BONUS: The Evolutionary Psychology of Mate Preference. 18 Jul 2017

Earlier this year I posted a bonus episode featuring contributions from students in my undergraduate seminar here at Basel University. It proved to be one of the more popular episodes of the podcast. This semester I taught a masters level class on the evolutionary psychology of mate preference and, again, gave the students the task of summarising the research papers they found most interesting for a special bonus episode. As before, most of the students are not native English speakers, nor have they recorded audio before. I am super grateful they agreed to be a part of the podcast (especially after I freaked them out by telling them how many people listened to the previous bonus episode!).

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Mittlere Rheinbruecke, Basel. Mariano Mantel/Flickr

The articles covered in the show (in order of appearance):

Sebastiaan:
Singh, D. & Luis, S. (1995). Ethnic and gender consensus for the effect of waist-to-hip ratio on judgment of women's attractiveness. Human Nature, 6(1), 51-65. Read summary

Elena:
Olderbak, S. G., Malter, F., Wolf, P. S. A., Jones, D. N., & Figueredo, A. J. (2017). Predicting romantic interest at zero acquaintance: Evidence of sex differences in trait perception but not in predictors of interest. European Journal of Personality, 31(1), 42-62. Read summary

Lara:
Ha, T., van den Berg, J. E. M., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A. (2012). Effects of attractiveness and status in dating desire in homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41(3), 673-682. Read summary

Babice:
Dixson, B. J., Vasey, P. L., Sagata, K., Sibanda, N., Linklater, W. L., & Dixson, A. F. (2011). Men’s preferences for women’s breast morphology in New Zealand, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 40(6), 1271-1279. Read summary

Katrin:
Sherlock, J. M., Sidari, M. J., Harris, E. A., Barlow, F. K., & Zietsch, B. P. (2016). Testing the mate-choice hypothesis of the female orgasm: Disentangling traits and behaviours. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 6(1), 31562. Read summary

Sabrina:
Wlodarski, R., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2013). Menstrual cycle effects on attitudes to kissing. Human Nature, 24(4), 402-413. Read summary

Natascha:
Tracy, J. L., & Beall, A. T. (2014). The impact of weather on women’s tendency to wear red or pink when at high risk for conception. PLoS One, 9(2), e88852. Read summary

Antonia:
Krems, J. A., Neel, R., Neuberg, S. L., Puts, D. A., & Kenrick, D. T. (2016). Women selectively guard their (desirable) mates from ovulating women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(4), 551-573. Read summary

Samuele:
Perrett, D. I., Lee, K. J., Penton-Voak, I. S., Rowland, D. R., Yoshikawa, S., Burt, D. M., et al. (1998). Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness. Nature, 394, 884-887. Read summary

James:
Dixson, B. J., & Brooks, R. C. (2013). The role of facial hair in women's perceptions of men's attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(3), 236-241. Read summary

Sebastian:
Lefevre, C. E., & Perrett, D. I. (2015). Fruit over sunbed: Carotenoid skin coloration is found more attractive than melanin coloration. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(2), 284-293. Read summary

Denise:
Kaufman, S. B., Kozbelt, A., Silvia, P., Kaufman, J. C., Ramesh, S., & Feist, G. J. (2016). Who finds Bill Gates sexy? Creative mate preferences as a function of cognitive ability, personality, and creative achievement. The Journal of Creative Behavior, 50(4), 294-307. Read summary

Julia:
Apostelou, M., Kasapi, K., & Arakliti, A. (2015). Will they do as we wish? An investigation of the effectiveness of parental manipulation of mating behavior. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 1(1), 28-36. Read summary

Tita:
DeBruine, L. M., Jones, B. C., & Little, A. C. (2017). Positive sexual imprinting for human eye color. bioRxiv, 135244. Read summary

The face of a leader. 04 Jul 2017

Can you tell a good leader from their face or their name? We'll look at the results of two new experiments to find out. Plus I talk to Zuzana Štěrbová about her research on how childhood experiences impact our love lives.

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Read the transcript!
The Face of a Leader

The faces carved on Mount Rushmore are among the greatest leaders in American history, but did their presidential faces help them to the top? Kurt Magoon/Flickr

The articles covered in the show:

Barton, D. N., & Halberstadt, J. (in press). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Read summary

Re, D. E., & Rule, N. (in press). Distinctive facial cues predict leadership rank and selection. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary

Štěrbová, X., Bartova, K., Weiss, P., & Varella., V. J. (2017). Relationship with parents during childhood predicts age of the first love but not the first sexual experience in heterosexual and non-heterosexual individuals. Poster presented at the conference of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association, Paris.