Test of the Deception Hypothesis in Atlantic Mollies Poecilia mexicana—Does the Audience Copy a Pretended Mate Choice of Others?

Abstract

Animals often use public information for mate-choice decisions by observing conspecifics as they choose their mates and then copying this witnessed decision. When the copier, however, is detected by the choosing individual, the latter often alters its behavior and spends more time with the previously non-preferred mate. This behavioral change is called the audience effect. The deception hypothesis states that the choosing individual changes its behavior to distract the audience from the preferred mate. The deception hypothesis, however, only applies if the audience indeed copies the pretended mate choice of the observed individual. So far, this necessary prerequisite has never been tested. We investigated in Atlantic molly males and females whether, first, focal fish show an audience effect, i.e., alter their mate choices in the presence of an audience fish, and second, whether audience fish copy the mate choice of the focal fish they had just witnessed. We found evidence that male and female Atlantic mollies copy the pretended mate choice of same-sex focal fish. Therefore, a necessary requirement of the deception hypothesis is fulfilled. Our results show that public information use in the context of mate choice can be costly.

Social Transmission of Leadership Preference: Knowledge of Group Membership and Partisan Media Reporting Moderates Perceptions of Leadership Ability From Facial Cues to Competence and Dominance

“…Our findings develop the literature on perceptions of leadership from facial cues related to dominance and competence (Todorov et al, 2005;Ballew and Todorov, 2007;Little et al, 2007;Antonakis and Dalgas, 2009;Re et al, 2012Re et al, , 2013Olivola et al, 2014;Re and Perrett, 2014), by providing direct evidence that social information, even when minimal, can guide leadership choice based on facial cues. These findings are the first to our knowledge to implicate a role of traits related to social and physical dominance in social transmission of face preferences, which has tended to focus on social transmission of attractiveness (e.g., Jones et al, 2007;Place et al, 2010;Little et al, 2015;see Gouda-Vossos et al, 2018 for a recent review). Our findings also extend prior work on sex differences in alliance formation based on facial cues (Watkins and Jones, 2016), revealing contextual specialization in how men and women respond to group leaders based on minimal information.…”

“…This is an oversight given that appearance-driven biases may be stronger for certain types of voters (e.g., "undecided voters" see Todorov et al, 2015 for discussion) and money/effort invested in "marginal seats" can alter election outcomes (see Bond et al, 2012 for discussion). Research on social transmission of face preferences, and social attraction more generally, has examined the role of copying based on knowledge that people are desired by others (e.g., Jones et al, 2007;Place et al, 2010;Little et al, 2015; see Gouda-Vossos et al, 2018 for a recent review), copying the choices of those of good character (Chu, 2012) and attraction to others in light of knowledge of their intelligence (Gao et al, 2017;Watkins, 2017) and romantic relationship history (Quist et al, 2012). In addition, our experiences can influence social and/or romantic attraction to others, in light of previously cooperating or competing with them (Kniffin and Wilson, 2004;Faust et al, 2018) and when encountering people who resemble someone associated with an event that varied in its level of affect (Verosky and Todorov, 2010).…”

Do male meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus) always prefer and signal to ‘popular’ females? The role of social information context

“…Furthermore, males are influenced by the presence of other males, altering their behaviours around and preferences for potential mates [4][5][6]. This change of behaviour is often considered 'deception' to draw a rival male away from a preferred female [7]. Overall, this indicates that males are aware of the costs of generating social information.…”

It's in the eye of the beholder: visual lateralisation in response to the social environment in poeciliids

“…In P. reticulata , it has been shown that females as well as males copy the mate choice of same sex conspecifics (Auld & Godin, ; Dugatkin, , , ). Likewise, P. mexicana and P. latipinna use public information during mate choice (Gierszewski et al, ; Heubel et al, ; Schlupp et al, ; Schlupp & Ryan, ; Witte et al, ; Witte & Ryan, ; Witte & Ryan, ) as well as P. formosa , which copies the mate choice of other females as well (Heubel et al, ). In the present study we investigated visual lateralisation in response to different social and sexual stimuli in three closely related poeciliid species ( P. latipinna, P. mexicana, P. formosa ) and P. reticulata , which all have been shown to use private and public information in mate choice.…”