Sex categorization of faces: The effects of age and experience

The face own-age bias effect refers to the better ability to recognize the face from one's own age compared with other age groups. Here we examined whether an own-age advantage occurs for faces sex categorization. We examined 7- and 9-year-olds' and adults' ability to correctly categorize the sex of 7- and 9-year-olds and adult faces without external cues, such as hair. Results indicated that all ages easily classify the sex of adult faces. They succeeded in classifying the sex of child faces, but their performance was poorer than for adult faces. In adults, processing time increased, and a response bias (male response) was elicited for child faces. In children, response times remained constant, and no bias was observed. Experience with specific category of faces seems to offer some advantage in speed of processing. Overall, sex categorization is more challenging for child than for adult faces due to their reduced sexual dimorphic facial characteristics

The Psychological Science Accelerator’s COVID-19 rapid-response dataset

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data

Trustworthy but not lust-worthy: context-specific effects of facial resemblance

If humans are sensitive to the costs and benefits of favouring kin in different circumstances, a strong prediction is that cues of relatedness will have a positive effect on prosocial feelings, but a negative effect on sexual attraction. Indeed, positive effects of facial resemblance (a potential cue of kinship) have been demonstrated in prosocial contexts. Alternatively, such effects may be due to a general preference for familiar stimuli. Here, I show that subtly manipulated images of other-sex faces were judged as more trustworthy by the participants they were made to resemble than by control participants. In contrast, the effects of resemblance on attractiveness were significantly lower. In the context of a long-term relationship, where both prosocial regard and sexual appeal are important criteria, facial resemblance had no effect. In the context of a short-term relationship, where sexual appeal is the dominant criterion, facial resemblance decreased attractiveness. The results provide evidence against explanations implicating a general preference for familiar-looking stimuli and suggest instead that facial resemblance is a kinship cue to which humans modulate responses in a context-sensitive manner

Beyond `just-so stories': how evolutionary theories led to predictions that non-evolution-minded researchers would never dream of

In The Origin of Species Darwin (1859) wrote, `In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation.' However, critics of evolutionary psychology claim that the field consists entirely of `just-so stories'. Here, I discuss three examples of behaviours that may never have been investigated if they hadn't first been predicted by evolutionary theories. Contact [email protected] for a copy of this paper

Self-rated attractiveness predicts preferences for opposite-sex faces, while self-rated sex-typicality predicts preferences for same-sex faces

Several studies have reported positive correlations between women's own attractiveness and their mate preferences. A recent study also reported a similar correlation between men's mate preferences and their own self-rated attractiveness. Surprisingly, however, relatively little is known about the relationship between measures of own condition and men's and women's attractiveness judgments of same-sex individuals. Here, we investigated how men's and women's self-rated attractiveness and self-rated sex-typicality predict their preferences for exaggerated sex-typical shape cues in both same-sex and opposite-sex faces. Our findings provide further support for models of condition-dependent mate preferences in both women and men; people who judged themselves as more attractive had stronger preferences for exaggerated sex-typical shape cues in opposite-sex faces. Additionally, we show a novel relationship between self-rated sex-typicality and perceptions of same-sex, but not opposite-sex, faces; people who judged themselves as possessing more exaggerated sex-typical traits had stronger preferences for exaggerated sex-typical shape cues in same-sex faces. While self-rated attractiveness appears to be an important predictor of men's and women's preferences for potential mates, self-rated sex-typicality appears to be a more important predictor of men's and women's preferences for potential social allies

Extending parasite-stress theory to variation in human mate preferences

In this commentary we suggest that Fincher & Thornhill's (F&T's) parasite-stress theory of social behaviors and attitudes can be extended to mating behaviors and preferences. We discuss evidence from prior correlational and experimental studies that support this claim. We also reanalyze data from two of those studies using F&T's new parasite stress measures

Apparent health encourages reciprocity

Reciprocity evolves only when social partners reliably repay, with interest, the investments of others. However, not all individuals are equally able—or motivated—to recompense others satisfactorily. As such, reciprocity relies greatly on the capacities and motives of partners. Apparent health may provide a cue to the value of potential exchange partners in this regard: healthier individuals will tend to live longer and accrue more, higher quality resources, thus increasing the incentives for mutual cooperation. In a monetary exchange task, we show that the apparent health of partners' faces affects human reciprocity. Specifically, participants were more willing to return a profitable amount to, but not more willing to invest in, apparently healthy than unhealthy partners. This effect appears to be a function of the attractiveness of apparent health, suggesting a preference for repayment of attractive partners. Furthermore, the effect of apparent health on reciprocal exchange is qualified by the sex of the partners, implicating a history of sexual selection in the evolution of human social exchange

Individual differences in dominance perception: dominant men are less sensitive to facial cues of male dominance

Masculine facial characteristics are associated with indices of men's dominance. Previous research found that shorter men were more likely to attribute high dominance to masculine men, suggesting that dominant men are less sensitive to cues of dominance in other men than relatively subordinate men are. In the current study, we tested for novel evidence for this hypothesis. We observed a negative correlation between men's own dominance, assessed using the dominance subscale of the international personality items pool, and the extent to which they attributed dominance to masculine male, but not female, faces. Such variation in dominance perception supports the proposal that less dominant men are more sensitive to cues of dominance in other men and may be adaptive if less dominant men incur greater costs if they incorrectly perceive the dominance of male rivals

Individual differences in empathizing and systemizing predict variation in face preferences

Previous studies demonstrate that the extent to which individuals display exaggerated sex-typical physical characteristics is positively correlated with the extent to which they prefer sexually dimorphic physical characteristics in opposite-sex individuals. It is unclear, however, whether individual differences in sex-typical psychological traits predict variation in mate preferences in a similar manner. To investigate this issue, we examined the relationship between the sex-typical psychological traits empathizing and systemizing and the strength of participants' preferences for sexually dimorphic shape cues in own- and opposite-sex faces. Women's empathizing scores were positively correlated with the strength of their preferences for masculine men and men's systemizing scores were positively correlated with the strength of their preferences for feminine women. By contrast with these findings for opposite-sex faces, neither empathizing nor systemizing scores predicted men's or women's preferences for sexually dimorphic cues in own-sex faces. Collectively, these findings suggest that sex-typical psychological traits have effects on attractiveness judgments that are strikingly similar to those previously reported for sex-typical physical characteristics and, potentially, implicate individual differences in empathizing and systemizing in variation in mate preferences