Evolutionary Psychology

1
Evolutionary Psychology

• What they are saying
• What its critics are saying

2
Evolution

• 1. random mutation occurs
• 2. non-random natural selection occurs
• Not so much survival of the fittest but the fit
• Adaptive traits survive, non-adaptive you have
  fewer relatives

3
Males in E.P.

• Take the initiative in sex
• Are easier sexually (endorse casual sex)
• Why?

4
Relative Reproductive Investment

• Men make 12 million sperm an hour
• Sexual investment about 7 minutes
• And she? Fixed, unreplenisible supply of 400 ova
• intercourse can involve a 9 month investment

5
Steven Pinker (an E.P.)

• A prehistoric man who slept w/ 50 women had lots
  of children
• A woman who slept w/ 50 would have no more
  descendants than anyone else
• Thus, Men, quantity women quality

6
Unconscious influence but

• Where women are common, men rare
• Men prefer get casual relationships
• Where men common, women rare
• Monogamous rel. rule, divorce rare

7
What Men want why

• Prefer a woman whose features suggest youth
• BECAUSE youth a certain figure imply fertility
• What figure? Hip to waist ratio of .67 to .80

8
Does this work?

• Models, centerfolds, beauty queens all got
  thinner over the last 30 years
• BUT their waist to hip ratio remained at .70
  (U.S. ideal)
• Culture affects it a bit but still w/in that
  range

9
Brief aside.

• Male waist to hip ratio also predicts health
• For males .85 to .95

10
Does h to w predict fertility really?

• Yup. And other health issues
• diabetes high blood pressure
• heart problems stroke
• gallbladder
• All follow this pattern of distribution of fat

11
Buss study of 37 cultures

• Men everywhere want to marry younger women
• About 2.5 years younger in first marriage
• By age 50, want a woman at least 10-20 years
  younger

12
Mostly, Men want

• An attractive wife
• Over decades of studies, men rate this as more
  important than women do
• most consistent psychological sex difference

13
What else do women want?

• A man who is taller than them.
• Only 1/720 couples violate this norm.
• 4/5 women want a man 6 tall.
• 1/5 men are 6 tall.

14
Females of all species

• Want a mate with resources
• Birds do it with berries
• We do it with Jaguars, spending on dates, tipping
  your waitress

15
Dont men also want resources?

• For themselves, not in their women.
• 1956-67 women rated it as 2x as important as men
  did
• Cross cultural, cross economic systems

16
Women rate it important

• That men like their jobs
• Show career orientation
• Display ambition
• Men dont care about these things in women at
  all.

17
What about intelligence?

• If evolution exists, should favor smart folk of
  both genders
• So does he want a smart woman?
• Highly valued by both sexes

18
The Double Standard

• Men care about chastity
• Men value virgins more than women do

19
Cultural changes for Men

• 1930s virginity viewed as indispensable
• Last 2 decades, desirable but not crucial
• Since b.c., less valued
• Regional variations They still like it in Texas

20
Culture continued

• Virginity necessary in China, Iran, etc.
• Irrelevant Sweden, Finland, Germ, France
• But NO WHERE do women value it more than men

21
Does promiscuity signal infidelity?

• men view chastity before marriage, fidelity
  afterward is a must
• Promiscuous spouse least desirable trait
• Do more premarital partners indicate youll be
  more unfaithful after?
• Actually, YES.

22
What about gays/lesbians?

• Do gay men show male sexual behaviors, or female?
  
• Male. They like youth attractiveness.
• Lesbians?
• Act like other women and prefer same age
  partners.

23
Do men get what they want?

• If wealthy powerful, yes.
• More he makes, younger the woman he seeks.
• Want a babe? Get busy.

24
Think slide

• Mike Douglas (58) Catherine Zeta-Jones (34)
• Strom Thurmond married a 22 yr old at 66
• Hugh Hefner (63) married a 25 yr old
• Hef, now 80, has 3 girlfriends

25
Think Slide 2

• If the sex ratio becomes unbalanced
• All women could have men 6 tall
• Men with resources
• But are your sons going to be those men?

26
Critics of Evolutionary Psychology

• Their perspective

27
E.P. offer gays as proof

• Gay men can act on the impulses of their sex
  (without obstruction from women)
• So, E.P.s offer gay men as the most true men
• Problem? What about the feminized brain studies?

28
Per critics

• Why do women want spouses who make money?
• Because no matter the womans status, she doesnt
  make money herself.

29
Men Women

• 97 Fortune 1000 companies sr execs
• B.A. degree adds
• 28,000

• 3 Fort 1000 execs
• B.A. Degree adds
• 9,000

30
Culturally

• Women are also aware that making more is very
  threatening to mates
• when status access to prestige wealth DONT
  depend on him, then mate selection will change

31
Sarah Hrdy further suggests

• We know little about human female choice because
  male interests are paramount
• Female apes closest to humans (chimps/bonobos) do
  like a variety of partners

32
Other contradictions

• Women love older men per E.P.
• Supposedly like greyish hair, dont mind wrinkles
• YET no one argues baldness is appealing

33
And maybe women do like older men

• But because they give up some of the power
• Because they are actually grateful
• E.g. he is male/Im female advantage him
• He is older/Im younger advantage me

34
The Sex Drive

• Women supposed to have
• But virtually all cultures put in place intense
  strictures on womens s.d.
• E.g. chastity belts, purdah, female circumcision

35
The Human Genome

• Evolution works via genes and thus differing
  levels of neurotransmitters or hormones
• Evolutionary psychologist/biologists have not
  identified the mechanisms

36
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

• Competition was the trial by fire from which
  these capacities emerged. The feminist ideal of a
  sex less egotistical, less competitive by nature,
  less interested in dominance, a sex that will
  lead us back to the golden age of queendoms,
  when peace and justice prevailed on earth, is a
  dream that may not be well founded.