The Autumn Years: Age Differences in Preferences for Sexually Dimorphic Faces.

Life history theory proposes that it is adaptive for older people to shift investment away from reproductive effort (such as mating) to survivorship. However, it remains unclear whether the shift is also present at the psychological level. We investigated this question by comparing preferences for mate choice-relevant cues, sexually dimorphic facial images, between older (60 years and older, n = 92) and younger adults (18-40 years, n = 86). Results showed that older adults had significantly smaller preferences for sexually dimorphic faces of both sexes than young adults. Specifically, both older men and women showed no significant preferences for sexually dimorphic traits when judging opposite-sex faces, and smaller preferences for masculine male faces and feminine female faces when judging same-sex faces. Young adults generally showed strong preferences for masculine male faces and feminine female faces. In Study 2, we confirmed that the absent/reduced preferences in older adults for sexually dimorphic faces did not result from poor visual ability. The smaller preferences for sexually dimorphic facial cues in older adults compared to young adults suggest that older adults may shift away from mating-oriented psychology as they become less fertile.

The impact of students with left-behind experiences on childhood: The relationship between negative life events and depression among college students in China.

BACKGROUND: The number of left-behind children in rural China has increased dramatically over the last decade. It is reported that about 21.88% of child population with an estimated number of 61 million are left-behind children whose parents leave them to work in cities. We conducted a cross-sectional study to explore the impacts of left-behind experience (LBE) on college students' depression and other influencing factors. AIM: This study discusses the mediation effect of self-esteem together with psychological resilience on college students with depression and negative life events of left-behind. The study also discusses the regulation effect of LBE. METHODS: A total of 788 college students were selected from three universities in Sichuan and Chongqing (367 with LBEs, 421 without LBEs). Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List (ASLEC), Self-Esteem Scale (SES), Resilience Scale of Chinese Adolescent (RSCA) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to measure the negative life events, self-esteem, psychological resilience and depression, respectively. Bootstrap program was used to test the mediation effect, and multiple-group analysis was used to examine the regulation effect for LBE. RESULTS: Scores of ASLEC for the college students with LBEs were higher than those without LBEs (8.59 ± 3.57) vs (7.06 ± 3.38), p < .001). The scores of LBE, ASLEC and SDS were positively correlated with the college students with LBEs ( r = .21 to .29, p < .01), while the scores of RSCA and SES were negatively correlated ( r = -.30 to -.59, p < .01). The mediation effect of college students' self-esteem and psychological resilience between negative life events and depression was significant (mediating effect = .08, .13, .07; p < .01). Thus, the college students' self-esteem and psychological resilience on negative life events had strong mediation effect on depression. The test of Bootstrap showed that the mediation effect of self-esteem and psychological resilience was significant (95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.04-0.76]). The LBE had regulation effect on college students' self-esteem and psychological resilience. (The constraint model fitting degree of variation is Δχ2 = 2,120.68, Δ df = 8, p < .001.) The self-esteem and psychological resilience of college students with LBEs can be used to mediate the relation between negative life events and depression, whereas those without LBEs cannot. CONCLUSION: Self-esteem and psychological resilience fully mediates college students' negative life events and depression, which is regulated by their previous LBEs.