To help or punish in the face of unfairness: men and women prefer mutually-beneficial strategies over punishment in a sexual selection context.

ABSTRACT: Consistent with a sexual selection account of cooperation, based on female choice, men, in romantic contexts, in general display mutually-beneficial behaviour and women choose men who do so. This evidence is based on a two-choice-architecture (cooperate or not). Here we extend this to include punishment options using a four-choice-architecture ('punishing a transgressor', 'compensating a victim', 'both punishing and compensating' or 'doing nothing'). Both compensation (a self-serving mutually-beneficial behaviour) and self-serving punishment, are associated with positive mate qualities. We test which is preferred by males and chosen by female undergraduates. We further explore effects of trait empathy and political ideology on these preferences. In a series of three st

SUBMITTER: Ferguson E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6774947 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature