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Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind
by
David M. Buss
Evolutionary psychology is at its best
at offering fascinating plausible and semi-plausible evolutionary descriptions
of behavior. It is at its worst delivering prescriptions, including implied
prescriptions.
David Buss’ work is a textbook, but
he has an engaging writing style and it reads more like a fun, mass-market
science book. He has summarized lots of research and thinking in the field. One
study, for example suggests that the pairing of a “high-dominant woman” and a “low-dominant man” in a task requiring a leader produces an intriguing result. The low-dominant
man gets chosen leader 80 percent of the time, yet the final decision on who
gets to be the leader gets made by the high dominant woman 91 percent of the
time. Not surprisingly, when a high-dominant man and a low-dominant woman are
paired, the high-dominant man gets selected leader 90 percent of the time.
The best time to find out whether
friends are true or fair-weather, writes Buss, is during critical difficulties such as fighting off a lion together,
but modern living provides few of these critical events. Some alienation in the
modern world is produced because so many modern interactions are glib reciprocations
or cheatings. Immediate repayment of a favor to a friend indicates lack of
friendship. Surprise favors given with affection indicate greater friendship.
Many human fears and preferences have
strong evolutionary influences. We are predisposed to prefer natural settings
that are neither too open nor too thick—settings that have multiple escape
routes and easy to climb trees. Men and boys look to build coalitions. We
innately fear snakes, spiders, heights, crowds, separation and strangers, not
electrical outlets. Fear of electrical outlets depends on learning. We are
predisposed to overgeneralize threats because of the huge negative expected
value of many threats. It is better to try to protect yourself from an
imaginary threat 99 times and stop a legitimate threat once than it to lack
caution 100 times and end up dead the one time the threat was real.
Some of this medically fascinating:
Women who do not have pregnancy sickness are more than twice as likely to have
a spontaneous abortion—probably because they ingest foods having more toxins
and fetuses are very sensitive to toxins. Most pregnancies end up in
spontaneous abortions, often before women knew they were pregnant. Foods with
iron are distasteful when we are sick because bacteria thrive when iron levels
are higher.
Men are promiscuous partly because
many women give them the opportunity. Some members of both genders pursue
short-term mating and some members of both engage in long-term mating. When it
comes to sex with strangers, however, men and women are on different planets. Research
suggests zero percent of women will agree to sex with an attractive stranger
they just met. Seventy-five percent of men, however, will agree.
Buss writes that though short-term mating strategies
are often destructive for women and their children, they are not always “stupid”
for a woman’s genes. A credible threat of revenge can keep a man from cheating.
It can be a way of trading up and gaining resources. The most plausible
evolutionary explanation, however, is passing promiscuous maternal genes to a
promiscuous son. Evolutionary psych experts do not hesitate to deliver brutal facts.
Within the Ache Indian tribe, for example, young and disabled children are murdered if their
father dies.
Women believe bad traits in men are
more undesirable than men believe bad traits in women are undesirable. The four
bad traits that men rate more undesirable than women—out of 67 traits—are “ugliness,”
hairiness, needing commitment and poor sex drive. Among the 63 traits more highly preferred by women than by men are money, status, humor, ambition, industriousness, personableness, dependability, lovingness, good health, similar values, psychological stability and willingness to invest resources.
Some famous research claims that the
computer compiled “average” face is the most attractive face, but this research
may be misleading. When people say “average looking” in conversations, they mean
somewhere around the median in attractiveness. The computer face is a mean assembled
from dozens of faces. Symmetry is important to attractiveness. Almost any
computer assembled mean face will be highly symmetrical.
Other research suggests that when the
computerized mean faces of men and women are feminized—fuller lips, thinner jaws,
smaller noses, shorter jaws—they are judged more attractive by both men and
women. The computer assembled mean white man’s face looks like an ordinary guy
with high symmetry. Feminizing that face makes it look almost like the spitting image
of Donny Osmond.
The computer face research may be
confusing matters in another way. The “averageness” may not be what causes
attraction. Evolution may produce bell shaped curves around what is more
attractive. Throwing the members of a bell shaped curve into a computer produces
a mean near the peak of the curve. There are other factors to consider as well.
The more attractive feminized face may be less common because the more
masculinized face conveys strength and power, which carries weight with many
individuals in their choices of mates. They may prefer a little more projection
of power and a little less attractiveness.
Other intriguing claims:
·
Women, he writes, admire dominant behaviors in others more than
men, provided the behaviors are believed to be pro-social. Women loathe men who
get pushed around by other men. The minimum acceptable income percentile women
want in a date is twice what men want.
·
Fascinating research suggests low status cheaters are observed and remembered more than high status cheaters. According to D.D. Cummins, 20 percent of us look for rule violations by those with equal or higher status. Most of the rest look for cheating by lower status individuals.
·
Helping actions increase status provided one is not a
sucker.
·
The testosterone levels of tennis players double prior
to matches. Afterward, winners’ levels stay high. Losers’ levels plummet.
·
Porn and prostitution reduce the resources and
bargaining power of non-sex worker women.
·
Within five minutes, all groups of strangers develop
hierarchies.
Deception plays a complex role in evolutionary psychology. Convincing individuals that ideas are their own, for example, is a powerful method of persuasion. Implants, tanning and hair coloring are attempts at deception, but prudent men find these efforts unattractive in part because they indicate that a woman is vain, unstable or deceptive in general. Much of what evolutionary psychology says about deception is fairly obvious to skeptical observers: Politicians pursue their own goals and the goals of their allies while pretending to serve the people. Removal and legitimate threats of removal are among the few major checks on the brazenness of political leaders. This is the best work on evolutionary psychology I have read. Worth skimming.
—Book review article by J.T. Fournier
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