Agnieszka Sorokowska
Biographic Data
| ID | 98283 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Agnieszka Sorokowska |
| GIVEN NAMES | Agnieszka |
| FAMILY NAME | Sorokowska |
| SIGNATURE | SOROKOWSKA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wrocław |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3999-8851 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 83 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Meeting partners online is related to lower relationship satisfaction and love: Data from 50 countries
In all 50 countries, some people met their romantic partners online. • People who met their partners online (vs. offline) had lower relationship satisfaction and love levels. • These effects ranged from small to medium. • The effects also persisted even after controlling for key demographic factors. The Internet has fundamentally reshaped how people meet and form romantic relationships. But how significant are these changes, and what do they mean…
Olfactory training and metacognitive aspects of olfaction in children aged 6–9 years: A preliminary study
People differ in terms of olfactory abilities and awareness of ambient odors. Olfactory training (OT), a method primarily devoted to the rehabilitation of the sense of smell, has been found to have a positive effect on various olfactory and cognitive abilities. Here, addressing an important gap in the literature, we tested experimentally whether odor awareness and significance in young children can be enhanced through standardized OT. Additionall…
Adolescent self‐construal across cultures: Measurement invariance of the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire‐IV in 30 countries
Despite the critical role of culture in understanding adolescent self and identity, there is a lack of cross-culturally validated measures of adolescent self-construal. The present study evaluated cross-national measurement invariance of the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire-IV (AIQ-IV), assessing four dimensions of self-construal: personal, relational, public, and collective. The sample included 16,795 adolescents aged 14-19 years from 30 countr…
The function of love: A signaling-to-alternatives account of the commitment device hypothesis
Positive and Negative Emotional Experiences in Adolescents across 32 Countries: Cross-National and Gender Differences
A worldwide test of the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching
10,358) across 43 countries and 22 languages to estimate preference-matching effect sizes. The most rigorous tests revealed significant preference-matching effects in the whole sample and for partnered and single participants separately. The "corrected pattern metric" that collapses across 35 traits revealed a zero-order effect of β = .19 and an effect of β = .11 when included alongside a normative preference-matching metric. Specific traits in t…
Measuring the semantic priming effect across many languages
Disgust in the mating context – choosing the best and the least bad self-presentation option in a date simulation game
Sex and sexual orientation influence self-presentation in a dating context. • Men would rather manifest pathogenically disgusting behaviours. • Women would rather manifest morally disgusting behaviours. • Women would rather manifest artistic abilities. • Men would rather manifest kindness. In order to achieve interpersonal goals, people manipulate their self-image: they manifest their most favourable traits and avoid exhibiting the most aversive …
Parents are Less Disgust Sensitive than Non-Parents, and Child Presence has No Effect on Parent Disgust Sensitivity
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity: A Study Across 28 Countries
Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also…
A strong alcoholic drink does not influence self-assessments of the big five personality traits
cAlohol affects how people think, feel, and behave, and how they perceive the physical and social world around them. But does alcohol also influence how people perceive themselves? Past work points to a number of possibilities, suggesting intoxication could lead to positive biases, to negative biases, or have no effects on self-assessments at all. Here we tested whether alcoholic intoxication affects self-assessments of personality within the Big…
Typical diet and type of economy do not predict food-sharing behaviors in three Tanzanian societies
Covid-19 and Social Distancing: A Cross-Cultural Study of Interpersonal Distance Preferences and Touch Behaviors Before and During the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the introduction of unprecedented safety measures, one of them being physical distancing recommendations. Here, we assessed whether the pandemic has led to long-term effects on two important physical distancing aspects, namely interpersonal distance preferences and interpersonal touch behaviors. We analyzed nearly 14,000 individual cases from two large, cross-cultural surveys – the first conducted 2 years prior to…
Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries
People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypoth…
Blindness, But Not HMHA Anosmia, Predicts Loneliness: A Psychophysical Study
Olfactory deficits can play a detrimental role in everyday social functioning. Perception of 3-hydroxy-3-methylhexanoic acid (HMHA)—a body odor component—could also be linked to this research area. However, no study so far has addressed the problem of HMHA perception in the context of the previously reported relationship between olfactory abilities and social difficulties. Here, we tested whether HMHA-specific anosmia predicted loneliness underst…
