As dimensões sexualidade e realização na escolha do(a) parceiro(a): correlatos pessoais e sociais

Abstract

This dissertation presents three studies in order to know factors associated with the choice of heterosexual partner, considering achievement and sexuality as the main dimensions, including people aged 18 years or older (N = 691). All were convenience samples, with the participation of people who, invited, agreed to collaborate in the studies voluntarily and anonymously. The first study sought to find out to what extent the choice of attributes of achievement and sexuality are associated with human values, bright and dark personality traits and life stories, developing an explanatory model. Participants were 387 people from João Pessoa (PB), who answered the Partner Attributes Scale (PAS), the Basic Values Survey (BVS), the Mini-K (M-K), the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD) and the Prosocial Personality Inventory (PSPI+), in addition to demographic questions. Results indicated that the ideal achievement attribute was explained by slow life history, existence value and narcissistic personality trait; in the case of the ideal attribute of sexuality, the value of experimentation replaced that of existence. In this sense, the explanatory models were similar, showing the importance of life strategy, human values and the narcissism trait to explain the partner's ideal attribute. The second study aimed to test the explanatory model elaborated in the previous study, considering an inner city in Paraíba, reflecting a context of economic scarcity and low human development. Participants were 200 people residing in Santa Inês, who will answer the same instruments previously listed. This study confirmed the importance of the slow life strategy, the values of existence (ideal achievement attribute) and experimentation (ideal sexuality attribute), but the most important personality trait was gratitude, which explained both attributes. In the explanatory model, the life strategy, which previously directly influenced the partner's ideal attributes, do it mainly through gratitude. Finally, the third study sought to test whether the explanatory model of partner choice, developed in Study 1 and refined in Study 2, would work when an implicit measure of partner attributes was employed. Participants were 104 people from a public university in João Pessoa (PB), who responded, in addition to the previous instruments (PAS, BVS, M-K, DTDD and PSPI+), the computerized version of the test of implicit association of partner attributes (i.e. , TAI Achievement-Sexuality). Results indicated that only gratitude correlated with the D score (implicit measure); when considering the explicit measures separately, only the achievement value explained the ideal attribute of achievement, while when considering the ideal attribute of sexuality, only the forgiveness trait explained this attribute. In conclusion, the three studies provided an overview of partner choice, showing the importance of personal and social factors for its explanation. These findings were discussed based on the literature, indicating potential limitations of the studies and future directions.