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Mate preferences and their integration to mate choice
Csajbók, Zsófia ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Lindová, Jitka (referee) ; David-Barrett, Tamas (referee)
Mate choice decisions have long-term effects on both party's well-being as well as reproductive outcomes. Consequently, evolutionary biology and psychology devoted a large body of research on investigating human mate choice. The evolutionary psychology of human partner selection can be perceived as inter-connected processes, such as mating strategy, mate preferences, and mate choice. This dissertation thesis consists of two larger segments. The first segment is an Introduction to my four original research papers in the second segment. In the Introduction, I discuss heterosexual partner selection in two parts. First, I describe how mating strategies affect mate preferences, what the key mate preference dimensions are - both positive and negative factors of partner evaluations -, how stable they are, and how they change over time within a person. Further, I review the concept of mate value and how mate preference factors are weighing in the overall perception of mate value on the mating market. In the second part, I discuss how partner preferences are integrated into mate choice, also known as the mate choice integration models. The Additive and Threshold models of mate choice, the Euclidean distance model, and Assortative mating will be discussed in detail since they are the most commonly applied...
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Sexual imprinting in humans in comparative perspective
Pražská, Veronika ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Landová, Eva (referee)
Sexual imprinting is a specific form of learning, which was originally defined as the development of a cognitive model of sexual partner based on parental characteristics. This model subsequently influences the mate preferences in adulthood. Imprinting is characterized by difficult modifications of the acquired model and specific sensitivity for this type of learning in fixed period of ontogenesis. However, it remains an open question whether above described definition of imprinting can be applied to the development of the human mate preferences. Recently, it was pointed out that filial and sexual imprinting should be treated separately. However, many previous studies didn't reflect upon this distinction. Probably, function of filial imprinting is recognition of own species, the sexual imprinting affects preferences on sexual partner. Sexual imprinting could be also a mechanism of avoidance of in/outbreeding. Considering that in humans we can only speculate about the role of the parental imprinting, we will mainly focus on the critical review of studies on sexual imprinting. Results of some studies point out, that the effect of positive sexual imprinting can be modulated by a quality of the parent-offspring relationship. Apart from the positive sexual imprinting, we will further focus on negative...
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Vztah atraktivity a MHC: Role menstruačního cyklu a partnerského statusu.
Vávrová, Kateřina ; Havlíček, Jan (advisor) ; Flegr, Jaroslav (referee)
Extremely polymorphic genes of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) play a significant role in the function of immune system by recognizing heterogeneous particles, mainly pathogenic origin. Previous research on various vertebrate species indicates that MHC influences individual body odour and mate choice preferences. Many individuals tend to prefer MHC dissimilar partner so that warrants them an offspring resistant against wider spectrum of infections. Research on MHC-related mate preferences in humans, however, is inconclusive to date. Several studies indicate that women not taking hormonal contraceptives prefer the smell of MHC dissimilar partners while other studies have not come to this conclusion. This can be caused by the absence of potentially influencing factors like the menstrual cycle phase. The aim of this study was to test MHC-similarity mate choice preferences in odour, facial and vocal modalities. In particular, we focused on a potential effect of hormonal contraception. Furtermore, we tested preferential shifts across the menstrual cycle by comparing women's preferences in the follicular and the luteal phase in pill and non-pill users. A group of 52 women in different phases of their menstrual cycle rated odour samples, photos and vocal recordings taken from 51 men. All...
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