Abstract
Cues of kinship are predicted to increase prosocial behavior due to the benefits of inclusive fitness, but to decrease approach motivation due to the potential costs of inbreeding. Previous studies have shown that facial resemblance, a putative cue of kinship, increases prosocial behavior. However, the effects of facial resemblance on mating preferences are equivocal, with some studies finding that facial resemblance decreases sexual attractiveness ratings, while other studies show that individuals choose mates partly on the basis of similarity. To further investigate this issue, a psychophysiological measure of affective processing, the startle response, was used in this study, assuming that differences in approach motivation to erotic pictures will modulate startle. Male volunteers (n = 30) viewed 30 pictures of erotic female nudes while startle eyeblink responses were elicited by acoustic noise probes. The female nude pictures were digitally altered so that the face either resembled the male participant or another participant, or were not altered. Non-nude neutral pictures were also included. Importantly, the digital alteration was undetected by the participants. Erotic pictures were rated as being pleasant and clearly reduced startle eyeblink magnitude as compared to neutral pictures. Participants showed greater startle inhibition to self-resembling than to other-resembling or non-manipulated female nude pictures, but subjective pleasure and arousal ratings did not differ among the three erotic picture categories. Our data suggest that visual facial resemblance of opposite-sex nudes increases approach motivation in men, and that this effect was not due to their conscious evaluation of the erotic stimuli.
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Notes
IAPS picture numbers used in this study were 7000, 7002, 7004, 7006, 7009, 7010, 7020, 7025, 7035, and 7040.
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Dr. Perett, Dr. Tiddeman, and Dr. Burt for the use of their image manipulation software. Johanna Lass-Hennemann, Christian E. Deuter, Linn K. Kuehl, Andre Schulz, and Hartmut Schachinger are members of the International Research Training Group “Psychoneuroendocrinology of Stress: From Molecules and Genes to Affect and Cognition” funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: DFG), grant GRK 1389/1.
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Lass-Hennemann, J., Deuter, C.E., Kuehl, L.K. et al. Effect of Facial Self-Resemblance on the Startle Response and Subjective Ratings of Erotic Stimuli in Heterosexual Men. Arch Sex Behav 40, 1007–1014 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-010-9662-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-010-9662-8