MATING AND MALE AGGRESSION 823 scores on each of the competitive tasks and the scores of their (M..)were significantly lss aggressive than ach of men primec etitive task In the no-competitiv ondition. 0 no told how well they ison to thei d that they Neith on to the partn Par ipants in the control (non ating)c voked a no-competiv maine hei elative to their part Compared with men in the control ndition,men who com ating prime ed a m wihndreceivednofed ck.and (c)control prime petitivefeedhctri Maver aschke.1988)providi s measures of mood and ggrc therefore who had affirmed their dominance over their pa Results man's dominance over other men. Experiment 3 their tive to m d that ld be allowing us t erating effe that is. d the se o tha ed in the a differed cted o voke ession scores did not differ we sed to de We cted the effect of the mating prime on The first cor 91) about the competitio with E hypothesized mating prime 0.75 SD ants.(b)this incre me displ d me n than restricted men.The hypo ong would provide strong evidence for the functiona ed effect of mating motives on aggres d the tition 57. Method The final planped con for differe s in ke Participants.One hundred eighty undergraduates partic ng pthe ourse crec competition.Men primed with mating who won the competition participants (82 women).scores on each of the competitive tasks and the scores of their ostensible partner. The partner’s scores were fabricated so that the participant performed better than the partner on each of the com￾petitive tasks. In the no-competitive-feedback condition, partici￾pants received their own scores on each of the competitive tasks but were not told how well they scored in comparison to their partner. Instead, those participants were told that they would find out at the end of the experiment how well they scored in compar￾ison to the partner. Participants in the control (nonmating) condi￾tion received feedback identical to those in the no-competitive￾feedback condition; they received their own scores but no information about how well they had done relative to their partner. In sum, there were three experimental conditions: (a) mating prime with no competitive feedback, (b) mating prime with competitive feedback, and (c) control prime with no competitive feedback. Participants then completed the Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Mayer & Gaschke, 1988), providing measures of mood and arousal. Finally, participants completed the noise-blast aggression paradigm, which provided measures of unprovoked and provoked aggression. Results We expected men who completed the mating prime and who did not receive competitive feedback to demonstrate higher levels of aggression toward their partner, relative to men who completed the control prime. This would replicate the pattern from Experiment 1. However, we also predicted that this effect would be eliminated by the presence of competitive feedback; that is, we expected aggres￾sion among men in the mating prime/competitive feedback condi￾tion to be equivalent to that observed in the control condition. To test these predictions, we first conducted two omnibus anal￾yses of variance to determine whether unprovoked aggression or provoked aggression scores differed by experimental condition. The omnibus tests indicated significant differences in unprovoked aggression among the three experimental conditions, F(2, 67)
3.32, p
.04, 2
.09. Provoked aggression scores did not differ significantly by condition (p
.60). Three planned contrasts were used to deconstruct the significant omnibus test for unprovoked aggression. The first contrast tested for differences in unprovoked aggression among men in the mating and control condition who received no feedback about the competition. Consistent with Ex￾periment 1, when participants received no feedback about the outcome of the competition, men who completed the mating prime (M
0.75, SD
1.49) displayed more aggression than men who completed the control prime (M
– 0.41, SD
1.58), F(1, 67)
6.14, p
.02, 2
.08. The second planned contrast tested for differences in aggression between participants who completed the mating prime and were told they won the competition and partic￾ipants who completed the control prime. We predicted that unpro￾voked aggression scores would not differ among these groups. Consistent with the prediction, participants in the mating condition who believed they won the competition (M
– 0.17, SD
1.52) showed no increases in aggression compared with control partic￾ipants (M
– 0.41, SD
1.58), F(1, 67)
.33, p
.57, 2 .01. The final planned contrast tested for differences in unprovoked aggression among participants who completed the mating prime, and either did or did not receive feedback that they won the competition. Men primed with mating who won the competition (M
– 0.17, SD
1.52) were significantly less aggressive than men primed with mating who received no feedback about the competition (M
0.75, SD
1.49), F(1, 67)
4.01, p .05, 2
.06. As in the previous experiment, we tested for differences across conditions in mood valence and arousal to rule out the possibility that these factors could account for the observed effects. Neither mood valence (p
.18), nor arousal (p
.10), differed by condition. Moreover, the effect of condition on unprovoked ag￾gression remained significant even after controlling for mood valence and arousal, F(2, 65)
3.52, p
.04, 2
.10. Compared with men in the control condition, men who com￾pleted a mating prime and received no feedback about the outcome of the competition with their partner demonstrated higher levels of unprovoked aggression. This pattern is consistent with the finding from Experiment 1 and supports the hypothesis that mating mo￾tives increase aggressive behavior in men. However, this increase in aggression was observed only when men were not told about the outcome of the competition. Men who won the competition, and therefore who had affirmed their dominance over their partner, showed no increase in aggression. This supports the hypothesis that mating-induced male aggression is intended to increase a man’s dominance over other men. Experiment 3 Experiment 3 was designed to replicate and extend the previous experiments in three main ways. First, the sample included partic￾ipants of both sexes, allowing us to test for moderating effects of sex. We expected men, but not women, to respond to the mating prime with increased aggression. Second, we manipulated the sex of the participants’ partner. In the previous experiments, partici￾pants were always led to believe that they had a same-sex partner. Our framework implies that mating-induced male aggression func￾tions as a means of intrasexual competition. Therefore, although a mating prime was expected to increase men’s aggression toward a male partner, we did not expect the prime to increase aggression toward a female partner. Third, we examined moderating effects of participants’ sociosexual orientation (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). We expected the effect of the mating prime on increased aggression to be especially pronounced among sexually unre￾stricted men—those who tend to pursue a short-term mating strat￾egy. In sum, we hypothesized that (a) a mating prime would increase aggressive behavior among male participants, but not female participants, (b) this increase would be specific to men interacting with a male partner (not a female partner), and (c) the increased aggression would be more pronounced among sexually unrestricted men than restricted men. These hypotheses thus imply a four-way interaction among experimental prime, participant sex, partner sex, and sociosexual orientation. Evidence for this four￾way interaction would provide strong evidence for the functional specificity of the hypothesized effect of mating motives on aggres￾sion. Method Participants. One hundred eighty undergraduates partici￾pated for course credit. Three participants who correctly guessed that the partner was a confederate were excluded, leaving 177 participants (82 women). MATING AND MALE AGGRESSION 823 This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.