Mate Availability and Sexual Disgust

Abstract

Objective One of the factors that sexual disgust should be calibrated to is the size of the mating pool. This study tested this hypothesis by examining whether perceptions of mate availability explain variance in levels of sexual disgust towards potential mates. Methods Participants ( N = 853; 373 women) rated how sexually disgusting they found 60 potential mates that have previously been rated on attractiveness by a separate group of raters. We also measured participants’ perceptions of mate availability in their local environment, self-perceived attractiveness and mate value, and relevant control variables. Results Multilevel models revealed a negative association between sexual disgust towards potential mates and perceived mate availability—the opposite of what we predicted. We found support for our prediction that women had higher levels of sexual disgust than men, but only after addressing the confounding sex difference in target attractiveness. We also found the predicted negative association between target attractiveness and sexual disgust. Finally, as predicted, sexual disgust levels were more strongly related to potential mates’ attractiveness in individuals who perceived there to be many available mates in their local environment. Conclusions These findings generally bolster functional accounts of sexual disgust while highlighting the need for more evidence to ascertain the role of mate availability in the calibration of sexual disgust. Specifically, future research should examine the extent to which disgust levels may truncate mental representations of the mating pool instead of being calibrated by them.

Types of Disgust Sensitivity are Differently Associated with Sexual Strategies, Mate Preference, and Perceived Sexual Norms

“…These results, although only preliminary, offer important insight into human mating. Previous studies speculated that people differing in aspects of mating psychology (e.g., sexual disgust) could perceive the mating pools differently because they have different selection criteria for potential mates (Crosby et al, 2021). These kinds of associations could introduce confounding variables, especially in nonexperimental research like ours.…”

Predictors and memory consequences of dating decisions in a dating app-analogue study

“…Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that people would have a better memory for the datable faces compared with the not-datable faces. Addressing the role memory plays in dating decisions may further clarify differences in perceived mating pools among people differing on various traits (Crosby et al, 2021). We, therefore, included a recognition task to examine whether people's memory for the targets would be influenced by their matching decisions earlier, with people having worse memories for the faces they rejected than the faces they matched after controlling for the attractiveness of the targets (H7).…”

“…This effect held when controlling either the normative target attractiveness rating or participant-rated target attractiveness. Given that various individual differences and contextual information may influence an individual's mating decisions, they may indirectly influence the perceived mating pools (Crosby et al, 2021) among individuals with various traits via memory. In Crosby et al (2021), participants with higher (vs. lower) sexual disgust perceived their mating pool to be smaller.…”

“…Given that various individual differences and contextual information may influence an individual's mating decisions, they may indirectly influence the perceived mating pools (Crosby et al, 2021) among individuals with various traits via memory. In Crosby et al (2021), participants with higher (vs. lower) sexual disgust perceived their mating pool to be smaller. In our study, we showed that high sexual disgust individuals, compared with their low sexual disgust counterparts, were less likely to choose to match with potential mates and that targets who are not considered "datable" at one moment may be easily forgotten and not considered as one potential mate by individuals at later times.…”