Friend or foe: How familiarity of the competition affects female intrasexual competition

Friend or foe: How familiarity of the competition affects female intrasexual competition. Ella R. Doss, Emily Sophia Olson, Carin Perilloux. Human Behavior and Evolution Society 31st annual meeting. Boston 2019. http://tiny.cc/aa1w6y

Abstract: Evolutionary psychologists have studied female intrasexual competition, but there has been little research investigating specific contextual factors that affect women’s degree of intrasexual competitiveness. In the current study, female MTurk users (N = 203) between the ages of 18 and 25 read a vignette describing an upcoming party and chose an outfit they would potentially wear to it. Within the vignette, we manipulated the presence of a male crush, the familiarity of a female party companion (close friend or acquaintance), and the relative attractiveness of the companion and measured the sexiness and revealingness of clothing choices. We calculated overall revealingness and sexiness scores for each outfit by averaging ratings obtained from a separate sample (N = 100). As predicted, women told to imagine attending the party with a close friend chose the same degree of revealing clothing, regardless if their crush would be present at the party or not. However, women asked to imagine attending the party with an acquaintance chose significantly more revealing clothing if a crush was present than absent. These findings indicate that women’s intrasexual competition mechanisms are complex and appear to take into account both familiarity of rivals and presence of potential mates.