Who punishes promiscuous women? Both women and men are prejudiced towards sexually-accessible women, but only women inflict costly punishment

Muggleton, Naomi K.; Tarran, Sarah R.; Fincher, Corey L.

doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.12.003

Cited by 35 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…This is particularly apparent in the context of women’s mating competition, wherein evidence strongly suggests that women who are (perceived as) sexually permissive and/or sexually desirable are considered especially threatening rivals and are disproportionately aggressed against. That is, women specifically target other women who are (perceived as) sexually permissive (e.g., revealingly dressed women; Baumeister, Reynolds, Wineguard, & Vohs, 2017; Baumeister & Vohs, 2004; Bleske & Shackelford, 2001; Gurung & Chrouser, 2007; Muggleton, Tarran, & Fincher, 2018; Pazda, Prokop, & Elliott, 2014; Reynolds, Baumeister, & Maner, 2018; Vrangalova, Bukberg, & Rieger, 2014). For example, Vaillancourt and Sharma (2011) found that women behaved more aggressively toward a female confederate when she was dressed provocatively than when that very same confederate was dressed modestly.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Women’s Strategic Defenses Against Same-Sex Aggression: Evidence From Sartorial Behavior

Krems

Rankin

Northover

2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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Women’s intrasexual competition has received significant attention only in the last decades, with even less work investigating women’s defenses against such aggression. Yet, we should expect that women can (a) grasp which perceptually-salient cues evoke same-sex aggression and (b) strategically damp the display of (some of) those cues when aggression risk is greatest, thereby avoiding the potentially high costs of victimization. Women selectively aggress against women displaying cues of sexual permissiveness (e.g., revealing dress) and/or desirability (e.g., physical attractiveness). We find that (a) women (and men) anticipate greater intrasexual aggression toward women dressed revealingly versus modestly, especially if targets are attractive. Employing behavioral and self-report measures, we also find (b) women create outfits baring less skin, select more modest clothing, and intend to dress less revealingly to encounter other women, flexibly damping permissiveness cues depending on individual features (physical attractiveness) and situational features (being a newcomer) that amplify aggression risk.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Women’s Strategic Defenses Against Same-Sex Aggression: Evidence From Sartorial Behavior

Krems

Rankin

Northover

2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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“…Women that are assumed to have more casual sex are subject to greater dehumanizing perceptions (Kellie et al, 2019) which associate with more negative or harmful treatment. For example, research shows that people are more willing to withhold resources from, gossip about, and act aggressively towards women they think are likely to have casual sex (Arnocky et al, 2019;Blake et al, 2016;Muggleton et al, 2019;Reynolds et al, 2018). Furthermore, when institutions and policies aim to restrict others' sexual freedoms, men and women who live sexually-exclusive, marriage-centered lifestyles are more likely to support these policies (Pazhoohi et al, 2017;Weeden et al, 2008;Weeden & Kurzban, 2013, 2014, especially when they target groups assumed to be more promiscuous (Pinsof & Haselton, 2016.…”

Section: Level Of Required Sexual Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Prejudice Towards Sex Workers Depends on the Sexual Activity and Autonomy of Their Work, Hobbies and Daily Activities

Kellie

Brooks

2021

Collabra: Psychology

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Women are more likely than men to be sexualized, objectified and dehumanized. Female sex workers experience stigma and violence associated with these judgements at far higher rates than other women. Here, we use a pre-registered experimental design to consider which aspects of sex work – the level of sexual activity, earned income, or perceived autonomy of the work – drive dehumanization. A first group of participants (N = 217) rated 80 vignettes of women varying by full-time employment, hobbies and interests on humanness. These ratings were subtracted from the ratings of a second group of participants (N = 774) who rated these same vignettes which additionally described a part-time job, hobby or activity that varied in sexual activity, income earned and autonomy over one’s actions. We find that women and especially men dehumanize women they believe are engaging in penetrative sex. We also find that women’s autonomy of, but not their income from, their sexual activity increases dehumanization. Our findings suggest that opposition to women’s ability to pursue casual sex and generalizations about the exploitative conditions of sex work may drive the harshest negative prejudice towards female sex workers and, by similar mechanisms, women’s sexuality in general.

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“…Another future direction is in examining additional nuances in perceptions of atheists, such as whether certain types of atheists face more prejudice than others. For instance, people seem to be especially willing to punish sexually available women (Muggleton, Tarran, & Fincher, 2019); if both male and female atheists are associated with sexual promiscuity, it may be that the observed effects are stronger for female than for male atheists. However, there may be interesting reversals of these effects-people seeking short-term mating opportunities might even be motivated to find atheist partners, who might be more likely to share their uninhibited lifestyle.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposition to short-term mating predicts anti-atheist prejudice

Moon

Krems

Cohen

2020

Personality and Individual Differences

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Which people are most likely to harbor prejudice toward atheists? Recent research suggests that perceptions of (non)religious individuals tend to track lifestyle (i.e., family and sexual) choices.We draw on this work, proposing that anti-atheist prejudice stems, in part, from the conflict that arises among competing mating strategies. Across four studies (N = 1,855), we confirmed that anti-atheist prejudice is related to stereotypes about atheists' mating strategies (Pilot Study); we further found that people who favor committed mating strategies express greater levels of antiatheist prejudice, even controlling for their beliefs about cooperation (Study 1a) and religiosity (Study 1b). Finally, this effect holds even when using a semi-implicit measure of prejudice, again controlling for religiosity (Study 2). These results suggest that mating strategies provide one source of individual differences in prejudice toward atheists, consistent with the notion that this prejudice may reflect perceived differences in lifestyle rather than just abstract theological disagreements or ingroup bias.

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Who punishes promiscuous women? Both women and men are prejudiced towards sexually-accessible women, but only women inflict costly punishment

Abstract: Please refer to published version for the most recent bibliographic citation information. If a published version is known of, the repository item page linked to above, will contain details on accessing it.

Cited by 35 publications

References 80 publications

Women’s Strategic Defenses Against Same-Sex Aggression: Evidence From Sartorial Behavior

Women’s Strategic Defenses Against Same-Sex Aggression: Evidence From Sartorial Behavior

Prejudice Towards Sex Workers Depends on the Sexual Activity and Autonomy of Their Work, Hobbies and Daily Activities

Opposition to short-term mating predicts anti-atheist prejudice

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