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Body sway predicts romantic interest in speed dating.

ABSTRACT: Social bonding is fundamental to human society, and romantic interest involves an important type of bonding. Speed dating research paradigms offer both high external validity and experimental control for studying romantic interest in real-world settings. While previous studies focused on the effect of social and personality factors on romantic interest, the role of non-verbal interaction has been little studied in initial romantic interest, despite being commonly viewed as a crucial factor. The present study investigated whether romantic interest can be predicted by non-verbal dyadic interactive body sway, and enhanced by movement-promoting ('groovy') background music. Participants' body sway trajectories were recorded during speed dating. Directional (predictive) body sway coupling, but not body sway similarity, predicted interest in a long-term relationship above and beyond rated physical attractiveness. In addition, presence of groovy background music promoted interest in meeting a dating partner again. Overall, we demonstrate that romantic interest is reflected by non-verbal body sway in dyads in a real-world dating setting. This novel approach could potentially be applied to investigate non-verbal aspects of social bonding in other dynamic interpersonal interactions such as between infants and parents and in non-verbal populations including those with communication disorders.

SUBMITTER: Chang A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7812630 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Body sway predicts romantic interest in speed dating.

Chang Andrew A Kragness Haley E HE Tsou Wei W Bosnyak Dan J DJ Thiede Anja A Trainor Laurel J LJ

Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 20210101 1-2

Social bonding is fundamental to human society, and romantic interest involves an important type of bonding. Speed dating research paradigms offer both high external validity and experimental control for studying romantic interest in real-world settings. While previous studies focused on the effect of social and personality factors on romantic interest, the role of non-verbal interaction has been little studied in initial romantic interest, despite being commonly viewed as a crucial factor. The ...[more]

PMID: 32685965

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Project description:BackgroundIn many animal species, interactions between individuals of different sex often occur in the context of courtship and mating. During these interactions, a specific mating partner can be chosen. By discriminating potential mates according to specific characteristics, individuals can increase their evolutionary fitness in terms of reproduction and offspring survival. In this study, we monitored the partner preference behaviour of female and male wild house mice (Mus musculus domesticus) from populations in Germany (G) and France (F) in a controlled cage setup for 5 days and six nights. We analysed the effects of individual factors (e.g. population origin and sex) on the strength of preference (selectivity), as well as dyadic factors (e.g. neutral genetic distance and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) dissimilarity) that direct partner preferences.ResultsSelectivity was stronger in mice with a pure population background than mixed individuals. Furthermore, female mice with a father from the German population had stronger selectivity than other mice. In this group, we found a preference for partners with a larger dissimilarity of their father's and their partner's MHC, as assessed by sequencing the H2-Eß locus. In all mice, selectivity followed a clear temporal pattern: it was low in the beginning and reached its maximum only after a whole day in the experiment. After two days, mice seemed to have chosen their preferred partner, as this choice was stable for the remaining four days in the experiment.ConclusionsOur study supports earlier findings that mate choice behaviour in wild mice can be paternally influenced. In our study, preference seems to be potentially associated with paternal MHC distance. To explain this, we propose familial imprinting as the most probable process for information transfer from father to offspring during the offspring's early phase of life, which possibly influences its future partner preferences. Furthermore, our experiments show that preferences can change after the first day of encounter, which implies that extended observation times might be required to obtain results that allow a valid ecological interpretation.

Dataset Information

Body sway predicts romantic interest in speed dating.

Publications

Body sway predicts romantic interest in speed dating.

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