Chapter 39 Exercises: Building an Integrated Model

Exercise 1: The Four-Level Audit

Select any attraction research finding from earlier in the book — for example, the mere-exposure effect, MHC-dissimilar partner preference, or the role of propinquity. Write a brief four-level audit of that finding using the BPSC model structure:

  • Ultimate level: What adaptive function might this finding serve? Is the proposed function plausible? What evidence would confirm or disconfirm it?
  • Proximate level: What biological mechanisms implement this pattern? How well do we understand the mechanism? What gaps remain?
  • Developmental level: How does this pattern form across development? Is it present from birth, or is it learned? Can it change?
  • Contextual level: What social, cultural, or structural conditions amplify, suppress, or transform this pattern? In what populations and contexts does the finding fail to replicate?

Write approximately 600 words total. Focus on what each level adds that the others cannot see.

Exercise 2: Framework Tension Paper

The BPSC model incorporates frameworks that are in genuine tension with each other, not just frameworks that complement each other. Choose one of the following tensions and write a short position paper (600–800 words):

Option A: Evolutionary claims about sex differences in mate preferences vs. social constructionist claims that these preferences are primarily learned and culturally variable.

Option B: Psychological accounts that center individual agency and cognition vs. sociological accounts that explain attraction patterns as primarily determined by structural forces.

Option C: The reductionist tendency of neuroscience (attraction is brain activity) vs. the emergentist claim that attraction is irreducibly a social and relational phenomenon.

Your paper should: (a) state the tension clearly, (b) present the strongest version of each position, (c) explain what the BPSC model says about the relationship between the two positions, and (d) offer your own assessment of how to hold the tension productively.

Exercise 3: The BPSC Reading Protocol in Practice

Find a recent (within the last three years) press release, news article, or popular science piece about human attraction. Apply the five-question BPSC reading protocol from Section 39.10:

  1. At what level is this explanation operating?
  2. What levels does it ignore?
  3. What direction of causation is assumed?
  4. Who is in the sample, and what levels can the sample speak to?
  5. What feedback loops might be missing?

Write a 500–700 word critical assessment of the piece using these questions as your organizing framework. Do not just list answers to each question; use them to construct a coherent argument about what the piece gets right and what it obscures.

Exercise 4: Designing a Multi-Level Study

Working individually or in pairs, design a hypothetical attraction study that attempts to measure variables at all four BPSC levels simultaneously. Your design should specify:

  • Research question: What phenomenon are you studying?
  • Sample: Who are your participants? How would you achieve diversity across cultural contexts?
  • Measures at each level: What would you measure at the ultimate level (if applicable), proximate level, developmental level, and contextual level?
  • Methods: What combination of quantitative and qualitative methods would you use?
  • Challenges: What are the three biggest methodological challenges your design faces?

Write a brief research design memo of 600–800 words. The goal is not a perfect design — it is an honest grappling with what multi-level research requires.

Exercise 5: Individual vs. Structural Responsibility

Section 39.11 argues that understanding the structural origins of individual attraction patterns does not eliminate individual moral responsibility. Do you agree? Write a 400–600 word reflection on the following question: If someone's racial preferences in romantic partners were shaped by structural racism that they did not choose and were not aware of, what is the appropriate moral stance toward those preferences — both for the person holding them and for their potential partners? Use the BPSC model's level structure to organize your argument.

Discussion Questions for Seminar

  1. The BPSC model is described as a "thinking tool" rather than a theory. What is the difference? Is this a strength or a limitation of the model?

  2. The model requires researchers to collaborate across very different disciplinary traditions. What practical and intellectual barriers make this difficult? What would institutions need to do differently to make integrative attraction research more common?

  3. The chapter ends by saying that the BPSC model makes the structural origins of individual preference "visible" and that this supports ethical reflection. But could this visibility also be used to excuse preferences by saying "I can't help it — it was structurally produced"? How would you respond to that argument?