The Influence Of The Characters Of Role Model And Gender On Self-other Mate Copying

Mate coping refer to the process while individuals are making mate choice,their preference for it will influence by the preferences of others with same sex,it is a kind of adaptive strategy for mating based on social information.Mate coping is a new perspective in the field of mate choice,and researches on it has attracted the attention of many researchers including evolutionary psychologists,and produced some results.However,at present,the researches on mate coping is in its infancy.Based on the analysis of previous literature,we found most studies only focus on the phenomenon of self mate coping.But as a phenomenon of using social information to make decisions,decision makers will not focus on their own evaluation of potential spouses simply,but will be more influenced by other people with same sex(i.e.,role model).At the same time,the previous studies focused on the study of self mate coping merely,but ignored the question that the human being may also make proposal of mate coping for other people or make choice of mating to the other people directly.Based on the existing problems in the past studies,present study through the introduction of two variables of role model characters and decision-making role to discuss how their influence the mate coping,and what are the differences between male and female in this process.In this paper,two experiments were designed to investigate the above problems.Study 1 explored the influence of the role model,decision-making role and gender on the choice of mate coping.Study 2 on the basis of the study 1 to concreted the role model to explore how characters of role model(quantity and quality),decision-making role and gender impact on mate coping.The conclusions of this study were as follows:(1)There was a mate coping effect and had a sex difference.For male,the effect of mate coping without role model was significantly higher than with role model.That is to say,male will deliberately avoid the selection of female as potential mate who has been chosen by other male.For female,the effect of mate coping without role model was significantly lower thanwith role mode.That is to say,male who has been chosen by other female will get more female's favor.(2)The characters of role model affected mate coping,and had sex difference.For male,the effect of mate coping with one role model was significantly higher than three role models than five role models no matter the quality of role model was high or low.For female,there was no significant differences among one role model,three role models and five role models no matter the quality of role model was high or low.In other words,the mate coping of female has universality and stability.(3)Decision-making role and characters of role model interactively affected mate coping.When individuals make decision for the stranger,they will pay more attention to the core and overall characteristics,the effect of mate coping is less,and they will more preference for high value-low feasibility choice,more emphasis on the quality of the role model;When individuals make decision for themselves and the intimate,they will pay more attention to the minor and detailed characteristics,the effect of mate coping is more,and they will more preference for high feasibility-low value choice,more emphasis on the quantity of the role model.