Contextual and Procedural Determinants of Partner Selection: Of Asymmetric Dominance and Prominence

Abstract

The early stage of partner selection is conceptualized as a decision-making process amenable to at least two types of influence: contextual and procedural. An example of contextual influence is the asymmetric dominance effect. According to this effect, introduction in a twoperson field of eligibles of a third eligible, who is domi nated (i.e., is inferior) on an attribute by the first eligible but not by the second one, will tip the scale toward selecting the first eligible. An example of procedural influence is the prominence effect. According to this effect, participants will be more likely to select in choice rather than in matching the eligible who is superior on an attribute important to the participants. On the other hand, participants will be more likely to select in matching rather than in choice the eligible who is superior on an attribute unimportant to the participants. Two experiments demonstrated these contextual and procedural influences.

A modulatory effect of male voice pitch on long-term memory in women: evidence of adaptation for mate choice?

“…Because of this, it has been argued (Bateson & Healy, 2005) that reliance on masculinity cues as an absolute indicator of mate quality could lead women towards costly-that is, maladaptive-mate choices. Bateson and Healy concluded that cognitively elaborate comparative mate-choice mechanisms, allowing currently available potential mates to be evaluated against alternative mates, are needed for adaptive mate choice (see Sedikides, Ariely, & Olsen, 1999, for evidence of comparative evaluation in young healthy adults). The essence of this proposal is that to help mediate the trade-off involved in choosing a masculine partner, memory is needed to rapidly provide information about the attributes and past behaviour of that individual and their competitors for our affections.…”

Comparison-induced decoy effects

“…From a practical standpoint, decoy effects directly impact real-life decisions such as consumer product selection (e.g., Doyle, O'Connor, Reynolds, & Bottomley, 1999), choice of which candidate to support in an election (Pan, O'Curry, & Pitts, 1995), decisions about whom to hire (Highhouse, 1996), and mate selection (Sedikides, Ariely, & Olsen, 1999). From a theoretical standpoint, decoy effects provide a powerful tool to investigate theories of attribute evaluation-theories that have wide-ranging implications not only for decision making but also for similarity, categorization, and cognition generally.…”

The Attraction Effect in Decision Making: Superior Performance by Older Adults

“…In addition to being seen across a wide range of participants, inconsistency in choice has also been reported across a wide range of decision contexts including consumer, job, political, and partner choices (Doyle, O'Connor, Reynolds, & Bottomley, 1999;Highhouse, 1996;Pan, O'Curry, & Pitts, 1995;Sedikides, Ariely, & Olsen, 1999).…”