ELSEVIER FLASH ALERT TO NEW SCIENCE & HEALTH RESEARCH STORIES
February 9th, 2009EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION OR BROADCAST UNTIL 00:01 GMT ON 11th Febraury
Issue 88 - Valentine’s Day special
February 2009
Welcome to the 88th edition of Flash, our bi-weekly alert for science, health and medical journalists. Flash is a courtesy service with access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s online platform, providing full text access to some 2,000 scientific, technical and medical journals.
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ARTICLES
1. LOVE IS IN THE AIR – I CAN SMELL IT
Romantic love can be a powerful force. You only have eyes for your beloved and long to be close with him or her always. But as all your senses shift to overdrive, how does smell factor into the equation of love?
Some recent findings have demonstrated that humans seem to use odours as an aid in mate selection, so Elsevier’s latest Hormones and Behavior elected to take a deeper look at the potential links between body odours and romantic love. The research focused on 20 women to see whether or not they could identify body odours originating from their boyfriend, a same-sex friend and an opposite-sex friend. The participants were additionally asked to fill out a questionnaire to rate their feelings of passionate love toward their partner.
Body odours were collected by asking each odour donor to sleep for seven consecutive nights (alone) in a cotton t-shirt with odourless cotton nursing pads sewn into the underarm area. The individuals were asked to follow instructions regulating their contact with other individuals and pets, personal hygiene and diet to prevent contamination of the pads. The body odour samples collected from the individuals were mixed in with the odours from some strangers. The women were ultimately presented with these odours and asked to identify the odour of her romantic partner and friends.
Results revealed there was no correlation between love felt for a boyfriend and the ability to identify his odour. But … what was discovered was that the more in love a woman reported to be with her boyfriend, the worse she performed in identifying the body odour originating from an opposite-sex friend – a potential heterosexual partner for the woman. There was no relationship between the degree of expressed romantic love and identification performance for the body odour originating from a same-sex friend, indicating that the demonstrated effect is sexual preference-specific. The authors conclude these findings show women who express a high degree of romantic love, combined with the inability to recognize the body odour of opposite-sex friends, deflects attention away from potential new partners. In other words, passionate love will lead to a decrease in attention toward other potential mates, aiding the long-term commitment to one’s current partner.
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2. MONEY CAN’T BUY LOVE, BUT MOST GIFT GIVERS THINK IT CAN
Every Valentine’s day, millions of shoppers hit the stores – both online and on foot – searching frantically for the perfect gift. From chocolates to jewellery, many gift-givers relish the opportunity to show the recipient just how much they care – and this often translates into spending more money. But how do their loved ones feel about these lavish outpourings? Does receiving a more expensive gift mean you also feel more appreciated?
In Elsevier’s new Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers conducted three separate studies to assess the correlation between price of gift and appreciation felt by gathering details from both the gift-giver and gift-recipient. The first study focused on the giving and receiving of an engagement ring, the second centred around birthday gifts, and the final scenario asked participants to compare the feelings associated with giving/receiving either a CD or iPod as a gift.
In all, gift-givers consistently overestimated the extent to which feelings of appreciation are driven by gift price. Whereas gift-givers assumed that gift-recipients would be more appreciative of larger gifts than smaller ones, the recipients in these studies did not agree. So what might gift-givers do to purchase better gifts? The authors suggest purchasing smaller gifts, establishing maximum spending limits to curtail excessive waste, and paying more attention to the gift-recipients’ individual needs.
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3. FOR MEN, PICTURES SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS AS THEY ASSESS A WOMAN’S ATTRACTIVENESS
A great deal of attention has been devoted to the development and evaluation of prevention and intervention programs designed to improve women’s body satisfaction and reduce eating disorders. Still, one very key area has been ignored. What about men’s views of female attractiveness and their sometimes unrealistic expectations as to how a woman should look? Let’s face it … the supermodels and beautiful actresses are not the norm. Haven’t you ever heard of airbrushing?
To assess men’s reactions to a woman’s attractiveness, Elsevier’s Body Image evaluated whether a psychoeducational manipulation using several different types of messages and photos could influence how men rate the attractiveness of females. Participants were composed of 159 undergraduate heterosexual male students at the University of South Florida who were between 18 and 30 years old. The men were randomly assigned to one of four groups in which they received a beauty ideals message or a marketing message and then were presented with an image of an attractive female or a household product.
