Costly female appearance-enhancement provides cues of short-term mating effort: The case of cosmetic surgery

Across three studies, we explore the relationship between cosmetic surgery, which functions as a costly appearance-enhancement tactic, and women's short-term mating effort. Study 1 demonstrates that women who exert increased short-term mating effort are more accepting of costly appearance-enhan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality and individual differences 2019-02, Vol.138, p.48-55
Main Authors: Bradshaw, Hannah K., Leyva, Randi Proffitt, Nicolas, Sylis C.A., Hill, Sarah E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Appearance enhancement
Cosmetic surgery
Cosmetics
Cues
Mating
Perceptions
Plastic surgery
Sexual behavior
Short term
Short-term mating effort
Women
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Summary:Across three studies, we explore the relationship between cosmetic surgery, which functions as a costly appearance-enhancement tactic, and women's short-term mating effort. Study 1 demonstrates that women who exert increased short-term mating effort are more accepting of costly appearance-enhancement techniques (i.e., cosmetic surgery), but not relatively low-cost appearance-enhancement techniques (i.e., facial cosmetics). Study 2 and 3 further show that both men and women use information regarding a female targets' cosmetic surgery usage to infer increased short-term mating effort. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrates that inferences of short-term mating effort do not differ as a function of whether the target received facial or body cosmetic surgery. The findings of the current research demonstrate that women's engagement in extreme beautification procedures can influence others' perceptions of their short-term mating effort.
ISSN:0191-8869
1873-3549
DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2018.09.019