We assessed the relative contribution of economic, personal, and affective power bases to perceived relationship power. Based on evolutionary studies, we predicted that personality dominance and mate value should represent alternative personal power bases. Our sample was comprised of 84 Czech heterosexual couples. We measured the economic power base using self-report scales assessing education, income and work status. Personal power bases were assessed using self-report measures of personality dominance (International Personality Item Pool Dominance and Assertiveness subscale from NEO Personality Inventory-Revised Extraversion scale), and partner-report measures of mate value (Trait-Specific Dependence Inventory, factors 2-6). The first factor of Trait-Specific Dependence Inventory, which measures agreeableness/commitment was used to assess the affective power base. Our results show that perceived relationship power is associated with a perception of partner's high agreeableness/commitment. Moreover, women's personality dominance and mate value are also linked with perceived relationship power, which supports our evolutionary prediction of dominance and mate value working as power bases for women. The stronger effect of women's than men's power bases may be due to gender differences in investment into relationships and/or due to transition to more equal relationships currently sought by women in the Czech Republic.
- MeSH
- Biological Evolution MeSH
- Heterosexuality * MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Men MeSH
- Sexual Partners * MeSH
- Check Tag
- Humans MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
- Geographicals
- Czech Republic MeSH
Power imbalance in romantic couples is associated with lower relationship quality. Reasons underlying this phenomenon remain, however, unclear. In 192 Czech and Slovak long-term heterosexual couples, we measured relationship quality (Dyadic Adjustment Scale) and assessed its link with perceived relationship power, control, decision making, and personality dominance. Decreased relationship quality was found in power-imbalanced couples, and power distribution affected perceived relationship quality especially in men. In women, lower perceived relationship quality was associated with their partners' control and personality dominance. Results are discussed in the context of interdependence and approach/inhibition theories of power, and some culturally specific explanations are provided.
- MeSH
- Adult MeSH
- Heterosexuality MeSH
- Interpersonal Relations * MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Power, Psychological * MeSH
- Personal Satisfaction MeSH
- Decision Making MeSH
- Sexual Partners psychology MeSH
- Check Tag
- Adult MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in humans, reflecting, e.g., preference for kinship cues. We performed two studies, using transformations of facial photographs to manipulate levels of resemblance with the rater, to examine the influence of self-resemblance in single vs. coupled individuals. Raters assessed facial attractiveness of other-sex and same-sex photographs according to both short-term and long-term relationship contexts. We found a preference for dissimilarity of other-sex and same-sex faces in single individuals, but no effect of self-resemblance in coupled raters. No effect of sex of participant or short-term vs. long-term attractiveness rating was observed. The results support the evolutionary interpretation that dissimilarity of other-sex faces is preferred by uncoupled individuals as an adaptive mechanism to avoid inbreeding. In contrast, lower dissimilarity preference of other-sex faces in coupled individuals may reflect suppressed attention to attractiveness cues in potential alternative partners as a relationship maintenance mechanism, and its substitution by attention to cues of kinship and psychological similarity connected with greater likelihood of prosocial behavior acquisition from such persons.
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Keywords
- evoluční sexuologie,
- MeSH
- Biological Evolution MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Sexuality * MeSH
- Sexual Behavior * MeSH
- Psychology, Developmental MeSH
- Check Tag
- Humans MeSH
- Publication type
- Review MeSH
Preverbal infants often vocalize in emotionally loaded situations, yet the communicative potential of these vocalizations is not well understood. The aim of our study was to assess how accurately adult listeners extract information about the eliciting situation from infant preverbal vocalizations. Vocalizations of 19 infants aged 5-10 months were recorded in 3 negative (Pain, Isolation, Demand for Food) and 3 positive (Play, Reunion, After Feeding) situations. The recordings were later rated by 333 adult listeners on the scales of emotional valence and intensity. Subsequently, the listeners assigned the eliciting situations in a forced choice task. Listeners were almost perfectly able to discriminate whether a recording came from a negative or a positive situation. Their discrimination may have been based on perceived valence as they consistently assigned higher valence when listening to positive, and lower valence when listening to negative, recordings. Ability to identify the particular situation within the negative or positive realm was substantially weaker, with only three of the six situations being discriminated above chance. The best discriminated situation, Play, was associated with high perceived intensity. The weak qualitative discrimination of negative situations seemed to be based on graded perception of negative recordings, from the most intense and unpleasant (assigned to Pain) to the least intense and least unpleasant (assigned to Demand for Food). Parenthood and younger age, but not gender of listeners, had weak positive effects on the accuracy of judgments. Our results indicate that adults almost flawlessly distinguish positive and negative infant sounds, but are rather inaccurate regarding identification of the specific needs of the infant and may normally employ other sensory channels to gain this information.
