Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2020-09-03
Abstract： " Throughout the animal kingdom, larger animals are more likely to attain dominance and thus enhance their ability to acquire mates. In human males, body height is also associated with the success and failure in sexual selection. For example, studies found that taller men have higher strength or fighting ability, they are more likely to higher overall income and higher social status, and they are also more likely to acquire mates in the mating market. However, shorter men are not necessarily being doomed with disadvantages. Previous studies have suggested that men have a flexible status psychology that may allow them to exercise behavioral flexibility (e.g., by showing more indirect aggression or feeling more jealousy toward sexual rivals) to compensate for their disadvantage in height. Given the importance of risk-taking behavior in signalizing the quality of ones’ genes, in the present study, we hypothesized that when encountering a taller same-sex rival, shorter men will also compensate for their disadvantages in height by showing more risk-taking behaviors, and their mating motives will modulate such an effect in men. This hypothesis was tested by employing four different behavioral studies. In these studies, we measured the risk-taking behaviors of participants by employing a well-validated and computerized laboratory task (i.e., Balloon Analogue Risk Task, BART). In Study 1 and 2, male or female participants (176 participants in Study 1, and 246 participants in Study 2, respectively) were paired with a taller or shorter same-sex opponent, and they were asked to compete with that opponent in a computerized game (i.e., the BART task). In Study 3 (255 male participants), we further tested our hypothesis by situationally activating the mating motives of male participants (i.e., by watching videos depicting highly attractive females) and paired them with a taller or shorter male opponent in the competitive BART task as in Study 1 and 2. In Study 4 (90 male participants), we further investigated the effects of chronic mating motive and the relative height disadvantage on male risk- 29 taking by employing the Mate Seeking scale of Fundamental Social Motives Inventory. Results showed that: 1) when encountering a taller opponent, male participants displayed more risk-taking behavior, their BART score (i.e., the average number of pumps per unexploded balloon) was significantly higher than being confronted with a shorter male opponent; 2) such an effect was caused by the increasing of risk-taking propensity when facing a taller opponent, and facing a shorter opponent didn’t affect the risk-taking of male participants (also be compared to a no-height-info control); 3) the relative height difference between the participants and their opponent couldn’t affect the risk-taking of female participants; 4) situationally activating the mating motives of male participants significantly affected the effects of relative height disadvantage on male risk-taking, after watching the mating prime, male participants were more likely to elevate their risk-propensity to compensate for their disadvantage in height; 5) male participants with high level of chronic mating motivation were also more likely to elevate their risk-propensity to compensate for the height disadvantage. The results of the current study suggest that men may have evolved a behavioral strategy to elevate their risk-taking propensity to compensate their height disadvantage, and this strategy was driven by motives of intrasexual competition and mating. These results were consistent with our hypothesis and thus provide further evidence for the evolutionary theory of Napoleon complex. "
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