The results revealed that men pre-exposed to attractive female images subsequently evaluated average females as less attractive than those exposed to household products. Additionally, the psychoeducational information condition, which was designed to challenge “beauty ideals,” did not reduce the adverse exposure effect and was comparable in effectiveness to the “marketing strategies.” This study, the authors conclude, offer fairly solid evidence that the image has more influence than the message.
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4. SMART GUYS CAN BE SEXY TOO
Hey all you intelligent men out there - rest assured, women aren’t just looking for the hot body; they rank geeks high on their list when it comes to selecting a mate too!
In Elsevier’s Evolution and Human Behavior, a new study takes a closer look at how women assess mates, looking closely at traits like intelligence, verbal skills and creativity. The premise for researching this topic is the idea that a more intelligent mate often provides women with better access to resources and parental investment for offspring. So if this is true, it seems likely that women would seek an intelligent partner for a long-term relationship. In addition, creative intelligence may be sexy in potential short-term mates because it may provide immediate resources and potentially heritable genetic benefits to any offspring.
To test this theory, 204 women assessed the long- and short-term male appeal of 15 men, via videos, with known measures of intelligence performing verbal and physical tasks (answering a question, throwing and catching a Frisbee, reading headlines from the news, etc.). The women additionally provided feedback on the men’s creativity to see if this too had any weight on a woman’s mate choices. Menstrual cycle data was gathered to see if a woman’s choices varied depending on her conception risk.
Findings indicated that both intelligence and creativity independently predicted male appeal across mating contexts. Interestingly, objective measures of IQ were better predictors of mate appeal than women’s perceptions of the man’s intelligence. Conception risk did not predict or moderate women’s preferences. Of course physical appearance factored in, with women initially relying on this element to predict mate appeal. But the researchers expect that as the potential mates subsequently interacted, a mate’s intelligence would contribute a larger portion of what defines mate appeal.
Bottom line: intelligence clearly plays a role in women’s mate choices.
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5. TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY … HOW LOVERS FEEL ABOUT VALENTINE’S GIFTS
Roses, cards, chocolates. Hmmm, could Valentine’s Day be on the horizon? While some people love this romantic holiday, others cringe and attack it for being nothing more than an attempt to boost consumerism.
In Elsevier’s latest Journal of Business Research, authors Angeline Close and George Zinkhan examine data drawn over a seven-year period from surveys, diaries, online postings and retailer interviews to develop a greater knowledge of anti-consumption and alternative consumption on Valentine’s Day. Specifically, the article explores gift, retail and market-resistance.
In general, feedback from consumers revealed that many often create new trends, rituals and traditions in addition to or in lieu of classic exchanges during the holiday. For example, some couples choose to stay in, cook and exchange appreciation for one another in lieu of celebrating at an upscale restaurant or exchanging store-bought cards. Non-choice – influenced by affordability, accessibility and availability – was not shown to be a factor when it came to anti-consumption. Some individuals, however, did abandon or avoid some consumer choices surrounding the holiday since they associated certain gifts or experiences as “too common” and “not in good taste.”
Main themes show a substantial anti-Valentine’s Day segment, that some females (traditionally seen the heroines of the holiday) also resist the market, and that many consumers feel that love should not be reserved for one pre-specified day. As many consumers feel that Valentine’s Day is tainted by capitalism and/or “is the Hallmark Holiday”, Close and Zinkhan find trends towards voluntary simplicity and more in-home (versus marketplace) recognition of the holiday.
A few findings show feelings of obligation to buy Valentine’s Day gifts, however:
- Most males (63%) and some females (31%) feel obligated to give a gift to their partner for Valentine’s Day
- Males in new relationships (81%) feel most obligated to give a gift
- 88% of men and 75% of women in a romantic relationship bought their significant other a Valentine’s gift
So, despite anti-consumption attitudes, consumers still largely purchase a gift at Valentine’s Day. But it doesn’t mean it has to be the traditional candy, cards or flowers - which are marketing-prescribed symbols Valentine’s Day. When asked to depict how she feels about the meaning of Valentine’s day and the surrounding market, one informant’s collage showed love first and foremost - but also included the themes of obligation, lavishness, and marketplace bling.
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