童年亲子关系与“好资源”对未婚男性性开放态度的影响

The influence of parent-child relationship and “good resource” on unmarried males’ unrestricted sociosexual attitudes

本研究采用实验启动的方式探讨“好资源”和童年环境对未婚男性性开放态度的影响,结果发现童年亲子关系(而不是童年经济状况)在资源线索启动和性开放态度之间存在显著调节作用。研究1采用想象启动来控制个体的资源获取状况,结果发现:童年亲子关系差的个体在“好资源”想象时其性开放态度较“差资源”想象时明显提升。研究2采用图片情境的资源想象方式,在研究1的基础上进一步把亲子关系细分成亲子沟通、亲子焦虑和亲子回避三个维度,结果表明:童年亲子回避在男性资源状况启动和性开放态度之间存在显著调节作用,童年亲子高回避的个体在“好资源”照片情境想象下其性开放态度显著提升,而童年亲子低回避的个体在“好资源”照片情境想象下其性开放态度明显下降;此外,童年亲子回避在性开放态度上的主效应显著,亲子回避程度高的个体其性开放态度也更高。两个研究共同揭示了“男人有钱就变坏”的情境和群体特殊性。

As a Chinese popular saying goes,“Money turns a good man into a bad man”.Is this saying reflecting the truth or not?This research would discuss this phenomenon from the evolutionary perspective.“Good Resource”has been regarded as one of the most important aspects that males self-evaluate in the mating process.However,little has been known regarding whether and why male mating strategy would vary under different levels of resource availability.According to Life History Theory,the development of humans’sexual strategy is based on childhood experiences,which would be influenced by current environmental conditions as well.According to previous research,two studies explored how resource-acquiring cues and childhood experiences(including childhood economic condition and parent-child relationship)would influence unmarried males’unrestricted sociosexual attitudes.Study 1 adopted the imaginary method,recruited 62 college students(M=19.53 years,SD=2.78)in a psychology class at Fudan University. Participants were randomly divided into two groups and filled theirdemographic information including childhood economic background and parent-child relationships, followed bythe task of writing an article. The article was based on the imagination of living either a wealthy life or anunderprivileged life. Participants completed the questionnaire adapted from the SOI-STMO (SociosexualOrientation Inventory - Short-term Mating Orientation Scale;Jackson & Kirkpatrick, 2007) after writing thearticle. The results showed that parent-child relationship during early childhood was a moderator in theassociation between the quality of resource and their sexual attitudes. However, the moderating effect ofchildhood economic background was not found to be statistically significant.Study 2 utilized Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures questionnaire (ECR-RS) toexplore the moderating effect of attachment styles on the association between the quality of resource andparticipants’ sexual attitudes. Participants were randomly divided into two groups and filled out theirdemographic information including childhood economic background and the ECR-RS. Participants werepresented with three pictures that showed either “good” or “bad” resource, wrote an article regarding theexperience, and completed the questionnaire adapted from the Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale (Hendrick, Hendrick,& Reich, 2006). Participants’ photos of their own face were integrated in those pictures to increase a sense ofauthenticity. According to the results, avoidantly-attached behaviors in the early childhood had the mostsignificant moderating effect on the relationship between resource-acquiring capability and participants’ sexualattitudes. To be specific, highly avoidant participants were more likely to have more open sexual attitudes if theyhad “good resource.” Those on the lower end of avoidance tended to show a significant lower level ofunrestricted sexual attitudes under the situation of “good resource” (vs “bad resource”).Given these two studies, the previous statement of “Money turns a good man into a bad man” seemed to betrue only for those who showed an avoidant attachment style to their parents at the young age. The current studyaimed to enrich the Life History Theory literature and provide useful implication and direction for future studies.