A study by researchers from the Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque showed that thinking about mating influences men's decisions about spending and giving.
In the experiment, the team led by Vladas Griskevicius and Josh Tybur, invited college students to the lab in small groups. Each was randomly assigned to one of two conditions: "mating" or "non-mating", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reported.
The mating subjects looked at three photographs of people of the opposite-sex on a computer screen, picked which one they thought most desirable, and spent a few minutes writing about an ideal first date with that person.
The non-mating subjects looked at a street scene photograph and spent the same amount of time writing about the ideal weather for walking around and looking at the buildings it featured.
Then, all subjects were asked to imagine that they had a modest windfall of money, such as a lottery win of a few thousand dollars, and must choose how much they wanted to spend on a variety of conspicuous luxuries - such as a new watch, European vacation or new car - and how much they would save in a bank account.
The results were dramatic: men in the mating condition said they would spend much more money than men in the non-mating condition.
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