Emotional expression in human odour
Recent work has demonstrated that human body odour alters with changing emotional state and that emotionally laden odours can affect the physiology and behaviour of people exposed to them. Here we review these discoveries, which we believe add to a growing recognition that the human sense of smell and its potential role in social interactions have been underappreciated. However, we also critically evaluate the current evidence, with a particular …
May I present you: "My disgust!" - Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models
Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self-presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they foun…
Author Correction: A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the Covid-19 pandemic
Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and Western countries in a culturally diverse sample
Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual…
Female body dressing: Perceptions and investments in beauty
Clothing style and the extent of body revealing in public are cultural and social factors that can influence one’s beauty investments and assessments of attractiveness. To explore this further, we recruited 99 Polish women from Poland (perceived to represent a western approach to dress and body) and 100 Iranian women from Iran (perceived to represent a Muslim culture with a more modest approach to dress). We asked these women to respond to questi…
Interpersonal distancing preferences, touch behaviors to strangers, and country-level early dynamics of Sars-CoV-2 spread
The recent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to "social distancing" recommendations from public health organizations, as physical closeness bears the risk of person-to-person Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission. Here, it was explored if interpersonal distance preferences and touch behaviors in 41 countries were valid measures of physical distancing in contacts between strangers and whether …
Humans tend to share food more generously than money and other objects: Preliminary evidence
Food‐sharing is an especially important component of human cooperation, trust and altruism, and certain characteristics of food as compared to other objects may increase the likelihood of food transfers to other individuals. Consequently, people should exhibit higher generosity when sharing food than when sharing other goods (like money or inedible items). We tested this prediction in a series of natural experiments. In Study 1, we found that peo…
A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the Covid-19 pandemic
Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication
Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the li…
Preferred Interpersonal Distances: A Global Comparison
Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of…
Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Triangular Love Scale in 25 Countries
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were ba…
Judgments of Sexual Attractiveness: A Study of the Yali Tribe in Papua
Preferences for waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS), and leg-to-body ratio (LBR) have been investigated predominantly in Western cultures. The aim of the present study was to examine the preferences of a relatively isolated, indigenous population (i.e., Yali of Papua, inhabiting the mountainous terrain east of the Baliem valley). A total of 53 women and 52 men participated in the study. Study sites differed in distance fr…
Dietary customs and food availability shape the preferences for basic tastes: A cross-cultural study among Polish, Tsimane' and Hadza societies
Variable Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Stature (SDS) Might Not Be Universal: Data From a Semi-Nomad Population (Himba) in Namibia
In Western societies women prefer relatively taller men as potential partners, whereas men prefer women to be slightly shorter than them. Here we report data on relative height preferences in a traditional ethnic group, i.e. the Himba, in which men and women do not show such a strong preference. Thus our data challenges the view of a universal preference for taller men, by suggesting that height preferences may be influenced by environmental and …
A worldwide test of the predictive validity of ideal partner preference matching
10,358) across 43 countries and 22 languages to estimate preference-matching effect sizes. The most rigorous tests revealed significant preference-matching effects in the whole sample and for partnered and single participants separately. The "corrected pattern metric" that collapses across 35 traits revealed a zero-order effect of β = .19 and an effect of β = .11 when included alongside a normative preference-matching metric. Specific traits in t…
A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the Covid-19 pandemic
Adolescent self‐construal across cultures: Measurement invariance of the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire‐IV in 30 countries
Despite the critical role of culture in understanding adolescent self and identity, there is a lack of cross-culturally validated measures of adolescent self-construal. The present study evaluated cross-national measurement invariance of the Aspects of Identity Questionnaire-IV (AIQ-IV), assessing four dimensions of self-construal: personal, relational, public, and collective. The sample included 16,795 adolescents aged 14-19 years from 30 countr…
Emotional expression in human odour
