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- Author or Editor: Abraham P. Buunk x
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The present research examined attitudes towards cousin marriages among young people from various ethnic groups living in The Netherlands. The sample consisted of 245 participants, with a mean age of 21, and included 107 Dutch, 69 Moroccans, and 69 Turks. The parents of the latter two groups came from countries where cousin marriages are accepted. Participants reported more negative than positive attitudes towards cousin marriage, and women reported more negative attitudes than did men. The main objection against marrying a cousin was that it is wrong for religious reasons, whereas the risk of genetic defects was considered less important. Moroccans had less negative attitudes than both the Dutch and the Turks, who did not differ from each other. Among Turks as well as among Moroccans, a more positive attitude towards cousin marriage was predicted independently by a preference for parental control of mate choice and religiosity. This was not the case among the Dutch. Discussion focuses upon the differences between Turks and Moroccans, on the role of parental control of mate choice and religiosity, and on the role of incest avoidance underlying attitudes towards cousin marriage.
Abstract
Intrasexual competition implies viewing the confrontation with same-sex individuals, especially in the context of contact with the opposite-sex, in competitive terms. After constructing the items for the preliminary scale and after conducting a pilot study, in two studies with a total of 706 participants from The Netherlands and Canada, a 12-item scale for individual differences in intrasexual competition was developed that was sex neutral, and that had a high degree of crossnational equivalence. In The Netherlands, sociosexuality, sex drive and social comparison orientation were independently related to intrasexual competition. In Canada, intrasexual competition was strongly, and independently of the Big Five, related to social comparison orientation, but only among women. There was no effect of birth order, but sibling rivalry did correlate with intrasexual competition. Among men, intrasexual competition was more strongly, and differently, related to the Big Five than among women. Among women, intrasexual competition was predicted by a lack of agreeableness, and among men by a high level of neuroticism and extraversion.
Abstract
Mating rivalry is not only limited to one's ingroup, but also outgroup members can be perceived as potential romantic competitors. In the present research, intergroup intrasexual competition (IIC) is defined as the extent to which individuals react negatively towards potential outgroup same-sex members in the context of mating competition. The authors present a scale developed to assess individual variation in IIC. The scale was administered to five student samples: 78 Dutch, 396 Dutch, 105 German, 306 Latvian and 96 Russian. Through a factor analysis, a long version of the scale was reduced to a 12-item version. A moderate test-retest correlation was established. IIC correlated positively with intrasexual competition, social dominance orientation, possessive jealousy and perceived vulnerability to disease, serving as indicators of convergent validity. As predicted, men scored overall higher than women on the IIC scale, but not in the samples where the participants came from a national minority group (Germans in the Netherlands and Russians in Latvia). Latvian male participants showed the highest level of IIC, followed by the Russians, the Dutch and the Germans.
The present research examined the consequences of father abandonment for the reproductive strategies of girls from the Caribbean island of Curaçao. The sample consisted of 189 girls with an average age of 19.11 (SD = 2.97). Respondents were categorized in three groups, namely: ‘early father absence’ (abandoned between 0–5 years of age), ‘late father absence’ (abandoned between 6–13 years of age) and ‘father presence’ (father present during childhood). The results showed that compared to ‘late father absence’ girls and ‘father presence’ girls, ‘early father absence’ girls initiated sexual intercourse at a significant younger age. Moreover, they were less interested in getting married and in having grandchildren. These differences could not be explained by differences in educational level of the participants or occupational level of the father and the mother. There were no significant differences between the three groups in the age of menarche, the total number of sexual partners and the desire to have children. From an evolutionary life history perspective, we discuss possible explanations for, and implications of, these findings.
Most studies on changes in female behavior and preferences across the menstrual cycle have been conducted in samples comprised of largely white undergraduate students from Western populations. The present study examined cyclical shifts in reactive, preventive and anxious jealousy in a sample of 71 Afro-Caribbean women from Curaçao, a country in the Caribbean. We expected that, because of the risk of conceiving, especially preventive jealousy would be relatively high when fertile to safeguard the male’s protection, provisioning and investment. The results showed that, when fertile, women experienced indeed particularly more preventive jealousy, and also somewhat more anxious jealousy, but not more reactive jealousy, than when non-fertile. In addition, preventive jealousy was higher the later the age of the first menarche. We discuss possible explanations for the functionality of preventive jealousy during the fertile phase of the cycle, and for the functionality of such jealousy among women with a slow life history strategy.
