Social Psychology Commons^™

Evolutionary Mating Traits: When Costly Signals Emerge, David Taube

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This study investigated whether different romantic contexts would influence one’s willingness to engage in blatant benevolence or conspicuous consumption. Participants – 341 college-age students – were recruited to read written stimulus materials about interpersonal encounters with a person of the opposite sex. Each participant was then asked to respond to questionnaires, which led to atypical results in how men and women interpret ambiguous cues. Contrary to previous findings, evidence suggested women more readily wish to use costly signals in response to ambiguous romantic cues in evolving relationships as compared to men, who showed no distinction between non-romantic and ambiguously romantic …