- MeSH
- Pain MeSH
- Adult MeSH
- Emotions * MeSH
- Infant MeSH
- Communication * MeSH
- Middle Aged MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Adolescent MeSH
- Comprehension MeSH
- Surveys and Questionnaires MeSH
- Aged MeSH
- Auditory Perception MeSH
- Feeding Behavior MeSH
- Verbal Behavior * MeSH
- Sound MeSH
- Check Tag
- Adult MeSH
- Infant MeSH
- Middle Aged MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Adolescent MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Aged MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
BACKGROUND: Allowing players to punish their opponents in Public Goods Game sustains cooperation within a group and thus brings advantage to the cooperative individuals. However, the possibility of punishment of the co-players can result in antisocial punishment, the punishment of those players who contribute the most in the group. To better understand why antisocial punishment exists, it must be determined who are the anti-social punishers and who are their primary targets. METHODS: For resolving these questions we increased the number of players in a group from usual four to twelve. Each group played six rounds of the standard Public Goods Game and six rounds of the Public Goods Game with punishment. Each player in each round received 20 CZK ($ 1.25). Players (N = 118) were rematched after each round so that they would not take into consideration opponents' past behavior. RESULTS: The amount of the punishment received correlated negatively with the contribution (ρ = -0.665, p<0.001). However, this correlation was positive for players in the highest contributors-quartile (ρ = 0.254, p<0.001). Therefore, the graph of relation between the contribution given and punishment obtained was U-shaped (R2 = 0.678, p<0.001) with the inflection point near the left boarder of the upper quartile. The antisocial punishment was present in all groups, and in eight out of ten groups the Justine Effect (the positive correlation between the contribution to the public pool and the risk of suffering punishment in the subpopulation of altruistic players) emerged. In our sample, 22.5% subjects, all of them Free riders and low contributors, punished the altruistic players. CONCLUSIONS: The results of our experimental game-study revealed the existence of the Justine effect--the positive correlation between the contribution to the public pool by a subpopulation of the most altruistic players, and the amount of punishment these players obtained from free-riders.
- MeSH
- Altruism * MeSH
- Cooperative Behavior * MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Social Justice * MeSH
- Game Theory MeSH
- Punishment * MeSH
- Check Tag
- Humans MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
The formation of the concept of sameness is considered as a crucial cognitive ability which allows for other high cognitive functions in some species, e.g. humans. It is often operationalized as transfer of the matching rule to new stimuli in a matching-to-sample task. Animal species show great differences regarding the number of stimuli needed in training to be able to perform a full transfer to new stimuli. Not only apes appear to master this task, but also corvids among the birds were shown to reach a full transfer using only few stimuli. Using colour, shape and number stimuli in a matching-to-sample design, we tested four grey parrots for their ability to judge identity. Only a limited set of 8 stimulus cards were used in training. Pairs of "same" number stimuli were visually different thus allowing to be matched according to number of elements only. All four parrots successfully transferred to testing phases including testing with completely new stimuli and their performance did not drop with new stimuli. Including number stimuli invalidated some interpretations based on visual non-abstract processes and give evidence for formation of the concept of sameness.
