Something more than friends. We look at three new studies on attraction to opposite-sex friends. How do men and women differ in their attraction to friends? And can you make a friend fall in love with you by falling in love with them first?
What a sickeningly cheerful bunch of friends. No doubt they are having lots of sex with each other, and we can only hope that the group will soon implode in a spiral of jealousy.Miguel Angel/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Bleske-Rechek, A., Joseph, W. E., Williquette, H., & Donovan, B. (in press). Sex differences in young adults' attraction to opposite-sex friends: Natural sampling versus mental concepts. Evolutionary Psychological Science. Read paper
Lemay Jr., E. P., & Wolf, N. R. (2016). Projection of romantic and sexual desire in opposite-sex friendships: How wishful thinking creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(7), 864-878. Read summary
Mogilski, J. K. & L. L. M. Welling (in press). Staying friends with an ex: Sex and dark personality traits predict motivations for post-relationship friendship. Personality and Individual Differences. Read summary
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Is beauty contagious? How the average attractiveness of a group of people is influenced by its members. Also, how the ratio of men to women ...
Is beauty contagious? How the average attractiveness of a group of people is influenced by its members. Also, how the ratio of men to women in our social group meddles with our mating psychology.
One man and four women: new research shows how our 'mating strategies' (how we seek partners and what we find attractive) are influenced by the relative numbers of men and women we encounter.
The articles covered in the show:
Schacht, R., & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2015). Sex ratio effects on reproductive strategies in humans. Royal Society Open Science, 2, 140402. Read summary
van Osch, Y., Blanken, I., Meijs, M. H. J., & van Wolferen, J. (in press). A group’s physical attractiveness is greater than the average attractiveness of its members: The group attractiveness effect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
With a little help from my friends: How we use 'coalitional mate retention' tactics to prevent our partner cheating. We take a look ...
With a little help from my friends: How we use 'coalitional mate retention' tactics to prevent our partner cheating. We take a look at two new experiments that uncover how our friends work to keep our partners faithful.
New research shows how friends work to keep our partners faithful, and reveals how they decide to expose any infidelities they detect.
The articles covered in the show:
Barbaro, N., Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (in press). Solving the problem of partner infidelity: Individual mate retention, coalitional mate retention, and in-pair copulation frequency. Personality and Individual Differences. Read summary
Pham, M. N., Barbaro, N., Mogilski, J. K., & Shackelford, T. K. (2015). Coalitional mate retention is correlated positively with friendship quality involving women, but negatively with male-male friendship quality. Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 87-90. Read summary
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
This month, “it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s where we live”: how environment can influence break up decisions. Also, gender differences in s...
This month, “it’s not you, it’s not me, it’s where we live”: how environment can influence break up decisions. Also, gender differences in sexual regret, and how video games can get a man in the mood for love.
Cheat activated! Welling had men play a video game, but didn't tell them that the person they were playing against was cheating. Sneaky!
The articles covered in the show:
Hogerbrugge, M. J. A., Komter, A. E., & Scheepers, P. (in press). Dissolving long-term romantic relationships: Assessing the role of the social context. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.Read summary
Galperin, A., Haselton, M. G., Frederick, D. A., Poore, J., von Hippel, W., Buss, D. M., et al. (in press). Sexual regret: Evidence for evolved sex differences. Archives of Sexual Behavior.Read summary
Welling, L. L. M., Persola, L., Wheatley, J. R., Cárdenas, R. A., & Puts, D. A. (2013). Competition and men's face preferences. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3), 414-419. Read summary
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Being mean to keep ‘em keen: how sharing negative attitudes can bring you and your partner closer. We also find out whether beautiful people...
Being mean to keep ‘em keen: how sharing negative attitudes can bring you and your partner closer. We also find out whether beautiful people are friendlier, or meaner, than the rest of us, and why George Clooney is a total miser (possibly).
There may be something to the popular belief that attractive people are mean, as new research by Price and colleagues shows.
The articles covered in the show:
Weaver, J. R., & Bosson, J. K. (in press). I feel like I know you: Shared negative attitudes of others promotes feelings of familiarity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.Read summary
Price, M. E., Kang, J., Dunn, J., & Hopkins, S. (2011). Muscularity and attractiveness as predictors of human egalitarianism. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(5), 636-640. Read summary
Stirrat, M., Gumert, M., & Perrett, D. I. (2011). The effect of attractiveness on food sharing preferences in human mating markets. Evolutionary Psychology, 9(1), 79-91. Read paper
Sunday, April 11, 2010
How stress can disrupt what we find attractive. We also look at why friends are similar in attractiveness, and whether it pays to save yours...
How stress can disrupt what we find attractive. We also look at why friends are similar in attractiveness, and whether it pays to save yourself the bother of choosing a partner and instead let someone else do the choosing for you.
Lass-Hennemann, J., Deuter, C. E., Kuehl, L. K., Schulz, A., Blumenthal, T. D., & Schachinger, H. (In press). Effects of stress on human mating preferences: stressed individuals prefer dissimilar mates. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences.Read summary
Bleske-Rechek, A. L., & Lighthall, M. (In press). Attractiveness and rivalry in women's friendships with women. Human Nature.Read summary
Yorzinski, J. L., & Platt, M. L. (2010). Same-sex gaze attraction influences mate-choice copying in humans. PLoS One, 5(2), e9115. Read full paper for free
This is the archive for the Psychology of Attractiveness Podcast, a science show covering the most interesting and cutting edge research on the psychology of attraction and relationships. The podcast was active between 2009 and 2019. All episodes remain available.
The podcast was produced by Dr Robert Burriss, a psychologist who has held research posts at universities in the UK, USA, and Switzerland.
