Attentional Biases Toward Different Levels Of Facial Attractiveness In Committed Romantic Relationships

According to the evolutionary theory, a committed long-term romantic relationship can facilitate bi-parental care and increase the chances of offspring survival, especially so for women. Moreover, a steady and satisfying romantic relationship usually offers positive psychological and health outcomes. Thus, humans possess relationship maintenance mechanisms to protect their current long-term relationships. Dozens of studies have focused on long-term relationship maintenance, but few have investigated the attentional bias associated with relationship maintenance at the early stages of visual processing. Based on the evolutionary theory, existing research has explored the relationship maintenance mechanism with reference to the attentional biases toward different levels of facial attractiveness among committed individuals. Researchers found that committed individuals exhibit inattention to attractive alternatives, which could help them to resist the allure of attractive alternatives and remain committed to their current partner. However, there have been few studies on the brain and neural mechanisms in the domain of attentional bias associated with relationship maintenance, and there is little evidence to support the theories of relationship maintenance in an Eastern culture. Based on the evolutionary theory and from a social cognitive point of view, this study aimed to probe the behavior and brain mechanisms of attentional bias toward different levels of facial attractiveness among committed women through a behavioral experiment and event-related potentials technique. We hoped to provide support for the existing theories of relationship maintenance and the evolutionary theories in Eastern cultures, and to explore the long-term relationship maintenance mechanisms involved in the early stages of visual processing among Chinese committed females.Owing to the influence of the traditional Chinese culture on women’s values of marriage, maintenance of a long-term relationship seems to be particularly important for committed females in China. Study 1 investigated whether the committed females’ attentional biases toward attractive opposite-sex targets were less than those of single females in the baseline condition. Study 2 investigated the committed females’ attentional biases toward different levels of facial attractiveness in the relational motives priming condition(love-priming condition). Study 3 investigated the brain mechanism of attentional bias toward different levels of facial attractiveness.The procedures and results were as follows: using a dot probe task and four different levels of facial attractiveness(attractive male, average male, attractive female, and average female faces), Experiment 1 explored whether the committed females’ attentional biases toward attractive opposite-sex targets were less than those of single females in the baseline condition, when the target faces were presented only for 500 ms. The results did not conform to the research hypothesis, but the committed females exhibited inattention to attractive opposite-sex targets in the baseline condition. Utilizing the event-related potentials technique, in Experiment 2, we only chose the attractive male and average male faces as targets, and differentiated the single and committed participants by mating motives, to compare the attentional biases toward opposite-sex targets among single and committed females. The results showed that in the 500–650ms late slow wave time windows, attractive opposite-sex targets elicited less positive or more negative amplitudes among the committed females in a steady romantic relationship than in the single females with mating motives. This indicated that the single females with mating motives spent more attentional resources to shift their attention from the attractive opposite-sex targets than did the committed females.Due to the motivation is closely related to attentional bias, in Study 2, we used three different love priming to activate the participants’ relational motives in the three studies, and explored the attentional biases of committed females toward different levels of facial attractiveness under different love-priming conditions. In Experiment 3, using the dot probe task and four types of face targets used in Experiment 1, we chose semantic priming and presented love words for 500 ms before the dot probe task, to activate mental representations associated with love. The results showed that the committed females exhibited inattention to attractive opposite-sex targets in the control and love-priming conditions; when love was primed, the committed females focused more attention on the attractive same-sex targets. Difficulty in disengaging from attractive same-sex targets may be due to the negative mental representations associated with love, which activate the mate-guarding motives of the committed females. In order to explore if the result of Experiment 3 could be attributed to the fast presenting love words that activated the negative mental representations associated with love or to China’s cultural setting in which love is always viewed as a negative experience by people in love, Experiment 4 used a scenario priming to probe the attentional biases of the committed females through a spatial cueing task. The results showed that the committed females did not have a difficulty in disengaging from the attractive same-sex targets when activated with positive love experience. Additionally, the committed females exhibited inattention to attractive opposite-sex targets. Therefore, we continued to examine whether the committed females would show difficulty in disengaging from