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Reading Reports of Empirical Studies

The purpose of the Introduction is to describe the problem, develop the theoretical and empirical background for the research questions, and elaborate a rationale for all parts of the study. In order to understand why the research was conducted, you need to ask yourself the following questions: 
  • What are the research questions? 
  • Where did these research questions come from? 
  • Is the research important? Why or why not? 
These questions set up the context and rationale for the study. Read the Introduction section of the published article and see if you can answer these questions. Then work through the summary of the introduction below. Help in addressing the questions can be found in the left column. 


 
 
 
 

What are the research questions?self-test
 
 

Where did these research questions come from?self-test
 
 

Is this research important? Discussion Group
Adolescents' Age Preferences for Dating Partners: Support for an Evolutionary Model of Life-History Strategies
Douglas T. Kenrick, Richard C. Keefe, Christina Gabrielidis, and Jeffrey S. Cornelius

How and why do we develop the social relationships that we do? Gray (1994) discusses three types of perspectives on social behaviour, biological theories, cultural theories, and cognitive theories. Biological theories emphasize the evolutionary or adaptive function of behaviour. Cultural theories consider social behaviour as developing according to the norms and values of society. Cognitive theories examine social behaviour as a function of different ways of thinking. Kenrick, Keefe, Gabrielidis, and Cornelius (1996) contrasted two of these perspectives, namely biological and cultural theories, in their study of adolescent dating preferences. 

Kenrick et al. reviewed research that identifies gender differences in adult partner preferences. In many studies, using different populations and different data collection methods, researchers consistently find that men prefer younger women and women prefer younger men. Our North American culture supports this pattern; according to our cultural norms, husbands are supposed to be older, wiser, and stronger than wives. In our culture, females are socialized to prefer older males and males are socialized to desire younger females. 

A cultural explanation of partner preference makes sense - except that cross-cultural research has shown that many other cultures show this same gender difference in partner preference. Kenrick et al. outlined an evolutionary "life history" perspective which they believe explains relationship preferences better than cultural perspectives. 

A life history is a genetic pattern of behaviours that are important for survival, growth, and reproduction. According to a life history strategy, it is more adaptive for males to prefer fertile females and females to prefer males who can provide for the family. To learn more about the evolutionary life history approach, you might want to check out the projects on mate preference that introductory psychology students at the University of Gettysburg completed last year. 

Both the evolutionary life history perspective and the cultural perspective make the same prediction about adult partner preferences. But what about adolescents and young adults? According to Kenrick et al, the two perspectives make different predictions about adolescent partner preferences. Kenrick et al. interviewed junior high and high school students to determine date age preferences in their empirical investigation of life history and cultural perspectives of partner preference. 
read.gif (919 bytes)   Reading the Research Questions to Consider
  Title Abstract Introduction Method Results Discussion References