Article

Petrenko V.F., Suprun A.P., Yanova N.G. (2017). Psychosemantic study of female visual perception of men (Russian mentality). National Psychological Journal, 4, 67–74.

Abstract

Background. The evaluation of the visual object by the perceiving subject depends both on the features of the object (qualities, characteristics, properties), on the one hand, and the characteristics of the subject of perception (mentality, inherent archetypes, gender, aesthetic representations, value systems, motivation, etc.). Therefore, speaking about external beauty, we must first build a typology of subjects of evaluation, and then conduct an analysis of preferences within homogeneous groups.

Objective. Isolation of signs and semantic interpretations of visual preferences is a complex task. We limit its decision to a search, pilotage study of a supposedly more or less homogeneous sample of male students from one of the Siberian universities, Russia.

Design. The study involved 30 males aged 20-23 years. The subjects were presented with 9 photographs, which they had to rank according to 8 descriptors discussed in focus groups previously. The ranking of photo portraits was carried out with respect to two motives: the desire to have physical intimacy and the possibility to be happy with woman in the photo.

Conclusion. Four main independent factors of female’s estimation of men were revealed, which explained 89 per cent of the total variance. Motivational vector is identified as a certain direction in the semantic space that defines the most optimal ratio of factors required to meet the existing needs. Projections of each coordinate of the vector object of all axes of the semantic space allow to determine the contribution of each factor to the motivational significance of the objects. The psychosemantic approach can be realized when solving a wide range of research in the study of human preferences (advertising, fashion, image of socially significant persons, objects of perception of art, etc.), and also to analyze the motivation of the person on whom the system of his preferences is based. Vector descriptions used in psychosemantics provides the psychologist with the opportunity to apply the mathematical methods and analogues of the natural sciences methods to analyze the mentality of a person and his/her individual picture of the world.

Received: 09/01/2017
Accepted: 10/14/2017
Pages: 67-74
DOI: 10.11621/npj.2017.0406

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Keywords: interpersonal perception; visual image; attractiveness; motivation; semantic space; factor analysis;

Available Online 01.01.2018

Table 1. Factor loading of the main evaluation criteria for women

Properties	Factors
Properties	F1	F2	F3	F4
The object of male pride and prestige (physical attractiveness, femininity, athletic appearance)	0,69	0,19	0,33	-0,48
Potential wife	0.92	0.09	-0.07	-0.13
Sexual, potential love-maker	0.03	0.19	0.78	-0.55
A faithful friend, a reliable colleague	0.05	0.11	0.95	0.11
Careful guardian (will help in trouble, illness and misfortune)	0.56	0.44	-0.12	0.52
Social and family leader	0.62	0.71	0.05	0.08
Obedient, compassionate, ready to help	-0.19	0.04	0.01	0.95
An interesting interlocutor, a communicative leader in a team	0.03	0.92	0.23	-0.03
The overall variance attributable to the factor	2.06	1.65	1.70	1.74

Table 2. Motivational vector of physical intimacy

Category	Semantic coordinates of motivational vector M1
f1	0,09
f2	0,27
f3	0,94
f4	-0,19

Table 3. Motivational vector of family relations

Category	Semantic coordinates of motivational vector M2
f1	0,59
f2	0,53
f3	0,07
f4	-0,57

Fig. 1. Estimation of the prediction accuracyof the motivation of family relations rate

Table 4. Individual contributions of factors to the "Intimacy" motive (R-rating)

Subject of research	f1	f2	f3	f4	R
Photo 1	6,51	73,77	-4,39	-11,76	132,41
Photo 2	-10,22	-53,63	-4,90	-0,62	2,15
Photo 3	9,16	50,89	-264,17	22,27	-421,59
Photo 4	-19,16	13,81	51,41	-28,38	-18,02
Photo 5	8,72	26,42	-163,27	24,55	24,01
Photo 6	-5,36	-8,29	179,74	-40,69	-5,31
Photo 7	-0,38	25,04	-89,08	-30,47	-6,65
Photo 8	-5,31	63,55	-99,21	-13,19	7,54
Photo 9	17,84	16,43	-68,12	19,47	5,13

Table 5. Individual contributions of factors to the «Happiness» motive (R-rating)

Subject of research	f1	f2	f3	f4	R
Photo 1	0,26	19,57	-0,52	-6,92	21,17
Photo 2	-5,62	-13,34	-0,21	8,37	0,63
Photo 3	23,04	17,18	0,76	-1,51	56,97
Photo 4	-3,43	-5,02	-0,81	-23,75	-60,28
Photo 5	-3,76	5,52	1,98	-8,26	26,01
Photo 6	-11,53	-1,92	-2,15	-18,81	-3,18
Photo 7	-6,91	8,35	0,07	-11,03	-26,79
Photo 8	4,55	11,10	0,57	-21,28	21,25
Photo 9	8,37	13,72	1,59	10,17	18,61

Fig. 2. Factor contributions to the object rating by the «Intimacy» motive

Fig. 3. Factor contributions to the object rating by the « Happiness « motive

Fig. 4. Defining the states (S) of the object according to the evaluation (U)

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For citing this article:

Petrenko V.F., Suprun A.P., Yanova N.G. (2017). Psychosemantic study of female visual perception of men (Russian mentality). National Psychological Journal, 4, 67–74.