Effect of territory intruders on the perceived quality of territorial males in an endangered pupfish, Cyprinodon bovinus

Social eavesdropping can guide mate choice and the assessment of competitor quality. In the endangered Leon Springs pupfish (Cyprinodon bovinus), males establish breeding territories that they defend from conspecifics and heterospecific egg predators. Females enter the breeding area to assess males and spawn in their territories. It was hypothesized that male and femaleC. bovinuseavesdrop on social interactions within male territories to evaluate each territorial male’s ability to exclude intruders and attract potential mates. Using a repeated design, a bottle containing either a femaleC. bovinus, a non-territorial maleC. bovinus, a swarm ofG. nobilis, or water was placed at the centre of a male’s territory. Territorial males received more spawns and females spawned more frequently per visit when a female stimulus was present. These results suggest that females eavesdrop to inform their mating decisions, but this may be limited to the assessment of extra-pair females within territories.

Reading a Smiling Face: Messages Conveyed by Various Forms of Smiling

This study investigated the effect of various forms of smiling (closed smile, upper smile, or broad smile) on person perception. Brazilian undergraduates ( N = 330) judged a photograph of a male or female stimulus person in three age ranges (young, middle-aged, and old) and smiling or not. 7–point scales were used to measure respondents' perception of the stimulus persons on various attributes (attractiveness, happiness, extroversion, sympathy, kindness, submission, ambition, and intelligence). We found that a smile enhanced attractiveness and kindness ratings independently of its form, whereas the influence of the various forms on ratings of happiness was additive. As the neutral face changed to a closed smile and the closed smile became a broad smile, target stimuli were attributed greater rated happiness. We also found a contribution of perceivers' gender to the judgements of extroversion and sympathy, indicating a slightly greater discrimination of facial expressions among women than among men.

On the Role of Emotional Traits in Impression Formation

280 Italian undergraduates (90 men and 190 women), ages 18 to 30 years, rated a warm, cold, jealous, or envious stimulus person on 15 7-point semantic differential scales. Varying the sex of the stimulus person, 8 different versions of the description were obtained. Factor analysis, carried out to identify a smaller set of non-redundant dimensions, yielded three factors. A multivariate analysis of variance, 4 (warm, cold, jealous, envious) × 2 (male stimulus person, female stimulus person) × 2 (male respondents, female respondents), indicated significant effects for the variable “trait” on the first and second factors, an interaction between the sex of the stimulus person and the sex of the respondent on the first factor, and an effect for the sex of the respondent on the second factor. The traits “envious” and “jealous” acted as central qualities, and the sex of the stimulus person and of the respondent played an important role in impression formation. Further implications of the finding were discussed.

The Ms. Stereotype: Its Domain and the Role of Explicitness in Title Preference

It was hypothesized that (a) a woman who prefers Ms. as her title of address would be seen by perceivers of both sexes as being higher on positive as well as negative instrumental qualities and also lower on positive and negative qualities of expressiveness than a woman who prefers a traditional title of address (i.e., Miss and Mrs.), and (b) explicit preference for the woman's title of address would elicit stronger trait attributions for women with different titles of address than would an implicit preference. These hypotheses were tested by having respondents rate a brief description of a female stimulus person whose title of address and explicitness of preference for the title were orthogonally varied. Scales from the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire were employed as measures of instrumental and expressive traits. The two hypotheses were well supported. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Effect of Sex, Inferred Sex-Role and Occupational Sex-Linkage on Perceptions of Occupational Success

In a 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 (subject's sex, stimulus-person's sex, stimulus-person's sex-role as inferred from sex-related clothing, and stimulus-person's sex-linked occupation) complete factorial between-subjects experiment, 120 female and 120 male subjects viewed a slide of either a male or female stimulus-person wearing either masculine or feminine clothing. Stimulus persons were also said to be employed in either a masculine, feminine, or sex-neutral occupation. Subjects then recorded their first impressions of the stimulus-person on a person-perception questionnaire. Analysis indicated that persons wearing masculine clothing were perceived as more successful in their occupations than persons wearing feminine clothing for both the masculine and feminine (business) occupations. No differences were found for persons in the sex-neutral occupation. Additional analyses are discussed and conclusions drawn regarding the effect of clothing in sex-role stereotyping in first-impression situations.