1. Derogation or enhancement? How people rate their real-life alternatives
Jennifer A. Shukusky & Paul W. Eastwick
The University of Texas at Austin
Introduction
Coupled people rate attractive, opposite-sex potential partners as significantly less appealing as do single people.
At present, it is impossible to determine which mechanism underlies this mean difference:
Derogation: the tendency for partnered individuals to devalue attractive alternatives
Enhancement: the tendency for single people to bolster the attractiveness of potential partners
Conceptual graph of the relationship status effect, derogation, and enhancement theories
Results
Attractiveness ratings of potential partners by rater and relationship status
Single
Coupled
Participants
101 people (13 men) reported on 508 eligible targets
18 to 26 years old (M =19.88, SD =1.525)
42% White, 31% Hispanic, 12% Asian, 8% Black, 7% “Other”
41.5% identified as being in a committed relationship
Measures
Attractiveness. 1 (not at all) to 9 (a great deal) rating scale how “physically attractive” and how “sexy/hot” they believed their interaction partner to be (averaged). Items were highly positively correlated, r=.98 and consistent across the neutral coders (Cronbach’s α =.88, .87, respectively).
Partner type. Casual dating partners and serious dating partners were later categorized as “partners.” “Non-partners” included strangers, acquaintances without romantic potential, acquaintances with romantic potential, friends without romantic potential, friends with romantic potential, family members, and “other.”
Four simple effects:
A: effect of relationship status on attractiveness ratings
B: coupled peoples’ derogation of alternatives when compared to a baseline
C: enhancement by single individuals and non-exclusive daters when compared to a baseline
D: the baselines to which we can compare relationship status effects
When evaluating non-partners, a mixed model ANOVA revealed a significant rater (participant v. neutral coder) by participant relationship status (single v. coupled) interaction,
β = .51, t(176.14) = 2.33, p = .021.
A: Singles rated their interaction partners as more attractive than did those in relationships, as expected, p= .021
B: There was no evidence of derogation by people in relationships. Instead, people in relationships showed moderate enhancement compared to neutral coders, p= .074
C: Compared to a baseline of neutral coders, strong support for enhancement by single individuals was found, p <.001
D: The baselines (neutral evaluations of the interaction partners of singles and coupled people) did not differ, p= .593
Procedure
Participants, who voluntarily enrolled in the study online to receive course credit, completed an online preliminary survey. They then received instructions to take a 2-5 minute online survey about the first five opposite-sex peers with whom they had a qualifying interaction (occurring face-to-face, over the phone, or via video chat and lasting at least 10 minutes). Participants then submitted a publically available photo (e.g. current Facebook profile picture) of the target (rated by RAs).
Discussion
Consistent with the previous research (e.g., Simpson et al., 1990), we found that coupled people rated the attractiveness of potential partners more negatively than single participants did and we sound strong support for the enhancement bias by singles.
We found no evidence of derogation in the current study and instead, we found marginal support for enhancement by coupled people compared to neutral raters, potentially due to familiarity, “calibration,” the medium of the stimuli, and/or reciprocity.
The neutral raters did not discriminate between the attractiveness of targets submitted by coupled people and those submitted by single individuals; conceptually, relationship status is not predictive of the attractiveness of the people with whom one interacts.