A. Locascio
From Drmills
Topic: Kissing as a valuable resource for women
Contributor: Alec J Locascio
Class: Psych 452, Spring 2009
Kissing is a romantic behavior that is written about in fairy tales and romanticized and fantasized about. But, could there be subconscious tactics at play when kissing takes place? There has been some research on kissing behavior in relation to close relationships that will be summed up in this article. However, it is important to note that the arguments made in this article are based on evolutionary theory, which roots in the idea that certain patterns in behavior among modern humans, conscious or subconscious, are left over from trends or selection effects in the ancestral environment.
Hughes, Harrison, and Gallup (2007) hypothesize that kissing is of greater importance to females than it is to men because kissing can be used as a tool for making health and quality assessments of a potential mate. Tools are necessary for females who generally should be more discriminative in their mate selection than males, due to greater parental investment and a more limited reproductive potential. Hughes, Harrison, and Gallup (2007) offer evidence to suggest that females are more discriminative than males in kissing behavior as females rated breath and taste as more important than men. This importance of health in a sexual relationship is also shown by van Dijk, van Dulmen-den Broeder, Kaspers, van Dam, Braam, and Huisman (2008). These researchers provided evidence that psychosexual problems (including kissing) were frequent among childhood cancer survivors, and about 20% felt some sexual limitation due to their illness.
Women may also use kissing to engage a man in a short-term romantic relationship with her. She would potentially engage in this for reasons of obtaining resources or creating sexual diversity among offspring. Hughes, Harrison, and Gallup (2007) show that men are more likely to use kissing as a means to get a woman to engage in sex. A woman can therefore lead a man on by kissing him, making him want sex, but being careful only to engage in sex when he is committed to her, at least on a short term basis. However, these researchers also provide evidence that some men may avoid women who demand serious commitments before consenting to sex. Consequentially, men may place less importance on kissing a short-term mate to avoid attachment.
It is also possible that females use kissing as a resource for maintaining an existing relationship. Gullege, Gullege, and Stahman (2003) show in their study that kissing on the lips is seen by both men and women as being more intimate than “Cuddling/Holding,” “Caressing/Stroking,” “Kissing on the Face,” “Backrubs/Massages,” “Hugging,” and “Holding hands.” Also, related to kissing was relationship satisfaction. Since this data is simply is correlation, we cannot conclude that kissing is what caused relationship satisfaction, although it may have. One problem of the Gullege et al. (2003) study was the homogeneity of the sample. They generally had younger (18-24), white, Letter-day Saint, college students participate in the study. This homogeneity as a possible confound begets the necessity of another study with a more diverse sample. One such study by Rostosky, Galliher, Welsh, and Kawaguchi (2000) on adolescent couples indicated that, for both males and females, frequency of kissing predicted the longevity of a relationship. In the study by Hughes, Harrison, and Gallup (2007) females also rated kissing to be overall more important at every stage of a relationship than did males. This gender difference suggests that there is some reason why females value kissing more than males, which could be a tactic to induce bonding with their male partner. This theory is supported by another study by Welsh, Haugen, Widman, Darling, and Grello (2005) which gives evidence that kissing is directly and positively correlated with relationship satisfaction and commitment.
Women also may use kissing an indicator of a man’s commitment to her. Commitment from a male was very important for a woman in the ancestral environment because it provided her and her children with a means of obtaining resources. If her mate was not committed or interested in her, it would be extremely important for her to become aware of this and find a new mate. Wiederman and LaMar (1998) offer evidence which suggests that males find male-female infidelity most upsetting where females find male-male infidelity most upsetting. Even a one time sexual encounter, such as a kiss, with another male was extremely upsetting for a female because a homosexual encounter with another male, compared to a female-female sexual encounter, is definitive of his sexuality. A female-female sexual encounter is more accepted because she is not able to become pregnant, but a male-male sexual encounter denotes loss of interest in the female, and thus, loss of resources for her.
Shackelford, Buss, and Bennett (2002) offer evidence that women are more sensitive to emotional types of infidelity than men are, as men are more sensitive to sexual infidelity. Sexual infidelity on the part of the woman puts the man at risk of cuckoldry, but is less serious for a man, because he can always escape after a sexual encounter. However, emotional infidelity on the part of a man, such as intimacy displayed through kissing (Gullege et al., 2003), could denote a supply of resources to a partner outside the dyadic relationship. Women are using kissing (or observing kissing in this case) as a tool for assessing emotional infidelity in her mate.
In summery, kissing is used differently by men and women to accomplish gender-specific goals. Women use kissing to determine the health of a mate, initiate a relationship, maintain a relationship, as an indicator on the strength of a relationship, and to determine a potential loss of recourses. Men use kissing as a simple means to engage in sex. It is also important to recognize that although we can apply theory based on the ancestral environment, pronounced social differences exist with the modern world. One such difference is with a man supplying resources to a woman. Although a resource supplying man is undoubtedly valued today, he would be much more valued in the ancestral environment. This is due to a growing male/female power equality and male/female resource gathering capabilities becoming uniformly similar.
References:
Gulledge, A.K., Gulledge, M.H., & Stahmann, R.F. (2003). Romantic physical affection types and relationship satisfaction. American Journal of Family Therapy, 31(4), 233-242.
Hughes, S.M., Harrison, M.A., and Gallup, G.G. Jr. (2007). Sex differences in romantic kissing among college students: An evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary Psychology, 5(1), 612-631.
Rostosky, S.S., Galiher, R.V., Welsh, D.P, & Kawaguchi, M.C. (2000). Sexual behaviors and relationship qualities in late adolescent couples. Journal of Adolescence, 23(5), 583-397.
Shackelford, T.K., Buss, D.M., & Bennett, K. (2002). Forgiveness or breakup: Sex differences in responses to a partner’s infidelity. Cognition and Emotion, 16(2), 299-307
van Dijk, E.M., van Dulmen-den Broeder, E.; Kaspers, G. J. L. van Dam, E. W. C. M., Braam, K. I., Huisman, J. (2008). Psychosexual Functioning in Childhood Cancer Survivors. Psycho-Oncology, 17(5), 506-511.
Welsh, D.P., Haugen, P.T., Widman, L., Darling, N., & Grello, C.M. (2005). Kissing is good: A developmental investigation of sexuality in adolescent romantic couples. Sexuality Research & Social Policy: A Journal of the NSRC, 2(4), 32-41.
Wiederman, M.W. & LeMar, L. (1998)."Not with Him You Don't!": Gender and Emotional Reactions to Sexual Infidelity during Courtship. Journal of Sex Research, 35(3), 288-297.
Web Links:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/10/AR2008021001197.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070830121629.htm
http://evolutionarypsychology.tribe.net/thread/bc324b09-4a5c-48ae-853a-02d6b977d4eb
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-479512/How-women-choose-Mr-Right-Its-kiss.html
RATINGS:
Scale: 1 - 5 (5 is best)
_4__ discovered, integrated and synthesized relevant information about the topic
_3__ critical analysis of information (of both corroborating and non-corroborating evidence)
_4__ conclusions based on empirical evidence (when available), not simply opinion
_4__ written in an impartial, objective tone
_5__ the contribution fits in well with the existing outline and material
_3__ writing is of high quality: interesting, flows, analytic, organized
_4__ used APA style referencing appropriately (including reference list)
_5__ included relevant graphics (tables, histograms, photos, etc.).
_5__ included a list of relevant external web links for more information
GRADE: B
