“Fort Aux Fesses”, “Fort Aux Poches”, “Fort Au Cœur”: Buzz or Reality? Initial Validation of Love Scale French Version and Effect of Women’s Mate Profile on Their Love and Happiness

Abstract

This research structured in two studies had as main objective to study the effect of women’s mate profile on their love and happiness. It was conducted with a French-speaking Cameroonian sample. In the absence of a French-language love scale available in literature, one had to be validated. The first study was therefore intended to validate in a Cameroonian context, the French version of love scale. The results showed the French version has psychometric qualities which testify to its adjustment in Cameroonian context with a four-dimensional factor structure and 19 items. That tool made it possible to undertake the second study, which aimed to test the priming effect of the feeling of having a partner with a profile “fort aux fesses” vs. “fort aux poches” vs. “fort au cœur” on women love and happiness. According with hypothesis results showed that none of these profiles makes women more in love and/or happier at the expense of other profiles. The idea of a standard woman’ mate profile which would provide a certain degree of love and happiness seems irrelevant as evolutionary psychology argues. The debate which has inflamed social networks in Cameroon, tending to maintain that a “fort aux fesses” partner makes women more in love and/or happier at the expense of other partner profiles would be a “buzz”. This research enriches the literature on the evolutionary psychological perspective contribution in the study of romantic relationship.