The Longevity Project » Sexuality

Predictors of the Longevity Difference: A 25-Year Follow-Up

TLP — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:01:48 +0000

Twenty-two variables were found to be significant predictors of longevity among 252 panelists in a 25-year longitudinal study of aging. The strongest independent predictors for men were health self-rating, work satisfaction, and performance intelligence; for women they were health satisfaction, past enjoyment of intercourse, and physical function rating. These predictors could constitute a combined difference in longevity of 16 years for men and 23 years for women.

Erdman B. Palmore, PhD, Professor of Medical Sociology and Senior Fellow

Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Box 3003, Duke Medical Center Durham, NC 27710

Effect of 1 Week of Sleep Restriction on Testosterone Levels in Young Healthy Men

TLP — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 11:06:10 +0000

Chronic sleep curtailment is endemic in modern societies. The majority of the daily testosterone release in men occurs during sleep.
1 Sleep fragmentation and obstructive sleep apnea are associated with reduced testosterone levels.
2 In older men, morning testosterone levels are partly predicted by total sleep time.
3 Testosterone is critical in male sexual behavior and reproduction, but also has important beneficial effects on muscle mass and strength, adiposity, bone density, and vigor and well-being.
4 We investigated the effect of 1 week of sleep restriction on testosterone levels in young healthy men.

Leproult R, Van Cauter E.
JAMA. 2011 Jun 1;305(21):2173-4.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/21/2173

Happy guys finish last: The impact of emotion expressions on sexual attraction

TLP — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:41:17 +0000

This research examined the relative sexual attractiveness of individuals showing emotion expressions of happiness, pride, and shame compared with a neutral control. Across two studies using different images and samples ranging broadly in age (total N = 1041), a large gender difference emerged in the sexual attractiveness of happy displays: happiness was the most attractive female emotion expression, and one of the least attractive in males. In contrast, pride showed the reverse pattern; it was the most attractive male expression, and one of the least attractive in women. Shame displays were relatively attractive in both genders, and, among younger adult women viewers, male shame was more attractive than male happiness, and not substantially less than male pride. Effects were largely consistent with evolutionary and socio-cultural-norm accounts. Overall, this research provides the first evidence that distinct emotion expressions have divergent effects on sexual attractiveness, which vary by gender but largely hold across age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

Tracy JL, Beall AT.

Emotion. 2011 May 23.

Elsevier Science

“He loves me, he loves me not . . . “: uncertainty can increase romantic attraction.

CL — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 10:51:42 +0000

Psychol Sci. 2011 Feb 1;22(2):172-5. Epub 2010 Dec 17.

Whitchurch ER, Wilson TD, Gilbert DT.

1University of Virginia.

Abstract
This research qualifies a social psychological truism: that people like others who like them (the reciprocity principle). College women viewed the Facebook profiles of four male students who had previously seen their profiles. They were told that the men (a) liked them a lot, (b) liked them only an average amount, or (c) liked them either a lot or an average amount (uncertain condition). Comparison of the first two conditions yielded results consistent with the reciprocity principle. Participants were more attracted to men who liked them a lot than to men who liked them an average amount. Results for the uncertain condition, however, were consistent with research on the pleasures of uncertainty. Participants in the uncertain condition were most attracted to the men-even more attracted than were participants who were told that the men liked them a lot. Uncertain participants reported thinking about the men the most, and this increased their attraction toward the men.

PMID: 21169522 [PubMed - in process]

Young without plastic surgery: perceptual adaptation to the age of female and male faces.

CL — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:12:02 +0000

Vision Res. 2010 Nov 23;50(23):2570-6. Epub 2010 Aug 26.
Young without plastic surgery: perceptual adaptation to the age of female and male faces.
Schweinberger SR , Zäske R , Walther C , Golle J , Kovács G , Wiese H .

DFG Research Unit Person Perception, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany. stefan.schweinberger@uni-jena.de

Abstract

Adaptation influences perception not only of simple stimulus qualities such as motion or colour, but also of complex stimuli such as faces. Here we demonstrate contrasting aftereffects of adaptation to facial age. In Experiment 1, participants adapted to either young or old faces, and subsequently estimated the age of morphed test faces with interpolated ages of 30, 40, 50 or 60 years. Following adaptation to old adaptors, test faces were classified as much younger when compared to classifications of the same test faces following adaptation to young faces, which in turn caused subjective test face “aging”. These aftereffects were reduced but remained clear even when facial gender changed between adaptor and test faces. In Experiment 2, we induced simultaneous opposite age aftereffects for female and male faces. Overall, these results demonstrate interactions in the perception of facial age and gender, and support dissociable neuronal coding of male and female faces.