A música como moduladora na escolha de parceiros: um estudo sobre musicalidade e seleção sexual humana

Abstract

The human musicality is subject of debate in many different areas of knowledge. Musicality´s universal presence, dating from at least 36,000 years, and its everyday use as a tool of expression are some of the many arguments that corroborate the importance of this behavior in our species. Human musicality has parallels with similar attributes in other species of birds, cetaceans and primates, in which this feature has been studied systematically since the Darwin´s first observations in the Evolutionary Theory composition. The Musicology Evolutionist proposes to study the latest function of human musicality. Our hypotheses proposed to explain the function of musical behavior in our species is that the music would be intrinsically linked to the behavior selection and partners choice. In our study, three groups composed of both sexes were exposed to a musical stimulus each and asked to evaluate photos of subjects of both sexes according to characteristics such as attractiveness, intelligence, familiarity, reliability and aroused sexual interest. Therefore, we sought to investigate the effect of musical stimuli, according to its quality, the sexual partners selection, through photographic stimuli evaluation. We found differences in the effect of music on men and women. Women are more responsive to presented melodies. The results also point to a greater effect of low quality musical stimuli, which negatively affect the perception of partners. We also found different effects according to the presented potential partners market value. Finally we find different musical stimuli effects in the different variables evaluation, such as attractiveness, intelligence, familiarity, reliability and aroused sexual interest. From the obtained results, we find evidence supporting the hypothesis that human musical behavior is linked to the selection and choice of sexual partners.