「好男人都被搶光了！」真是如此嗎？還是女性比較喜歡那些已經有女友或已婚的男性呢？一個發表在「實驗社會心理學期刊(Journal of Experimental Social Psychology)」，由奧克拉荷馬州立大學(Oklanhoma State University)兩位心理學家所作的有趣實驗發現：單身的女性特別會受到已有伴侶男性的吸引。
在實驗中加入「有伴侶」的這項條件，會使女性們對同一位男性有好感的比例從59%增加到90%。但實驗中的男性們，對於女性「有伴侶」與否，並無明顯差異。可是，不是也有些調查顯示，男性有較強的傾向去追求有伴侶的女性嗎？－這也很有可能只是因為男性較願意承認這種「追求他人伴侶」的行為或念頭。
實驗事實上很簡單，也只能得到這個簡單的結論。無從得知「文化」或其他社會化因素是否會影響實驗的結果。實驗只在美國進行，所以如果要考慮文化等其他社會化因素，或許可以這樣來看：越是美國化(接受美國價值觀)的社會，應該會越接近這項實驗的結果。
August 13, 2009, 11:51 amDo Single Women Seek Attached Men?By John Tierney
Researchers have debated for years whether men or women are likelier to engage in “
mate poaching.”
Some surveys indicated that men had a stronger tendency to go after other people’s partners, but was that just because men were more likely to admit engaging in this behavior? Now there’s experimental evidence that
single women are particularly drawn to other people’s partners, according to a report in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by two social psychologists, Melissa Burkley and Jessica Parker of Oklahoma State University.
Noting that single women often complain that “
all the good men are taken,” the psychologists wondered if “this perception is really based on the fact that taken men are perceived as good.” To investigate, the researchers quizzed male and female undergraduates — some involved in romantic relationships, some unattached — about their ideal romantic partner.
Next, each of the experimental subjects was told that he or she had been matched by a computer with a like-minded partner, and each was shown a photo of an attractive person of the opposite sex. (All the women saw the same photo, as did all the men.) Half of the subjects were told that their match was already romantically involved with someone else, while the other half were told that their match was unattached. Then the subjects were all asked how interested they were in their match.
To the men in the experiment, and to the women who were already in relationships,
it didn’t make a significant difference whether their match was single or attached. But single women showed a distinct preference for mate poaching. When the man was described as unattached, 59 percent of the single women were interested in pursuing him. When that same man was described as being in a committed relationship, 90 percent were interested.
The researchers write:
According to a recent poll, most women who engage in mate poaching do not think the attached status of the target played a role in their poaching decision, but our study shows this belief to be false.
Single women in this study were significantly more interested in the target when he was attached. This may be because an attached man has demonstrated his ability to commit and in some ways his qualities have already been ‘‘pre-screened” by another woman.
Well, that makes sense. But I asked Dr. Burkley, a professor of social psychology at Oklahoma State, if the correlation could also be due to another factor at work in some women: fear of intimacy. Could their interest in unavailable guys be what was keeping them single in the first place?
Maybe, Dr. Burkley replied. “There are many possible explanations for our results,” she told me, “and future research needs to identify exactly why single women prefer taken men. Our lab is currently conducting studies to try and tease apart the different potential explanations for our findings, but your explanation seems quite plausible.”
What’s your explanation? And do you have any data — anecdotal or otherwise — to offer?
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/do-single-women-seek-attached-men/
The article, "Do Single Women Seek Attached Men?", was taken from the New York Times. The copyright of this article belongs to its original owner. The author of this article and the New York Times are not involved with, nor endorse the produciton of this blog. "The New York Times" is the registered trade mark of the New York Times Company. 
Photo taken in the Studio of RTHK. By courtesy of Pikyin.
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