INTRASEXUAL COMPETITION AMONG HUMANS: PROSOCIAL TOWARDS THE OPPOSITE SEX AND PROSELF TOWARDS THE SAME SEX?

In a research conducted on a sample of participants from three countries (N = 256): Poland, Ukraine and Denmark, a hypothesis of the moderating impact of other person sex on the level of social value orientation of men and women was tested. The study applied the now rarely used method of measuring social value orientation: the Warsaw Method, which was expected to reveal more subtle differences between men and women than those observed in the studies using the most popular social value orientation measurement tools, such as decomposed games. The direction of the observed relationship proved to be compatible with the predictions resulting from the phenomenon of intrasexual competition for a partner, however only in the case of men. Men were more prosocial in interaction with women than with other men, and more pro-self- interacting with men rather than women. Similar relationships assumed in the case of women were only partially confirmed: women were more pro-self in interaction with same-sex partners compared to interactions with opposite sex partners (however, the relationship was statistically significant only within the individualistic value orientation), but at the same time they were prosocial (but only within the cooperative value orientation).