Recent work has demonstrated that human body odour alters with changing emotional state and that emotionally laden odours can affect the physiology and behaviour of people exposed to them. Here we review these discoveries, which we believe add to a growing recognition that the human sense of smell and its potential role in social interactions have been underappreciated. However, we also critically evaluate the current evidence, with a particular …
Situational factors shape moral judgements in the trolley dilemma in Eastern, Southern and Western countries in a culturally diverse sample
A Compensatory Effect on Mate Selection? Importance of Auditory, Olfactory, and Tactile Cues in Partner Choice among Blind and Sighted Individuals
Human attractiveness is a potent social variable, and people assess their potential partners based on input from a range of sensory modalities. Among all sensory cues, visual signals are typically considered to be the most important and most salient source of information. However, it remains unclear how people without sight assess others. In the current study, we explored the relative importance of sensory modalities other than vision (smell, tou…
Face Color and Sexual Attractiveness: Preferences of Yali People of Papua
Skin color is one of the first features that we notice in another person and, therefore, it plays a significant role in the mate selection process as well as in the assessments of attractiveness of others. However, almost all modern research showing a preference for lighter skin tone (particularly in women) was conducted within populations of relatively light skin color. The current study was conducted among the Yali people, who are dark-skinned …
The Second to Fourth Digit Ratio and Age at First Marriage in Semi-Nomadic People from Namibia
The second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is used as a potential marker for prenatal androgen exposure. It is associated with many behavioral and biological variables, including fertility and sexual behavior. However, direct association between 2D:4D and reproductive success--in populations where no contraceptives are used--has not been investigated. Here, we present a study conducted among the semi-nomad Himba population living in northern Namibi…
Attractiveness of Leg Length: Report From 27 Nations
The leg-to-body ratio (LBR) is a morphological index that has been shown to influence a person's attractiveness. In our research, 3,103 participants from 27 nations rated the physical attractiveness of seven male and seven female silhouettes varying in LBR. We found that male and female silhouettes with short and excessively long legs were perceived as less attractive across all nations. Hence, the LBR may significantly influence perceptions of p…
May I present you: "My disgust!" - Declared disgust sensitivity in the presence of attractive models
Disgust sensitivity differs among men and women, and this phenomenon has been observed across numerous cultures. It remains unknown why such sex differences occur, but one of the reasons may relate to differences in self-presentation. We tested that hypothesis in an experiment comprising 299 participants (49% women) randomly allocated into three groups. Each group completed the Three Domains Disgust Scale (TDDS) and rated how disgusting they foun…
The function of love: A signaling-to-alternatives account of the commitment device hypothesis
Parents are Less Disgust Sensitive than Non-Parents, and Child Presence has No Effect on Parent Disgust Sensitivity
Conservatism Negatively Predicts Creativity: A Study Across 28 Countries
Previous studies have found a negative relationship between creativity and conservatism. However, as these studies were mostly conducted on samples of homogeneous nationality, the generalizability of the effect across different cultures is unknown. We addressed this gap by conducting a study in 28 countries. Based on the notion that attitudes can be shaped by both environmental and ecological factors, we hypothesized that parasite stress can also…
Covid-19 and Social Distancing: A Cross-Cultural Study of Interpersonal Distance Preferences and Touch Behaviors Before and During the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the introduction of unprecedented safety measures, one of them being physical distancing recommendations. Here, we assessed whether the pandemic has led to long-term effects on two important physical distancing aspects, namely interpersonal distance preferences and interpersonal touch behaviors. We analyzed nearly 14,000 individual cases from two large, cross-cultural surveys – the first conducted 2 years prior to…
Humans tend to share food more generously than money and other objects: Preliminary evidence
Food‐sharing is an especially important component of human cooperation, trust and altruism, and certain characteristics of food as compared to other objects may increase the likelihood of food transfers to other individuals. Consequently, people should exhibit higher generosity when sharing food than when sharing other goods (like money or inedible items). We tested this prediction in a series of natural experiments. In Study 1, we found that peo…
Similarities in smell and taste preferences in couples increase with relationship duration
Attitudes Toward Punishment and Rehabilitation as Perceived Through Playing a Prison Tycoon Game
The present study brings personality research into the realm of computer games. We used a novel method-the Prison Tycoon computer game-to explore participants' attitudes toward rehabilitation and punishment. Forty-two men and 48 women were asked to construct a virtual prison equipped with rehabilitation, correction, and neutral facilities. Financial investment spent on each respective type of facility was treated as an indicator of a participant'…
