Buss Flashcards PY2

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  • Created by: bananaaar
  • Created on: 31-03-14 16:52
First Buss historical context?
Since Derwin, increasing interest in evolutionary psychology and nature-nurture debate. The survival of society depends on people choosing suitable partners who will produce healthy children was something Buss wanted to study further.
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Questions being asked on historical context?
Questions such as 'How much of human mate preference is due to nature?' and 'How much of this pattern of preference is down common to all humans in all cultures?' are clearly important.
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Past Research Buss?
Trivers (1972) suggested sexual preference is driven by the differing parental investments. As Females carry baby for 9 months, they tend to be extra choosy when selecting a partner. (i.e. wants a male with high status, resources to ensure survival.)
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Third Aims and Context Buss?
Williams - We also choose a mate based on their reproductive value. An 18 year old female has potential to have more children than a 28 year old. Therefore males choose younger females in order to conceive more offspring.
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4th Aims and context?
Symons (1979) said men should seek characteristics associated with fertility, e.g. Hourglass figure.
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Buss Aim 1?
Find out if characteristics we chose in a mate are different for men and women.
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Buss aims 2?
Find out whether gender specific preferences are the same globally and due to evolution. If they were this would suggest that people who lacked preferred characteristics had died out.
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Bus aim 3?
Buss was interested in doing a cross-cultural study, looking to see whether a cultures religion, socioeconomic status and location would affect mate preference.
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Procedures: What was Buss' research method?
Cross culture questionnaire (x2)
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Procedures: What was Buss' sample?
10,047 ops from 33 countries.
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Buss sample size?
Varied between 55 in Iran and 1500 in USA.
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Sampling methods?
Varied, opportunist in New Zealand (at a local high school), volunteer in Germany. Zulu's who could not read/write had their questions read out to them.
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Mean sample size?
272
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Mean age of ops?
23
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Research Involved 1?
Sending out 2 questionnaires, asking ops about their preferences in a partner based on 5 things: financial status, looks, age, chastity and ambition.
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Research Involved 2?
Subsections that included biographical data (checking age, gender, what age they would like to marry) and a rating task of 18 characteristics.
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Research involved 3?
4 of the critical characteristics (exception - age) were buried within the list to be rated. Each was rated on a 4 point scale from 3 (indispensable) to 0 (irrelevant/unimportant)
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What were irrelevant characteristics?
'dependable character', 'sociability'.
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Research involved 4?
2nd questionnaire asked ops to rank order 13, including 2 critical characteristics-financial status and looks.
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What did questionnaire 2 test?
'generality' (reliability) across methods.
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Research involved 5?
Buss got bilingual speakers to translate the questionnaires into all the necessary languages, and then to translate the answers back again.
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Research involved 6?
The native researchers did not know the hypothesis (double blind).
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How did Buss address ethical issues?
Respected cultural differences by changing Nigerian wording to allow for more than one wife.
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Buss finding 1?
36/37 females cultures valued 'good financial prospects' more highly than men (the exception being spain)
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Buss finding 2?
In all 37 cultures, both males and females preferred the male to be the older partner.
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Buss finding 3?
This supported by mean age for marriages (males, 28.2, females 25.4)
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Mean age for marriage?
Men 28.2, female 25.4
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Buss finding 4?
There was some evidence to suggest that males value chastity (no previous experience of intercourse) more highly than females, but this was not universal. China and Ireland were examples.
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Buss finding 5?
In 34/37 cultures, females valued ambition more highly than males (with the exception of the Zulu culture)
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Buss finding 6?
Of the non-critical characteristics 'kindness and understanding' were rated highly by most ops (male or female).
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Buss conclusion 1?
Sex differences involving mate preference for earning potential, relative youth, and physical attractiveness were strongly confirmed across all cultures.
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Buss conclusion 2?
There is evidence for evolutionary explanations of human behaviour.
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Buss conclusion 3?
Males and females throughout the world tend to look for different things in a mate.
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Buss conslusion 4?
Mate preferences relate to the reproductive capacities of the different genders to ensure their genes survive.
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Reliability?
Strong as the questionnaire was standardised so could be repeated and retested, e.g same questionnaire for each country. Also was a double blind and generality check (2 questionnaires) was used to test reliability.
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Internal Validity?
Problematic, despite being high on internal validity regarding the study being a double blind (no research bias), pps may have lied on questionnaire due to demand characteristics so may not paint true picture.
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Sampling?
Strong as it took into account a wide range of people, however sampling methods varied from volunteer to opportunist so was not consistent. Also there was age bias as the mean age was 23 so ops were relatively young.
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Data?
Strong- lots of quantitative data (4 point scale rating.) But no qualitative so not addition depth was added.
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Ethics?
Strong as Buss addressed ethical issues by altering Nigerian wording. Also no deception was involved, and all ops gave connect, especially volunteer sample.
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Who is alternative evidence for Buss?
Trivers, Symons and challenged by Thornhill.
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Alternative Evidence 1?
Supported by Trivers as he suggested females tend to be more choosy to ensure offspring survives. This supports Buss as he found females look for resources (financial prospects) and status (ambition) in men. However buss is more reliable.
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Alternative Evidence 2?
Supported by Sumons as he suggested males seek younger females in order to conceive greater offspring. Supports Buss as he found that in all 37 cultures, the males preferred younger female partner. However Buss is better as Symons is just theoretical
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Alternative Evidence 3?
Thornhill challenges Buss as he believes facial symmetry is key as it suggests strong genes. Rejects Buss as buses found that women and women seek different characteristics in a mate.Howvever Buss' study was cross cultural but thorn hill's wasn't.
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Alternative Evidence 3 however Thornhill point?
Howeveer could support buss as both claims we look for a mate that is attractive, regarding evolution.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

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Questions being asked on historical context?

Back

Questions such as 'How much of human mate preference is due to nature?' and 'How much of this pattern of preference is down common to all humans in all cultures?' are clearly important.

Card 3

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Past Research Buss?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

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Third Aims and Context Buss?

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Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

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4th Aims and context?

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Preview of the front of card 5
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