Research indicates that culture has an impact on individuals’ preferential behaviors. These preferential processes are quite often involved in mate selection and mate attraction. One’s personality traits, ethnicity, and physical appearances are just a few of the ways that perceptions of attraction differ across cultures. Not only do these perceptions of attraction vary by culture, but these perceptions also vary by gender and play a huge role on what men and women deem as attractive. Because the concept of attraction is universal, it is understood that all cultures have the concept of attraction (Glazer, 2014). Research in evolutionary psychology indicates that there may be an innate, biological drive that underlies cultural differences in attraction between male and females. This current paper seeks to review literature on culture and gender as a function of an individual’s attraction to individuals of the opposite gender. In an effort to explain the function of both culture and gender in relation to attraction, it will be explained how evolutionary theory underlies heterosexual sexual attraction. Differences between men and women can affect what they perceive as attractive. Researchers have debated on the qualities that make an individual attractive to the opposite gender. In a study by Mardhekar and Aradhye (2010), researchers found that men rate physical attractiveness and efficacy in domestic abilities to be attractive qualities in women, while women rate education, intelligence, ambitiousness, industriousness, chastity, mutual attraction, and love as attractive traits in men. In addition, intelligence and education were rated as desirable traits in a romantic partner by 70% of both male and female participants. Good health w... ... middle of paper ... ... cross-cultural research that outlines evolutionary theory as an underlying component of attraction. As outlined by evolutionary theory, there is a relationship between perceived attractiveness in women and body proportions, while the attractiveness of men is contingent upon acquisition of economic resources. In societies with scant resources such as rural South Africa, perceptions of attractiveness are adjusted to reflect the impact of environment on perceptual factors. Further research should indicate factors other than evolutionary theory that explain attraction. Future research should also explore attraction from the perspective of platonic relationships, i.e. friendships in order to truly discover what compels individuals toward one another. Nonetheless, culture serves as a filtered lens over the eyes of individuals preferences in the matters of attraction.
"Romantic love has been the norm since eighteenth-century Europe, when we began connecting marriage with romance." If people did not love each other, then there would be no relationship. Sure, they could try to make it happen, but what would be the point of having the relationship in the first place? If they are trying to escape from something and are not actually motivated by love, they are just creating a new entity to eventually want to escape from. Only love will cause people to remain and stay together in a relationship. According to a study done at Grand Valley State University, titled "The Social Psychology of Love and Attraction", it's true that "shared traits including similarity, religion, ethnic group and race were important features of the other person for over half the participants [in the study]. Each of these traits is linked to a commonality in background. People are subconsciously drawn to others who have the same familial background." This study shows that people do consider factors such as race and cultural identity when seeking a potential partner for a relationship. However, the study also shows that the most important factor in attracting a potential mate is personality. The second most is physical attractiveness. These traits are more important in deciding a potential mate than anything
Reproduction in Homo sapiens, as in all animals, is a primary driving force and has been elaborated upon since the beginnings of society. Humans must take part in sexual reproduction to produce offspring, thus initiation behaviors can be studied. Commonly, the male makes advances and the female is the selector, or chooses the mate. For humans, this holds true and behavior is modified to maximize competitive receptability. This phenomenon carries across all cultural boundaries and is deeply rooted in the overall behavior patterns in the people of the culture. People try to refine their natural appearance to maximize mating opportunity. The males attempt to enhance features for success in initiation and females compete for receptability completeness.
There is a famous saying that states, “ we should not judge a book by its cover”, but oftentimes the first thing noticed on a person is their looks. One’s “physical beauty” strongly influences people’s first impressions of them. As a whole, we tend to assume that pretty people are more likeable and better people than those who are unattractive. Around the world, we believe that what is beautiful is good. There is a general consensus within a culture about what is considered physically appealing and beautiful. “Physical beauty” is associated with being more sociable, intelligent, and even socially skilled. Society shares this common notion of who has and who does not have “physical beauty”. Thus, “physical beauty”, as seen
In the article the researchers were trying to challenge the sexual strategies theory. It seems as though sexual strategies theory is different genders having different preferences when choosing a mate, in the case of long and short term relationships. The hypothesis at first was that both boys and girls felt that attractiveness was important. Girls would be more inclined to date someone because of social status and that boys would be the complete opposite. They also expected that social status would only become important when the person is attractive and social status would be important no matter if the person is attractive on no for girls. The last thing that was tested was according to Ha (2009) “the potential moderator effects of self-perceived mate value on adolescents desire to date with an attractive person.” Also according to Ha (2009) “They hypothesized that boys and girls preference for attractiveness and high social status would be independent of their own perceived mate value.” The information used to come to result of the theory has been known to be collect using surveys ...
