Sexual attraction to exploitability

textThis research explores the relationship between sexual exploitability and sexual attractiveness. Sexual exploitability describes the ease with which a woman could be pressured, deceived, or coerced into sex, or sexually assaulted. Study 1 documented novel cues to sexual exploitability. Moreover, men found women displaying these cues to be attractive as short-term mates, supporting the hypothesis that men’s attraction functions to motivate the pursuit of sexually accessible women. In Study 2, it was determined that women also perceived other women who displayed cues to exploitability as sexually attractive to men. Because displaying exploitability enhances a woman’s sexual attractiveness, women may have co-evolved mate attraction mechanisms designed to capitalize on this feature of male sexual psychology. In Study 3, it was hypothesized that three individual differences would predict which women would be more likely to signal exploitability as a mate attraction tactic: propensity towards short-term mating, relationship status, and self-perceived mate value. Women self-reported their likelihood of using mate attraction tactics involving the intentional display of exploitability cues. Women inclined toward casual sex were more likely to report using such tactics. In Study 4, a separate set of female participants made a hypothetical video dating profile to provide a record of their actual behavior in a mate attraction scenario. Women inclined toward short-term mating and high in the personality characteristic of Openness to Experience were more likely than their female counterparts to display exploitability cues in their videos. These convergent results across studies support the hypothesis that women pursuing short-term mating capitalize on the relationship between exploitability and attractiveness to achieve their mating goals. Results from these studies expand our knowledge of sexual exploitability and mate attraction. Documentation of a comprehensive list of cues to exploitability expands our knowledge of potential predictors of sexual victimization. Identification of individual differences that predict which women may functionally display exploitability cues increases our understanding of which women may be at greater risk for sexual exploitation.Psycholog

Do Environmental Cues to Discovery Influence the Likelihood to Rape?

Research on men's sexual exploitation of women has documented that men's psychology tracks cues associated with the ease of women's exploitability. In the current studies, we examined a different class of cues hypothesized to aid men's use of sexually exploitative strategies: environmental cues to the likelihood of discovery. We defined likelihood of discovery as the perceived probability of identification when engaging in exploitative behavior (e.g., presence of others). We test the hypothesis that men's likelihood to rape increases when their perception of the likelihood of discovery is low in three studies. In Study 1, we conducted a content analysis of individuals’ responses ( N  = 1,881) when asked what one would do if they could stop time or be invisible. Besides the “other” category whereby there were no specific category for nominated behaviors, the most nominated category included sexually exploitative behavior—representing 15.3% of reported behaviors. Both Studies 2 ( N  = 672) and 3 ( N  = 614) were preregistered manipulations of likelihood of discovery surreptitiously testing men's rape likelihood to rape across varying levels of discovery. We found men, compared to women, reported a statistically higher likelihood to rape in both Studies 2 and 3: 48% compared to 39.7% and 19% compared to 6.8%, respectively. Across Studies 2 and 3, we found no statistical effect of the likelihood of discovery on participants’ likelihood to rape. We discuss how the presence of one's peers may provide social protection against the costs of using an exploitative sexual strategy if a perpetrator is caught

Sexual exploitability: Observable cues and their link to sexual attraction

Abstract Although antiexploitation adaptations, such as cheater-detection mechanisms, have been well explored, comparatively little research has focused on identifying adaptations for exploitation. The present study had two purposes: (1) to identify observable cues that afford information about which women are sexually exploitable and (2) to test the hypothesis that men find cues to sexual exploitability sexually attractive, an adaptation that functions to motivate pursuit of accessible women. Male participants rated photographs of women who displayed varying levels of hypothesized cues to exploitability. We identified 22 cues indicative of sexual exploitability. Nineteen of these cues were correlated significantly with sexual attractiveness, supporting the central hypothesis. Results suggest that sexual attraction to exploitability cues functions to motivate men to employ exploitative strategies towards accessible targets, and contribute foundational knowledge to the diverse classes of cues that afford information about which women are and are not sexually exploitable

Supplemental Material - Mate preference dissimilarity predicts friendship attraction at zero-acquaintance for men, not women

Supplemental Material for Mate preference dissimilarity predicts friendship attraction at zero-acquaintance for men, not women by Kelly Campbell, Benjamin R. Meagher, Cari D. Goetz and Nuttacha Vaitayavijit in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</p