Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Influence Of Activated Short-Term Mating Goals On Men’S And Women’S Domain-Specific Mating Self-Efficacy, Nathaniel Thomas Horton

Honors Theses

Men and women are motivated to identify and procure mating opportunities that would best facilitate the survival and long-term reproductive success of their offspring. In the current study, we hypothesized that when primed with mating interest, men and women would report greater self-efficacy in behavioral domains that would be attractive to the opposite sex. Men and women were randomly assigned to a mating or control prime condition, then completed a self-efficacy scale tapping into behaviors related to physical attractiveness enhancement, dominance, and status; participants also completed a scale assessing their level of intrasexual competitiveness. It was predicted that men primed …