This month, it’s a baby-making special. We take a closer look at the psychology of family planning, from the link between personality and fertility, to the motivational value of baby photographs, and even condom sabotage!
Skirbekk, V., & Blekesaune, M. (in press). Personality traits increasingly important for male fertility: Evidence from Norway. European Journal of Personality. Read summary
Davis, K. C., Schraufnagel, T. J., Kajumulo, K. F., Gilmore, A. K., Norris, J., & George, W. H. (in press). A qualitative examination of men's condom use attitudes and resistance: "It's just part of the game". Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Charles, N. E., Alexander, G. M., & Saenz, J. (2013). Motivational value and salience of images of infants. Evolution and Human Behavior, 34(5), 373-381. Read summary
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
In this special episode we have an extended interview about sexual selection in humans. Download the MP3 Rate me! Rate, review, or li...
Are all those muscles going to be more handy for attracting women, or beating up other men? How has sexual selection acted on male physicality?
The articles covered in the show:
Hill, A. K., Hunt, J., Welling, L. L. M., Cárdenas, R. A., Rotella, M. A., Wheatley, J. R., et al. (in press). Quantifying the strength and form of sexual selection on men's traits. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Why we prefer our partners to be more like us, and why we want to be more like our rivals. Also, new research on emotional expression and be...
Why we prefer our partners to be more like us, and why we want to be more like our rivals. Also, new research on emotional expression and beauty that gives us all something to smile about.
New research shows that smiling makes you more attractive than a grumpy beauty. So turn that frown upside down! Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr
The articles covered in the show:
Laeng, B., Vermeer, O., & Sulutvedt, U. (2013). Is beauty in the face of the beholder? PLoS One, 8(7), e68395. Read summary
Slotter, E. B., Lucas, G. M., Jakubiak, B., & Lasslett, H. (in press). Changing me to keep you: State jealousy promotes perceiving similarity between the self and a romantic rival. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Read summary
Golle, J., Mast, F. W., & Lobmaier, J. S. (in press). Something to smile about: The interrelationship between attractiveness and emotional expression. Cognition & Emotion. Read summary
Thursday, July 04, 2013
This month we find out what a woman wants in a man can tell us about the type of relationship she desires, and why seeing red puts men in th...
This month we find out what a woman wants in a man can tell us about the type of relationship she desires, and why seeing red puts men in the mood for love. Also, finding it difficult to convince women to give you their phone number? We discover a simple method of doubling your success rate: buy a guitar!
Would you give your phone number to this man? Nicolas Gueguen has found that women are more likely to give their digits to a fireman or to a man with a guitar.
The articles covered in the show:
Goetz, C. D. (2013). What do women’s advertised mate preferences reveal? An analysis of video dating profiles. Evolutionary Psychology, 11(2), 383-391. Read paper
Prokop, P., & Hromada, M. (in press). Women use red in order to attract mates. Ethology. Read summary
What is the point of oral sex? I talk to Michael Pham of Oakland University to find out. Also, do tattoos make women more or less attractive? Quick answer: it depends.
Michael Douglas revealed today that he thinks his throat cancer might have been caused by cunnilingus. If he's right, that's one downside of oral sex. But are there other costs to weigh against the (obvious) benefits of oral sex? I speak to Michael Pham, who researches the link between oral sex and jealousy-motivated mate retention behaviours.
The articles covered in the show:
Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (2013). Oral sex as mate retention behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(2), 185-188. Read summary
Pham, M. N., Shackelford, T. K., Sela, Y., & Welling, L. L. M. (2013). Is cunnilingus-assisted orgasm a male sperm-retention strategy? Evolutionary Psychology, 11(2), 405-414. Read paper
Episode 50! An extended interview with Barnaby Dixson of the University of New South Wales. We discuss research on facial hair and attractiveness, both Barnaby's own work and the wider research area. We cover the evolution of facial hair, the history of facial hair research, detail some of the ways Barnaby works to control confounding variables in his experiments, and find out whether researching facial hair has made Barnaby more or less likely to cultivate his very own chin warmer.
Ryan Gosling, you bastard. One man who looks great whether clean shaven, stubbled, or heavily bearded. The rest of us look at our best when we're clean shaven. Or is that heavily bearded? Or stubbled? Barnaby Dixson clears it up in this special episode.
The articles covered in the show:
Dixson, B. J., & Brooks, R. C. (in press). The role of facial hair in women's perceptions of men's attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Dixson, B. J., & Vasey, P. L. (2012). Beards augment perceptions of men's age, social status, and aggressiveness, but not attractiveness. Behavioral Ecology, 23(3), 481-490. Read summary
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
This month, is gaydar real? Can we tell whether a person is gay or straight, or even whether they adopt particular sexual roles, purely from...
This month, is gaydar real? Can we tell whether a person is gay or straight, or even whether they adopt particular sexual roles, purely from their facial appearance? I talk to Konstantin Tskhay to find out. I also talk to Barnaby Dixson and discover what type of facial hair is the most attractive, and whether men with bushier beards make better fathers.
In HBO's new Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, Matt Damon short circuits even the least sensitive gaydar. But does gaydar really exist? Maybe. New research by Konstantin Tskhay suggests that, not only can we tell if a person is straight or gay, we can even accurately guess their preferred sexual role.
