This study sought to identify the effects of culture and sex on mate preferences using samples drawn world-wide. Thirty-seven samples were obtained from 33 countries located on six continents and five islands (N = 9,474). Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed strong effects of both culture and sex, moderated by specific mate characteristics. Chastity proved to be the mate characteristic on which cultures varied the most. The preference ordering of each sample was contrasted with an international complement. Each culture displayed a unique preference ordering, but there were some similarities among all cultures as reflected in a positive manifold of the cross-country correlation matrix. Multidimensional scaling of the cultures yielded a five dimensional solution, the first two of which were interpreted. The first dimension was interpreted as Traditional versus Modern, with China, India, Iran, and Nigeria anchoring one end and the Netherlands, Great Britain, Finland, and Sweden anchoring the other. The second dimension involved valuation of education, intelligence, and refinement. Consistent sex differences in value attached to eaming potential and physical attractiveness supported evolution-based hypotheses about the importance of resources and reproductive value in mates. Discussion emphasizes the importance of psychological mate preferences for scientific disciplines ranging from evolutionary biology to sociology.

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The origins and development of the psychology of liberation are described, detailing the intellectual and political context in which the concept of liberation emerged in Latin American social sciences. Its constitution as a mode of doing psychology, and the founding ideas of Ignacio Martin Baró, its pioneer, are analyzed. Primary concepts such as problematization, de-ideologization, and de-alienation are discussed, and I explain how they are integrated into a central process characterized as conscientization. The role of relatedness as an epistemological base for knowledge construction and liberation is highlighted. The dynamics in which these processes interact in order to facilitate and catalyze the transformation of negative living conditions through participatory action and reflection, to empower people so they become conscious citizens, and to strengthening civil society and democracy is also discussed. I argue that the ethical, critical, and political character of the liberating actions respond for the participatory, reflexive, and transformative conception of this form of psychology. The Context for a Psychology of LiberationDuring the second half of the twentieth century, most Latin American countries produced both intellectual and political movements denouncing the effects of poverty for large population sectors in their societies. Increasing societal poverty and inequalities led to the emergence of social criticism and a search for explanations for such social and economic conditions that were different from blaming the victims and attributing the responsibility for the economic situation in the region to stereotypes of indolence and apathy. Against such visions arose theories generated in Latin American social sciences, as well as a critique of the scientific explanations insufficient to provide answers to the severe problems and necessities of those societies. The awareness of the inequities expressed by oppression and exclusion of large sectors of those societies were brought forward, while different modes of ethical responses began to be produced by those sciences.As part of this awakening, during the mid-'70s emerged a strong critique of the inability of social psychology and its political branch to provide useful knowledge about the problems felt by the population. Hence, it was necessary for political psychology to look towards other sources for resolution. Different expressions of Marxist theory: Marxism (K. Marx, F. Engels), post-Marxism (G. Lukacs, A. Gramsci, K. Kosik), Frankfurt School, Hungarian Marxian School (K. Mannheim, L. Goldmann, J. Gabel, A. Heller), and neo-Marxism (J. Habermas, M. Foucault) provided other ways to interpret social phenomena. The theories of ideology and alienation were re-visited and analysed from a psychosocial perspective, while the critical mode of doing psychology denounced, deconstructed, and reconstructed psychological practices and theories. Marxian ideas were one of the main theoretical influences in the development of a critical perspective permeating vari...

En este artículo se enfocan las relaciones entre psicología comunitaria (PC) y psicología política (PP), centrándose en los aportes que la PC hace a la PP y en los aspectos en los que ambas ramas de la psicología coinciden. Se parte de la idea de transformación social presente en ambas subdisciplinas psicológicas y en el objetivo central de la PC, como se reconoce en la literatura latinoamericana y anglosajona, señalando su carácter móvil y la importancia de la participación y el compromiso en su logro. Se discuten las nociones de poder y fortalecimiento, señalándose la perspectiva simétrica del poder generada en América Latina, que muestra su influencia positiva en las transformaciones comunitarias. Se describen otros aportes de la PC a la PP, tales como la perspectiva ética, y relacionada con ella, la necesidad de la sensibilización de agentes externos, en paridad con agentes internos, la perspectiva liberadora y el uso de herramientas metodológicas compartidas entre ambas ramas de la psicología. Se concluye reiterando la condición política de la PC y su complementariedad con la PP. Palabras clave: psicología comunitaria, psicología política, interrelaciónThis paper deals with the relationships between community psychology (CP) and political psychology (PP), focusing on the contributions of the former to PP and on aspects that are common to both branches of psychology. Beginning with the idea of social transformation, present in both psychological subdisciplines and a central objective for Latin American and Anglo-Saxon PC, the dynamic condition of transformation is argued. Notions of power, strengthening, and empowerment are discussed, pointing out the symmetrical perspective of power generated in Latin America, whose positive influence is demonstrated in communal transformations. Other contributions are discussed, such as the ethical perspective and, related to it, the necessity of working in the sensitization of external agents as well as internal agents, the liberating perspective and the shared methodological tools used by PC and PP. It concludes by demonstrating the political condition of PC and its complementary relationship with PP.