Abstract:

Impressions of individuals often begin with a name. Introductions are made and perceptions formed about individual‘s behavior and potential for success and may even determine whether future interaction is desired . Some studies on recruitment behavior have found that the information of ethnicity and gender conveyed by name affected name owner’s interview opportunity. A study of online dating revealed that negatively named individuals were more neglected by other online-daters, as indicated by fewer first visits to their dating profiles. Previous researches on names were mostly focused on the names in western culture, in Chinese culture it's common that a male has a female-oriented name and vice versa. A research conducted by Chinese scholars examined the impact of first names on ratings of attractiveness by using pictures presented with male-oriented or female-oriented names , the stimulus figures whose gender orientation of name and gender identity of picture are consistent were considered more attractive. This paper explored the impact of different gender orientation of names on female mate preferences in the early stage of mate selection, when first reading the brief personal profiles of potential partners before meeting. In study1, the independent variable is the first name (male-oriented, female-oriented) of male candidates, and the dependent variable is mate selection. One tactic to disguise the hypothesis and increase the realism of the task was the use of a foil candidate in a set of three candidates. The foil candidate has a male-oriented name and was created to be weaker than the other two candidates (three variables are controlled: age, height, education level). Study2 added photographs to candidates’ profile on the basis of study1. In addition, participants rated candidates on scales adapted from the Partner Ideal Standards Scale (Fletcher et al., 1999), so as to explore the mechanism of name effect in mate selection. Each scale asked participants to indicate how accurately the item described the candidates from 1(very inaccurate) to 7 (very accurate). The ideal standard dimensions were (a) warmth/trustworthiness, (b) attractiveness/vitality, and (c) status/resources. The results of study1 and study2 showed that there were significant differences in the female participants’ selection of the three male candidates. The candidate with male-oriented name was selected more than the one with female-oriented name. The foil candidate was selected less than the one with male-oriented name, and was selected less than the one with female-oriented name.We built binary logistic regression models to predict the mate preferences from ratings of the Partner Ideal Standards Scale. The dependent variable is mate selection, of which the male-oriented name was coded “1”, and the female-oriented name was coded “0”. The independent variable is the ratings of the ideal standard dimensions. The results revealed that the perceptions of attractiveness/vitality was a significant positive predictor of mate preferences. Conclusion:(1) the gender orientation of names had an impact on mate preferences. For man, the female-oriented name got less opportunities in the early stage of mate selection. (2) The perceptions of attractiveness/vitality caused by name positively predicted mate preferences.

摘要：

对个体的第一印象经常是从名字开始的。研究表明名字的效价会影响他人对个体的评价以及在线约会等行为。本研究用实验方法探索了择偶早期进行初步接触之前,不同性别定向的名字对女性择偶偏好的影响。研究一和研究二的结果表明, 名字的性别定向会影响择偶机会。对男性来说, 女性化名字获得的择偶机会更少。名字引起的吸引力评价正向预测不同性别定向名字的择偶机会。本研究为名字的心理效应拓宽了适用领域。