Perceived Attractiveness as a Factor Affecting Condomless Sex
- Started
- 18th November 2014
- Research Team
- Anastasia Eleftheriou, Seth Bullock
Example Questions
Physical attractiveness has been the subject of extensive research in the human behavioral sciences as it dramatically influences many social experiences, especially mate choice. The impression that a person’s appearance makes can strongly influence their interactions with their social environment.
As part of a larger project exploring sexual behaviour amongst heterosexual men, we use a 122-item questionnaire to investigate the influence of perceived attractiveness on the likelihood of condomless sex. The questionnaire is based on 20 female stimuli (facial images only). The procedure involves a computer-based task where the participants are asked to rate, on a scale of 0-100, the attractiveness of each woman, how likely they are to have sex with each woman, how likely each woman is to have an STI, how likely they are to have condomless sex with each woman and, out of 100 men similar to themselves, how many would have condomless sex with the woman in question should the opportunity arise.
The associations between perceived attractiveness and each of the variables mentioned above, as well as a comparison between the responses that participants made regarding their own behaviour versus their responses regarding 100 hypothetical men like themselves will be investigated.
Supervisors: Seth Bullock, Cynthia Graham, Roger Ingham.
Categories
Life sciences simulation: Biomedical, Evolution, Psychology