinical database. To this end, we built Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMM) to reveal which of the demographic characteristics are the best predictors for risky behaviors leading to sTBI and death as a consequence of the injury. The data suggest that younger people acquired sTBI from riskier behaviors compared to members of older age groups, irrespective of their sex. Moreover, being male and being alcohol intoxicated also contributed significantly to risk-taking behavior. Mortality rate after the injury, however, increased with the age of the patient and did not depend on the riskiness of the behavior. The results indicate that the demographic distribution of the specific patient population in our focus cannot be simply explained by the YMS. However, higher incidence rates of males among the patients are in line with the core assumptions of the YMS. These data indicate that epidemiological studies should also take into consideration evolutionary theories and highlight the importance of age and sex specific prevention strategies.

Assessing facial attractiveness: individual decisions and evolutionary constraints

Background

Several studies showed that facial attractiveness, as a highly salient social cue, influences behavioral responses. It has also been found that attractive faces evoke distinctive neural activation compared to unattractive or neutral faces.

Objectives

Our aim was to design a face recognition task where individual preferences for facial cues are controlled for, and to create conditions that are more similar to natural circumstances in terms of decision making.

Design

In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, subjects were shown attractive and unattractive faces, categorized on the basis of their own individual ratings.

Results

Statistical analysis of all subjects showed elevated brain activation for attractive opposite-sex faces in contrast to less attractive ones in regions that previously have been reported to show enhanced activation with increasing attractiveness level (e.g. the medial and superior occipital gyri, fusiform gyrus, precentral gyrus, and anterior cingular cortex). Besides these, females showed additional brain activation in areas thought to be involved in basic emotions and desires (insula), detection of facial emotions (superior temporal gyrus), and memory retrieval (hippocampus).

Conclusions

From these data, we speculate that because of the risks involving mate choice faced by women during evolutionary times, selection might have preferred the development of an elaborated neural system in females to assess the attractiveness and social value of male faces.

Preference for facial self-resemblance and attractiveness in human mate choice

Empirical studies present considerably consistent data about human mate choice, from which we may infer that it tends to be homogamous for various traits. However, different experiments on facial resemblance led to contradictory results. To obtain additional data about the preference for self-resembling potential mates, male and female composite faces were modified in a manner to resemble subjects. Volunteers were asked to choose a potential partner from three images in different situations: self-resembling faces, non-resembling faces (both with the same degree of other-rated attractiveness), and images which were rated by others as more attractive than the self-resembling faces. Women did not show any preference for similarity; they preferred the most attractive male and female faces. In contrast, men preferred the most attractive images of the opposite sex to self-resembling faces and the self-resembling to non-resembling faces. The self-resemblance of same-sex faces was preferred by neither men nor women. Our results support the hypothesis that both facial similarity (i.e., cues of shared genes) and observer-independent features of attractiveness (i.e., honest signals of genetic quality) play an important role in males' mate choice. The lack of choice for self-resemblance on the female side in this particular study might reflect their more complex decision-making rules that are probably based on other cues beside visual stimuli.