Fickle men, faithful women: Effects of mating cues on men's and women's variety-seeking behavior in consumption

Attitudes about commitment can affect consumers' variety-seeking behavior. In the mating domain, short-term mating cues tend to activate an uncommitment mind-set in men and lead them to seek greater variety in romantic relationships; whereas long-term mating cues tend to activate a commitment mind-set in women and lead them to seek less variety. In this research, we explore whether short-term and long-term mating cues can likewise affect variety-seeking behavior in the product consumption domain through their influence on commitment attitude. In three experiments, we demonstrate that men's variety-seeking behavior increases in the presence of short-term but not long-term mating cues; conversely, women's variety-seeking behavior decreases in the presence of long-term but not short-term mating cues. These effects are caused by attitude toward commitment induced by mating cues. Past research concerning this topic has focused on one gender and on short-term mating cues only, but in this paper we provide a more complete picture and a more coherent theory of how, via influencing commitment attitude, mating cues affect variety seeking behavior differently in men than in women. (C) 2015 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.