Aging Perceptions in Tsimane’ Amazonian Forager–Farmers Compared With Two Industrialized Societies
The present study contributed to our understanding of cross-cultural differences in aging attitudes. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed
Attractiveness of Leg Length: Report From 27 Nations
The leg-to-body ratio (LBR) is a morphological index that has been shown to influence a person's attractiveness. In our research, 3,103 participants from 27 nations rated the physical attractiveness of seven male and seven female silhouettes varying in LBR. We found that male and female silhouettes with short and excessively long legs were perceived as less attractive across all nations. Hence, the LBR may significantly influence perceptions of p…
Children and marital satisfaction in a non-Western sample: Having more children increases marital satisfaction among the Igbo people of Nigeria
Why pigs are important in Papua? Wealth, height and reproductive success among the Yali tribe of West Papua
Judgments of Sexual Attractiveness: A Study of the Yali Tribe in Papua
Preferences for waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS), and leg-to-body ratio (LBR) have been investigated predominantly in Western cultures. The aim of the present study was to examine the preferences of a relatively isolated, indigenous population (i.e., Yali of Papua, inhabiting the mountainous terrain east of the Baliem valley). A total of 53 women and 52 men participated in the study. Study sites differed in distance fr…
The Second to Fourth Digit Ratio and Age at First Marriage in Semi-Nomadic People from Namibia
The second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) is used as a potential marker for prenatal androgen exposure. It is associated with many behavioral and biological variables, including fertility and sexual behavior. However, direct association between 2D:4D and reproductive success--in populations where no contraceptives are used--has not been investigated. Here, we present a study conducted among the semi-nomad Himba population living in northern Namibi…
Variable Preferences for Sexual Dimorphism in Stature (SDS) Might Not Be Universal: Data From a Semi-Nomad Population (Himba) in Namibia
In Western societies women prefer relatively taller men as potential partners, whereas men prefer women to be slightly shorter than them. Here we report data on relative height preferences in a traditional ethnic group, i.e. the Himba, in which men and women do not show such a strong preference. Thus our data challenges the view of a universal preference for taller men, by suggesting that height preferences may be influenced by environmental and …
Montesquieu hypothesis and football: Players from hot countries are more expressive after scoring a goal
Analysis of sportsmen behavior enabled the authors to conduct simultaneous analysis of emotional expression of people from many distinct countries and cultures. In the study, participants from Nigeria and Poland watched all the goals scored in group matches of the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups and assessed the emotions players expressed after scoring each goal on three scales (happiness, anger, and excitement). Based on the assessment of the par…
Face Color and Sexual Attractiveness: Preferences of Yali People of Papua
Skin color is one of the first features that we notice in another person and, therefore, it plays a significant role in the mate selection process as well as in the assessments of attractiveness of others. However, almost all modern research showing a preference for lighter skin tone (particularly in women) was conducted within populations of relatively light skin color. The current study was conducted among the Yali people, who are dark-skinned …
Aging Perceptions in Tsimane’ Amazonian Forager–Farmers Compared With Two Industrialized Societies
The present study contributed to our understanding of cross-cultural differences in aging attitudes. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed
No sex difference in digit ratios (2D: (4D) in the traditional Yali of Papua and its meaning for the previous hypotheses on the inter‐populational variability in 2D:4D
We discuss the results in light of various factors that putatively shape the differences in digit ratios. We conclude that the results of our study contribute to the existing evidence suggesting that digit ratio might not be universally sexually dimorphic in humans
Dietary customs and food availability shape the preferences for basic tastes: A cross-cultural study among Polish, Tsimane' and Hadza societies
Preferred Interpersonal Distances: A Global Comparison
Human spatial behavior has been the focus of hundreds of previous research studies. However, the conclusions and generalizability of previous studies on interpersonal distance preferences were limited by some important methodological and sampling issues. The objective of the present study was to compare preferred interpersonal distances across the world and to overcome the problems observed in previous studies. We present an extensive analysis of…
Similarities in smell and taste preferences in couples increase with relationship duration
A Compensatory Effect on Mate Selection? Importance of Auditory, Olfactory, and Tactile Cues in Partner Choice among Blind and Sighted Individuals
