How 'coalitional mate retention' tactics prevent your partner cheating. 7 April 2015

With a little help from my friends: How we use 'coalitional mate retention' tactics to prevent our partner cheating. We take a look at two new experiments that uncover how our friends work to keep our partners faithful.

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Friends Help Friends Keep Partners Faithful

New research shows how friends work to keep our partners faithful, and reveals how they decide to expose any infidelities they detect.

The articles covered in the show:

Barbaro, N., Pham, M. N., & Shackelford, T. K. (in press). Solving the problem of partner infidelity: Individual mate retention, coalitional mate retention, and in-pair copulation frequency. Personality and Individual Differences. Read summary

Pham, M. N., Barbaro, N., Mogilski, J. K., & Shackelford, T. K. (2015). Coalitional mate retention is correlated positively with friendship quality involving women, but negatively with male-male friendship quality. Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 87-90. Read summary

Is blonde hair attractive because it's rare? Oct 2014

Is blonde and red hair attractive because of how it looks, or because it’s rare? Also, “my genes made me do it”: can men (or women) blame their cheating ways on their genetic inheritance? And we also continue last month’s foray into the murky world of mate-poaching, and discover the differences between the sexes when it comes to detecting potential partner pilferers.

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Some have theorised that red and blonde hair is attractive because it is rare. New research by Zinnia Janif tests this idea. Image credit: qsimple on flickr.com

The articles covered in the show:

Janif, Z. J., Brooks, R. C., & Dixson, B. J. (in press). Are preferences for women's hair color frequency-dependent? Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology. Read summary

Ein-Dor, T., Perry, A., Hirschberger, G., Birnbaum, G. E., & Deutsch, D. (in press). Coping with mate poaching: gender differences in detection of infidelity-related threats. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary

Zietsch, B. P., Westberg, L., Santtila, P., & Jern, P. (in press). Genetic analysis of human extrapair mating: Heritability, between-sex correlation, and receptor genes for vasopressin and oxytocin. Evolution and Human Behavior. Read summary

Face shape changes over the menstrual cycle. Feb 2013

Why cheaters often claim “it didn’t mean anything”, and why perceptions of what constitutes cheating vary from person to person. Also, changing faces: how women’s faces change shape over the menstrual cycle.

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Elisabeth Oberzaucher showed this month that women's faces change shape over the cycle. The images above exaggerate the differences between how women tend to appear around ovulation, when they're most fertile, and a week later, when fertility is lower. What causes the change is not yet known.

The articles covered in the show:

Foster, J. D., & Misra, T. A. (in press). It did not mean anything (about me): Cognitive dissonance theory and the cognitive and affective consequences of romantic infidelity. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Read summary

Kruger, D. J., Fisher, M. L. E., R. S., Chopik, W. J., Fitzgerald, C. J., & Stout, S. L. (2013). Was that cheating? Perceptions vary by sex, attachment anxiety, and behavior. Evolutionary Psychology, 11(1), 159-171. Read summary

Oberzaucher, E., Katina, S., Schmehl, S. F., Holzleitner, I. J., & Grammer, K. (2012). The myth of hidden ovulation: Shape and texture changes in the face during the menstrual cycle. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 10(4), 163-175. Read summary