Homosexual mate copying?

We briefly touched on this in class, but research has not yet been done to investigate whether homosexuals exhibit the same mate copying as heterosexuals. I think that it would a difficult thing to predict, how sexual orientation affects mate copying. First, though, I think it would be safe to assume that homosexual females and males probably exhibit different patterns, based on the differences that Place, Todd, Penke, and Asendorpf (2010) found in how females and males mate copy. While male observers find a female target more attractive whether or not the male model was interested in the target, female observers find male targets less attractive if a female model is not interested (though Place let us know this was a fluke finding, and usually a model's disinterest does not affect a female observer's interest in the target). A female observer only finds a male target more attractive if a female model is interested. (It is important to note here that increase in attraction for male observers towards a female target is greater when the male model is interested than disinterested.)

How would this play out for homosexual males? Would gay observers follow male or female patterns in a change in interest after seeing models interested or not interested in a target? My guess is that gay men would follow male patterns of mate copying, but it would be interesting to see gay men’s change in interest in a target is greater or smaller than heterosexual men’s, if the mate copying effect is exaggerated or dampened. And for homosexual females? Again, would they follow male or female patterns? My guess is that they would follow female patterns. But this is completely a hunch, and unfounded. I would be very interested to see the results of studies of this kind.

In addition, I wonder if research has been done to this effect on homosexual mate copying for other animals. I know that a number of different animal species have been observed in homosexual pairings – penguins, geese, sheep. Would it be easier to study mate copying in homosexual animals as it seemed to have been easier to start studying heterosexual mate copying in animals rather than humans?

Lastly, on a slightly different note, I wonder if there is a “friend copying” effect. Instead of copying another person’s mate choice, would this also apply to who we want to associate with? If a target is liked by several models, does that make an observer want to be friends with the target? Or would the observer rate the target as being more friendly or having more favorable characteristics, despite not knowing them? Can the copying effect be extrapolated to all different kinds of relationships in our lives?