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Looking Like a Million Dollars: Does Attractiveness Priming Increase Altruistic Behavior in Experimental Games?

ABSTRACT: The emergence of altruistic behavior constitutes one of the most widely studied problems in evolutionary biology and behavioral science. Multiple explanations have been proposed, most importantly including kin selection, reciprocity, and costly signaling in sexual selection. In order to test the latter, this study investigated whether people behave more altruistically when primed by photographs of attractive faces and whether more or less altruistic people differ in the number of sexual and romantic partners. Participants in the general population (N = 158, 84 F, 74 M) first rated the attractiveness of photographs of 20 faces of the opposite (sexually preferred) sex and then played the Dictator and Ultimatum Games (DG and UG). The photograph rating acted as priming; half the participants received photographs of people rated as more attractive than average in an earlier study, and the other half received photographs previously rated as less attractive. The attractiveness-primed participants, especially men, were expected to behave more altruistically-signaling that they are desirable, resource-possessing partners. We also expected altruists to self-report more sexual and romantic partners. The observed difference between altruistic behaviors in the attractiveness- and unattractiveness-primed groups occurred in UG offers, however, in the opposite than expected direction in women. The number of sexual partners was positively correlated to minimum acceptable offers (MAOs) in the UG, in line with expectations based on the theory of costly signaling.

SUBMITTER: Novakova J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8335640 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundObesity is a worldwide public health issue, not only because it is associated with numerous comorbid diseases but also because of its impact on the social level. This study aims to investigate (a) whether altruistic behavior differs between people with obesity and people who are not obese, (b) altruistic behavior toward people who are obese, in particular, women who are obese, and (c) implicit and explicit attitudes toward people with obesity as predictors for divergent altruistic behavior.MethodsAn experimental approach called the dictator game was applied. In total, 168 participants of normal weight were asked to divide a monetary reward between themselves and two opponents, one person who was obese and one with normal weight. In addition, participants' implicit and explicit attitudes toward people with obesity as well as other sociodemographic data were assessed.ResultsWe found that altruistic behavior did not differ between obese and nonobese opponents (t(166) = -0.57, p = 0.71), nor did we find less altruistic attitudes toward women with obesity (t(85) = -0.03, p = 0.39). Linear regression models show less altruistic behavior among people with stronger explicit antifat attitudes (p = 0.015). However, although we found that participants held implicit attitudes toward people with obesity, these attitudes did not predict altruistic behavior toward people with obesity.ConclusionAlthough numerous studies reported discrimination toward people with obesity in several areas of life, we did not find discrimination in form of less altruistic behavior toward people with obesity. Moreover, although we found implicit antifat attitudes among the participants, these attitudes did not predict altruistic behavior toward people of divergent weight groups. Therefore, future research should investigate more intensively the diverse facets of discrimination toward people with obesity, if and to what extent implicit antifat attitudes have a quantifiable impact on the stigmatization and or discrimination process, and the hypotheses in a more hidden way, since manipulation check revealed that the majority of participants anticipated the underlying idea of the dictator game.

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Looking Like a Million Dollars: Does Attractiveness Priming Increase Altruistic Behavior in Experimental Games?

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