Domains of Motivation in Men and Women for Initiating and Terminating Procreation in an Evolutionary Perspective

Domains of Motivation in Men and Women for Initiating and Terminating Procreation in an Evolutionary Perspective. Menelaos Apostolou & Maria Hadjimarkou. Marriage & Family Review, https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2017.1414723

ABSTRACT: Children require considerable resources such as time and money to be raised. Still, despite the heavy costs involved, most people do decide to have children, a fact that raises the question of what motivates them to do so. Moreover, after having one or more children, people decide not to have additional ones, even though they might still be fertile. This raises the question of what motivates people to terminate procreation. The present paper aims to address these questions using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. In Study 1, we used in-depth interviews and open-ended questionnaires that lead to the identification of 66 reasons for which people have children and 23 reasons for which people stop having children. In Study 2, we used principal component analysis that classified these reasons in broader motivation domains, 15 for procreating and 4 for terminating procreation. Sex differences were examined in each domain. By placing procreation in an evolutionary framework, this study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the motives that drive people toward and away from the process of having children.

KEYWORDS: motives for having children, motives for stop having children, procreation, reasons for having children

Despite reporting neutral explicit attitudes towards consensual nonmonogamy, young men and women demonstrated a strong automatic preference for monogamy

Young men and women’s implicit attitudes towards consensually nonmonogamous relationships. Ashley E. Thompson, Aaron J. Bagley & Elle A. Moore. Psychology & Sexuality, https://doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2018.1435560

ABSTRACT: Recent research has revealed some inconsistencies in the traditionally negative attitudes towards consensual nonmonogamy (CNM; sexually and/or emotionally nonexclusive romantic relationships), with some adults reporting fairly neutral attitudes. These inconsistencies may be related to the effects of socially desirable responding when adopting self-report (e.g. explicit) measures. Thus, the current study assessed young men and women’s implicit attitudes towards CNM (using the Implicit Association Test) in order to bypass issues associated with social desirability bias. The results from 204 college students (81 men, 123 women) revealed that, despite reporting neutral explicit attitudes towards CNM, young men and women demonstrated a strong automatic preference for monogamy (mean D score = 0.71; SD = 0.32). Furthermore, the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes was clarified by assessing the extent to which participants were likely to engage in socially desirable responding. Implicit and explicit attitudes towards CNM were more closely related among those less likely to evidence social desirability bias as compared to those who were more likely to fall prey to this bias. These findings highlight the importance of assessing implicit attitudes and provide evidence of the strong social stigma surrounding CNM.

KEYWORDS: Consensual nonmonogamy, implicit attitudes, gender differences, social desirability