TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting Romantic Interest at Zero Acquaintance
T2 - Evidence of Sex Differences in Trait Perception but Not in Predictors of Interest
AU - Olderbak, Sally G.
AU - Malter, Frederic
AU - Wolf, Pedro Sofio Abril
AU - Jones, Daniel N.
AU - Figueredo, Aurelio José
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the numerous research assistants who helped with data collection. The project described in this paper was partially supported by award numbers T32 DA017629 and P50 DA10075 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health. For all experiments, we have reported all measures, conditions and data exclusions. Decisions surrounding final sample sizes are presented in the Sample sections. The data is available at https://osf.io/wds5y in addition to examples of the syntax used for the statistical analyses.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology
PY - 2017/1/1
Y1 - 2017/1/1
N2 - We evaluated five competing hypotheses about what predicts romantic interest. Through a half-block quasi-experimental design, a large sample of young adults (i.e. responders; n = 335) viewed videos of opposite-sex persons (i.e. targets) talking about themselves, and responders rated the targets' traits and their romantic interest in the target. We tested whether similarity, dissimilarity or overall trait levels on mate value, physical attractiveness, life history strategy and the Big Five personality factors predicted romantic interest at zero acquaintance and whether sex acted as a moderator. We tested the responders' individual perception of the targets' traits, in addition to the targets' own self-reported trait levels and a consensus rating of the targets made by the responders. We used polynomial regression with response surface analysis within multilevel modelling to test support for each of the hypotheses. Results suggest a large sex difference in trait perception; when women rated men, they agreed in their perception more often than when men rated women. However, as a predictor of romantic interest, there were no sex differences. Only the responders' perception of the targets' physical attractiveness predicted romantic interest; specifically, responders' who rated the targets' physical attractiveness as higher than themselves reported more romantic interest.
AB - We evaluated five competing hypotheses about what predicts romantic interest. Through a half-block quasi-experimental design, a large sample of young adults (i.e. responders; n = 335) viewed videos of opposite-sex persons (i.e. targets) talking about themselves, and responders rated the targets' traits and their romantic interest in the target. We tested whether similarity, dissimilarity or overall trait levels on mate value, physical attractiveness, life history strategy and the Big Five personality factors predicted romantic interest at zero acquaintance and whether sex acted as a moderator. We tested the responders' individual perception of the targets' traits, in addition to the targets' own self-reported trait levels and a consensus rating of the targets made by the responders. We used polynomial regression with response surface analysis within multilevel modelling to test support for each of the hypotheses. Results suggest a large sex difference in trait perception; when women rated men, they agreed in their perception more often than when men rated women. However, as a predictor of romantic interest, there were no sex differences. Only the responders' perception of the targets' physical attractiveness predicted romantic interest; specifically, responders' who rated the targets' physical attractiveness as higher than themselves reported more romantic interest.
KW - Big Five personality factors
KW - attraction
KW - life history strategy
KW - mate value
KW - multilevel model
KW - polynomial regression
KW - response surface analysis
KW - social relations model
KW - trait perception
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U2 - 10.1002/per.2087
DO - 10.1002/per.2087
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85008485212
SN - 0890-2070
VL - 31
SP - 42
EP - 62
JO - European Journal of Personality
JF - European Journal of Personality
IS - 1
ER -