No evidence for associations between men's salivary testosterone and responses on the Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale

Objectives: Many previous studies have investigated relationships between men’s competitiveness and testosterone. For example, the extent of changes in men’s testosterone levels following a competitive task predicts the likelihood of them choosing to compete again. Recent work investigating whether individual differences in men’s testosterone levels predict individual differences in their competitiveness have produced mixed results. Methods: In light of the above, we investigated whether men’s (N = 59) scores on the Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale were related to either within-subject changes or between-subject differences in men’s salivary testosterone levels. Results: Men’s responses on the Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale did not appear to track within-subject changes in testosterone. By contrast with one recent study, men’s Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale also did not appear to be related to individual differences in testosterone. Conclusions: Our results present no evidence for associations between men’s testosterone and their responses on the Intrasexual Competitiveness Scale

The relative contributions of facial shape and surface information to perceptions of attractiveness and dominance

Although many studies have investigated the facial characteristics that influence perceptions of others’ attractiveness and dominance, the majority of these studies have focused on either the effects of shape information or surface information alone. Consequently, the relative contributions of facial shape and surface characteristics to attractiveness and dominance perceptions are unclear. To address this issue, we investigated the relationships between ratings of original versions of faces and ratings of versions in which either surface information had been standardized (i.e., shape-only versions) or shape information had been standardized (i.e., surface-only versions). For attractiveness and dominance judgments of both male and female faces, ratings of shape-only and surface-only versions independently predicted ratings of the original versions of faces. The correlations between ratings of original and shape-only versions and between ratings of original and surface-only versions differed only in two instances. For male attractiveness, ratings of original versions were more strongly related to ratings of surface-only than shape-only versions, suggesting that surface information is particularly important for men’s facial attractiveness. The opposite was true for female physical dominance, suggesting that shape information is particularly important for women’s facial physical dominance. In summary, our results indicate that both facial shape and surface information contribute to judgments of others’ attractiveness and dominance, suggesting that it may be important to consider both sources of information in research on these topics

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

Context-specific effects of facial dominance and trustworthiness on hypothetical leadership decisions

Social judgments of faces predict important social outcomes, including leadership decisions. Previous work suggests that facial cues associated with perceptions of dominance and trustworthiness have context-specific effects on leadership decisions. Facial cues linked to perceived dominance have been found to be preferred in leaders for hypothetical wartime contexts and facial cues linked to perceived trustworthiness have been found to be preferred in leaders for hypothetical peacetime contexts. Here we sought to replicate these effects using images of women's faces, as previous studies have primarily focused on perceptions of leadership abilities from male faces, with only a handful of these including female faces. Consistent with previous work, a linear mixed effects model demonstrated that more trustworthy-looking faces were preferred in leaders during times of peace and more dominantlooking faces were preferred in leaders during times of war. These results provide converging evidence for context-specific effects of facial cues on hypothetical leadership judgments

Evidence head tilt has dissociable effects on dominance and trustworthiness judgments, but does not have category-contingent effects on hypothetical leadership judgments

Previous research has found that physical characteristics in faces that influence perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance have context-contingent effects on leadership perceptions. People whose faces are perceived to be trustworthy are judged to be better leaders in peacetime contexts than wartime contexts. By contrast, people whose faces are perceived to be dominant are judged to be better leaders in wartime contexts than peacetime contexts. Here, we tested for judgment-contingent (dominance vs. trustworthiness) effects of head tilt (i.e., head pitch rotation) on person perception and context-contingent (peacetime vs. wartime) effects of head tilt on leadership judgments. Although we found that head tilt influenced judgments of trustworthiness and dominance (Study 1), head tilt did not influence leadership judgments (Study 2). Together, these results suggest that the context-contingent effects of physical characteristics on leadership judgments reported in previous work do not necessarily extend to head tilt, even though head tilt influences perceptions of trustworthiness and dominance

Means and SDs for ratings of the attractiveness, general dominance, social dominance, and physical dominance of original, shape-only, and surface-only versions of male and female faces.

<p>Inter-rater agreement (Cronbach’s alpha) is also given.</p><p>Means and SDs for ratings of the attractiveness, general dominance, social dominance, and physical dominance of original, shape-only, and surface-only versions of male and female faces.</p

Summary results of analyses testing for independent contributions of ratings of shape-only and surface-only versions of male and female faces.

<p>Summary results of analyses testing for independent contributions of ratings of shape-only and surface-only versions of male and female faces.</p

Simple correlations between ratings of original and shape-only versions and between ratings of original and surface-only versions of male and female faces.

<p>Results of tests for significant differences between these correlations (greater correlation versus weaker correlation) are also shown. N = 50 for all tests.</p><p>Simple correlations between ratings of original and shape-only versions and between ratings of original and surface-only versions of male and female faces.</p