attractive same-sex targets in a subliminal priming condition utilizing a beloved’s name, which may activate an individual’s negative mental representations associated with love. Using the subliminal priming with a beloved’s name and spatial cueing task, Experiment 5 explored the attentional biases toward different levels of facial attractiveness between participants with high or low jealousy. The results showed that when love was primed, the committed females exhibited inattention to attractive opposite-sex targets, but those high in jealousy focused more attention on the attractive same-sex targets. This finding on the difficulty to shift attention form attractive same-sex targets may indicate that subliminal priming with a beloved’s name or the interaction of priming and attractive same-sex targets may easily activate the mate-guarding motive among committed females with high jealousy.The results of Study 1 and 2 indicated that committed females were inattentive to attractive males in the early stages of information processing, regardless of the conditions they were allocated to; in the condition that may activate mental representations associated with love, committed females, especially committed females with high jealousy would their attention on attractive same-sex targets. Subsequently, we continued to explore the brain mechanism of attentional bias toward different levels of facial attractiveness between participants with high or low jealousy. Experiment 6a used the event-related potentials technique to prove that there were no significant differences in the attentional biases toward attractive same-sex targets between committed females with high or low jealousy. Experiment 6b explored the brain mechanism of attentional bias toward different levels of facial attractiveness between participants with high and low jealousy using the event-related potentials technique and covert orienting task. The results showed that in the 400–550ms late slow wave time windows, the attractive same-sex targets elicited more positive or less negative amplitudes among the committed females with high jealousy than in those with low jealousy in the subliminal love priming condition; compared to control priming condition, the attractive same-sex targets elicited more positive or less negative amplitudes among the committed females with high jealousy in the subliminal love priming condition. Further, as compared to the average same-sex targets, the attractive same-sex targets elicited more positive or less negative amplitudes among the committed females with high jealousy in the subliminal love priming condition. These results indicate that attractive same-sex targets, which may serve as relationship threat, occupied more attentional resources in committed females with high jealousy. In Experiment 7, we used the fMRI to explore whether attentional biases toward attractive same-sex targets in the committed females with high jealousy were due to the activation of negative emotions. The preliminary findings supported our hypothesis and showed that, as compared to the committed females with low jealousy, the regions involved in processing negative emotion, such as the thalamus, middle cingulate cortex, and medial prefrontal cortex, showed significantly increased activation among the committed females with high jealousy when love was subliminal primed.Based on the Chinese culture, this study focused on the attentional biases toward different levels of facial attractiveness in the early stages of visual processing among committed females, which could reflect the long-term relationship maintenance mechanisms of Chinese committed females. There are at least two separate psychological mechanisms involved in early-stage visual processing, which may aid relationship maintenance: resisting the allure of attractive alternatives and guarding one’s mate from threats. The characteristics of the relationship maintenance mechanisms utilized by Chinese committed females are as follows: 1. Committed females in a steady relationship exhibited inattention to attractive alternatives regardless of the conditions they were allocated to. Inattention to attractive alternatives could help committed females to resist the allure of alternatives and remain committed to one’s current partner. 2. When activated with mental representations associated with love, the attractive same-sex targets occupied more attentional resources of committed females. This may be because the attractive same-sex targets serve as relationship threats for Chinese committed females when negative mental representations associated with love were activated, and the increased amount of time spent dwelling on attractive females may help committed females identify and evaluate their potential rivals, and accordingly, attempt to protect one’s current relationship. 3. Committed females high and low in jealousy exhibited different mechanisms in relationship maintenance. Specifically, committed females with high jealousy experienced difficulty in disengaging their attention from attractive same-sex targets when the mental representations associated with love were activated, but committed females with low jealousy did not show a similar priming effect. This may occur due to an intrasexual vigilance to attractive same-sex targets that occupied more attention resources of committed females with high jealousy when negative mental representations of love were activated. However, when positive love experiences were activated, committed females with both high and low jealousy did not show attentional biases toward the attractive same-sex targets. This might suggest that different love experiences may influence the long-term relationship maintenance mechanisms in committed females.