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Domestic violence shapes Colombian women’s partner choices

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Date
12/2017
Author
Borras Guevara, Martha Lucia
Batres, Carlota
Perrett, David Ian
Keywords
Masculinity
Public violence
Domestic violence
Partner preferences
Intra-sexual selection
BF Psychology
HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
DAS
BDC
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Abstract
Potential protection from violence has been suggested as an explanation for women’s preferences for more masculine partners. Previous studies, however, have not considered that violence may be multi-modal, and hence come from different sources. Therefore, we tested the effect of different fears of violence (i.e., vulnerability to public crime, likelihood of within-partnership violence) on masculinity preferences of women from Colombia, a country known for its high rates of violence. Eighty-three adult heterosexual women (mean age ± SD = 26.7 ± 6.01) answered a survey that included questions about health (e.g. frequency of illnesses during the last year and during childhood), access to media (e.g. time spent watching television, frequency of internet use), education (i.e., highest level achieved) and violence perceptions. Participants’ masculinity preferences for Salvadoran, European and Colombian male faces were recorded. Factor analysis revealed two different factors for the answers to questions related to violence. One factor loaded mostly on questions related to public violence and the second factor related to domestic violence. We found that women with higher scores on the domestic violence factor preferred significantly less masculine Colombian male faces. Even after controlling for participant age, education, access to media (TV and internet) and health-related factors, the domestic violence factor contributed significantly to explaining masculinity preferences. The results presented here suggest that women’s preferences for masculinity may be a strategy to avoid aggressive partners and that the source of violence matters in mate choice.
Citation
Borras Guevara , M L , Batres , C & Perrett , D I 2017 , ' Domestic violence shapes Colombian women’s partner choices ' , Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology , vol. 71 , no. 12 , 175 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-017-2405-2
Publication
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-017-2405-2
ISSN
0340-5443
Type
Journal article
Rights
© The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Description
This work was funded by Colciencias (Call 646), St Leonard’s College, University of St Andrews and The Russell Trust Foundation (Call 2016-2).
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/12140

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