Fundamental frequency (F0) is a salient acoustic cue in voice perception, but how F0-related attractiveness judgments vary across listeners with different sexual orientations remains insufficiently understood. This study examined attractiveness ratings under controlled F0 manipulation in Mandarin voice stimuli produced by one male and one female announcer. Eighty adults were recruited: 20 heterosexual male, 20 heterosexual female, 20 homosexual male, and 20 homosexual female participants. An adaptive three-alternative forced-choice pretest with 12 listeners established a group-level F0 just-noticeable difference (JND) of 0.215 ERB. Seven F0 levels, from −3 to +3 JNDs around each speaker’s own baseline, were then presented three times in the main experiment. Because each listener group rated only the target-voice sex that matched its presumed attraction pattern, the study compares two observed listener–target configurations rather than fully crossing listener sex, sexual orientation, and target-voice sex. Linear mixed-effects models showed that attractiveness ratings for the male voice decreased as F0 increased in both heterosexual female and homosexual male listeners, with no reliable difference in slopes. For the female voice, ratings increased with F0 in both heterosexual male and homosexual female listeners, while the homosexual-female group additionally showed a significant nonlinear component, with a fitted maximum near +2.4 JND. These findings indicate that, within these two listener–target configurations and these two controlled source voices, F0-related attractiveness judgments generally followed target-sex-related directions, whereas between-group variation was more evident in response strength and curve shape. The study contributes to experimental research on social voice perception and provides a controlled Mandarin-language baseline for future cross-linguistic comparisons of vocal social evaluation; it does not itself test intercultural variation.
In forming first impressions of others, people may notice and attend to cues about the others’ self-esteem, argued to function as a “proxy trait” that can influence inferences of other traits, including relationship desirability (Cameron et al., 2016 ). Our study provided a further test of this lay theory of self-esteem by examining how information about a hypothetical person’s self-esteem not only affects participants’ judgments of the romantic desirability of the target (from a third person perspective), but also estimates of the target’s sociosexuality (degree of being restricted vs. unrestricted in sexual attitudes and behaviors). Using a vignette experimental design, we manipulated the self-esteem (low or high) and gender (man or woman) of a hypothetical target in an online dating profile. Results indicated that a high self-esteem (HSE) target was estimated to be more attractive and desirable to online daters, and also assumed to have higher sociosexuality compared to a low self-esteem (LSE) target. Our study also contributes to the literature on gender stereotypes related to sexuality; a male target was assumed to be more unrestricted in their sociosexuality than a female target. However, the gender of the target did not interact with the self-esteem of the target to affect impressions of targets’ sociosexuality. Beyond extending past research, our results provide implications for interventions in clinical, educational, and relational contexts.
در شکل‌گیری برداشت‌های اولیه از دیگران، افراد ممکن است به نشانه‌هایی درباره عزت‌نفس دیگران توجه کنند؛ ویژگی‌ای که به عنوان «ویژگی جایگزین» مطرح شده و می‌تواند بر استنباط سایر ویژگی‌ها، از جمله مطلوبیت رابطه تأثیر بگذارد (Cameron و همکاران، ۲۰۱۶). مطالعه حاضر، نظریه عامه‌پسند عزت‌نفس را با بررسی این موضوع که چگونه اطلاعات مربوط به عزت‌نفس یک فرد فرضی نه تنها بر قضاوت شرکت‌کنندگان درباره مطلوبیت عاشقانه هدف (از منظر شخص ثالث)، بلکه بر برآوردهای آن‌ها از جامعه‌پذیری جنسی هدف (میزان محدود یا نامحدود بودن نگرش‌ها و رفتارهای جنسی) تأثیر می‌گذارد، مورد آزمون قرار داد. با استفاده از طرح آزمایشی وینیت، عزت‌نفس (پایین یا بالا) و جنسیت (مرد یا زن) یک هدف فرضی در یک پروفایل دوستیابی آنلاین دستکاری شد. نتایج نشان داد که هدف با عزت‌نفس بالا (HSE) از نظر جذابیت و مطلوبیت برای کاربران آنلاین بالاتر ارزیابی شد و همچنین فرض بر این بود که جامعه‌پذیری جنسی بالاتری نسبت به هدف با عزت‌نفس پایین (LSE) دارد. مطالعه ما همچنین به ادبیات کلیشه‌های جنسیتی مرتبط با تمایلات جنسی می‌افزاید؛ هدف مرد نسبت به هدف زن، نامحدودتر در جامعه‌پذیری جنسی فرض شد. با این حال، جنسیت هدف با عزت‌نفس هدف برای تأثیرگذاری بر برداشت‌ها از جامعه‌پذیری جنسی هدف‌ها تعامل نداشت. فراتر از گسترش پژوهش‌های پیشین، نتایج ما پیامدهایی برای مداخلات در زمینه‌های بالینی، آموزشی و روابطی دارد.