Human attractiveness is a potent social variable, and people assess their potential partners based on input from a range of sensory modalities. Among all sensory cues, visual signals are typically considered to be the most important and most salient source of information. However, it remains unclear how people without sight assess others. In the current study, we explored the relative importance of sensory modalities other than vision (smell, tou…
Attitudes Toward Punishment and Rehabilitation as Perceived Through Playing a Prison Tycoon Game
The present study brings personality research into the realm of computer games. We used a novel method-the Prison Tycoon computer game-to explore participants' attitudes toward rehabilitation and punishment. Forty-two men and 48 women were asked to construct a virtual prison equipped with rehabilitation, correction, and neutral facilities. Financial investment spent on each respective type of facility was treated as an indicator of a participant'…
Assortative mating and the evolution of desirability covariation
Romantic Love and Reproductive Hormones in Women
Increased reproductive success is among the most commonly proposed adaptive functions of romantic love. Here, we tested if hormonal changes associated with falling in love may co-vary with hormonal profiles that predict increased fecundity in women. We compared blood serum levels of estradiol (E2, E2/T), luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), prolactin (PRL), free testosterone (fT), and cortisol (CT), measured in the early …
Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Across 45 Countries: A Large-Scale Replication
Considerable research has examined human mate preferences across cultures, finding universal sex differences in preferences for attractiveness and resources as well as sources of systematic cultural variation. Two competing perspectives—an evolutionary psychological perspective and a biosocial role perspective—offer alternative explanations for these findings. However, the original data on which each perspective relies are decades old, and the li…
Sexual selection for low male voice pitch among Amazonian forager-horticulturists
Born to be beautiful: Season of birth influences adult females’ physical attractiveness
Birth month in humans is associated with certain biological variables such as reproduc-tive success, health and mortality rate. At the same time, physical attractiveness is regarded as one of the reliable markers of human health and genetic quality, which suggests that female attractiveness may vary according to their season of birth. To test this hypothe-sis, ratings of females’ photographs from a popular Polish social networking website were an…
Human height preferences as a function of population size in the Cook Islands and Norway
OBJECTIVES: Height preferences and mating patterns related to body size vary across cultures yet it remains unclear why such between-population differences exist. Here, we test a hypothesis that nonrandom assortative mating is negative (mating with nonsimilar partners) in small isolated populations, and positive (mating with similar partners) in larger populations. METHODS: We compared preferences for sexual dimorphism in stature (SDS, male heigh…
Dread in Academia – how Covid-19 affects science and scientists
In order to gain an insight into scholars’ concerns emerging from the COVID-19 crisis, we asked scientists from all over the world about their attitudes and predictions regarding the repercussions of this current crisis on academia. Our data showed that the academic world was placed in an unprecedented situation. Results further showed that everybody worked on-line, conducting studies was impossible or highly impeded, and lab work was difficult. …
Universality of the Triangular Theory of Love: Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Triangular Love Scale in 25 Countries
The Triangular Theory of Love (measured with Sternberg's Triangular Love Scale - STLS) is a prominent theoretical concept in empirical research on love. To expand the culturally homogeneous body of previous psychometric research regarding the STLS, we conducted a large-scale cross-cultural study with the use of this scale. In total, we examined more than 11,000 respondents, but as a result of applied exclusion criteria, the final analyses were ba…
Affective Interpersonal Touch in Close Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
Interpersonal touch behavior differs across cultures, yet no study to date has systematically tested for cultural variation in affective touch, nor examined the factors that might account for this variability. Here, over 14,000 individuals from 45 countries were asked whether they embraced, stroked, kissed, or hugged their partner, friends, and youngest child during the week preceding the study. We then examined a range of hypothesized individual…
Female body dressing: Perceptions and investments in beauty
Clothing style and the extent of body revealing in public are cultural and social factors that can influence one’s beauty investments and assessments of attractiveness. To explore this further, we recruited 99 Polish women from Poland (perceived to represent a western approach to dress and body) and 100 Iranian women from Iran (perceived to represent a Muslim culture with a more modest approach to dress). We asked these women to respond to questi…
Psychology (40 works) · Social Psychology (27 works) · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior (23 works) · Developmental psychology (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Biology (15 works) · Demography (12 works) · Geography (12 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Social Psychology (10 works)