Sprecher, Susan, Quintin Sullivan, and Elaine Hatfield. 1994. “Mate Selection Preferences: Gender Differences Examined in a National Sample.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66, 6: 1074-1080.
It’s not just an issue of physical attractiveness, but this also concerns the social norms that have been passed down from generations. Since we grow up in a society where breaking social norms is usually consider to be immoral, we tend to side with those customs even if we have different opinions. Thus some of the time we end up t...
Every culture has its own unique values, beliefs and norms. Culture defines the identity and interests of a society. Understanding other’s culture is crucial in preparing ourselves for the global experience in the twenty-first century. As the world is becoming more connected to each other, interaction between cultures is unavoidable. I consider myself lucky to live in one of the most diverse cities in the world where I get chance to interact with people of different cultures. In this paper, I will discuss my findings about Family Structure in a Mexican culture, and Dating and Marriage in an African / Gabonese culture. Having a chance to understand various cultures, I realized that beliefs and practices tend to vary from culture to culture.
Differences in men and women’s communication can create some difficulty when it comes to first impressions, finding a potential partner, and maintaining relationships. Research shows that men tend to be more dominate when it comes to first impressions (Deyo, Walt, & Davis, 2011) and are more likely to talk about their interests, such as sports, rather than self-disclose personal information (Bond, 2009). Women, on the other hand, tend to discuss more personal topics a (Bond, 2009) and assess the man’s mannerisms and characteristics for compatibility (Deyo, Walt, & Davis, 2011).
on a scale from 1 to 3, the importance men gave to good looks rose from 1.50 to 2.11. But for women, the importance of good looks in men rose from 0.94 to 1.67. In other words, women in 1989 considered a man look’s more important than men considered women’s looks 50 years earlier
Sexual orientation is a topic scientists spend a great deal of time researching, however it is unclear what factors really have an effect on one’s sexual orientation. The role of biology, culture, socialization, and age contribute to the influences of sexual orientation.
It may seem obvious to some why people mate, however there are many facets to human mating. Psychology has shown that reasons for mating have gone beyond the scope of love and physical attractiveness. People may search for mates who resemble archetypical images of the opposite-sex parent, mates with characteristics that are either complementary or similar to one's own qualities, or mates with whom to make an exchange of valuable resources (Buss 238). Although these theories play a key role in understanding patterns in human mating preferences, evolutionary psychology and sexual selection theory provide more concrete frameworks for explaining human mating.
Genetics, biology, and upbringing are all key aspects in determining one’s sexual orientation. Many of the factors are combined to make up how a person feels or who he or she is attracted to. There is no definite answer to why someone has a particular orientation, but there are studies that sugge...
Humans are strongly influenced by different factors in mate selection. Different people have different ideas to choosing the partners, because the people have different aesthetic standards. Some people considered that partner’s physical attractiveness is more important, such as, facial appearance, body shape and age. However, some people liked their partners have a good social status, like, good job, high-income and high education. Over the past few decades some matchmaking services has developed to deal with the problems with people choosing partners and found the reason why they choose this partner, and what is the most important attributes.
One of the reoccurring themes that became apparent throughout the interview was the concept of relationships, culture and avoidance in dating. Dating is the process whereby two people meet socially for companionships, beyond the level of friendships with the aim for suitability as a partner in an intimate relationships or marriage. The process of dating is impacted by past experiences, family dynamics, cultural, beliefs and customs. These relationships produce a strong connections between family members, education, cultural. The young man, interview #2 stayed away from people from the same culture because, of avoidance of finding a mate similar to his mother. He stated, “I have dated someone form the same culture but,
Good physical appearance helps in building up flexible relationships. For example women who take care of their physical appearance manage to have a better relatio...