Creativity and aggression as ornament and armament: Intersexual and intrasexual selection on men’s mating behaviors

Bin-Bin CHEN, Lei CHANG

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In three studies, we tested the hypothesis that men respond to intersexual and intrasexual selection by facultatively choosing between weapon-like and ornament-like behaviors. In the first two studies, we manipulated intersexual and intrasexual selection by having male participants take part in a simulated dating game (Study 1) or imagine having a date (Study 2). In both studies, participants were told either that the target female would choose her date (intersexual) or that male suitors would nominate one another (intrasexual). Under the intersexual selection condition, men demonstrated increased creativity levels and decreased aggression levels, whereas the opposite pattern was observed under the intrasexual selection condition. Study 3 showed that individual differences in creativity and aggression as personality traits similarly predicted intrasexual and intersexual mating strategies, respectively. These extend existing evolutionary mating research by specifying the mechanism of intrasexual or intersexual selection in shaping men’s weapon-like or ornament-like situational response and personality development. Copyright © 2015 SAGE Publication Inc..
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)266-282
JournalEvolutionary Psychology
Volume13
Issue number1
Early online dateJan 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Citation

Chen, B.-B., & Chang, L. (2015). Creativity and aggression as ornament and armament: Intersexual and intrasexual selection on men’s mating behaviors. Evolutionary Psychology, 13(1), 266-282.

Keywords

  • Sexual selection
  • Ornament
  • Weapon
  • Creativity
  • Aggression
  • Mating

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