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Social Taste Buds: Evidence of Evolved Same-Sex Friend Preferences from a Policy-Capturing Study

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Abstract

Despite the importance of friendship, the traits that people seek in a friend are not well understood. Here, we pursue the hypothesis that same-sex friendships evolved as ongoing cooperative relationships, so friend preferences should at least partially focus on those traits that would have made someone a good cooperative partner within the conditions of the human ancestral environment. We tested this hypothesis in a face perception paradigm in which undergraduate participants rated the friend desirability of target faces that were also rated on several traits hypothesized to be relevant to friend choice. This allowed us to test the actual predictors of attraction, rather than relying on self-reported preferences. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that judgments of a target person’s desirability as a friend depended on perceptions of their ability to create material benefits in the ancestral environment (e.g., skill as a hunter or gatherer). These effects were not due to an attractiveness “halo effect” or a preference for intelligence more generally. In addition, we found mixed evidence for sex differences that match the typical hunter-gatherer division of labor. We discuss implications of these findings for the study of friend choice, and for understanding social preferences more broadly.

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  1. Adar Eisenbruch

    Present address: Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Purchase, NY, New York, 10577, USA

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Appendix

Appendix

All items rated from 1 (far below average) to 7 (far above average)

Prosociality items

How kind does this person look?

ICC (female targets) = .908

ICC (male targets) = .873

How cooperative does this person look?

ICC (female targets) = .903

ICC (male targets) = .892

How trustworthy does this person look?

ICC (female targets) = .887

ICC (male targets) = .903

Productivity items

If this person were stranded on a desert island, how good do you think he (she) would be at getting food (compared to the average man (woman))?

ICC (female targets) = .791

ICC (male targets) = .878

Imagine that this person lived 100,000 years ago, when humans had to hunt or gather food and find or build shelter. Compared to the average man (woman), how productive a member of his (her) group would this person have been?

ICC (female targets) = .769

ICC (male targets) = .886

Imagine that this person went on a long camping trip, where they had to find their own food, make tools, etc. Compared to the average man (woman), how well do you think this person would do on this camping trip?

ICC (female targets) = .746

ICC (male targets) = .876

Desirability as a friend item

How much would you like to be friends with this man (woman)?

ICC (female targets) = .956

ICC (male targets) = .914

High School GPA item

How high was this person’s high school GPA, compared to their peers?

ICC (female targets) = .876

ICC (male targets) = .912

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Eisenbruch, A., Roney, J. Social Taste Buds: Evidence of Evolved Same-Sex Friend Preferences from a Policy-Capturing Study. Evolutionary Psychological Science 6, 195–206 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-019-00218-9

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