The Effects of Cues to Ambient Darkness on Women's Willingness to Engage With Physically Strong Men

Despite the overall desirability of men's upper body strength, women's preference for such features remains bounded to contexts in which the benefits exceed the potential costs. The relative salience of these costs could be augmented within ostensibly threatening environments, which could include one of ambient darkness. This study sought to determine whether women's interest in strong men would become downregulated in the presence of these cues. A sample of sorority women reported their reactions to meeting a hypothetical man on campus who was manipulated to appear either strong or weak with the image manipulated to be either at night or during the day. Although women reported feeling more comfortable around the weak man in the dark compared to the strong man, no difference emerged in their evaluations of strong men during the day and night. These findings suggest that women functionally shift their interest in strong men based on environmental cues that could implicate men as costly.