Does Scientific Americans report on Altruism and Sex Partners support or oppose your experience or belief?

disposable_pants · 2016-11-16T06:22:14+00:00

First, from the introductory paragraph:

There is some evidence that personality traits associated with being a “jerk” such as low agreeableness and contentiousness, high extroversion and openness to experience, alongside narcissism, Machiavellianism (being manipulative), and psychopathy (callousness, lying, thrill-seeking) may indeed be linked to increased sexual behavior, particularly with respect to short-term mating.

So right away a "reputable source" gives a lot of support to a couple of key red pill ideas.

Second:

In our first study, undergraduate men and women completed an altruism questionnaire (involving questions like “I have donated blood”), along with a sexual history survey. Participants also completed a personality inventory, given the possibility that those with certain personality characteristics (such as being extroverted) might happen to engage in both more altruism and more sexual activity. We found that people who scored higher on altruism also reported they were more desirable to the opposite sex, had more sex partners, more casual sex partners, and had sex more often within relationships... One limitation of this first study was the possibility that people might have reported their altruism or their sexual histories in an unrealistically-positive light. For instance, some research has shown men to over-report, and women to under-report their lifetime number of sex partners.

In addition to the bonus support for a red pill idea (that women lie about their partner count by under-reporting their number), the key flaw of these studies is laid bare: Obviously not everyone is being 100% truthful, and the people who are likely to embellish their sexual histories are probably the ones who are likely to embellish their altruistic pursuits. If I'm self-conscious enough that I'm going to tell an anonymous survey I've had 10 sexual partners when I've had 2, I'm surely too self-conscious to admit that I never chose to donate a dollar to cancer kids when the Walgreens cashier asked.

KrispyMcSockington · 2016-11-16T05:47:21+00:00

It says that people prefer altruistic partners for long term mating, which makes sense. Who wants to live with someone who is selfish or doesn't help out? The article says it is mixed for short term mating too, which seems realistic.

But this is not a "see?! Nice guys do get laid and have relationships!" point. If you are attractive enough, you can afford to be nice. If being altruistic alone did the trick, there'd be a ton of unattractive nice guys complaining about all the women they have to fend off. If being nice got women wet, we wouldn't have the challenges we have today.

alreadyredschool · 2016-11-16T11:04:54+00:00

Simple answer: They would claim that I am altruistic and I become a dot in their shitty statistic.

What am I? A raging asshole, no idea why they measure in such a shitty way.

[deleted] · 2016-11-16T07:10:03+00:00

One thing I have noticed is that, narcissistic people will play up their benefit to others, while truly selfless, kind people will play it down.

For example, a nice person will say "oh it's no problem" or "Hey don't worry about it" after being altruistic, while a narcissist will do small things and inflate them for their ego.

H0t_Stuff · 2016-11-16T11:18:57+00:00

Nice guys finish last not because they are nice, but because of their other traits.

Simply put, women are attracted to good genes, dominance (social power essentially) and uncertainty (basically "safe" and predictable men don't excite them nearly as much). Although i do believe that being a good person will make you more attractive, these traits are just way WAAAAY more important. So if you can combine all that with being pro-social your chances of getting women will only go up IMO (to be frank i don't know a single person that would have all those traits at once).

"Nice guys" are unattractive to women not because they are "nice" but because they are usually "safe" and less powerful in the social domain. "Jerks" just happen to be the opposite, so women are willing to overlook their jerkness.

wub1234 · 2016-11-16T14:41:13+00:00

I think anything like this is a bit spurious because the term 'altruistic' is a value judgement. You can't actually objectify whether or not someone is altruistic.

It's equally misguided, in my opinion, to assume women go for 'bad boys', or some other such cliche.

The reality is that we're usually drawn to people for physical reasons that are buried deep in our individual DNA. And socio-economic status also plays a big part.

When women are attracted to bad boys, or for that matter nice guys, they almost always have some form of social status, or there is a physical attraction there from the outset, or there is a really strong connection and they have something in common with them that draws them to this person.

In my opinion, behaviour has a pretty minimal influence over attraction. Why else can you behave exactly the same way with different women and get completely different results?

Donghole4 · 2016-11-16T05:41:31+00:00

Altruism likely doesn't exist. Any such action which is perceived as altruistic is just an ego defense. We perform charitable acts to relieve anxiety or to gain satisfaction - elevating others is simply a byproduct. Women typically only love hung Chad's with tanned cocks.

AutoModerator · 2016-11-16T04:01:51+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair, just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

HigHog · 2016-11-16T08:23:39+00:00

[deleted]

What is this?

disposable_pants · 2016-11-16T14:04:42+00:00

ONe problem with this "study" is that correlation doesn't equal causation. At most, this shows that people who are more "altruistic" in certain ways also report having more sex partners.

This doesn't mean that altruism or niceness (which this article claims are the exact same things) actually cause such people to be more sexually attractive to the opposite sex.

Title	Does Scientific Americans report on Altruism and Sex Partners support or oppose your experience or belief?
Author	i_have_a_semicolon
Upvotes	7
Comments	61
Date	November 16, 2016 4:01 AM UTC (9 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/5d776e/does_scientific_americans_report_on_altruism_and/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/does-scientific-americans-report-on-altruism-and.271847 https://theredarchive.com/post/271847

Comments