The articles covered in the show:
Bogaert, A. F., & Liu, J. (in press). Physical size and sexual orientation: Analysis of the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Dixson, B. J., & Brooks, R. C. (in press). The role of facial hair in women's perceptions of men's attractiveness, health, masculinity and parenting abilities. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary
Moskowitz, D. A., Turrubiates, J., Lozano, H., & Hajek, C. (in press). Physical, behavioral, and psychological traits of gay men identifying as bears. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Tskhay, K. O., & Rule, N. O. (in press). Accurate identification of a preference for insertive versus receptive intercourse from static facial cues of gay men. Archives of Sexual Behavior. Read summary
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
The weird science of attraction. We hear about the work of three research teams who dared to pose curious questions, tested their hypotheses...
The weird science of attraction. We hear about the work of three research teams who dared to pose curious questions, tested their hypotheses on peculiar populations, and discovered that unusual investigations can yield back to front results. Also, I interview Michelle Heron-Delaney of The University of Queensland about her recent work on whether babies can tell an attractive from an unattractive adult.
Michniewicz, K. S., & Vandello, J. A. (in press). The attractive underdog: When disadvantage bolsters attractiveness. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Read summary
Heron-Delaney, M., Quinn, P. C., Lee, K., Slater, A. M., & Pascalis, O. (2013). Nine-month-old infants prefer unattractive bodies over attractive bodies. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 115(1), 30-41. Read summary
Yonemura, K., Ono, F., & Watanabe, K. (2013). Back view of beauty: a bias in attractiveness judgment. Perception, 42(1), 95-102. Read summary
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Why cheaters often claim “it didn’t mean anything”, and why perceptions of what constitutes cheating vary from person to person. Also, chang...
Why cheaters often claim “it didn’t mean anything”, and why perceptions of what constitutes cheating vary from person to person. Also, changing faces: how women’s faces change shape over the menstrual cycle.
Foster, J. D., & Misra, T. A. (in press). It did not mean anything (about me): Cognitive dissonance theory and the cognitive and affective consequences of romantic infidelity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Read summary
Kruger, D. J., Fisher, M. L. E., R. S., Chopik, W. J., Fitzgerald, C. J., & Stout, S. L. (2013). Was that cheating? Perceptions vary by sex, attachment anxiety, and behavior. Evolutionary Psychology, 11(1), 159-171. Read summary
Oberzaucher, E., Katina, S., Schmehl, S. F., Holzleitner, I. J., & Grammer, K. (2012). The myth of hidden ovulation: Shape and texture changes in the face during the menstrual cycle. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 10(4), 163-175. Read summary
Thursday, February 14, 2013
What better day to discuss attraction than Valentines? Here's a special episode with an interview I gave a couple of weeks ago. The conv...
What better day to discuss attraction than Valentines? Here's a special episode with an interview I gave a couple of weeks ago. The conversation ranges from the influence of the media on what we perceive as attractive, to attractiveness and race, the appealing odour of male sweat, and why Brad Pitt is the perfect man.
Why a red t-shirt is the same as a red bum, how a poor sense of smell affects your love life, and going "Facebook official": how the social network generation navigate the relationship minefield.
It must be that time of the month for Kristen Stewart: new research shows that three quarters of women wearing pink or red are currently ovulating, making a pink dress almost as good an indicator of fertility as a chimpanzee's pink bum.
The articles covered in the show:
Beall, A. T., & Tracy, J. L. (in press). Women more likely to wear red or pink at peak fertility. Psychological Science. Read paper [pdf]
Croy, I., Bojanowskia, V., & Hummela, T. (2013). Men without a sense of smell exhibit a strongly reduced number of sexual relationships, women exhibit reduced partnership security – A reanalysis of previously published data. Biological Psychology, 92(2), 292-924. Read summary
Fox, J., Warber, K. M., & Makstaller, D. C. (in press). The role of Facebook in romantic relationship development: An exploration of Knapp’s relational stage model. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Read summary
Saturday, January 05, 2013
This month, why a good sense of humour is sometimes attractive and sometimes not so much, how fruit consumption affects appearance, and why ...
This month, why a good sense of humour is sometimes attractive and sometimes not so much, how fruit consumption affects appearance, and why high heels elevate attractiveness.
Stephen Merchant's stand up act is based on his apparent inability to win over women. But new research by Mary Cowan suggests that people's ideas about what constitutes a GSOH are more flexible than we previously thought. So keep plugging away, Smerch!
The articles covered in the show:
Cowan, M. L., & Little, A. C. (2013). The effects of relationship context and modality on ratings of funniness. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(4), 496-500. Read summary
Morris, P. H., White, J., Morrison, E. R., & Fisher, K. (in press). High heels as supernormal stimuli: How wearing high heels affects judgements of female attractiveness. Evolution and Human Behavior.Read summary
Whitehead, R. D., Ozakinci, G., & Perrett, D. I. (2012). Attractive skin coloration: Harnessing sexual selection to improve diet and health. Evolutionary Psychology, 10(5), 842-854. Read summary
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.
