br Conclusions A premise of evolutionary thought is that

Conclusions A premise of evolutionary thought is that each challenge a person faces can be of a different nature and therefore the motivations it Digoxigenin-11-ddUTP stimulates and the actions taken to meet that challenge are also different. For example, the motivations a man feels when he sees the pictures of a potential opposite-sex suitor and the actions he then takes to negotiate these are quite unlike the motivations and actions that come into play in situations characterized by danger, where an individual must escape from a predator (Griskevicius & Kenrick, 2013). However, our study also showed that people are not able to avoid altering their preference system because the possible outcome of courtship leads them to prefer and seek products that facilitate the mate acquisition process (Durante et al., 2011); and it therefore also leads them to display greater interest in monetary gain or a greater preference for liquidity. As described in most models of consumer behaviour, an increase in consumer preference for one particular item increases the probability of certain kinds of behaviour, such as the purchase of that item (Blythe, 2013). Our findings that sexual appetite induces a greater desire for liquidity are in line with the results reported by Wilson and Daly (2004) and by Van den Bergh et al. (2008), and they are also consistent with some neurological research (McClure et al., 2004). However, we found significant gender differences where men who looked at pictures of attractive women reacted much more impulsively than women who saw pictures of attractive men, and where the degree of discount rate over a future income could be used to measure impulsiveness. This showed that after exposure to pleasant stimuli, risk aversion in men and women decreases in varying degrees. Furthermore, although women behave far less impulsively than men, closer inspection reveals that women‘s system of preferences for men varies according to the type of relationship they wish to pursue. The literature generally considers that women believe relationships can be short- or long-term (Buss, 2014). Furthermore, Li (2007) and Li et al. (2002) have associated these two types of relationships with the purchase of hedonic and utilitarian products, revealing that women increase their discount rate estimation when the focus is hedonic and reduce their discount rate when the focus is utilitarian. To our knowledge, this is the first time such a hypothesis has been put forward and it therefore represents our main contribution to the literature. The findings obtained in this research have theoretical and practical implications for marketing and the sale of financial products carrying a component of risk. For example, advertising often presents consumers with rational arguments, emphasizing the value of an interest rate or a return on the investment. But our results suggest that when an advertisement is primarily addressed to a male audience, it can also benefit by containing sexual or erotic stimuli (i.e., pictures of attractive women) which reinforce the rational arguments in the advertisement by attending to the consumer\'s less discernible but equally important instinctive motivation. On the other hand, we propose, the process is more complex and subtle when the target audience is mostly women. Then, and in line with Li (2007) and Li et al. (2002), while hedonic product advertising should use pictures of sexually attractive younger men (i.e., the short-term relationship profile) to increase the consumer\'s attention and preferences for the product, utilitarian product advertising should use pictures of older men who transmit a sense of social success (i.e., the long-term relationship profile). However, further research should also examine the implications of our results with the results of other studies. Through an evolutionary process, the human brain has designed specific motivational mechanisms to ensure that certain kinds of behaviour match the needs of certain circumstances. For example, the desire to have sex occurs when the circumstances favour reproduction and the desire to eat occurs when the brain detects the body\'s nutritional deficiency. The research indicates that the perception of signs commonly associated with the opportunity to have sex leads to increased sexual motivation and desire (Wilson & Daly, 2004).