- MeSH
- Discrimination Learning physiology MeSH
- Aptitude physiology MeSH
- Parrots physiology MeSH
- Cues MeSH
- Concept Formation physiology MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Check Tag
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
Individuals tend to judge personality traits on the basis of physical characteristics, particularly facial traits, although this phenomenon has been mostly studied in relation to the halo effect of attractiveness. However, there are other facial traits which may also have an impact on personality attributions; here, we focused on masculinity. We carried out principal component analysis (PCA) of 15 anthropometric measurements from 71 male faces, resulting in three components: Face Height (C1), Inner Face Breadth (C2), and Cheekbones-Jaw Prominence (C3). The targets' photographs were rated by 210 women and 177 men on scales for masculinity, attractiveness, and nine psychological characteristics (selected Cattell's factors): Warmth, Reasoning, Emotional Stability, Dominance, Liveliness, Rule-Consciousness, Social Boldness, Abstractedness, and Privateness. We found that masculinity correlated positively with ratings of Dominance and Social Boldness and that masculinity rated by men correlated positively with ratings of Emotional Stability and Privateness. We found no relationship between masculinity rated by women and the PCA components, while masculinity rated by men correlated negatively with C2 (possibly related to babyface features) and positively with C3 (which included features developed under the control of testosterone, such as jaw prominence). Our results imply sex differences in masculinity ratings. In particular, men used Cheekbones-Jaw Prominence and Inner Face Breadth as cues for masculinity judgments; on the other hand, women apparently perceive masculinity in a more holistic way.
- MeSH
- Anthropometry MeSH
- Beauty MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Young Adult MeSH
- Masculinity MeSH
- Face anatomy & histology MeSH
- Personality MeSH
- Sex Characteristics MeSH
- Check Tag
- Humans MeSH
- Young Adult MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
Latent toxoplasmosis has been previously found to cause behavioural and personality changes in humans, which are specific for each gender. Here we tested the stress hypothesis of these gender differences based on the assumption that latent toxoplasmosis causes long-term subliminal stress. In line with this hypothesis, the gender difference will appear specifically in situations with interpersonal context because in contrast to the typical individualistic coping style of men, women have a tendency to express elevated prosocial behaviour under stress. Altogether 295 biology students (29/191 females and 27/104 males infected by T. gondii) played a modified version of the Dictator Game and the Trust Game. As predicted, a gender difference in the effect of latent toxoplasmosis was found for the measure of reciprocal altruism in the Trust Game (p = 0.016), but both genders appeared less generous when infected in the Dictator Game modified to minimize social connotation (p = 0.048).
Some African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus), the most famous being Pepperberg's parrot Alex, are able to imitate human speech and produce labels referentially. In this study, the aim was to teach ten African grey parrots from two laboratories to label items. Training three parrots from the first laboratory for several months with the Model/Rival method, developed by Pepperberg, in which two humans interact in front of the subject to demonstrate the use of a label, led to disappointing results. Similarly, seven parrots from the second laboratory, having been trained with several variants of Model/Rival attained little success. After the informal observation of the efficiency of other methods (i.e. learning to imitate labels either spontaneously or with specific learning methods and use of these labels referentially), four different teaching methods were tested with two birds: the Model/Rival; Repetition/Association which consisted of repeating a label and presenting the item only when the parrot produced the label; Intuitive in which the experimenter handled an item and repeated its name in front of the subject; Diffusion in which labels with either variable or flat intonation were played back daily to parrots. One bird learned three labels, one of which was used referentially, with the Repetition/Association method. He learned one label non-referentially with the Model/Rival but no labels were acquired using the other methods. The second bird did not learn any labels. This study demonstrates that different methods can be efficient to teach labels referentially and it suggests that rearing conditions and interindividual variability are important features when assessing learning ability of African grey parrots.
- MeSH
- Association Learning physiology MeSH
- Behavior, Animal physiology MeSH
- Data Interpretation, Statistical MeSH
- Language MeSH
- Parrots physiology MeSH
- Psychomotor Performance physiology MeSH
- Learning physiology MeSH
- Vocalization, Animal physiology MeSH
- Teaching MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Check Tag
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Animals MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
- Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH
- Geographicals
- Czech Republic MeSH
- France MeSH
