A Research On Influence Of Father Presence And Absence On The Daughter’s Mate Preference

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of father presence and absence on daughter’s mate preference from the two aspects of ideal and actual mate preference.Two studies were conducted:Study 1: To explore the influence of father presence and absence on daughter’s ideal mate preference,we recruit 500 female college students who are currently in love,ask everyone to complete the Brief Version of Chinese Revision of Father Presence Questionnaire(FPQ-R-B),father absence questionnaire,mother attitude type scale,while providing her biological father and boyfriend’s pohots.Finally,we get 147 effective Subjects(father presence : One hundred and seventeen;father absence :thirty),the scores of 117 subjects in the FPQ-R-B are sorted from low to high,select the top 27% subjects as the group of low level father presence,after 27% as the group of high level father presence,the rest as the group of medium level father presence.Then,the four groups of subjects all are asked to evaluated the facial attractiveness and willingness to mate of the similar and dissimilar photos with their fathers,which are synthetised by morph technique,the whole process records reaction time.The results showed that: compared with he daughters whose fathers have medium and low level of father presence and the daughters whose father are absent,the daughters whose fathers have high level of father presence have higher score in the evaluate of facial attractiveness and willingness to mate and have shorter reaction time in the photos which are similar to their fathers,but there are no significant differences between the daughters whose fathers have medium and low level father presence and the daughters whose fathers are absent;and the four groups subjects showed no significant difference in the facial attractiveness,willingness to mate and reaction time to the photos which are not similar to their fathers.Study 2 : To explore the influence of father presence and absence ondaughter’s actual mate preference,we use father and boyfriend’s photos of the daughters whose fathers are in high and low level father presence and daughters whose fathers are absent in study 1 as experimental materials,referring to the third party evaluation paradigm,showing photos through the E-prime program,on the left side of the screen is a photo of the real father,on the right side of the screen are four photos,one of them is the real boyfriend,the other three are control group.80 college students were randomly selected,unrelated to the subjects of the three groups.Their task is to match the daughter’s father and boyfriend from the three groups.The results showed that: the degree of the third party correctly match the father and boyfriend of the daughter whose father has high level father presence is significantly higher than other two groups,and this matching degree is significantly higher than the random probability of 25%,but there is no significant difference in the matching degree of the father and boyfriend between subject whose father has low level father presence and whose father is absent,and with 25% probability there is also no significant difference.Conclusion:(1)Father presence and absence will influence daughter’s ideal mate preference,the daughter whose father has high level father presence will preferred somebody who looks similar to her father as a partner,the daughters whose fathers are in the medium and low level father presence and the daughters whose fathers are absent do not show this tendency;(2)Father presence and absence will influence the daughter’s actual mate preference,to the daughter whose father has high level father presence,her boyfriend and father have higher similarity in appearance;and this probability is significantly higher than 25%,but the other two groups do not show this tendency.